Vision and Values

This past week I had the opportunity to sit in on a vision and values training that we have been giving to all our staff in Bangladesh. The training is an adaptation of a training that FH (Food for the Hungry) had developed. As I may have mentioned before, MCC Bangladesh has staff from many backgrounds. I work with people from Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Animist, and Christian backgrounds. Beyond that, the people are also from many different cultures. The Bengali people are the dominant culture of Bangladesh but we also have many other indigenous cultures represented in MCC here. The vision and values training brought all of those people together to share MCC's identity with them and to encourage them to reflect on how they relate to that. For many, portions of this were very challenging. My biggest challenge was that it was almost entirely in Bangla! With the help of a handy English outline of the events, I was able to follow the events but must lament that I didn't understand many of the nuances that happened in the many small group discussions. These were also very long days. A typical day would run from prayer at 8:30 in the morning until a Bangla film finished at 8pm. The first day, I had a horrible migraine by 4:30 in the afternoon as my brain overloaded on trying to process too much bangla. It was worth it in the end. I really enjoyed the conversations that were shared and look forward to going back over the bangla and adding it to my vocabulary permanently. I even got to hit a co-worker with a pot! (Meaning I accidentally hit her lightly on the shoulder during a skit about reconciliation which everyone found to be hilarious!) It was a long week but certainly a fun one.