Wednesday, October 13, 2010: What Hat Am I Wearing?

 

When we arrived in Ahmedabad I found out that I would no longer be working with UTTHAN, the non-governmental organization (NGO) to which I had been assigned at the beginning of the course. This was both disappointing and nerve-racking as it meant that all of the research that I had done in preparation for my work with UTTHAN was effectively useless. There was a light at the end of the tunnel, however. With my UTTHAN placement no longer available, I would instead be spending several days at CEE, India’s Centre for Environment Education.

I was admittedly nervous about this proposition. This situation not only challenged me sense of identity (Who am I within this unfamiliar context? How should I behave? What role am I supposed to play?), but also left me discomforted and confused about what exactly my role would be there. Cultural sensitivity and the importance of behaving as travellers rather than tourists had been drilled into us from the start of classes in October. A large part of my unease stemmed from an inability to properly understand how to best play this role within an organization that I knew nothing about. I didn’t want to come across as a blundering or culturally insensitive tourist, but at the same time I also wasn’t sure what CEE’s expectations of us would be either. In other words, I just didn’t know what hat to wear!

This experience reinforced my preference for entering a situation armed with background research and an understanding of what role I should be playing. At the same time, however, being forced to enter into this situation with no idea about what to expect and no clues about how to behave forced me to re-evaluate my ability to react spontaneously and to improvise. Not all (or even most!) experiences in life are scripted. By being forced outside of my comfort zone I was able to experience, understand, and manage my discomfort at going in to this situation blind, providing me with a valuable opportunity for personal growth and understanding that I would not have experienced had everything gone according to plan. Above all, this experience forced me to realize that my time in India (regardless of whether or not we are working on specific academic tasks) is an opportunity for me to learn and develop not just intellectually but also emotionally. Keeping this lesson in mind, I’m going to make a conscious effort to push my comfort envelope and see what learning experiences come from going beyond my zone of security. Sometimes not knowing what hat to wear can be the most valuable experience of them all.