RINN & ME .............. 2

EARLY DAYS:-

I moved to Madagascar in June 2015. I had no exposure to French language. Therefore my French was next to Zero. Having loaded my brain with so many languages like all South Indian Languages, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi and Thai , I was in no mood for learning Malagasy language. Malagasy as a language was far too different from all the languages I knew . I could get only ” Salama” a general greeting, “ Manavoona”…. How are you !, “Sara Bee”…..  very good in all these years.

But as my job involved getting things done from locals, I was trying to figure out ways and means of getting a working knowledge of Malagasy.

We were filling various vacancies in the factory. I was trying to get people with some working knowledge of English. But it was proving too difficult. As local people start learning English only in their class 6 and by the time they finish school they forget the same. Moreover getting such highly educated workers was also proving to be difficult.

Members of my team, fellow Indians were also getting frustrated with no English speaking members to translate and get things done. When we recruited a lot of workers RINN came as a very pleasant surprise as she could speak and understand English. Because of her congenial nature she was very becoming very popular among the team members too. 

As the plant was then in trial stage that time she used to work in all possible location and was very active in learning all aspects of production and packing apart from helping in cleaning, mopping and arranging things on the floor.  Slowly she got used to our way of working and was sought after by all in every department as a day to day trouble shooter!

I could now find someone to talk to and understand Malagasy culture, way of life, food habits etc.  I learnt that average Malagasy family has access to running wanted for only limited duration despite abundant rains, free flowing rivers etc.. They have Spartan life style with minimum accessories. Even a fan in the home is a luxury.  Meal generally consists of rice, rice and more rice with limited sprinkling of meat, beef, pork / fish which are the can not afford with their earnings!

Despite availability of many fresh fruits, people eat Banana almost daily other seasonal fruits if available free are cherished and relished. Thus they made their days good with Jamuun, Avacodo, Guva etc. Otherwise they cannot afford to buy!!

Despite all these tough life the general smile on RINN’s face would never ever fade despite back breaking work sometimes.

In the initial days there were some tough days when we failed to make an acceptable product due to lack of acquaintance with the machine or some batches would go bad. I used to be demoralized and sit in a corner in the packing hall brooding. RINN would come and tell me to put a smile on my face and face the challenges. She would state that things would certainly improve for the better. This used to spur me up to become more active and enthusiastic.

I was also constantly told by RINN to learn Malagasy language which she tried to put in my hard head one or two words every day!