Page 35 - ABILITY Magazine -Cedric Yarbrough Issue

Cooper: [pauses]
Hey: (laughs) That’s exactly what it was like. For me,
Mei-Li Hey, mechanical engineer student and co-founder of Simple Seat, Better Lives, working with land mine survivors in Uganda.
didn’t have two functioning legs.
It was definitely an experience. It was the farthest I’ve ever been away from home for the longest amount of time. I experienced some culture shock. There were some things that didn’t entirely make sense to me, like how they run meetings. We had a lot of meetings with different vocational schools. You go in, sit down, shake hands, and talk about yourself for five to 10 minutes, where you grew up, where you went to school, what you studied. It was a very long introduction by every person in the room.
Cooper: People who have been in meetings with the same group and have to hear the stories over and over again!
Hey: Yes. We met with the principal of a vocational school, and he would call in his entire staff. They would just drop what they were doing and come in and sit down with us. Everybody would go around and tell their story, and then you could talk about why you were there. I think the pauses were what threw me off. Awk- ward pauses were not awkward. They’re there for a rea- son. If you rush them, if you speak through the pauses, you’re rushing them and not giving them time to think.
Cooper: I’ve never heard of that.
Hey: It’s rude to fill every pause.
that was hard. I like to talk. But they would go, “Hmm.”
Cooper: So you think they’re really absorbing and trying to digest what is happening?
Hey: Yes, I think they’re thinking about it, figuring out what they want to say next. It seems a lot more thoughtful.
I think I screwed it up in the first meeting because I wasn’t aware of that difference. In the second meeting, I was like, “This is a latrine aide”. I should let them facil- itate and run the conversation, and then I can see a little bit more about how it goes.
Cooper: And then you started going, “Hmm?”
Hey: Right. And it seemed like it went a lot better.
Cooper: Do you have plans to go back?
Hey: We’re going to go back a little bit later. I might have to miss some school, but when we went last time, everybody was on Christmas break, just like here. The reason I got to go was because I was on Christmas break from school, but that meant we got to talk to fewer peo- ple. “This person’s not here. This person’s still on break.” We’re going a little bit later this time so people are back from vacation by then.
Cooper: Do you know if any of the hotels have Western toilets?
Hey: Some of them do, and even some rooms in the hotel we were staying in did. They had a villa option in which they had toilets, but we were on a budget. Part of the fundraiser we’re doing is to try to subsidize the cost of going to Uganda.
Cooper: You want to raise enough money for the villas?
Hey: (laughs) I’m a cofounder with the other student and the professor who got this project going in January 2015, but since then a couple of other students have hopped on, and they haven’t gone to Uganda yet, and I think it would be beneficial to have more than just two people go, especially if we’re going to be building the latrine aids alongside the landmine survivors. It would be nice to have a couple more people who know what they’re doing. So we’re trying to send a few more people this time, which means we need more funding.
Cooper: Good luck with everything!
Hey: Thanks!
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ABILITY 35