Rant
22 Mar 2011 Leave a Comment
I’ve been waiting to write a blog when I was in a positive mood or about a good day. But it seems that I’ve only wanted to write a blog after a bad day. And I don’t believe I’ve written a blog after a bad day yet, maybe I have. But last time I had a bad day and I was going to write a blog I decided to sleep on it, but you know how you always feel better the next day.. Anyways, my cousin just wrote a bitching blog, so I’m going to as well.
Just a short one about how bad days go here and how this month hasn’t been that great. So, if you don’t want to hear about my bitching and moaning, about things I signed up for when I joined the PC, please stop here.
So, for most of the month I’ve been frustrated about the electricity situation, mostly at my house. At my job the power was on. The line to our group of houses was down and no one was paying the bill so they shut us off. Now, my neighbor works for the electricity company, so he’s been coming home around ten on weeknights (just when I was about to go to bed out of frustration of reading too much) and connect us to someone else’s power. Which was nice, I’ll admit, but he didn’t come home on weekends for 3 days of boringness. And it was just really annoying. So after talking to the neighbors and the power company. We’ve got the power turned on again! And it’s been great. Since the day that I got electricity back at my house, they shut of the electricity in town where my job is for the past week, for what reason I don’t know. Leading to boring days at work and not much to do there. So I’ve been going in, having coffee and snacks, chatting for a while/reading magazines, and possibly coming back in the afternoon. [Once a bank has power it's hard to switch back, since all the info is on the computer]
Leading to today, where the power in town was out again. The ATM hasn’t been working for 5 days straight and today it just wasn’t turned on. Which means tomorrow, if it’s going to work, there’s going to be an hour long line for the ATM. Or I could go inside and wait for 1+ hours. So, I was actually kind of excited because there was supposed to be a county SACCO forum meeting in a nearby village Namwendwa. The last one went well, so I figured this one would too. Well, it was supposed to be last month but the chairperson couldn’t attend, so they rescheduled it with one week notice and no time on the invitation. It should be at the same time as last time, right? So, that was at 10 am. I got to work at 9:30 to have coffee and snacks before work. And the golden rule for Africa is leave your workplace a half-hour after the meeting is supposed to start. We left at 10:45. Stopped at two place where it was supposed to be and no one was there. Not even the host organization. Now it was 11:30. We went to the SACCOs and told the managers we were there. So, we went to the spot and waited for an hour while 3 out of 15 organizations showed up. Pathetic. We began at one — I thought we should’ve just gone home, but that would’ve been a waste of money.
Now, every meeting has a chairperson, this one had 3 and one hadn’t even shown up yet (district representative for a national SACCO regulation body/alliance). The meeting began at 1, and we set to end at 3, talking about time management. Now, if you are the chairperson in Uganda, every meeting has an agenda, and on the agenda is “Communication from the Chairperson”. This is like their 15 minutes of fame during a 3 person staff meeting or a 200 person district-wide event. They go on forever thanking you for coming, you are all welcome, we are glad to have this meeting, our SACCO is like this, I would like to thank the academy for making me the chairperson… etc. So, after the two chair people finish talking, it’s 1:30 and now on the agenda is “Reactions about the chairperson’s communication.” — not going to get into that one. Then the district rep. shows up, who is a nice guy and I like, but is about 4 hours late and really really really loves talking.
Now, the district rep. had a lot of good things to say, but he completely took over the meeting which was supposed to be a discussion of problems amongst the managers of SACCOs in the area and suggestions about how we work them out. It turned into a lecture. (And another thing was the list of problems that we were meant to discuss from the last meeting, I was the only one that had them – what would they have done?) One of the things everyone was pointing out was, “Lack of time management is a problem, and suggesting things that we do to fix other problems, like have classes for members, have meetings for this…” but none of that can be done without time management. When the meeting was supposed to end at 3, my mind is screaming “SHUTUP!”. It went to about 3:30 and then we had lunch, though I would’ve liked to go home and try to get inside the bank which closed at 4. Thankfully, the next meeting is going to be at our SACCO, where I told everyone if they are not there at 10, we will start without them and my manager agreed [We will probably start at 11, but still..].
It then turns out that the chairperson of the last meeting, his father died (sorry to hear that, it’s sad.), and the funeral was today. So on the way home, my manager told me we were going the long way so she could show me around [the bush]. So, we end up on a road where there’s a lot of people dressed nice and our car is heading right into all of the people. And I’m saying “where are we going?” “Is this the right way?” “How can we get past all of these people?” — response: “It’s this way.” So, my manager and my coworker get out, and then the driver gets out and asks me Why I’m not coming? I was like “Where are we? What is this event (tons of people, sound system, tents)?” His response, “The chairperson’s father died.” What?!? I’m at a funeral reception for someone I’ve never met. EVERYONE is staring at me because I’m obviously the only white person and the only person no one has ever seen before. Thanks for the heads up. I sit down next to them and I’m pissed. I feel like it’s rude. People don’t know me, I’m not dressed for a funeral, I’m getting stared at. And the people I came with are just chilling in seats waiting for the guy to come and I said to my co-worker “How long are we going to be here?!” and I think they got the point. My manager went to go look for the son. But he found me first[no idea who he was], sat next to me, thanked me for coming and told me “My father died a few days ago.” [Thoughts: "AAAAAHHH!"] Meanwhile, everyone is greeting him and slipping him cash to help with the costs of the reception, and he’s probably expecting me to do the same thing. We were there for a humiliating 20 mins. And then we went back to the office where the power was out and the bank was now closed. I am now at home trying to chill out from the long, frustrating day.
I hope April will be better. The white ants are back and they’re getting wings all over my house. Got to go.
Peace,
Dpop
