by Heather Plett | Jun 2, 2010 | Africa, India, inspiring people, Leadership
The word “warrior” keeps popping up in my life lately. It started last month when I referred to myself as a warrior when I served as Marcel’s advocate as we navigated the dysfunctional health care system. A few weeks later, when I registered for ALIA (where I’ll be next week!), I signed up for the workshop “Leader as Shambala Warrior”. Intrigued with the concept of the Shambala warrior (and somewhat amused by how this was following my own self-definition as warrior), I started doing some advance reading for the workshop. The reading only increased the intrigue.
To be a warrior in Shambala tradition, you must be strong, peace-loving, bold, gentle, compassionate, and forgiving. It’s not about going to war, the way we in the West would tend to think about warriorship. It’s about striving for goodness in the world in which we live. Thankfully, It doesn’t require of me that I give up my pacifist roots and go to war.
I’ve been thinking about which leaders I have witnessed that I would say embody the concept of the Shambala warrior. Many of them, it turns out, are women who work tirelessly (and usually very quietly and humbly) for peace, justice, and equality in the developing countries they call home. They may be quiet, but they are also bold and know when to call a spade a spade. I have heard many of them make rather scathing comments about what they have witnessed in our North American culture. Here are a few of my inspirations:
Elizabeth was just 23 when I met her in Ethiopia, but she has wisdom and strength beyond her years. She has committed her life to serving the cause of justice for those who are poor. She gave up her home in Addis Ababa to move to a remote village in the Afar desert to help a nomadic community build a water diversion project so that they can move beyond the hunger that has plagued them for a number of years (since the climate has changed and drought comes more frequently). Arriving in a Muslim community, Elizabeth was told “this project will never work if it’s lead by a woman”, but she persevered and a few years later, dramatic changes have occured. Not only do they have abundant crops where nothing once grew, but there are more children going to school because families do not have to uproot themselves in search of water. The most exciting change is that gradually, women are being allowed to hold leadership positions in local governance, because the community witnessed what Elizabeth was capable of.
When I met Fidelis, I couldn’t help but notice the fierce energy burning in her eyes, despite the quiet calm of her face. It didn’t take long to find out that my first impressions were dead on. This was a women who would stand up to almost anyone without flinching (she had the nerve to tell Jeffrey Sachs he might be wrong on some of his thoughts on the Green Revolution for Africa and encouraged him to listen to more Africans), but still had the grace and compassion to make everyone in her presence feel valued. One of the most striking things she said in her visit to Canada was “Why do you people in the West always think you need to FIX everything?” She was working tirelessly in her native Kenya to help farmers learn more sustainable agriculture practices. I remember a story she told about how they’d learned to give goats and chickens in some villages because then they were more assured that the women and children would eat (men were too proud to eat that lowly meat and preferred beef). Sadly, Fidelis passed away last year. A bright light too soon gone.
Mary Beth left a career in teaching to work in agricultural development because she witnessed marginalized tribes during times of conflict not having enough food to eat and it awakened a driving passion in her to do something about it. She was quickly promoted to leadership and now serves as Chief Functionary/Secretary for the Rural Women’s Upliftment Society (RWUS) in a remote area of India. When she visited Canada, she could not believe how much waste was accepted in our culture. “I visited a potato farm,” she said, “and saw so many potatoes that were left on the field to rot after the machines had finished the harvest. I couldn’t help but think of all the people those potatoes might feed.”
Victoria is the first woman to serve as General Secretary of the Association of Evangelicals of Liberia (AEL). AEL is active in resettling refugees from the many years of civil war, including helping many farmers to successfully return to their land. As a single parent who provides a home for not only her own children, but her nieces and nephews (who she is supporting through school), she was struck by the self-centredness of Western culture. “When we have a surplus, we give it to someone around who does not have enough food. There are always people around who need food.”
Shama carries herself with poise and strength. There is little doubt when you meet her that you are meeting a leader. She works in program management for Church World Service in her native Pakistan. As a woman in a leadership position in a male-dominated world, she often has to assert herself or choose to ignore the prejudice she’s subjected to. Some of the projects Shama manages help families who’ve been displaced because of conflict gain access to food. It is clear she loves her country and she longs for a day when more of the young girls she meets in rural areas have access to education. Sadly, though, even where there are schools, she fears that young people are not being taught to think creatively. “They are taught by rote,” she says. “Questions are frowned upon. I’d like to see that changed.”
I wish I’d had more time to spend with Kabita on the tiny island in the Sundarbans in India where she lives. My first impression of this young schoolteacher was that she had great respect (and expected the same) for the children under her guidance who danced for us when we first arrived on the island. She took my hand and gently guided me around her village, helping me aboard the bicycle transport, protecting me from tree branches along the path, and making sure I was comfortable. With pride, she introduced me to the place she calls home where she works tirelessly to bring education to children from marginalized tribes. I have never felt so comfortable holding another woman’s hand, but there was a special bond between Kabita and I right from the start. There were tears in both of our eyes when we parted.
As I prepare to go to ALIA, I will carry the legacy of these women with me. They are the lights along my path toward my own authentic leadership and warriorship.
by Heather Plett | May 17, 2010 | beginnings, birthday parties, fearless, growth, journey, Leadership, Passion, personality, Uncategorized
My birthday is coming up on Thursday, and since my dear friend Michele is throwing a little celebration in my honour tomorrow night (if you live close enough, YOU are welcome – at least, if you fit the “ladies only” profile), I’ve decided that this year I’m going to celebrate a whole BIRTHDAY WEEK instead of just one day! Yes, I’m feeling horribly narcissistic about the whole thing, but I figured I’ve done a fair bit of sacrificing in the past month or two, so it shouldn’t hurt to have a little balance in my life. Giggle.
Seriously though, I feel like this birthday week marks some pretty big growth for me. Those of you who are regular readers will know about some of the big challenges that have forced me to plunge a little deeper into my heart to find out just who it is that resides there and what the source and shape of her strength is. When we open ourselves to it, challenge and struggle will usher in growth and acceptance, and that’s what I’ve seen happening in my own life.
There have been some pretty significant breakthroughs for me in the last two weeks, in my relationship with my body, my relationship with my loved ones, my relationship with food, my relationship with the divine, and my relationship with the core of who I am created to be. As I wrote a few months ago when I was recovering from surgery, I’ve been feeling like a caterpillar who has to give up the life she knows, commit herself to the cocoon, and wait for the transformation to come.
I just learned recently that in the cocoon stage, caterpillars actually break down completely into a gooey gel-like substance that has no resemblance to either caterpillar or butterfly. We have to give it up – whatever we believe ourselves to be – in order to emerge into the beautiful creature we are meant to be.
It’s true, isn’t it, that we are never finished growing? I feel like a sculpture that is forever being molded in the Sculptor’s hands.
There’s a bubbling energy in me this week that feels a little like what the butterfly must feel when she has the dawning awareness that it’s time to break out of the cocoon. I feel strong in ways I didn’t expect to feel strong – physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I’ve been running, biking, praying, doing yoga – and a bunch of other little things that feel like they are helping me step into a new strength. The beautiful life-giving thing about it is, the more I step into this strength and share it with people around me, the more it is returned to me in affirming ways – like a lovely note from a cousin who’s heading out on a solo trip to the Grand Canyon and says it was partly inspired by what I write on this blog!
A month ago, when Marcel was in the hospital, I began to describe myself as a warrior because of the battles I had to fight as his advocate. And in a few weeks, I’ll be in a workshop at ALIA about “leaders as Shambala warriors”. I’ve never really thought of myself as a warrior before (maybe it’s my pacifist roots), and honestly, I often doubt myself as a leader because of some of the struggles I’ve had in this job that usually end up leaving me feeling like a failure. But something is shifting, and I’m trying to step into whatever it is that’s emerging.
No, this week is not about “look how great I am”. It’s more about “there is something powerful in what God is shaping my life to be and I want to celebrate the way I’m growing into it”.
Tomorrow night, our little celebration will include a bra-burning ceremony to mark the transformation to my body (through breast reduction surgery). In a strange and unexpected way, the surgery marked a turning point for me – a moment when I finally gave myself permission to want a new story for my body. It’s all been part of the metamorphosis process – letting go of old stories I tell myself and embracing new truths and new possibilities. I have learned to love myself in a new way since I let go of the weight that was cut off. I have learned to treat my body with new respect and gratitude (thanks in part to Geneen Roth’s book) and I am slowly becoming healthier for it. (I realize that might sound a little twisted – having plastic surgery to learn to love yourself – but it’s working for me.)
What I would really love is this… even though you might not be able to make it to the celebration tomorrow night, I’d be delighted if you would consider marking this week with me, on your blog, on Twitter, or just in the privacy of your own home.
Here’s what I’d like you to do… have a virtual “bra-burning” party! No, you don’t have to burn your bra (unless you want to!), but think of some old story you’re telling yourself about who you are (who you’re supposed to be by other people’s standards, what limits you, what you’re lacking, why you’re a failure), and burn it! Write it down on a piece of paper, light a candle, a lantern, or a big ol’ bonfire and BURN THAT SUCKER! Let it go! Give it up to the fire!
Do it in honour of my 44rd birthday, but more importantly, do it for you!
And take pictures, ’cause I’d love to see all that burnin’ energy!
by Heather Plett | May 10, 2010 | fearless, Leadership, Uncategorized
About 10 years ago, I picked up my first Margaret Wheatley book and knew fairly quickly that there was something unique about the wisdom I held in my hands. She wasn’t just spewing out old ideas about leadership and organizational structure – she was daring to paint a different picture.
This past weekend, I finished reading A Simpler Way, and can I just say – Wow. I don’t know if there’s a single page that doesn’t have something underlined on it and/or notes in the margins.
If you haven’t spent years of your life working in various organizational structures that have the ability to drive you up the wall with their bureaucracy, short-sightedness and lack of beauty, you might not find this book particularly interesting. But if you’re stuck in a system that regularly makes you think “isn’t there a better way?”, then this may be the book for you.
Meg Wheatley and her co-author believe that there IS a better way – a simpler way. She believes that if we look at the scientific order of things, we can see that nature draws us toward organization and structure BUT it does not draw us toward the kind of organization most of us are stuck in. It draws us toward organization that is mutually beneficial, creative, organic, messy, and beautiful.
Wheatley believes that much of the way we organize is based on a flawed view of evolution. If we base our world view on “survival of the fittest”, then much of the way we structure our organizations (and our lives) is bounded by fear. Build an organization (or a life) based on fear, and you need to put rules, policies, procedures, and strategic plans into place to keep people in line. Spend most of your time keeping people in line, and you’ll lose their creativity and passion.
If, on the other hand, we recognize that nature’s true way of evolving leads species to co-exist peaceably (and often in mutually beneficial ways), we begin to realize that our own innate desires and movement is toward positive growth for us and our organizations. We begin to fear less and create more.
In the book, the authors share a story of some scientists who made some new discoveries on Galapagos Islands that didn’t fit with Darwin’s theory on survival of the fittest. When there was a limited food supply for a few different species of finches, the finches evolved so that some with longer beaks learned to source food that was deeper in the cacti that they all fed on. Instead of fighting for the same food source, they worked it out so that they could co-exist in the same space.
That thought was revolutionary for me. We are MEANT to work together, to create together, to evolve together. It just makes so much sense! We are not meant to feed off each other’s failure or to compete for limited resources.
This morning, while the ideas of the book were still fresh in my mind, I got an email from our HR manager, reminding the managers that we need to submit “annual performance appraisals” for all of our staff. I have always chafed at this responsibility, and after reading the book, I started to understand why. It is based on a negative framework. Rather than starting from something positive, we put boxes around our staff and tell them they have to meet these standards of performance.
I replied to the email suggesting perhaps we could re-name them “annual growth reviews”. (Any better ideas?) Sure, it’s just a simple word change, but it will help me change my perspective. (After all, I work in a non-profit organization that’s all about helping people get access to food – seems like we should forge a different path than most organizations!)
It’s time to kick fear to the curb and see what we are cabable of creating together.
by Heather Plett | Mar 23, 2010 | beginnings, calling, dreaming, fearless, journey, Leadership, navel-gazing, Passion, Uncategorized
Not long ago, I wrote about how Maddie loves to build magical worlds under the dining room table. Recently I found her there, lying on her back, staring up at the bottom of the table. When I asked her what she was doing, she said “oh, I’m daydreaming. I have to do it here because Madame doesn’t let me at school.”
Now, I’m a big fan of daydreaming, so I told her to go ahead and do it at school – just hide it by pretending she’s reading! (I got away with that many times when I was in school! I still do!)
Well… what do you think I did this morning? I climbed under that table, where Maddie has her boxes, her magical stool, her stuffed toys, and now her Little Lovely painting from Connie at Dirty Footprints Studio, and I daydreamed! Because what’s a better way to spend a morning when you’re still hiding in your cocoon waiting for your energy to come back?
About five years ago, I worked my way through a book called The Path, by Laurie Beth Jones. Laurie believes in daydreaming too (though I think she calls it “visioning” – a grown-up version of the same concept). She suggests that you sit down and write a vision for the future, a fairly specific “day in the life” of the person you dream of being in five years. She says that in her experience, a lot of people who do that kind of visioning end up very close to what they write about – maybe not in five years, but somewhere along the way.
Yesterday I pulled out my five year old daydream. There are a few parts of it that have come true – like the part about my husband coming home after teaching in his first classroom and feeling good about having gotten through to at least one student. He’s finally got a full time teaching job and I don’t remember when I’ve seen him happier. It’s a pretty tough school, but he’s in his element, helping inner city kids realize the value of education.
There’s a big part of the vision though – the part that’s mostly about MY dreams as opposed to my husbands – that hasn’t been fully realized yet. If I wrote another “five year vision” it would probably contain essentially the same thing. It’s the long held dream of making my living as a full time writer/speaker/consultant.
It’s closer to coming true (now that Marcel has a full-time job), but I’m not quite ready to quit my job yet. I’m not in one of those “just putting in time to bring home a pay cheque” jobs, so it’s not one I have to run away from. A few of the blogs I read are about people who are excited about quitting “the man” and launching their own businesses. Well, I wouldn’t really be quitting “the man”. I did that six years ago when I left a secure, fairly high level job in federal government for non-profit. For me it would be more like quitting “the woman” – by which I mean the marginalized, impoverished women who are being supported by the incredible organization I work for.
I keep wrestling with it, in fact. There are times when I can hardly WAIT to walk away from a 9-5 job and sink my teeth into a life of writing, speaking, traveling, and teaching leadership and creativity workshops. But then there’s that little voice that pipes up and says “Hello!? Remember how lucky you are to have a job that gives you such a great opportunity to use your gifts in leadership, creativity, writing, etc., that fits so well with your passion for justice, and that lets you travel to some of the most interesting parts of the world in search of a good story and photograph.” And lately I’ve been excited about the new staff I’ve hired who bring lots of great energy and ideas and who are a pleasure to lead. There’s a lot of exciting potential going on that I would be sorry to leave.
The truth is, though, when I lie under the table and daydream, that old familiar dream comes back to me every time. I’ve got a book (or two) published; I’m traveling to conferences and retreats to speak to people on topics related to leadership, beauty and justice, and leading a creative life; and I’m writing, writing, writing.
The past six years at my job have been truly incredible. I’ve stretched in incredible ways, I’ve met some of the most amazing people in the world, I’ve slept in a tent on a farm in a remote part of Kenya, I’ve held hands with a young teacher with a beautiful soul on a tiny island in India, I’ve taken incredible photos all over the world, I’ve gotten to write lots of stories, I’ve learned more about leadership than I could have imagined possible, I’ve lead film crews through Ethiopia, India, and Bangladesh, and I’ve been reminded time and time again that some of my greatest lessons come from my failures.
I remember six years ago, when I first got the job, I said to a friend “this job will stretch me” and I couldn’t have been more right.
I don’t know for sure when the time will be right to leave this work I love. I’m not really in a rush. But I can’t let go of the idea that the past six years have been preparing me to step even more fully into my calling. The possibilities are endless, and I’m ready to ride the wave wherever it takes me.
What about you? I’d love to hear what would be in your daydream if you sat down and wrote about a day in the life of the person you want to be in five years.
by Heather Plett | Feb 27, 2010 | Leadership, navel-gazing, Uncategorized
Guess what? My failings are being made more and more evident these days and… I couldn’t be happier!
I recently hired staff into two brand new positions and both of them took tasks away from me so that we could grow in the areas of fundraising and communications (especially online) and so that I would have more time to twiddle my thumbs and get lost in online rabbit holes. Oops… I mean so that I could focus on the leadership part of my job since I now have 17 people on my team (gulp).
They’ve only been here for a short time, but within a few weeks of their arrival, both have made some fairly significant improvements to the way we do things. To be honest, it didn’t take long for both to out-shine me and put my past efforts in certain areas to shame.
Now, if I were feeling vulnerable and insecure, I might have taken this personally and gotten caught up in self-deprecation about how I wasn’t really good enough at this job, blah, blah, blah. (And there have been days when I could have done just that, trust me.)
But you wanna know how it made me feel? HUGE and utter relief!
For starters, things are getting done and I don’t have to do them!
But more than that, they’re moving the markers on things that I honestly didn’t have the capacity or sufficient interest to master. I’m not great at fundraising and database management, and yet it’s part of our team’s responsibility, and so I would slog my way through some of it and mostly fail at it. I’m not all that good at website maintenance and analysis, and so mostly I would ignore it and pretend it didn’t need to be done.
Now I’ve hired two people who shine in those areas and it doesn’t make me feel badly for the ways I’ve failed, it makes me feel GREAT about all the things we’re now able to do as a team!
Here’s a revolutionary thought…
You don’t have to be good at everything!
Let that sink in for a moment. It’s true – you don’t have to master every task that you tackle or that you’re responsible for. Early in my leadership days I didn’t really get that and I would try to do a good job at every task our team needed to perform because I was sure that otherwise my staff and boss would think I was underqualified to lead the team. You’ve heard the term “micro-managing”, right? Yeah, well, I may have been guilty of that a time or two in the past.
But somewhere along the line I realized – HEY, there are some people on the team who are WAY better than me in these areas and if I just trust them to do what they’re capable of, we’ll all be further ahead in the long run.
Take administration and organization, for example. I kinda suck in those areas. But I’ve learned to hire people who really shine – the kind of people whose cheque books are ALWAYS balanced! (Go figure.) When we interviewed my current assistant for the position, she told us that when she was a kid, she used to line up her Barbie doll shoes because she needed to have order around her. As soon as I heard that, I thought “BINGO! We need to hire her!” It turns out my instincts were right – she’s good at all the areas that I lack and she makes the whole team look good!
Here’s another revolutionary thought:
Letting other people shine in the areas of their giftedness is good for everyone!
If you let your ego get in the way and you think you have to show yourself to be capable in every area and you don’t let people have their spot in the sun, well the truth is that you’ll all suffer. You’ll look bad because you’ll perform in a sub-par fashion, and they’ll look bad because they won’t have a chance to perform at all.
My new staff are raising the caliber of the whole team and they’re making all of us look good. What’s not to like? Plus I get to spend more time doing the things I actually AM good at – leadership, visioning, planning, directing… and delegating! Woot!
This isn’t just a leadership lesson, this is a life lesson. Sometimes we put expectations on ourselves that are unrealistic and by slogging through all the things we’re just not good at, we’re not allowing other people to shine and we’re wasting the energy we could focus on the areas where we’re gifted. I have no trouble, for example, letting Marcel look after car maintenance. And I’m quite happy to pass my cell phone to my daughters to let one of them adjust the settings, etc. (Even though they tease me about being a techno-ludite.) And you can bet that if Marcel’s teaching term is extended, we’ll be hiring a cleaning person as quickly as I can pick up a phone.
Now, I realize that we don’t always have the luxury of hiring people to do things, and sometimes you have no choice but to step up to the plate (like I’ve done for the last five and a half years before the board approved these new positions, or all those years of cleaning our own house while we’ve lived on a single income), but sometimes there are creative ways to let other people shine in the areas we’re not good at – like doing a “skills swap”, or looking for willing volunteers or youth interns.
My point is this…
Admitting that people outshine you in some areas doesn’t decrease your personal value.
The truth is, it might actually increase it, because you’ll have more opportunity for the areas in which you shine.
(Says the girl who is fumbling her way through figuring out what it means to be a full time leader/director, rather than a leader/fundraiser/database manager/communicator/web manager.)
by Heather Plett | Feb 9, 2010 | journey, Leadership
Navigating the roads in India - always a tricky proposition
Sometimes you think you’ve been through a journey already and it will be old hat the next time you hit the same road. You know where the curves in the road are, you know when to slow down for the intersections, you know the sections of road that will be smooth sailing and you can drift along with your radio on and your cruise control set.
And then you get out on the road, and they’ve changed the landscape. There’s construction on the road that you didn’t expect. There’s a new mega-highway that’s moving faster than you’ve driven before. There are potholes (and rickshaws, to go along with the image above) that weren’t there before and somebody straightened your favourite curve.
I’ve been in management for thirteen years now. You’d think I’d know this journey inside out. You’d think I’d know when to anticipate the curves and bumps and rickshaws.
But they keep changing the road map. The speed picks up when you don’t expect it. There are new curves in the road. And the passengers in the car? Well, they’re never the same and the universal truth about people is that they’re all so very unique and different. Each one adds a new dimension to the journey. Some of them get a little ornery and want to ride on top of the bus for a better view of the scenery!
I’ve got more passengers (or co-pilots?) in the car then I’ve ever had before. (Not quite as many as the photo would suggest, but sometimes it feels like it.) I’ve got a bigger budget to manage than ever. I’ve got a faster moving car and a tighter timeframe to reach my destination. The demands are great and the expectations are greater. Some days I feel just like that bus driver must feel – dodging rickshaws and trying not to lose any of the passengers on the top.
Lately I’ve had a few new positions added to the team, and each of those positions has carved off a piece of the work that I normally do. That means I get to delegate more, but it also means I have to let go of some of the fun stuff I like to do. It also means that I’ll be held accountable for more people’s mistakes if I don’t give them clear direction and ample support.
I’ve come to a new intersection and sometimes I wonder if I’ve got everything I need to drive through it. The right road map? Enough gas in my tank? A clear destination? The right skills to navigate new territory?
It’s not hard to get caught up in daydreaming about just getting off the road. Or going back to the familiar, slower-moving roads that don’t stretch my capacity quite as much.
But that’s not in the game plan – at least not for now.
And… here’s the place where I try to wrap this post up in a neat little bow. If this were an expert blog, the next several paragraphs would be full of valuable advice about how to anticipate the curves and how to keep the people from falling off your bus (complete with bolded headings and ten easy steps). But it’s not an expert blog. It’s a blog written by a fumbler who’s trying to navigate the leadership journey without running over any poor rickshaw drivers along the way.
Just sharin’ my story in case you’ve been on a similar journey.
So… what’s changing in your landscape?
Elizabeth was just 23 when I met her in Ethiopia, but she has wisdom and strength beyond her years. She has committed her life to serving the cause of justice for those who are poor. She gave up her home in Addis Ababa to move to a remote village in the Afar desert to help a nomadic community build a water diversion project so that they can move beyond the hunger that has plagued them for a number of years (since the climate has changed and drought comes more frequently). Arriving in a Muslim community, Elizabeth was told “this project will never work if it’s lead by a woman”, but she persevered and a few years later, dramatic changes have occured. Not only do they have abundant crops where nothing once grew, but there are more children going to school because families do not have to uproot themselves in search of water. The most exciting change is that gradually, women are being allowed to hold leadership positions in local governance, because the community witnessed what Elizabeth was capable of.
When I met Fidelis, I couldn’t help but notice the fierce energy burning in her eyes, despite the quiet calm of her face. It didn’t take long to find out that my first impressions were dead on. This was a women who would stand up to almost anyone without flinching (she had the nerve to tell Jeffrey Sachs he might be wrong on some of his thoughts on the Green Revolution for Africa and encouraged him to listen to more Africans), but still had the grace and compassion to make everyone in her presence feel valued. One of the most striking things she said in her visit to Canada was “Why do you people in the West always think you need to FIX everything?” She was working tirelessly in her native Kenya to help farmers learn more sustainable agriculture practices. I remember a story she told about how they’d learned to give goats and chickens in some villages because then they were more assured that the women and children would eat (men were too proud to eat that lowly meat and preferred beef). Sadly, Fidelis passed away last year. A bright light too soon gone.
Mary Beth left a career in teaching to work in agricultural development because she witnessed marginalized tribes during times of conflict not having enough food to eat and it awakened a driving passion in her to do something about it. She was quickly promoted to leadership and now serves as Chief Functionary/Secretary for the Rural Women’s Upliftment Society (RWUS) in a remote area of India. When she visited Canada, she could not believe how much waste was accepted in our culture. “I visited a potato farm,” she said, “and saw so many potatoes that were left on the field to rot after the machines had finished the harvest. I couldn’t help but think of all the people those potatoes might feed.”
I wish I’d had more time to spend with Kabita on the tiny island in the Sundarbans in India where she lives. My first impression of this young schoolteacher was that she had great respect (and expected the same) for the children under her guidance who danced for us when we first arrived on the island. She took my hand and gently guided me around her village, helping me aboard the bicycle transport, protecting me from tree branches along the path, and making sure I was comfortable. With pride, she introduced me to the place she calls home where she works tirelessly to bring education to children from marginalized tribes. I have never felt so comfortable holding another woman’s hand, but there was a special bond between Kabita and I right from the start. There were tears in both of our eyes when we parted.