Contents: Reading • Student Engineers’ Sample Introductions • Assignments This module should take about two hours to complete Several students contributed to the readings in the module. The preparation of this module and others in the “Preparing for Engineering Communication in Intercultural Situations” was supported by a generous grant from the Engineering Information Foundation. We are grateful for their belief that today’s engineering students need information that will prepare them to deal with international collaborations.

READING

Introduction Strategies The student commentaries in How to Detect Cultural Differences discussed difficulties arising out of the typically short duration of student engineering teams’ visits to El Salvador, Nicaragua or Mexico (or similar countries). Short-term visits tend to make it difficult to build the trust and friendship that is necessary for cooperation on any project, especially assessments that involve questions of a more private nature, such as inquiries into children’s health problems and sanitation habits. Strategies to overcome these types of barriers might include Having a local contact who knows the community well introduce you. Introduction of the group and its members prior to arrival by some means. Introductions of individuals based on topics important in the respective village’s culture (years of study, family tradition or occupation). Use of media in addition to words, such as pictures, audio tapes, posters that might be brought along on the trip (a small album of family photos, for example) or sent in advance with an NGO worker or trusted individual. Explanation of the time periods that your team can collaborate with the local people. In addition, you will recall that when you introduce yourself to others on campus, you choose details about yourself that will be easily recognized by other people from your school: the name of the residential hall in which you live, your major, your hometown, the number of Spanish courses you have taken, or the number of trips you have taken with engineering outreach groups. In a traditional society, other aspects of your background and experience may be much more important. Further, you may want to present these aspects in a different manner. Instead of a list of descriptors, you may want to tell a short story about your family, your interest in the country you’re visiting, your efforts to become an engineer, or your membership in Engineers without Borders or another engineering organization. You will need introductions both short and long for different occasions. You also must be prepared to listen to other people’s introductions, which may also be long. If they are short, you may courteously respond, “I hope that you will tell me more about your (village/family/work/plans).” Being willing to listen is a way of demonstrating that you are someone worth knowing. Local hosts will receive you more warmly if you can develop a relationship with them before visiting in person. TO show your openness to a trusting relationship, you can express a genuine interest, show an understanding of the local culture and history, or have a local contact to recommend you. Working over time with one community will allow you develop a deep and sustainable commitment to one another.Introductions as well as farewells can be dramatized and used to communicate your intentions. Ceremonies are important in all cultures, but especially in traditionally structured societies. If other student teams have experience working in villages, you may learn about the kinds of celebrations they have observed. Who was included? Who spoke? Who received or gave gifts? What kind of music and food were there? You should also ask your local contact person what kinds of ceremonies are held for similar occasions. Then, plan an event that honors the officials whose hospitality made your project possible, the community members who worked with you, your local contact person, hosts, and new friends. Include the village as a whole in the activities if that is convenient. Inexpensive gifts such as balloons, bracelets,and so on can be widely distributed. Skits, songs, and written certificates with artistic designs or the signatures of all team members can demonstrate your appreciation and respect.If a team member plays a musical instrument, a solo in the community's honor might be appreciated. Speeches are low-cost but powerful if they are sincere. Personal visits to the homes also demonstrate respect and sincerity.

STUDENTS’ SAMPLE INTRODUCTIONS

Jessie Gill: Letters for preliminary assessment trip The following letters would be sent prior to the preliminary trip: 1) to the governmental official in charge of the region/community; 2) to any non-governmental organization (NGO) which the team will be working with; 3) to the tribal/village elder of the community to be served.

Letter to Government Official Honorable Sir: We are students at Rice University in Houston, Texas, USA, associated with the international non-governmental organization, Engineers Without Borders (EWB). We are a nonprofit organization run by students who seek to help communities in the developing world improve the quality of life for their people. We work with communities to bring water, sanitation, shelter, bridge and energy systems to the community. Our teams are assisted in-country by adult mentors who are engineers, architects, and other technically trained professionals. Our organization currently is working with the communities in Nicaragua, Mexico, and El Salvador. We have well-established relations with these communities and have found the people of Nicaragua to be most hospitable and welcoming of our assistance. We wish to meet with you to offer our assistance to communities in the San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua area. We seek to establish a long-term relationship with your region and would ask for your assistance in identifying communities that would be interested in working with us on various projects that the individual communities will help identify. Rice University teams have been working in the same villages in El Salvador and Mexico for two years and have completed projects in both countries. We have been working with the Nicaraguan communities since 2004. The types of projects that we are currently working on in Nicaragua include a rainwater catchment system, including individual water containers for school children, and the design and construction of a pedestrian bridge to connect the villages of Panama and Aragon. In Mexico and El Salvador we have worked on projects to design and install community and in-home water purification and storage systems. For information on these projects and to view team pictures from our trips, please access our website at: http://ewb.rice.edu/index.shtml. We believe that communities within your jurisdiction might benefit from the same types of projects. We would like to plan a preliminary assessment trip to your city for the first week in August of this year and hope that you will agree to meet with us. If you want additional information about Engineers Without Borders, or the Rice University Chapter, please do not hesitate to contact me at the above address. We welcome your response and hope that you will be available to meet with our team in August.

Letter to NGO (A letter to an NGO would be similar to the above with the following paragraph added) Your organization has been recommended to us as one of the most respected NGOs in the San Juan del Sur region, recognized by the local communities for your service and long-term commitment to their needs. We are most anxious to work with you both because of your past association with organizations such as ours and because of your commitment to serving the rural underserved populations of the region. We hope that you could assist us in verifying the needs of the communities in the region and could provide us with information on how to approach the village elders of communities we might serve.

Letter to Village Elder Dear Sir: We are university students in Houston, Texas, USA, associated with the international non-governmental organization, Engineers Without Borders (EWB). We are a nonprofit organization run by students who seek to help communities in the developing world improve the quality of life for their people by working with communities to bring water, sanitation, shelter, bridge and energy systems to the community. Our teams are assisted in-country by adult mentors who are engineers, architects, and other technically trained professionals. The Mayor of San Juan del Sur and the head of the NGO serving your community have both recommended that we meet with you to see if we might be able to assist your community in addressing health and water purification problems which you have been experiencing in your community. We are currently working with other communities in Nicaragua and in El Salvador and Mexico on similar projects and would welcome the opportunity to begin a long-term friendship with your village. My father is from India and my mother is from America. He grew up in a small, rural village in the farming region of India where his father and grandfather were farmers. I have listened to my father’s stories about his youth in India and Africa and the struggles that he and his family had in securing clean water and adequate health care. Their home had one well, with a hand-pump, because there was no electricity during most of the day. The animals lived and ate within the family’s compound and ensuring that the water supply was sanitary to drink was difficult. Similarly, his village had no doctor or nurse and the trip to the nearest town to receive medical care was a day’s walk or a long ride by buffalo-drawn cart. My father is very grateful for the clean water and good health care he has in America. He reminds me often how fortunate I am to live in a country that has electricity, plentiful clean water and accessible health care. He has encouraged me to help others gain the same basic services and he is very proud that I want to go to Nicaragua to help communities like his. We hope that you will be able to meet with us when we come to Nicaragua the first week in August to meet with the Mayor and other officials. If you would like more information about EWB and our projects, please do not hesitate to contact me. I look forward to meeting you.

c. Follow-up Letter to local official/NGO/tribal elder of same community Dear ________________: It has been six months since we visited the village of Ciudad Ochoa for our preliminary site visit. We are very grateful to you for taking so much time to meet with us and we are very happy that you want our group to work with your community to develop a water purification system for the village. When we arrived home after our visit last August, we were all very excited and looked forward to beginning this project. We felt very welcomed by your community, especially by the children, and we believe that, together, we can develop a plan to meet the needs of your people. We have been meeting together once a week since we were in Nicaragua to discuss how to design a water purification system for your village and to plan the resources and materials that we will need to install such a system. We are excited to think that we can bring water near to the school building so that the children will be able to wash their hands at the school. We are happy that the people of the village want this system and are willing to learn to maintain it. We felt that we had already become a part of your community and we look forward to playing baseball when we return in March. We are planning for a team of six to return to the village during the first week in March when we have our school spring break. We will be able to stay in the village for 5 days and believe we can finish our project in that time. We would like to sleep in the church building so that we can begin work early and meet with the community to discuss your ideas and desires for this project and have our meals with the families in the village. Please let us know if these arrangements will be satisfactory and if this week is convenient for the team to return to the village. We are very excited to be with you again and to start work on this project.

Alec Walker: Plan for introducing myself in person in a Chinese village (Be a passive, respectful, and patient guest until either permitted a chance to speak publicly or doing so becomes a necessity given time restraints and nature of mission. When giving a presentation, be interactive, loud, open, and attentive. I want to use the opportunity to inform the community about myself, but I want to initiate off the bat a standard of interactive, down to earth communication.) Hello Everyone! Hello to all of the people in the community! I want to know everyone, and I want everyone to know me. I hope that everyone will become my friend. (Give appropriate thanks: arrangements, hosting, transportation, etc) (I am going to begin by telling everyone about myself.) I am an outsider, and I am not a true member of the community. Even though I will go away again, and even though I will always be an outsider, I hope that I can also become a member of the community. The first thing to do is to tell everyone about myself. (Tell story sent in beforehand, including some acting, if it feels appropriate) Now I am going to ask you a question. Anyone can answer. What have you heard about why I am here? (Learn about why people think I’m there. If silence, and asking someone in specific doesn’t feel right, then just tell. Tell either way. The reason I am here is: … (Be totally direct. Accomplishing goal is first priority still.) Finally, I’m would like to tell you a little more about myself. (Ask about sports, then talk about how I’m bad at them. Act.) (Ask about English speaking ability, express sympathy if people say it’s hard, surprised admiration if they say it’s easy. Then talk about how I mess up a lot.) (Ask for questions.) (Ask if there are things that people would like me to know. Also offer to meet with people privately afterward.) (Thank everyone again, offer a gift to the community?)

Roque Sanchez Short preliminary information for a “Meet and Greet” Poster Hello, my name is Roque Sanchez and I am an engineering student and a translator for Rice Engineers Without Borders. I am from rural New Mexico, USA, where my father is a doctor and a farmer and my mother is a teacher. I am studying at Rice to become an environmental engineer, and I am interested in finding ways for communities, development, and nature to coexist. My family and many people from my hometown speak Spanish, so I am also studying Spanish and Hispano culture. When I am not at school I work for the US Forest Service to help protect New Mexico’s natural resources and to educate people about the environment.

Our Meet and Greet Poster Photo of a "Meet and Greet" Poster

Our Engineering Team Photo of the Engineering Team

ASSIGNMENT Begin with the part of the assignment that most resembles your next engineering project situation.

Part one Prepare a long distance introduction to be performed in several steps before a preliminary trip. Use pictures, sound, or stories etc. that you think will establish you positively as a person and EWB as your group in the minds of the village people.

Part two Prepare for a follow-up trip to perform a project. Develop a story line to introduce yourself in person, again with visuals etc. that will help continue and deepen the relationship established over the distance. If you have been on an EWB trip before, you can choose either to “locate” your introduction in that place or you might choose another village that another team has visited. You could talk to other members or check out the “past projects” descriptions on the Rice EWB web site (http://ewb.rice.edu) to choose a site. Describe your “introduction” on both levels as the first assignment and be prepared to present it to the class. That is, you don’t have to turn in photos or other media, but you should describe what you plan to prepare for your actual trip.

Part three Read the following dialog and analyze whether each person's representation of himself or herself is based on an individualistic identity or a group identity. How can you tell? Write your comments in a paragraph or two. Read the dialog in either Spanish or English, as you feel comfortable.

Dialog for part three version 1 American young women in village, introduction to villager by village driver Marcia: Hi, I am Marcia Driver: Señora Rodriguez, this is Marcia, she is one of the American group that will work in the village on the water project. Driver: Marcia, this is Señora Rodriguez, she is the daughter-in-law of Juan Rodriguez who works for Mr. Guzman. She belongs to the Rodriguez family. She has grown up here in the village. Her oldest son just finished school here. They live over there, next to your host family. The little girl next to her is her niece, the daughter of her brother who also works for Mr. Guzman. Marcia: Hello (in Spanish), Mrs. Rodriguez. I am glad to meet you. (to the little girl) What is your name? (Shy smiles) Señora Rodriguez: That is Felice, say “Ola,” Felice. Marcia comes from America.

Dialog for part three version 2 Marcia: Hola, soy Marcia. Conductor: Señora Rodríguez, le presento a Marcia, miembro del grupo Americano que va a trabajar con el proyecto de agua en el pueblo. Marcia, ésta es la señora Rodríguez, nuera de Juan Rodríguez que trabaja para el señor Guzmán. Ella es de la familia Rodríguez. Es del pueblo y su hijo mayor acaba de terminar sus estudios allí. Viven por allí, al lado de tu familia anfitriona. La chica a su lado es su sobrina, la hija de su hermano, que también trabaja para el señor Guzmán. Marcia: Buenos días (or Buenas tardes, if it’s afternoon) señora Rodríguez. Me alegro mucho de conocerla. ¿Cómo te llamas? (Directed to the little girl) (Sonrisas tímidas) Señora Rodríguez: Esta es Felice…Felice, saluda a Marcia. Marcia es de América.

Part four In the following dialog (choose either English or Spanish), identify places where Marcia can obtain more information about Mrs. Rodriguez’s expectations about women who are educated. How can Marcia clarify her identity? What advice could you give Marcia? If you have been on an EWB project already, edit the dialog to make it fit the village and the people you met.

Dialog for part four version 1 Marcia and the EWB group have worked in the village for several days. Mrs. Rodriguez has been curious, watched them and occasionally talked with them. Now the students are taking a break. Marcia: Hello, Mrs. Rodriguez, where is your little niece today? Mrs. R: Oh, she is playing behind the house. She has been asking about you. She wanted to know if you are going to stay here with us in the village. Marcia: Did you tell her that I am a student, that I am going to school - like her older sister and brother go to class over there in the school house. Mrs. R: You are older than any of the children that go to school here. Marcia: Yes, in America it takes a long time to study to become an engineer. It is what I really want to do. Mrs. R.: Our teacher, studied for a long time too. Marcia: She may have met engineering students when she was studying. Engineering students in America used to be all men, but now we have many women who study engineering. I have always liked to think about how things fit together and build things. I like working on a project with other students, both men and women - just as we are doing here.

Dialog for part four version 2 Marcia and the EWB group have worked in the village for several days. Mrs. Rodriguez has been curious, watched them and occasionally talked with them. Now the students are taking a break. Marcia: Hola, señora Rodríguez, ¿dónde está tu sobrina hoy? Mrs. Rodríguez: Está jugando detrás de la casa. Ha estado preguntando por ti. Quería saber si te vas a quedar aquí en el pueblo con nosotros. Marcia: ¿Le ha dicho usted que soy estudiante, y que asisto a clases – como su hermana y hermano mayores asisten a clase por allí en la escuela? Mrs. Rodríguez: Tú tienes más años que ninguno de los jóvenes que están en la escuela aquí. Marcia: Sí, en América la carrera de ingeniería es muy larga. Es lo que realmente quiero hacer. Mrs. Rodríguez: Nuestra maestra, la señora Valdez, también estudió muchos años. Marcia: Puede que haya conocido a estudiantes de ingeniería cuando estudiaba. Anteriormente sólo los hombres estudiaban ingeniería en América, pero ahora hay muchas mujeres que la estudian. Siempre me ha gustado pensar en cómo las cosas se combinan para construir cosas. Me encanta trabajar en un proyecto con otros estudiantes, tanto hombres como mujeres, igual que lo estamos haciendo aquí ***

Reflection or Discussion Opportunity Select one or more of the students’ introductions and discuss them. What other additional issues from the reading can you apply to the students’ examples?

END OF MODULE