Derdians - Derdians point of view

Derdian’s experience of the activity

After separating off into our groups we were given our task, our team was told that they would be taking on the role of the ‘Derdian’s’- a fictional people created for this task. On the task sheet there was a brief, explaining the issues the Derdian’s were facing with the commute to the closest markets. Currently, this journey took the Derdian’s 2 days to complete; however, with the construction of a bridge across a deep valley, the journey could be considerably shortened to 5 hours. The issue was that although the Derdian’s were of equal intellect to the rest of the world, no Derdian knew how to build a bridge. So a team of engineers were challenged with building this bridge across the valley to shorten their route, in addition, they had to teach the Derdian’s the necessary skills for constructing a bridge.

This process was not as easy as it may first have seemed, as we read on we found out a little more about the Derdian’s culture and their way of life. For example-

• The Derdian’s greeted one another by kissing the person’s right shoulder

• They never communicated with one another unless they were in physical contact with someone involved in the conversation (it is considered exceptionally rude to do otherwise)

• The Derdians did not have a word for ‘no’, instead saying ‘yes’ meant ‘yes’ and saying ‘yes’ whilst emphatically nodding our heads was the Derdian translation for ‘no’.

• The males could not communicate with one another unless first introduced by a female

• Various tools were inaccessible to each gender, pencils and rulers could only be touched by females, no males, scissors could only be touched by males and glue was neutral.

As a result, the teaching process did not go as easy as what we first anticipated. The first engineers came to us (Sophie and Ashleigh, having no idea about the Derdian ways and customs) I went over to greet them with the customary kiss on the shoulder. Both engineers began backing away and questioning my actions, to which all the Derdian’s replied only with puzzled faces and when they began to speak to us without physical contact, we began challenging their ignorance (whilst touching them). This requirement of physical contact whilst speaking delayed the process for quite some time, as us Derdian’s kept urging the engineers to be quiet when they were talking without touching someone. After some subtle hints and constant shushing, Ashleigh soon figured out that physical contact was required whilst speaking.

The two engineers left for some time and then returned with the rest of their team; which I again customarily greeted with the kiss on the shoulder- which they had now been warned of but some still backed away and questioned me. After our initial meeting we got to work building the bridge, which again took longer than previously thought as we had to keep calling out the rudeness of those who spoke without contact. Another problem came when the female engineers started touching the scissors; I had to constantly tell them of their rudeness and take over the job to do what was necessary with the scissors as only males could touch them. Similarly, when male Derdian’s were getting told to use pencils, the same conversations were had. Additionally, the engineers were constantly confused of the as had no idea why us Derdian’s were saying yes to doing jobs (whilst emphatically nodding) and getting agitated when they would hand pencils to males or scissors to females. After some time we successfully managed to build the bridge and shortened the Derdian’s route from two days to five hours.

During this activity I didn’t quite understand its purpose, however, once we had finished we reflected on what we had just done. It came to light that situations like this could occur whilst in Tanzania, where the differences of cultures could make even the easiest of thing a lot harder. What we gained from this exercise was that we have to be more open minded and learn to be adaptable in situations we have never been or not sure what to do in. Consequently, we all now have an idea of how differences in cultures can change a lot of things and when we go out to Tanzania, we have to be cautious of our actions and make sure we are constantly learning from those around us, their ways of life and how things are done. I found this activity extremely beneficial as it made me realise how narrow minded you can be without even realising and so will make me think about my actions if I ever find myself in a similar situation.

Daniel