Losing My Voice but Finding My Eyes

Losing My Voice but Finding My Eyes

It's the end of my first full day in the umudugudu (village), and I'm sitting in bed under my newly hung mosquito net, listening to the munching of our family cow outside our window and thinking about my whirlwind tour of the day.

We've begun the Immersion phase of the Innovation Institute, and like any good marketer, our research has begun with the old adage, "Know thy customer." Yet in Rwanda, that does not mean Googling competitors, administering a survey, planning a focus group, or commissioning a study in consumer insights. I don't have Excel or PowerPoint, and in fact I haven't turned on anything electronic in two days. How then, will we learn about the community?

One of the scariest and hardest things about this experience is not knowing Kinyarwanda. I feel like I am living the Rosetta Stone program. My vocabulary is doubling every day, but that still gives me very few words to ask any real business questions. Sitting with my family in the dark on the first night, we pointed at objects with our headlamps and repeated words from the English book from the local school in between long, awkward pauses. I thought to myself, This is never going to work. After just one day, however, I'm already seeing that losing my voice is going to help me to find my eyes, and that might just be the greatest asset we have at Think Impact.

I have already learned so much by just being immersed in this community for one day. In our welcome ceremony, no one had to say, "Murakaza neza (Welcome)." You could simply feel it in the song and dance and as we joined the village teams for a soccer scrimmage. No one had to give me a schedule. I knew it was time to get up when Mama Shalom started cleaning at 4:30AM, ad I knew it was time to shower when she brought me a bucket to bathe at 6:30PM. By watching the steady stream of children pass by our front yard, I have learned that school is Monday to Friday in two groups, morning and afternoon. I watched Mama cook a feast of cassava, sauce, meat, and beans with only a pot, a spoon, and a knife; and I am eagerly waiting for my cassava bread cooking lesson. I sat and listened to the kids playing, learning the steps until I could jump in (literally) myself in a ridiculous game of charades and song and dance with the neighbors laughing on the sidelines.

What is happening here? Without being able to ask the kinds of questions the MBA in me wants to explore, I'm having to find other tools to use. I smell the cleaner used to mop the floor and observe how carefully the house is cleaned. I hear the bicycles arrive at the front door. I touch my glass of chai tea and milk to learn whether it is safe to drink. Trying new foods that I can't identify in the dark, my sense of taste is helping me to learn the local plants and vegetables.

We do have translators to help us as this progresses, but I am already appreciating the power of simple observation. Without the distraction of my computer or phone and without the words to ask, I am learning by watching and by simply being present and engaged, knowing thy customer by living and breathing with them. I know there is more to learn than I will be able to absorb in the next seven weeks, but watching the neighborhood boys rig a battery pack out of a banana leaf, batteries, and rubber bands, and watching the kids untie the cow to jump rope, I can already tell you this: Watch out, world, I'm placing my bets now on these kids. I'm guessing our innovations this summer will come from not just talking but also watching and playing with them. They're already helping me to find my eyes.