I haven't talked to my Uncle Dave in years, but we recently reconnected on facebook and he sent me an email.. he bought some land in the country in South Carolina, built a small house and a horse barn, got a new horse, and seems to be very happy and relaxed as he's preparing for retirement. I replied with an update on my life - very different paths, but both of are happy with what we're doing - though he's a lot closer to retirement.
Hi, Uncle Dave!
I just sat down and quickly checked my emails before I dug into some work. It's 7:30 and I'm about to put together a monthly report for my area that I'm in charge of. My organization builds infrastructure, assists in disaster settings, builds economies, and does a lot of other stuff, too. We're looking to move more into governance next year. It's well recognized that local officials in Africa need help, but it takes a lot of soft skills and is tough to just change - like you can build a school or a road and it's there - but with governance, a whole lot of effort can go into projects that have very little immediate impact and where the long term impact is questionable.
One of my program managers (there are three expat program managers - two Brittish dudes and a Californian) ...anyway, one of them just came into my room to vent about some staff issues he's having. The staff are very challenging to manage, primarily because of their communications skills. They can speak to you eloquently and they're all very nice all the time, but they don't seem to process things in a manner that fosters proactive communication
Okay - now it's 8:15 and I just got off a 15 minute phone conversation about some crazy old man who's making false claims against us for destroying 3 acres of his land by revitalizing a road that was already there. Apparently, the entire community supports us and they're trying to convince him tomorrow to check himself. He just came from Kampala, the capital where he lives and his lawyers sent a letter to my country director telling us they're suing us.
8:16 and I just got a call from my country director asking if the Californian project manager had called me. He's expected in Kampala but hasn't shown up yet. I'm sure he's fine - traveling's a bitch sometimes here.
Now it's two weeks later.... a testament to how busy it gets here! It's the Tuesday between Christmas and New Years and finally things have slowed down a bit for the time being. There's really nobody around to meet with externally, half of our staff is on leave, and the country director's power is out so he doesn't have a working computer. That leaves me with some time to dig through November's financial documents and seemingly it gives me some more time to write to Uncle Dave...
The big event of today was that our internet was out so I went to pick up a small porn table USB modem that works off of the cell network. I used to have one and they're great - you can go anywhere with cell service (which is pretty much everywhere that I care to be, other than deep in the bush) and be online. So I've hooked up my personal little mini laptop and I'm back to some aggressive music downloading. Currently, I've got some lite 70's reggae (Toots and the Maytals) and several days worth of Grateful Dead live shows going. Once we get our regular internet back, my personal laptop and portable modem will strictly be a media downloading station so I can refresh my music collection. It's nice that things are uncharacteristically calm this afternoon. I was running around like mad last week covering for my two project managers who were on leave, both with their lady friends as I was signing forms like Aunty Kathy drives - fast and furious! Now one of them is back
Let me tell you about my past year: I was managing a pediatric clinic/child health NGO in a beautiful mountain village near the border of Kenya (in Uganda). I was a member of a great community surrounded by small scale farms, hiking to some extent just about every day, and really enjoying life - working hard, but relaxing as much as possible and enjoying the village. I would host volunteers (about 60 in the year!) from the U.S. primarily. They were all cool and very interesting people; some I really likred and still keep in touch with. With the short term nature, though, it was basically a revolving door of volunteers which came with a lot of challenges. I naturally found myself creating some distance just because of a lot of inherent differences: age, interests, level of integration in the village, etc. Since I stayed in the same house as them for most of the time, I DID have a lot of face time with them, but the part that I really enjoyed was being with the locals.
After my vacation home for three weeks in August, I decided to move in with a local family that I know. They live about an hours walk from my old place so I'd take a motorbike to work and back on most days. They're an amazing family. I went there to spend my Christmas last week and as you saw on my facebook, rode a couple of Suzuki 125s with one of the project managers. It was great to see the family again. They're such a pleasure to be around and so different from most Ugandan families. It's a place I can feel as comfortable as I do at Mom's house. Great conversation, endless entertainment, lots of great hiking, hearty food, warm beer, cute kids and I could go on.... I lived with them for three months before i took my current position, about 6 hours northwest from the old village.
Now, I'm in Gulu town - NGO central in Uganda... There are tons of expats here including UN agencies, USAID, Red Cross, Save the Children, and lots of other NGOs. There's more here in terms of food options compared to my old place, but life here leaves me busier and less integrated with the community. It's a different culture here when it comes to outsiders. Most of us are here with NGOs, live in modern houses, eat "expensive" meals ($3-5), get carted around in actual cars, and generally live different lifestyles from the locals. In my old village, i was eating local food, using a pit latrine instead of a toilet, bucket bathing with murky water, walking through mountain paths, speaking the language a bit.... here, life is different. I knew that when I got into it, but it's proving to be a very true truth.
Generally, I'm really loving life in Africa. The people are laid back (which is as frustrating as it is refreshing but it helps build patience), it seems like laughter is a coping mechanism for all of the hard times they've faced, and in generaly, people are very eager to help themselves. There's an unfortunate sense of dependence where I am now. After living in refugee camps for years, people inherently will start to rely on others for their own livelihoods. That's where we're coming in, trying to offer pepole more sustainable livelihoods by fostering economic activities, building roads, schools, and health centers, teaching agricultural techniques, teaching village banking systems, and things like that. We use all local labour to build the infrastructure to both keep the income local and to get a local sense of ownership in the projects to promote future sustainability. Once we're done with projects, we officially hand them over to the communities to maintain. We also have a monitoring and evaluation unit that goes out to make sure they stay in good condition with time.
Currently, we're begin funded by three UN organizations (UNHCR, UNDP, FAO with a possible WFP project on the way). Also, the Norwegian Embassy is our biggest single donor with a great project focusing on small business development. My job is to oversee all of the operations in 7 districts, three bases/field offices, 65 staff, and a roughly $3 million annual budget. We're considered an "implementing partner" for institutional donors which means somebody at the UN has an idea and we deal with all of the shit associated with the idea - the planning, implementation, community members, suppliers, transporting materials... all of the stuff that can go wrong. It's great - I love the chaos - I love reasoning with confused/angry communities, I love the fact that nothing is ever as it should be. It was frustrating at first that nothing was perfect, but the more I've accepted it, the calmer I've become. I could have an angry mob at my front gates, the generator could be exploding, and the roof could be caving in, and I'd remain relatively calm - especially if I have some good staff around to get me through it.... It puts my arrest warrant in NY State for fishing without a license into perspective :))
Well, off to check some finance documents - those UN auditors can be anal ;)
