How Inga helped me understand my service in Ukraine
It wasn't until I helped my coworker Inga (Інга) set up her very first Facebook account that I really understood what Max Weber meant about change.
“Progress is the slow boring of hard boards, and anyone who seeks to do it must risk his own soul.”
Інга sits in front of me at work, and everyday, we say “hello” (добрий день), “enjoy your meal” (смачного) and “goodbye” (до побачення). She speaks a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian called Surzhyk (like Spanglish), and I, well, basically know how to say добрий день, смачного, and до побачення.
Her trust, and that of everyone’s here in the organization I work in, is essential if I’m to make progress during my service. And that trust is hard to earn under normal circumstances, never mind when language, culture and tradition can be barriers.
So one day, as she sat quietly at her desk, I called out to her, and said very slowly with several hand signals: “Інга, do you want a Facebook page?” It was as if she had been sitting there, for years, waiting for someone to ask her that question. She immediately perked up, smiled and nodded her head up and down.
Within an hour (it took much longer because I had to use Google translate to understand every word of the set up process), Інга was connecting with coworkers, family and old friends. When I left work that evening, she was still hunched over her laptop, sifting through recommended friends, chuckling and mumbling to herself. Her first status update, roughly translated, was,
“Hi, I've already register in Facebook. We'll communicate.”
What came next was unexpected. The following day, coworkers were waving hello from across the hall; someone popped their head in to say the informal version of “hello,” Привіт — used mainly among friends; and two others approached me for help in starting a conversational English club.
I wish I could say that the solution came easily to me, or that I used my brilliant strategic mind to devise this small but key move toward progress. The truth is, I thought it’d be fun to set up an account for her — nothing more. But somehow, that small act opened the next door into my service here.
Many of us who care about making a difference want to see change happen quickly and dramatically. There’s nothing wrong with that, life is short and there’s so much to do. But the truth is, Max Weber was right. Change comes in excruciating increments. And taking a step toward real progress may be as simple as helping someone set up a Facebook account.
I’m just glad the world gets to hear from Інга. You should follow her.
