My 2006 trip was the first time I was leaving the familiar Bolivia I grew up knowing. Over the years away in the US, I accumulated dozens of anecdotes from tourists to this rugged part of the world. Their stories taunted me. I wanted an adventure and Uyuni delivered. My cousin and I set off from Oruro and a ten hour train ride later arrived in Uyuni. The harsh wind and thin air hit my senses. It was three in the morning and the town was deserted except for the dozens of tourists descending from the Wara Wara train. We looked for a place to park ourselves and wait for daylight.
Sitting at the doorsteps of a closed café, we caught up on our adventure. In Oruro we bought the last two seats on that train. One was in the ‘executive’ cabin, the other with the ‘carga’, my cousin took the latter. We figured that it didn’t matter, that we would be able to find each other at the food carte and spend the ride sipping coffee. I kept my end once we got going and went from one carte to the other, then the other, and so on with no luck of finding either the food carte or my cousin. Sitting next to her now I found that she had been locked in her carte for the entirety of her ride. In this carte she had been faced with no heat, livestock and anger from the crowds that weren’t able to get a ticket on board. They had eventually started throwing rocks at the train and a small child had been hit by the brocken glass. They had been able to help the child and once the train gained distance from the crowds, things settled and my cousin slept curled next to a ‘cholita’.
The sun was shining now, although it didn’t seem to warm our muscles much. We wondered around town looking for a guided tour. Our choice was random, there was no way to tell good from bad and we let ourselves take a chance. Getting out of the town of Uyuni took some waiting. The Landrover transformer car needed to be full before they would let it depart. At last an Australian, a Japanese, two Colombians and two Germans joined our troop and we were off. Our first stop was the Salt Hotel. I had insisted on spending a night there, thinking that a night on a salt hotel would probably be a unique experience. So it was. We were the only ones in our troop that had opted for this, and as we saw the rest of our companions leave I could feel a dash of apprehension on my cousin’s face.

The Uyuni Salt Flat is one of the largest in the world extending over four thousand square miles. It is also a desert resting on a plateau nearly twelve thousand feet above sea level. As the sun hid behind the horizon the frigid air took over. Our rooms had two beds made of salt of course. The cover was made of llama hides and hinted at flea infestation. Soon the need to relieve myself took over and I ventured to the bathrooms. And there it was, the single most important reason why no one should ever spend the night at the Salt Hotel. No running water and no drainage. The putrid smell was enough to sicken the most experienced traveler. I was not even in that league.
The next morning we felt the desolation that engulfs the communities in this part of the world. We waited and waited for our tour to pick us up and take us to the next destination. By early afternoon we were beginning to feel abandoned and started to plan for our escape. One of the other tours had to take pitty on us. But as we lost hope, finally we were rescued and a new band of travelers was formed. In this three Bolivians from Tarija, Chapacas as they are known, a Swiss, two Argentinians and us. And just like that our luck changed.
The next two days were filled with laughter and wonder. We hiked to the caldera of a dormant volcano, saw mummified remains and a small town that cultivated the skirts of this giant. We traveled to an island of cacti that served as the setting for a touristy bar. There were many more twists and turns in this story, but the most memorable were the long nights spent awake with our new found friends. Drinking and laughing, talking about how we could make this place better.
A few years later when I was back in Bolivia, I took another trip to Uyuni. This time I made reservations ahead of time in La Paz. The trip was wonderful and we visited all the lagoons and saw magnificent wildlife. It was perfect, but it was my first trip that continues to give me the best anecdotes.

Thematic interpretation allows us to connect to audiences and create an emotional connection to our subject.  That’s powerful stuff! But what are the challenges when your job is to connect to individuals with disabilities?  Working in a public setting opens you up to this possibility, and gives you the opportunity to reach a broader audience.  In short you have got to make it work!

How can you adapt your communication strategies to fit these circumstances? While it might be impossible to be ready at all times for all of the scenarios that might occur, the most important points are to be flexible and know your audience.

I thought about this topic while leading a group of ten individuals from Afghanistan through a tour of Washington DC.  The group that arranged their tour did provide language interpreters and aides for the participants, which included visually impaired, amputees and various other physical disabilities.  However, language interpretation alone only overcomes one barrier to making an interpretive connection.  After all, I was showing places and visiting important sights for them to see.  How do you adjust your presentation?

1. Identify presentation goals:
   • In my case, I wanted to have my audience appreciate the style and symbolism that the sights contained in their design.
   • Evoke a sense of idealism that the nation’s founders had in mind when city was designed.
   • Making the visit relevant for each participant.
2. Identify your audiences barriers to meeting presentation goals:
   • For the vision impaired the challenge is visual appreciation of the style and symbolism of the designs.
   • For both the vision impaired and physically disabled individuals it can be challenging to get around.  Steps can be a physically draining, for example.
   • Participants are visiting from another country with different history, how to relate to ours?
3. Strategize on overcoming barriers:
   • Learn as much as possible about your audience before your presentation.
   • Adjust your presentation.  For visually impaired, for example, it might be helpful to have a small model of the building you’re visiting that can be touched.  If having a model is not feasible, then including descriptive language during your presentation will help participants paint a mental image.
   • Be ready to adjust your route and find more accessible places. Does the place you’re planning to visit have elevators?
   • Find common human challenges to make the connection and connect to your audience, regardless of the origin.

Working through the barriers and challenging yourself to broaden your reach is as rewarding as it is necessary.  What are your stories and strategies dealing with audience members with disabilities? Share by leaving a comment.

 

“In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught” – Baba Dioum, International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, 1968

 

Am I about to challenge the very principal that led me to the interpretation profession?  For as long as I remember, Baba Dioum’s words resonated in my world view.  People will protect only what they know.  To me, that has always meant knowing the environmental consequences of our human actions.

In my journey through various careers, I settled into the role of naturalist partly to teach people about environmental harms in order to promulgate stewardship.  Yet this month, during a meeting of cultural and natural history interpreters from around the world, I found a challenging, new commission: share the love, minds will follow.

I participated in the 2017 International Conference on Interpretation sponsored by the National Association for Interpretation (NAI).  My time at the conference in Mexico was illuminating.  Day one showcased keynote speaker Sam Ham, the father of thematic interpretation, whose speech challenged the belief that we love only what we understand and that we understand only what we are taught.  He insisted that this belief has been disproven by study after study, and he cited examples of his experiences in the Galapagos Islands, where he worked with local groups to increase charitable donations from tourists who visit the archipelago.  Dr. Ham focused on an interpretive experience that provoked wonder to offer visitors opportunities to love the place. Only then was an offer made for them to give back.  The outcome was an impressive 200% increase in donations.

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This is how I began my journey towards understanding and accepting the role of front-line interpreters as “gate-greeters” to the world that we want to preserve and that we are bound to encourage others to love.

Speaker Cal Martin, the founder of an interpretive firm near Ottawa, Canada, talked about using emotion to connect people to places. He, too, had lived his environmental career teaching about his subjects and focusing on the consequences of human actions. His views evolved as he was influenced by the Biodiversity Project, a program established by a New York middle school science teacher to create student-driven research, by the book Beyond Ecophobia by David Sobel, and even by a marketing manual. In his talk, Martin saw doom, gloom and facts as counterproductive to an emotional connection that elicits change.  Instead, he emphasized that experience should instill a sense of wonder and should engage and connect with a person’s emotions. As an example, he told the story of Tim Hortons, a franchised Canadian coffee shop founded by a hockey legend.  Canadians, he explained, feel a duty to drink Tim Hortons coffee every day, lest they seem unpatriotic.  The connection is not with the coffee, but rather with hockey, a sport so intrinsically Canadian that to not honor it is unpatriotic.  If interpretation seeks to provoke a public change such as stewardship, then the formula has to include emotional connections that evoke love and an opportunity to act on that love.

So how do we create love of a place?  Interpretive Planner Don Enright spoke of finding “the essence of place.”  A concept more illustrative than concrete, the essence of place is a collection of thoughts and feelings that are shared by stakeholders about a place.  To find it, stakeholders are asked to search for what the essence of place is for them.  The questions may go something like this:

• What is the imagery your special place provokes in your mind?
• What features are so essential that without them this place is no longer this place?
• What emotions do you get from being in this place?
• What other places in your region are most like your place?
• What words speak to your place?
• Finally, looking at your essence, what happens when things fail?

Collectively, these thoughts and feelings can focus interpretive planning and management. This method draws on emotional connections, focusing on hearts to win minds. Love, then minds.

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On the second day, we boarded shuttles for offsite conference sessions. I had selected whale watching. The coastal highway journey offered serene views of oceanfront properties and wave-splashed beaches.  Cabo San Lucas was busy, loud and full of spring break tourists. At the outfitter’s, we were presented a short primer about whales and their biology.  About 20 people loaded into each boat and donned life jackets. Our destination: the gathering of whales at the meeting of waters from the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Cortez. As the first humpback breached, we felt a collective spiritual connection inspired by the nearness of such a magnificent creature. I was filled with wonder. I loved it!

On return, I settled and digested my experience.  The wonder turned to endless questions.  How long are the whales there?  How many species reach these waters? What role is Mexico playing, and I learned it was the first country to ban whale hunts.

And there it was, crystal clear.

Love, then minds.

—

So how do we integrate these lessons into everyday work at local parks and nature centers? What lessons will blend into our mission of conserving our natural and cultural resources, especially when complicated by diverse interests and views?  How does my love for the Potomac River, Virginia bluebells, wood turtles and sun soaked sycamores convert others?  If we focus on love born of a common place, a connection with place, it becomes clear. Our job as interpreters is that of gate-greeters, not gate keepers. We open the door to love of place and encourage visitors to experience our treasures in their individual, personal ways.  Our job is to connect with different interests and to step outside ourselves, outside the gate, to greet and foment love, and to provide opportunities for someone to seek answers once love is there.

Many parks and nature centers already do this with camps and programs that make lasting memories.  My local park, at the shores of the Potomac River, connects people with nature while they entertain themselves through boat rentals, nature kayak tours and fishing programs that bring them to the park.  They come to enjoy, and leave with an emotional connection to the park. In the same way nature centers draw kids to live exhibit animals, and they leave with an emotional connection to wildlife.

We partner with nature. We win hearts, then minds.

 

“People protect what they love.” Jacques-Yves Cousteau