Much of what we speak about when we are working with a group, delivering a workshop, or even when we are trying to explain exactly what it is that we do for a living usually involves talking about the processes of communication and how to improve or refine them. Improving the lines of effective communication can be difficult enough when each member of the team is speaking the same language, or at least has a common language in which they can share the experience. Creating effective channels of communication with participants whose culture and language are as different as night and day poses an even more difficult task for both the trainer and participant. Recently Gary and I had an opportunity to run a five-day challenge course training for an international "American-style" summer camp in eastern Europe.
Our training group consisted of eight people from five different countries plus the two of us. The entire camp staff would be composed of at least forty members coming from twenty or more countries across the globe. These forty people would be responsible for delivering an exciting and fun-filled summer to children from fifty different countries over the next six weeks. This unique blend of culture and language posed some new challenges for us as Englishspeaking Americans. As a matter of fact, it was a totally new experience for us. We both had experience working with group members not quite fluent in English, but never to such an extent as this. It did not take long for us to realize that these challenges would be shared by the entire camp staff as they prepared to have children from all over the world on the challenge course, waterfront, dining hall, and the rest of camp this summer.
Perhaps the biggest and most obvious challenge was our ability to give detailed instructions about safety to participants who did not share a common language. Remember that the camp was supposed to be an American-style summer camp with English as the primary language. Every staff member and every child coming to camp were supposed have a basic understanding of English, but many had never actually spoken it, only studied it. On top of that, the words "challenge course" or "ropes course" did not translate into their native language (I wonder if they do now?), much less the concept of what a challenge course is all about. This type of cultural gap led to various issues on the course, especially in regards to safety, consideration for the feelings of others, and appropriate pro-social behavior. Case in point, during a game of "Tiny Teach" a Croatian man taught his partner how to put the sleeper hold on someone because, for him, that was a skill worth passing on. Some of these issues also reared their head during a high course "demo day" that was facilitated by the eight trainees (and supervised by us) on the last day of training.
The staff had set up "The Perch" and gave instructions to a very excited Serbian participant who smiled and nodded in apparent understanding. (He was the cook, and we would soon discover that he was the only staff member that did not speak any English.) About 30 seconds later it was evident that he did not understand one word of the procedures just described to him. No sooner was he clipped into his belay rope and he blew right past spotters and proceeded on his way to the top of the perch. Despite yells in several languages to stop, he was on top of the pole quicker than the belayer could manage the rope. Luckily (I think) he didn't know what to do once he reached the top, so there was time for the belayer to catch up. A close call? You bet! Easily avoided? Sure, it is easily avoided in a climate where everyone speaks (or has an elementary understanding of) the same language and has a parallel concern for safety.
There were a series of errors made that day. As instructors we should have (by this time) foreseen the lack of understanding, in both concept and practice. More definite checks for understanding of the procedures and why they are important should have been implemented. The sequence of the day should have included more ground level work, and more time should have been spent introducing the challenge course. We should have suggested a comprehensive team experience, rather than allowing the general camp staff to "come give it a try" on the high course. I am not particularly fond of demonstrating an element before it is used by a group because I think this sets a level of expectation. In this case allowing the participants to witness the events before setting out on them may have increased the level of understanding among the participants and helped to prevent or reduce some of the fear that was experienced by a few people. As the day was set to be more of a play day than an actual ropes course experience, there was no debrief for the general camp staff. As a matter of fact, most of them did not hang around long enough after their experience for either one of us to even talk with them about their accomplishments. They were given the freedom to come and go and participate in as many or as few of the events as they wished. The only debrief came after the course was cleaned up, and we sat with the eight trainees.
The experience of training challenge course staff in a non-English speaking country was a valuable learning experience for both of us as well as the camp administration. The camp directors learned a few things about how their challenge course works, and they got to see their newlytrained challenge course staff use their new skills. Additionally, they were given a small preview of their summer and how both language and culture affect the process of sharing an experience.
The point that was really brought to the surface for us, though, is that as we blend different cultures and languages into our programs, we are no longer able to assume that everyone participating has the same concerns for safety because they may not understand the risks involved. This has to do primarily with a lack of exposure to challenge courses. Perhaps a more difficult point to bring across the cultural gap is a general understanding of what a challenge course is and why we are there in the first place. Most of us in this industry know how frustrating it can be to make people understand the scope and the scale of what we do even when describing it to people of our same culture and language.
If you are a regular at the ACCT Conference, you may leave with the feeling that ropes courses are everywhere and that we have finally made an impact on a global level. When you travel to remote places, you realize that there is still so much to share and so much for us to learn as both providers and as humans.
