One Week in at Sanjukta Vikas Sanstha
I just spent a week at the tea garden. Most of the time was passed waiting for people from the NGO to either set up meetings for me or come and help translate. I am a bit helpless without a fixer. Last time I was here, I had tons of help from a few development works administering project in SVS. This time, people have their efforts focused in other communities. I have to be patient and persistent about getting guides. In preparation for one meeting, I went to the cooperative office to get postcard booklets for distribution. All the booklets were gone. I just laughed to my self at the empty boxes. Here I had been thinking nothing was getting done and actually people had come to pick up all the booklets. I guess word spread and generated interest. There was only one booklet left sitting open on the desk. The other 250 or so were gone! I thought I would have to haul ass to get them out to people and now I have to haul ass to track them down and figure out if the farmers are writing postcards. I texted a few people to see if anyone had some information. Sailesh called me right back and said, “Oh, I guess they got distributed and we just didn’t know.” lol. Okay.
The one meeting I had was great. We gathered at benches under a huge mango tree at a bend in the road that looked out down the valley.
For a while there were about 25 people gathered with only two people having very basic English and me with not a lick of Nepali. I put on a huge smile and a sense of humor as we negotiated the language barrier. So, who had seen the booklet, who hadn’t, and who had extra copies? Most people already saw them and knew what was up. Eventually, someone who did speak good English showed up. I was thrilled. Lenop was a huge help. He translated questions and coordinated a drop off time and location for the postcard responses.
After we got all that done, he sat down next to me to talk about how he had read every single postcard and thought I did a wonderful job. He had a plethora of questions about the history of Guatemala. I was so grateful to hear this. His simple and direct appreciation helped me get my head out of the often-frustrating technical and logistical aspects to see the larger impact and positive reception.
I came back to Darjeeling to talk to NGO people face-to-face, check email, and monitor the mold situation in my room. Darjeeling is so damp that fighting mold is a daily task. My room wasn’t too bad, thankfully. My shoes were pretty gross, but after some scrubbing and an afternoon on the balcony in the sun, they are just fine.
