Soksabike has been super busy recruiting more super star guides for this years fast approaching tourist season. Our team of amazingly talented young characters is quickly growing. For the past 3 weeks our team has been developing and delivering training to the new guides joining the Soksabike team.
This training has included everything from mock tours around Battambang town to countless role plays, scenarios, sharing of experiences, hands on bike maintenance and more.
But I would like to share just one highlight of the training session from yesterday that was brought to us by none other than Soksabike’s vision ambassador Khou Sothea.
He was leading a training session on best communication practices with the Soksabike team, leaders, guests and families we visit on tour.
To introduce the training he asked all of us to pull out one hair from our head. We then had to tie one knot in this strand of hair. Now comes the tricky part… He asked us, “please try and see if you can untie the knot.”
Sothea training the Soksabike guides in best communication practices.
Meanwhile I’m thinking to myself Geeze, this must be just another natural skill for all Cambodians that I don’t know about while I’m looking at the tiniest of all knots not knowing where to start.
I looked around and everyone else was staring puzzled at their tiny knot as well, so I was not alone after all.
One guide then said, “I have done this before,” and demonstrated to everyone how to get the knot out of their strand of hair. This involved holding the knot in the crease of your hand, closing your fist over it while banging it on the other hand repeatedly.
If you do this enough times your knot loosens enough for you to untie it.
Sothea’s ‘moral of the story’, so to speak, was to remind the new guides that it is okay to feel overwhelmed and not sure how to do something when you are learning new things. He said, “because it is through this training and practice that you will gain the experience to do your job well. See now you know how to untie the knot it is not as difficult. This is the same approach you should take while you are learning to become a tour guide.”
Training has definitely not been short of unforgettable moments like these. Thanks to the Soksabike team for delivering a fantastic training program so far for our new guides.
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