Training here has been a most unique experience. I am used to training in a language I don’t speak, and have learned to rely on other forms of communication to connect with trainees, emphasize a point, and catch and hold their attention. Here, there are four languages swirling through the halls of the center every day. Chinese, Burmese, Kachin, and English are all commonly used, and tumble over each other in the room. It seems that a comment bouncing off a wall in Kachin might echo in Burmese. The whiteboard, at the end of a long session, it littered with characters side by side from not only several languages, but several scripts. The slashing lines of Chinese, the curls of Burmese, the borrowed Roman characters used in Kachin, and English, weaving in between. Today, a woman came to training wearing a T-shirt declaring “I don’t like vegetables”. I asked her in Burmese if this was true, and as suspected, she had no idea of its meaning in English. At a training last month, a timid conservative Karen woman came to training wearing a shirt that read “If you’re rich, I’m your bitch”. I can only hope that she, also, didn’t understand its meaning.
I am trying to utilize my (so slowly) burgeoning Burmese, and even if it doesn’t necessarily facilitate increased understanding, thus far it has certainly facilitated amusement… They love to laugh at my mistakes, and howl at my mispronunciations of Kachin (of which I do not speak a word, but sometimes try to read, as it shares the English script). The trainees have also taken to mocking me – yesterday in a role play I read my hands as if they were a book, and now when they see me, they hold their hands up in the same shape. At some point, I must have exclaimed in surprise “Oh my god!” because they sometimes shout that to me when I pass them after class, or at a meal.
Not everyone can speak every language, and most people can’t read and write in all of the languages that they can speak, so it is a constantly shifting landscape of alliances for translation and interpretation, until each point is sufficiently repeated to ensure everyone has understood. The local staff of the partner organization have been phenomenally helpful and patient, offering their language skills to ease our communication, meeting our needs inside and outside of work, and tirelessly contributing to training, first as trainer, then as interpreter, then as facilitator, or provisioner.
The young doctor who is in charge of reproductive health for the partner organization entered medical school at 16 (thus finishing at 22). As with many countries, med school does not require a prior degree (being itself all encompassing) and he managed to get in two years earlier than most, due to his high intelligence, his size (being unusually tall, he could pass as older) and because during the 1988 protests, many academicians were arrested or disappeared, leaving shortages in many fields that schools were eager to fill, therefore increasing admissions. Despite his youth (he is now 24), he interacts on a level with older physicians, and is extremely poised, mature, knowledgeable and responsible (though also one of the most light-hearted and good natured fellows I have met, inevitably leading any around him to break into laughter). A great help for this training.
I am trying to utilize my (so slowly) burgeoning Burmese, and even if it doesn’t necessarily facilitate increased understanding, thus far it has certainly facilitated amusement… They love to laugh at my mistakes, and howl at my mispronunciations of Kachin (of which I do not speak a word, but sometimes try to read, as it shares the English script). The trainees have also taken to mocking me – yesterday in a role play I read my hands as if they were a book, and now when they see me, they hold their hands up in the same shape. At some point, I must have exclaimed in surprise “Oh my god!” because they sometimes shout that to me when I pass them after class, or at a meal.
Not everyone can speak every language, and most people can’t read and write in all of the languages that they can speak, so it is a constantly shifting landscape of alliances for translation and interpretation, until each point is sufficiently repeated to ensure everyone has understood. The local staff of the partner organization have been phenomenally helpful and patient, offering their language skills to ease our communication, meeting our needs inside and outside of work, and tirelessly contributing to training, first as trainer, then as interpreter, then as facilitator, or provisioner.
The young doctor who is in charge of reproductive health for the partner organization entered medical school at 16 (thus finishing at 22). As with many countries, med school does not require a prior degree (being itself all encompassing) and he managed to get in two years earlier than most, due to his high intelligence, his size (being unusually tall, he could pass as older) and because during the 1988 protests, many academicians were arrested or disappeared, leaving shortages in many fields that schools were eager to fill, therefore increasing admissions. Despite his youth (he is now 24), he interacts on a level with older physicians, and is extremely poised, mature, knowledgeable and responsible (though also one of the most light-hearted and good natured fellows I have met, inevitably leading any around him to break into laughter). A great help for this training.
Thanks
ReplyDeleteI love your style of praising me
:)