The Island Game

Written by Kamyar Wednesday, 21 January 2009 18:22

It was December of 2007 and I was working as a consultant for a new company in Dubai. My main responsibility was building and leading the technical team. Every Sunday we used to gather in a weekly meeting to discuss the company progress. Our team was an interesting mix of different nationalities; out of 12 members we had three lovely people from Philippines and the rest were from France, Zimbabwe, Britain, Portugal, Lebanon, Pakistan, Ireland and Iran.

Usually the meetings were facilitated by the CEO. On a Saturday night, I received a call from the CEO saying that he can not attend the meeting on the next morning and he asked me to take responsibility for it, and I accepted.

Later on that night, I sat down to think about the flow of the meeting and what results should we expect from it. Well, honestly, I never liked formal meetings and I found them boring and useless most of the times. Therefore, I decided to play a game instead of the meeting. That would be fun, and we could get to know each other in a more personal level. So, I googled on business games and ice-breakers, but I didn't find any of them fitting the context that we had. What would be the other choice? A new game :)

In the morning I showed up in the meeting with two blank white canvases, two sets of crayons, color pencils, water colors and clays. We divided in two groups and started the game:

Each team had to create an imaginary island on the canvas, and each member could choose a part of the island to build what ever he or she likes. Everything was possible. The only rule of the game was that the community (our utopia) had to be sustainable as much as possible.

There were five people in our team and we started drawing on the canvas:

• Rosario decided to build a farm, and provide us with bananas and grapes. She also drew a guitar for herself, so that she could go on the mountains and play guitar every evening.
• Sonia, with her cute French accent, decided to build a laboratory and a small hospital were she could do medical practices every day. She also drew a tiger that she could play with on the mountain every evening.
• Lionel, the creative man (ionman), created a ship in the sea, and decided to sail, provide the community with fish and a cruise around our little island from time to time.
• Liam, our sound engineer, drew a surfing board so that he could surf the waves. He also made a little canopy with a small fire place so that he could sit and smoke weed and Barbeque every evening. And Rosario agreed to grow some weed for us.
• I drew a little informal school. People could attend the school every morning if they wanted to, and we would try to learn about our little island and discuss it's future.

We created a beautiful island. It was all about peace, having fun and serving our little community. The island game was a great experience for me personally, in two dimensions. On one hand, I got the chance to know the other team members in a deeper level. From then, anytime I had a dialogue with Rosario I could see the powerful and authentic affection for nature and life glowing through her being. She always tells stories about her childhood in a beautiful farm in Philippines, with lots of pigs, horses, dogs and other animals.

On another level, I came to know about my attraction to learning and education in a more conscious level. Previously I had never thought about building a school or being an educator.

The day we built our little island, I could not imagine that after one year, concerns about education would form the central questions of my daily life. Questions such as What is education for?

Comments (2)

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written by sahar , January 22, 2009

Not only building a school, but building the INFORMAL one, "people could attend the school every morning IF THEY WANTED TO" was so much like you.
I miss your way of thinking.
Right now I'm so busy with "MUST" and "SHOULD" and "HAVE TO" .
If you build that school, I'll be a student there for sure.

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written by kamyar , January 23, 2009

That was a beautiful comment Sahrar. I miss you too, and the little curious girl inside you with her sharp eyes full of wonder.

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