Story of the Preparation Days
March 14, 2020
I sat at the boarding gate waiting for my flight to Da Nang. The airport was next to empty. The few people who waited with me all had their masks on, staring blankly at their phones. The smell of disinfectant wafted in the air. I contemplated, for the hundredth time, my decision to be here.
I was there on the day when my friend Narayan came out of the bathroom of Pizza 4’P and announced that he would call for the first Learning Village in Asia. The idea was that at this Village, practitioners of the Art of Hosting and Harvesting Conversations that Matter would gather to share their experience and learn together. That call was put out in 2018 and it took more than one year to organize and invite people to the Village.
By January 2020, two months before the Village started, there were almost 90 registrations, as supposed to the initial estimation of 30 people. At this point Narayan and others in the calling team (Steve, Mel, and Trang) – who had been doing most of the work so far – invited the community to a Zoom call to start a self-organizing process. The participants were invited to join different teams (triangles) that would take care of different domains of work for the Village such as logistics, communications, economy, etc. The responsibility to make the Village happen had been transferred from the calling team to the rest of the community.
The self-organizing Zoom call
At that moment we did not know just how critical and timely that transition was. On January 11, 2020 – one day after the Zoom call – China announced its first death from Covid-19. The virus spread globally and as the number of cases rose, the Village’s registrations dropped. At some point the question emerged among the calling team: should we ‘pull-the-plug’ of the Village? But it was wasn’t their decision anymore. The Village was now held by the community. And each person had to decide for themselves whether to come or not.
The night of March 6, Hanoi announced its first Covid-19 patient. The virus that was so far away now showed up just two kilometers from my doorsteps. The government quickly quarantined the street where the patient lives. On social media the news spread like wild fire, igniting mass hysteria. The next day, in what I naively thought to be a normal grocery run, I was swept along the panic-stricken crowd in their hoarding frenzy. Fear settled in me. I thought that if I was in the Village and something went wrong at home, I would be devastated for not being there with my parents. With the Village only six days away, I decided to stay home.
On March 11, I had to say goodbye to my wife, who was still determined to go to the Village. I was sad to see her go, but I was in peace with my decision. Or so I thought. Once she arrived, my wife sent me picture of the Village’s location. “Stars! And beach! And air!” she said, “you gotta be here!!!” At the same time, my mom also encouraged me to go. She said she believed things wouldn’t be so bad here even if they lock down the street, and that my decision was made in the time of panic but now things were settling down. “Besides, it is only one flight away,” my mom said. “If anything happens you can still get home easily.”
And thus my decision changed again. I came to the airport one day before the Village started, uncertain if I had made the right choice or not.
I sat at the boarding gate waiting for my flight to Da Nang. The airport was next to empty. The few people who waited with me all had their masks on, staring blankly at their phones. The smell of disinfectant wafted in the air. I contemplated, for the hundredth time, my decision to be here.
I was there on the day when my friend Narayan came out of the bathroom of Pizza 4’P and announced that he would call for the first Learning Village in Asia. The idea was that at this Village, practitioners of the Art of Hosting and Harvesting Conversations that Matter would gather to share their experience and learn together. That call was put out in 2018 and it took more than one year to organize and invite people to the Village.
By January 2020, two months before the Village started, there were almost 90 registrations, as supposed to the initial estimation of 30 people. At this point Narayan and others in the calling team (Steve, Mel, and Trang) – who had been doing most of the work so far – invited the community to a Zoom call to start a self-organizing process. The participants were invited to join different teams (triangles) that would take care of different domains of work for the Village such as logistics, communications, economy, etc. The responsibility to make the Village happen had been transferred from the calling team to the rest of the community.
The self-organizing Zoom call
At that moment we did not know just how critical and timely that transition was. On January 11, 2020 – one day after the Zoom call – China announced its first death from Covid-19. The virus spread globally and as the number of cases rose, the Village’s registrations dropped. At some point the question emerged among the calling team: should we ‘pull-the-plug’ of the Village? But it was wasn’t their decision anymore. The Village was now held by the community. And each person had to decide for themselves whether to come or not.
The night of March 6, Hanoi announced its first Covid-19 patient. The virus that was so far away now showed up just two kilometers from my doorsteps. The government quickly quarantined the street where the patient lives. On social media the news spread like wild fire, igniting mass hysteria. The next day, in what I naively thought to be a normal grocery run, I was swept along the panic-stricken crowd in their hoarding frenzy. Fear settled in me. I thought that if I was in the Village and something went wrong at home, I would be devastated for not being there with my parents. With the Village only six days away, I decided to stay home.
On March 11, I had to say goodbye to my wife, who was still determined to go to the Village. I was sad to see her go, but I was in peace with my decision. Or so I thought. Once she arrived, my wife sent me picture of the Village’s location. “Stars! And beach! And air!” she said, “you gotta be here!!!” At the same time, my mom also encouraged me to go. She said she believed things wouldn’t be so bad here even if they lock down the street, and that my decision was made in the time of panic but now things were settling down. “Besides, it is only one flight away,” my mom said. “If anything happens you can still get home easily.”
And thus my decision changed again. I came to the airport one day before the Village started, uncertain if I had made the right choice or not.