So I am asked variations of this question a lot, “So, what do you do?” blah blah project manager, oversee the development and implementation of a variety of empowerment projects with refugees, blah blah “No, like, everyday, what do you actually DO?”
There is no typical day, that is for sure. In fact, you could say each day is typical in how not typical it is.
Here are two examples of what a day could be like during rainy season.
Scenario A
7:30am: Wake up to some insane thunder. Like cracking, rumbling, booming sounds that make you think your roof is going to fall on you and lighting is going to blind you and then fry your brain.
8:00: Manage to light those darn coals, wait for water to boil.
8:40: Eat some toast and tea and read (right now, Invisible Man and The Stuff of Thought, both are awesome).
9:00: Examine the sky, it is still raining. Too wet to ride our bikes anywhere, and wherever we get to we probably won’t find anyone at our projects. Or our bikes will break from the bad road and weather conditions (this has happened to me twice!) and then you are stuck walking in the rain, grr.
9:30: It is still raining.
10:00: File some old monthly reports. Tape receipts from this month’s purchases into the accounting binder.
11:00: The power is still on orange (almost empty), impossible to do work on my uncharged computer (used the battery yesterday, when there was also no power).
12:00: No employees come to work at the sites that are on our compound because it is raining.
12:30: Make a tuna sandwich (yeah, I horde the contents of my care packages) because the coals have gone out and I am too lazy to re-light them and Alice (our sweet house lady) didn’t show up because of, you guessed it, the rain.
The remainder of the day we twiddle our thumbs and make plans, but really can’t get anything done.
5:30: Eat dinner early due to boredom, probably some sort of Ramen, lament my devolution to my collegiate ways. Exchange stories with Sherie, reminiscing all the crazy things that happen while on the job. You have no idea how much mileage we get out of one or two phrases that were funny when we first heard them, months ago. Re-telling the same sagas over and over is kinda a thing we do.
And they aren’t even funny to anyone else, examples: “We ran into a bit of trouble, somehow.” Or “Just build us a roof!” or “Dogs are bad.” Or “I can come after I finish typing Prince Ben’s police report.” Or “We are not refusing the bicycle.” I am chuckling to myself as I type this, and you all have no idea what I am talking about. Not to fear, I will regale you with these tales over and over (and over) when I return. Call it cabin fever, but leave us alone, we are starved for entertainment out here.
6:30: Play Scrabble with Sherie by candle light.
8:00: Take malaria medicine. Read.
9:00: Bedtime
Scenario B
7:00: Wake up, brush teeth, look outside, it’s going to be dry today!
7:30: Bike to Block D (7km) to meet with police and the Head Teacher at FORGE’s Kunachi Preschool about a burglary of our school.
8:00: Arrive at the police station, wait while some other case is being heard.
9:00: Describe our side of the story, we have recovered the stolen property (some jump ropes, soap, books, chalk, and random classroom materials) and don’t want to press charges against the 16 year old who broke into the school. Give the kid (who has been handcuffed to a pole in the backyard for a day or two) a lecture about going back to school, and tell him we will hammer him in court if he’s caught stealing again.
While at the station, discover that one of your employee’s bikes was stolen three weeks ago and never reported it.
10:30: Check in on our computer training staff, deliver some supplies to them (paper and scissors, very high-tech). Remind them to gather demographic information for their students to incorporate into monitoring and evaluation data collection. Commiserate about the bad power these days.
11:00: Bike to Block G (5km)
11:30: Catch the end of Dufatanye Preschoolers (our school in G) doing PE. Teach them “Simon Says,” they don’t really get it, hilarious but great.
12:00: A teacher asks for a salary advance, I tell him to fill out the appropriate form. The Project Coordinator and I discuss goats for the IGA (income generating activity, the parents of our preschoolers raise goats and then we sell them once a year in Congo for a profit that goes back into the project). A woman who takes care of an orphan doesn’t want to be responsible for having to take care of a goat since the Dufatanye student isn’t actually her child. Fine by me, taking in an orphan and sending them to school is good Samaritan enough. I also tell the coordinator I need to meet with our employee the “Goat Master,” because I want to reduce his work to half time and make a consequent pay reduction. The coordinator is surprisingly on board with this and agrees that the goat master’s work can be done in fewer hours per week, he says he will let him know to come see me.
He also tells me about an idea the PTA at Kunachi (the school in D) came up with, to all pitch in money themselves to create their own community lead IGA. Good stuff, I tell him we don’t have the budget to contribute to their initiative, but that we can definitely offer logistical support and maybe offer them a small business training workshop.
12:45: Meet with building contractor to check on progress of the construction of our new health service center in G. There is additional unforeseen structural damage to the building that needs to be repaired, the contractor wants to charge extra to fix it. Finally negotiate a price that is only slightly under the budget and keep fingers crossed that the exchange rate won’t fall.
1:15: Get hounded by a different carpenter who wants me to pay him for an old project he took seven months to complete, though the contract he signed seven months ago (and definitely understood) said he would be paid the balance only if he completed his work in 14 days (he has been paid for materials, and some, but not all labor). Internally debate whether or not to just pay him (his wife left him and he has many mouths to feed), tell him no, and decide to wait and see if it will blow over in a few more days.
1:30: Paint one wall of the new health service center (cut the construction cost by a couple hundred thousand kwacha by agreeing to do the painting myself). Tell the kid that keeps asking me to give him food that I will make him a math test, if he passes, I will buy him a biscuit, go study now. I am my mother’s daughter.
2:30: Meet with two applicants for the health advocate position at the new center. Neither speaks a word of English, I encourage them to take free English classes offered by FORGE and apply for a position with us in the future.
3:00: Bike back to D (5km)
3:30: Grab a cold pineapple juice at Sam’s (the only place in Meheba with a generator, i.e. power for a fridge and tv) and sit in the back row of the side room off his cafe to remain out of sight from any potential staff members who will tell me to buy them bike parts and rain coats and give them advances and sponsor them to university, etc., etc. Some movie that is reminiscent of Blade, but worse, is playing on VHS. Look around me at the kids who paid money to watch this and are glued to the television and wonder why they love it so much. Pay a “small boy,” 100 kwacha, which translates into exactly two cents, to fetch me some popcorn. Small boys are awesome, basically you can employ any kid under the age of 13 to do random errands for you (cut your grass, pump water, go find people you can’t locate while you do something else, etc.) Scarf down the popcorn and return half the pineapple juice to Sam, ask him to keep it cold for me and tell him I’ll come back later in the week to drink it.
4:00: Buy cabbage, bananas, and bread in the market.
4:15: Run into the FORGE English class teacher in the market. Remember that I gave him an extra set of Scrabble from our compound at the last staff meeting to use with his advance English class. We make a date to play the next day so he can learn to use it.
4:40: Get back to the compound (7km)
5:00: The health service center coordinator that works on our compound returns his key to me at the end of the day. 20 cases of malaria today and we are out of Fanzidar (anti-malarial meds), yikes! The sunny days in rainy season bring a lot of patients…
5:30: Bath
6:00: Dinner and story exchange with Sherie. Why do my preschools keep having to deal with the police? OH yeah, tell the story of how I fell off my bike this day, coming around a hair pin turn on a shortcut, in front of me, this guy has 5 huge bags of coal attached to his bike so he takes up the whole path and I have nowhere to go but straight and crash right into him. Grr.
6:30: TV. Between both of our fully charged computers, Sherie and I watch a few episodes of Friends (courtesy of Father Kim’s, a Korean missionary who lives in the camp, external hard drive). I knew this show was very popular in its day, and now I know why, laugh out loud funny. Then again, that might be due to the “bush goggles,” I am wearing (referring to our bad taste in everything due to our blurred perspective from living in the bush for too long). Then Heroes, if I hear the phrase, “Save the cheerleader, save the world,” one more time, I might give up on this show.
8:00: Take malaria medicine. Write a letter by candle light, more annoying than romantic, to many moths to dodge.
9:00: Read some pieces from 2008’s Best American Poems anthology. Modern poetry is kinda weird.
10:00: Bed
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Saturday, February 21, 2009
And… I AM BACK!
HI EVERYONE!
I am so sorry for dropping the ball on keeping this blog alive, my apologies; it won’t happen again, I promise, I actually need this thing for my own mental health! I’ve really missed writing, it helps me feel connected to you all, my dearly belovedsJ. The past few months have been a crazy concoction of vacations, visitors, and all consuming graduate school applications. Let’s recap- no electricity, no internet, no peers to commiserate with about how much that sucks. Wth was I thinking??
Many computer crashes, seventeen (this number is REAL) essays, one solid panic attack, a million copies of my resume, and a few torn out gray hairs later, I have at least one acceptance letter to show for this bad idea, actually transforming it (miraculously) into a not so bad one, YAY! Hopefully this bodes well for more good news in the future, but I am relieved and thrilled to know that at least I will be going somewhere I want to be come fall, and with the added bonus of never having to examine my background and career goals in 500 words or less ever again.
And where FAFSA killed my desire to participate in the self-important and very expensive institutions that human civilization has created to satiate our intellectual curiosity (sometimes I just wish I had the life of our baby cat, Jambo, the cutest living thing to bless my life so far), vacations and visitors were wholly restorative in reframing my “perspective on life.” That phrase should not really be found in any respected writer’s, or in my case, ANY writer’s, semantic repertoire, but how else can I say it? Embarrassing word choice aside, I have never shifted my paradigm of thought and the way it pertains to our being, so many times, in so short a period of time before.
But if the expanses of the mind could take on a physical being, Victoria Falls would be the place where it happens. Truly the most astonishing and spectacular thing I have ever seen, or more accurately, experienced. I am prone to hyperbole, but it is impossible to exaggerate how magnificent this place is. You know when you watch Planet Earth in high definition on your big screen with surround sound and marvel at the miracles of the natural world? Remove from celluloid and multiply by a factor of ten and that’s still a vague description of how awesome the falls are. An unknown void, a part of my life that I never knew was incomplete has been filled by some exclusively gorgeous and incommunicable thing. Its immense physical scale, sensational beauty, primordial age, were all so wondrous. No matter how you describe it, it can never be over-hyped because its existence transcends linguistic expression, relying instead upon the poetic intricacies of the unspoken and universal language of the soul.
I felt like I was being swallowed up. And that this world, for all its cruelty, treason, and resolute unfairness, is in fact driven by rhyme, rhythm, and reason. Perspective, before just a banal noun, after was transformed into the truest combination of letters in the English lexicon. Never had I felt so strongly that life on this planet, our one Earth, was a privilege and a responsibility. Why should we ever waste time here? Unhappiness should be made right. We owe it to God, Mother Nature, Xenu (wiki it)…to take care of ourselves, each other, the ground beneath us, and the heavens above.
I am so sorry for dropping the ball on keeping this blog alive, my apologies; it won’t happen again, I promise, I actually need this thing for my own mental health! I’ve really missed writing, it helps me feel connected to you all, my dearly belovedsJ. The past few months have been a crazy concoction of vacations, visitors, and all consuming graduate school applications. Let’s recap- no electricity, no internet, no peers to commiserate with about how much that sucks. Wth was I thinking??
Many computer crashes, seventeen (this number is REAL) essays, one solid panic attack, a million copies of my resume, and a few torn out gray hairs later, I have at least one acceptance letter to show for this bad idea, actually transforming it (miraculously) into a not so bad one, YAY! Hopefully this bodes well for more good news in the future, but I am relieved and thrilled to know that at least I will be going somewhere I want to be come fall, and with the added bonus of never having to examine my background and career goals in 500 words or less ever again.
And where FAFSA killed my desire to participate in the self-important and very expensive institutions that human civilization has created to satiate our intellectual curiosity (sometimes I just wish I had the life of our baby cat, Jambo, the cutest living thing to bless my life so far), vacations and visitors were wholly restorative in reframing my “perspective on life.” That phrase should not really be found in any respected writer’s, or in my case, ANY writer’s, semantic repertoire, but how else can I say it? Embarrassing word choice aside, I have never shifted my paradigm of thought and the way it pertains to our being, so many times, in so short a period of time before.
But if the expanses of the mind could take on a physical being, Victoria Falls would be the place where it happens. Truly the most astonishing and spectacular thing I have ever seen, or more accurately, experienced. I am prone to hyperbole, but it is impossible to exaggerate how magnificent this place is. You know when you watch Planet Earth in high definition on your big screen with surround sound and marvel at the miracles of the natural world? Remove from celluloid and multiply by a factor of ten and that’s still a vague description of how awesome the falls are. An unknown void, a part of my life that I never knew was incomplete has been filled by some exclusively gorgeous and incommunicable thing. Its immense physical scale, sensational beauty, primordial age, were all so wondrous. No matter how you describe it, it can never be over-hyped because its existence transcends linguistic expression, relying instead upon the poetic intricacies of the unspoken and universal language of the soul.
I felt like I was being swallowed up. And that this world, for all its cruelty, treason, and resolute unfairness, is in fact driven by rhyme, rhythm, and reason. Perspective, before just a banal noun, after was transformed into the truest combination of letters in the English lexicon. Never had I felt so strongly that life on this planet, our one Earth, was a privilege and a responsibility. Why should we ever waste time here? Unhappiness should be made right. We owe it to God, Mother Nature, Xenu (wiki it)…to take care of ourselves, each other, the ground beneath us, and the heavens above.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
YES WE CAN!
The headline is probably painfully cliché by now (I have no access to the media, but I can imagine the magnitude of Obama-mania sweeping the country right now), but before you roll your eyes or throw up a little in your month, bear with me. The last time I posted a blog, it was from the Royal Solwezi Hotel where my fellow Americans and I pulled an all nighter, my first in years, to view the American elections. Glued to the television for hours, eating the most American foods we could find on the menu (mac ‘n cheese), playing protest songs on our ipods (Bruce Springstein), that distinctive mixture of excitement and trepidation that precedes most momentous occasions was thick in the air.
Eight hours and many caffeinated drinks later, my heart swelled. After Obama gave his victory speech, the hope I hadn’t allowed myself to feel finally burst, breaking the dam that had pent up my closeted optimism. Deep wells of conflicting emotion emerged. I was proud of America, but I also felt guilty for not having expected high standards of her. The feeling of being wrong was one of pure joy and also shame.
The undeniable thing was that this moment was history. My parents remember when Kennedy was assassinated, when man landed on the moon, when Nelson Mandela was freed. After 9/11, I will remember this day more than any other. A testament to the United States. Proof that the dream Americans hold of making something of themselves, of making our country better, is not one held in vain. The day American people of color were convinced that you really can be anyone you want, do anything you want, and that one person can be the impetus for worldwide change.
I have debated the question internally for a long time: how is change best created? For years I worked for institutions, believing that operating within existing systems was the best way to change them, and convincing myself that those changes inevitably effect the population as a whole and consequently move society forward. But corporations, The White House, think tanks, and the Department of Justice were all gigantic stepping stones that lead me downwards. I felt weighted by the sluggishness with which those organizations slowly chip away at barriers on the fringes and shift paradigms in the margins. Knowing that I saved someone from paying an extra few cents on bleach was important in protecting the free market and a competitive economy, but it was not inspiring. Anyone who knows me will tell you I am impatient, for better or worse, immediate gratification motivates me. So every red tape barrier drove me deeper into the ground, finally reaching the grassroots.
I chose to move to Zambia and work in the field (er, bush) to observe the flipside of public service. I sought to gain a holistic view of the sector from the ground up, to experience change on a personal level and observe it happening in a perceivable way. I thought that here I could make an impression on one person at a time and that it would be tangible and evermore fulfilling. And of course, now that I am here, I am frustrated by reverse challenges. Only making a difference in the most miniscule way possible, denting the lives of a few thousand people at most, is grueling and painstaking work that can break your heart.
Just as despondency began to cast its shadow on my outlook, I mailed my ballot for Barack Obama. We wrote it in at the Peace Corps house, off a tiny unpaved back road of Solwezi, Zambia. It was thrilling, empowering, enfranchising, more than any vote of mine in America had been. I needed an outlet that granted me access to way the world’s biggest decisions are made. I needed to believe that though my work in the field may be inconsequential in changing the way the world works, it matters deeply to a community that would be otherwise overlooked, forgotten, or ignored.
Obama reminded me that the world is not binary. Whether talking about the left or right, or the unity of our fifty states, Obama’s message is one that can apply to so many realms. He reminded me that systemic change complements the work I do here, and that the work I had done in the past was not ineffectual. In hindsight, it is may seem obvious, even glib, to proclaim that both approaches to public service are symbiotic and important. But I had never believed this to be truer than on this day. My renewed cognizance of this fact injected some much needed positivity into my attitude and helped revive the spirit of my work here. And for that, I would seriously like to thank you, Mr. Barack Obama, the President Elect of the United States of America!
P.S.
I would also like to thank those friends of mine who poured their blood, sweat, and tears into his campaign. It is because of your sleepless nights and tireless efforts that this was made possible!
Eight hours and many caffeinated drinks later, my heart swelled. After Obama gave his victory speech, the hope I hadn’t allowed myself to feel finally burst, breaking the dam that had pent up my closeted optimism. Deep wells of conflicting emotion emerged. I was proud of America, but I also felt guilty for not having expected high standards of her. The feeling of being wrong was one of pure joy and also shame.
The undeniable thing was that this moment was history. My parents remember when Kennedy was assassinated, when man landed on the moon, when Nelson Mandela was freed. After 9/11, I will remember this day more than any other. A testament to the United States. Proof that the dream Americans hold of making something of themselves, of making our country better, is not one held in vain. The day American people of color were convinced that you really can be anyone you want, do anything you want, and that one person can be the impetus for worldwide change.
I have debated the question internally for a long time: how is change best created? For years I worked for institutions, believing that operating within existing systems was the best way to change them, and convincing myself that those changes inevitably effect the population as a whole and consequently move society forward. But corporations, The White House, think tanks, and the Department of Justice were all gigantic stepping stones that lead me downwards. I felt weighted by the sluggishness with which those organizations slowly chip away at barriers on the fringes and shift paradigms in the margins. Knowing that I saved someone from paying an extra few cents on bleach was important in protecting the free market and a competitive economy, but it was not inspiring. Anyone who knows me will tell you I am impatient, for better or worse, immediate gratification motivates me. So every red tape barrier drove me deeper into the ground, finally reaching the grassroots.
I chose to move to Zambia and work in the field (er, bush) to observe the flipside of public service. I sought to gain a holistic view of the sector from the ground up, to experience change on a personal level and observe it happening in a perceivable way. I thought that here I could make an impression on one person at a time and that it would be tangible and evermore fulfilling. And of course, now that I am here, I am frustrated by reverse challenges. Only making a difference in the most miniscule way possible, denting the lives of a few thousand people at most, is grueling and painstaking work that can break your heart.
Just as despondency began to cast its shadow on my outlook, I mailed my ballot for Barack Obama. We wrote it in at the Peace Corps house, off a tiny unpaved back road of Solwezi, Zambia. It was thrilling, empowering, enfranchising, more than any vote of mine in America had been. I needed an outlet that granted me access to way the world’s biggest decisions are made. I needed to believe that though my work in the field may be inconsequential in changing the way the world works, it matters deeply to a community that would be otherwise overlooked, forgotten, or ignored.
Obama reminded me that the world is not binary. Whether talking about the left or right, or the unity of our fifty states, Obama’s message is one that can apply to so many realms. He reminded me that systemic change complements the work I do here, and that the work I had done in the past was not ineffectual. In hindsight, it is may seem obvious, even glib, to proclaim that both approaches to public service are symbiotic and important. But I had never believed this to be truer than on this day. My renewed cognizance of this fact injected some much needed positivity into my attitude and helped revive the spirit of my work here. And for that, I would seriously like to thank you, Mr. Barack Obama, the President Elect of the United States of America!
P.S.
I would also like to thank those friends of mine who poured their blood, sweat, and tears into his campaign. It is because of your sleepless nights and tireless efforts that this was made possible!
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
If Wall Street Got Drunk…
Then someone should tell Bush that our sector is suffering from a potentially fatal hangover. Much worse than a mere headache, startups, especially non-profit ones, are being hit by a maelstrom of factors that may have terminal consequences for many organizations that don’t have the capacity to weather the storm. Though bailouts galore will not anchor the financial markets enough to reduce the impact of this tempest to zero, they at least provide some sails for the heaviest players in the game to stay afloat.
Meanwhile, nonprofits the size of FORGE have absolutely no protection against macroeconomic fluctuations that affect the pool of disposable income available to us from individual private donors, our primary source of funds. This fact, combined with the bad luck of being rejected in the final rounds of two large and prestigious grants, and not making as much money as we had hoped from a traditional fundraiser (fancy expensive dinner featuring Tom Brady, Giselle, etc.), have lead to dire straits for budgets in the field.
Last week our Programming Director informed us that Meheba had to make around 24,000,000 kwacha worth of budget cuts to remain operational through March1st. In perspective: over HALF of our budget needed to be slashed. The PMs hashed out some drastic changes, entire programs were cut, and 10 staff members (almost a quarter of our workforce) were laid off in total. The PMs took a pay cut in solidarity and decided to use the money toward creating a small severance package; but the timing of the announcement was brutal, only four days before pay day, leaving no time for employees to budget their money. However demoralizing the facts of the financial situation are, the suddenness of the situation was by far the worst part of the announcement, and it severely limited our ability to damage control.
In Meheba, there is no free market economy. There are NO other employers in the camp. Wages are standardized to already pittance levels and the World Food Programme is no longer providing food rations to anyone in the camp (including the elderly, disabled, orphans, and other vulnerable people) beginning January 1st. Unlike other camps where salaries are incentives for people to work, to lose your job in Meheba is to lose any possibility of having some livelihood. The only other option is to become a farmer, but cultivation has already begun, if you haven’t prepared your field already, it’s too late to start for this year’s harvest. Some of those let go include FORGE’s first employee ever, and all of the staff from FORGE’s first project.
Beyond our staff, the community is equally affected by the abruptness of our scale back. Vulnerable (mentally and physically disabled or orphaned) preschoolers who are already psychologically unstable now must completely change their schedule midterm and adjust to new teachers with no training overlap, who are unfamiliar with the new students (personally, linguistically, and culturally) and are taking on twice their previous workload. The example is one of many.
I made it through the emergency staff meeting that we held to announce the changes. I made it through nine of the lay offs, where the PMs stoically and calmly took turns repeating the same words over and over: “unfortunately,” “the reality of the situation,” “I am so sorry,” “absolutely nothing to do with your performance,” etc. Finally we reached the last one, an outreach worker named Given, who I personally manage for the health services project. Given’s coworker is his good friend (and mine) and holds the exact same position and was not being let go because of her certification has a psycho-social counselor. She was the first to cry all day. And then quietly, the tears just started flowing, leaving cool trails on my cheeks, evaporating quickly into the African heat.
Being a young manager, for all the advantages it holds in energy, innovation, optimism, dedication, freshness, and drive; my youth in this case did nothing but long for advice. I missed my dad, a seasoned manager who has supervised hundreds (maybe thousands?) of people and let go of a few in his time; someone who has navigated through organizational and financial turbulence with deliberate finesse and forward thinking. I have no tools to deal with this from a managerial stand point, nor from an emotional and psychological one. And none were given to me by the executive team that is equally as wet behind the ears as I am, and whose responsibilities, as is the case in any startup, are already spread paper thin.
Having grown up in the entrepreneurial culture of the bay area and then having worked for one of the largest bureaucracies in the world (the U.S. government), I had once concluded unequivocally that the latitude of having a youthful, flexible, approachable group of supervisors and employees would be the strongest advantage FORGE has to “Go get ‘em.” And that fact remains. But in this situation I see more clearly than ever the benefits traditional, conservative, and most importantly experienced, leadership can have in tempering instability.
Ironically, this whole experience may be exactly what develops all of us into more mature managers, ready to take on bad news and expertly handle it whenever it’s thrown our way. Unequivocally I look at this as an experience I look at as an opportunity to grow. Here’s hoping!
Meanwhile, nonprofits the size of FORGE have absolutely no protection against macroeconomic fluctuations that affect the pool of disposable income available to us from individual private donors, our primary source of funds. This fact, combined with the bad luck of being rejected in the final rounds of two large and prestigious grants, and not making as much money as we had hoped from a traditional fundraiser (fancy expensive dinner featuring Tom Brady, Giselle, etc.), have lead to dire straits for budgets in the field.
Last week our Programming Director informed us that Meheba had to make around 24,000,000 kwacha worth of budget cuts to remain operational through March1st. In perspective: over HALF of our budget needed to be slashed. The PMs hashed out some drastic changes, entire programs were cut, and 10 staff members (almost a quarter of our workforce) were laid off in total. The PMs took a pay cut in solidarity and decided to use the money toward creating a small severance package; but the timing of the announcement was brutal, only four days before pay day, leaving no time for employees to budget their money. However demoralizing the facts of the financial situation are, the suddenness of the situation was by far the worst part of the announcement, and it severely limited our ability to damage control.
In Meheba, there is no free market economy. There are NO other employers in the camp. Wages are standardized to already pittance levels and the World Food Programme is no longer providing food rations to anyone in the camp (including the elderly, disabled, orphans, and other vulnerable people) beginning January 1st. Unlike other camps where salaries are incentives for people to work, to lose your job in Meheba is to lose any possibility of having some livelihood. The only other option is to become a farmer, but cultivation has already begun, if you haven’t prepared your field already, it’s too late to start for this year’s harvest. Some of those let go include FORGE’s first employee ever, and all of the staff from FORGE’s first project.
Beyond our staff, the community is equally affected by the abruptness of our scale back. Vulnerable (mentally and physically disabled or orphaned) preschoolers who are already psychologically unstable now must completely change their schedule midterm and adjust to new teachers with no training overlap, who are unfamiliar with the new students (personally, linguistically, and culturally) and are taking on twice their previous workload. The example is one of many.
I made it through the emergency staff meeting that we held to announce the changes. I made it through nine of the lay offs, where the PMs stoically and calmly took turns repeating the same words over and over: “unfortunately,” “the reality of the situation,” “I am so sorry,” “absolutely nothing to do with your performance,” etc. Finally we reached the last one, an outreach worker named Given, who I personally manage for the health services project. Given’s coworker is his good friend (and mine) and holds the exact same position and was not being let go because of her certification has a psycho-social counselor. She was the first to cry all day. And then quietly, the tears just started flowing, leaving cool trails on my cheeks, evaporating quickly into the African heat.
Being a young manager, for all the advantages it holds in energy, innovation, optimism, dedication, freshness, and drive; my youth in this case did nothing but long for advice. I missed my dad, a seasoned manager who has supervised hundreds (maybe thousands?) of people and let go of a few in his time; someone who has navigated through organizational and financial turbulence with deliberate finesse and forward thinking. I have no tools to deal with this from a managerial stand point, nor from an emotional and psychological one. And none were given to me by the executive team that is equally as wet behind the ears as I am, and whose responsibilities, as is the case in any startup, are already spread paper thin.
Having grown up in the entrepreneurial culture of the bay area and then having worked for one of the largest bureaucracies in the world (the U.S. government), I had once concluded unequivocally that the latitude of having a youthful, flexible, approachable group of supervisors and employees would be the strongest advantage FORGE has to “Go get ‘em.” And that fact remains. But in this situation I see more clearly than ever the benefits traditional, conservative, and most importantly experienced, leadership can have in tempering instability.
Ironically, this whole experience may be exactly what develops all of us into more mature managers, ready to take on bad news and expertly handle it whenever it’s thrown our way. Unequivocally I look at this as an experience I look at as an opportunity to grow. Here’s hoping!
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Constants and Change (and Eid Mubarak!)
My life here is drastically different in almost every way possible from life in San Francisco. The polarity is stark. In most cases the observations are obvious: rich and poor, urban and rural, cold and hot, white and black. In other cases, the contra-positional nature of what you have and don’t in one place or the other doesn’t hit you for a while, and the significance of the juxtaposition is only realized after a bit time.
In SF, you have refrigeration. In Meheba you have three day old cheese that still tastes delicious because it’s cheese, and you spent four dollars on it in Solwezi (the same amount you spend on food for the whole week in the camp). In SF you have MUNI. Never thought I would tout the glory of public transport in that city, but here you have one hour bike rides, uphill, both ways, in the heat (can’t wait to tell my kids about it). In SF you have organic, free-trade, non-fat, extra hot, sugar-free vanilla skim lattes. In Meheba, you have powdered instant hazelnut flavored “Ricoffy,” and “SupaMilk”- it’s “Supa” because it somehow doesn’t need to be refrigerated (yeah, don’t know how that works). In SF you have carpeting. In Meheba you don’t take your shoes off, ever. And speaking of shoes, I miss my stilettos. Surprisingly, the things I miss less than expected are the things I initially thought would be the hardest to adjust to—lack of cell phone reception, television, internet, H&M, and hamburgers.
But one thing that never changes is the constant comfort that lies in the universally identical practice of being Muslim. The month of Ramadan is one I look forward to every year, and it has just ended- Eid Mubarak! Even here, it offers the gifts of mental clarity, a sense of purpose, peace, and this year, more than ever, a connection to the global suffering of the billions of people who simply just have less. This is a feeling that universally arises wherever I am when fasting. It is a thread that connects my existence here, or anywhere, to my own being, and at the same time, to the world at large.
Living in the very population that American Muslims are presumably trying to remember during this month is extraordinarily moving. Being hungry and thirsty while living in a hungry and thirsty community and praying together through that discomfort with miners from Arab countries, refugees from Buruni, Rwanda, Congo, Somalia, Sudan, and Angola, and a UNHCR Program Officer from Bangladesh highlighted for me that my work here exposes me to far more than the differences that exist between us, which are many, but to the more profuse commonalities that range from the mundane to the profound.
Parents walk their kids to school and hope education will improve their lives, young adults would do anything for love, sharing stories around dinner and a bonfire is always fun, whatever line you pick at the grocery store will be the slowest, everybody enjoys watching and playing soccer, more people will attend your meeting if you serve biscuits, babies smell like Vaseline and talcum powder, bureaucrats can’t really help you, girls like braiding each others hair, whoever you sit next to on the bus will be the smelliest, music makes people happy, everyone puts off doing laundry until Sunday, old people are wise, and we all brush our teeth in the morning and start everyday hoping to do the best we can.
In SF, you have refrigeration. In Meheba you have three day old cheese that still tastes delicious because it’s cheese, and you spent four dollars on it in Solwezi (the same amount you spend on food for the whole week in the camp). In SF you have MUNI. Never thought I would tout the glory of public transport in that city, but here you have one hour bike rides, uphill, both ways, in the heat (can’t wait to tell my kids about it). In SF you have organic, free-trade, non-fat, extra hot, sugar-free vanilla skim lattes. In Meheba, you have powdered instant hazelnut flavored “Ricoffy,” and “SupaMilk”- it’s “Supa” because it somehow doesn’t need to be refrigerated (yeah, don’t know how that works). In SF you have carpeting. In Meheba you don’t take your shoes off, ever. And speaking of shoes, I miss my stilettos. Surprisingly, the things I miss less than expected are the things I initially thought would be the hardest to adjust to—lack of cell phone reception, television, internet, H&M, and hamburgers.
But one thing that never changes is the constant comfort that lies in the universally identical practice of being Muslim. The month of Ramadan is one I look forward to every year, and it has just ended- Eid Mubarak! Even here, it offers the gifts of mental clarity, a sense of purpose, peace, and this year, more than ever, a connection to the global suffering of the billions of people who simply just have less. This is a feeling that universally arises wherever I am when fasting. It is a thread that connects my existence here, or anywhere, to my own being, and at the same time, to the world at large.
Living in the very population that American Muslims are presumably trying to remember during this month is extraordinarily moving. Being hungry and thirsty while living in a hungry and thirsty community and praying together through that discomfort with miners from Arab countries, refugees from Buruni, Rwanda, Congo, Somalia, Sudan, and Angola, and a UNHCR Program Officer from Bangladesh highlighted for me that my work here exposes me to far more than the differences that exist between us, which are many, but to the more profuse commonalities that range from the mundane to the profound.
Parents walk their kids to school and hope education will improve their lives, young adults would do anything for love, sharing stories around dinner and a bonfire is always fun, whatever line you pick at the grocery store will be the slowest, everybody enjoys watching and playing soccer, more people will attend your meeting if you serve biscuits, babies smell like Vaseline and talcum powder, bureaucrats can’t really help you, girls like braiding each others hair, whoever you sit next to on the bus will be the smelliest, music makes people happy, everyone puts off doing laundry until Sunday, old people are wise, and we all brush our teeth in the morning and start everyday hoping to do the best we can.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
TOP 5!
5 things I took most for granted before Meheba:
1) Having citizenship.
2) Knowing where my family is.
3) Access to information.
4) Friendship.
5) Duct tape.
5 crazy quotes from Meheba*:
1) “The whites have an invisible airplane that runs on human blood.”
2) “Mobutu Sese Seko (former dictator of Zaire, now Democratic Republic of Congo) had x-ray vision glasses and his wife used to kill people with her deadly back flips.”
3) “There is a black mamba snake in block B that is actually white, and it kills you by flying into your head and piercing you with a venomous claw on its tail.”
4) “There is a lady in block A who can reach block G in less than 20 minutes, the only explanation is that she flies.”
5) “FORGE may have access to that building when the suspected Wizards vacate its premises.”- An officer from the Zambian Ministry of Community Development and Social Services.
Runners Up (2 stories and a quote):
1) Seeing a young boy kill a rat, befriend and keep the dead animal as a pet in the morning, and eat it for dinner in the evening (witnessed this one myself).
2) Having dozens of unknown refugees ask to take a picture with you at church the first week you arrive, then finding pictures of yourself in the homes of refugees you don’t know 6 weeks later.
3) “I can’t come for dinner that late because there will be demons on my way back.”
*Really, you can’t make this stuff up, magic is very serious business in Meheba.
5 most unexpected forms of entertainment:
1) Watching insects knock themselves unconscious by repeatedly flying into the ceiling/walls.
2) Watching cats sleep. Or play, or cuddle, or hunt, or clean each other, or…
3) The game “SET.”
4) Killing ants.
5) Listening to refugees make fun of American accents.
5 of the most delicious foods in Meheba:
1) Pineapples (rarely available).
2) Fresh garlic (rarely available).
3) Avocados (rarely available).
4) Fried sweet potatoes.
5) Fanta.
5 least delicious foods in Meheba:
1) Caterpillars (haven’t actually tried them, but they don’t look appetizing).
2) Dried minnows (tiny little fish that smell very fishy).
3) Milk Maheyu (a really sweet, yet sour, grainy cornmeal drink).
4) Nshima (boiled cornmeal dough, eaten daily by Angolans, not a big fan of it myself).
5) Cassava (a bitter potato like starchy vegetable).
Commonly found foods in Meheba:
1) Beans (eaten daily)
2) Rice (eaten daily)
3) Cabbage (2-3 times per week)
4) Onion (daily, usually mixed with rice, or beans, or cabbage)
5) Tomato (daily, usually mixed with rice, or beans, or cabbage)
6) Rape (a dark leafy green, 2-3 times a week)
7) Chinese (like Bok Choi, 1-2 times a week)
8) Peanuts (usually for lunch)
9) Bananas (also for lunch)
10) Popcorn (the only snack food)
11) Potatoes (sweet, and regular, 1-2 times a week)
12) Bread (breakfast, thank God!)
12 things may sound like a lot, but that’s ALL there is. When rotating them everyday, there’s really not much variety, trust me.
5 favorite new slang terms:
1) “To Hammer.” An all purpose word that has many practical uses. To hit, to be hit, to be overcome, to overcome…
In a sentence that was actually used by one of our employees, “I saw a black mamba coming down the path! First Bartho screamed and hammered himself into the bush. Then I screamed too and the bike hammered me when I swerved into the bush. Then we got up and started throwing stones at the snake, just hammering it!”
2) “Peddle Down.” To bike fast.
In a sentence, “I am so exhausted, I was peddling down all day, from A to D and back home.”
3) “That Side.” A term used to refer to anywhere but wherever you are when the term is used, similar to “over there.”
In a sentence, “And how are things that side?” “I’ve just come from that side” “Where is everyone that side?”
4) Chimbo. A term in Luvale (local African language) that means cheap, backwards, a simpleton, or ignorant.
In a sentence, “My bike is so chimbo, it’s going to fall apart any day now.”
5) Eeway. Another Luvale term. A combination of “hey you” and “get lost.”
In a sentence, To the neighborhood kids, “Eeway! Stop clicking the gears on my bike.” To our cat, who is also named Eeway (he really lives up to his namesake), “Eeway, get out of there, that was going to be MY dinner.”
1) Having citizenship.
2) Knowing where my family is.
3) Access to information.
4) Friendship.
5) Duct tape.
5 crazy quotes from Meheba*:
1) “The whites have an invisible airplane that runs on human blood.”
2) “Mobutu Sese Seko (former dictator of Zaire, now Democratic Republic of Congo) had x-ray vision glasses and his wife used to kill people with her deadly back flips.”
3) “There is a black mamba snake in block B that is actually white, and it kills you by flying into your head and piercing you with a venomous claw on its tail.”
4) “There is a lady in block A who can reach block G in less than 20 minutes, the only explanation is that she flies.”
5) “FORGE may have access to that building when the suspected Wizards vacate its premises.”- An officer from the Zambian Ministry of Community Development and Social Services.
Runners Up (2 stories and a quote):
1) Seeing a young boy kill a rat, befriend and keep the dead animal as a pet in the morning, and eat it for dinner in the evening (witnessed this one myself).
2) Having dozens of unknown refugees ask to take a picture with you at church the first week you arrive, then finding pictures of yourself in the homes of refugees you don’t know 6 weeks later.
3) “I can’t come for dinner that late because there will be demons on my way back.”
*Really, you can’t make this stuff up, magic is very serious business in Meheba.
5 most unexpected forms of entertainment:
1) Watching insects knock themselves unconscious by repeatedly flying into the ceiling/walls.
2) Watching cats sleep. Or play, or cuddle, or hunt, or clean each other, or…
3) The game “SET.”
4) Killing ants.
5) Listening to refugees make fun of American accents.
5 of the most delicious foods in Meheba:
1) Pineapples (rarely available).
2) Fresh garlic (rarely available).
3) Avocados (rarely available).
4) Fried sweet potatoes.
5) Fanta.
5 least delicious foods in Meheba:
1) Caterpillars (haven’t actually tried them, but they don’t look appetizing).
2) Dried minnows (tiny little fish that smell very fishy).
3) Milk Maheyu (a really sweet, yet sour, grainy cornmeal drink).
4) Nshima (boiled cornmeal dough, eaten daily by Angolans, not a big fan of it myself).
5) Cassava (a bitter potato like starchy vegetable).
Commonly found foods in Meheba:
1) Beans (eaten daily)
2) Rice (eaten daily)
3) Cabbage (2-3 times per week)
4) Onion (daily, usually mixed with rice, or beans, or cabbage)
5) Tomato (daily, usually mixed with rice, or beans, or cabbage)
6) Rape (a dark leafy green, 2-3 times a week)
7) Chinese (like Bok Choi, 1-2 times a week)
8) Peanuts (usually for lunch)
9) Bananas (also for lunch)
10) Popcorn (the only snack food)
11) Potatoes (sweet, and regular, 1-2 times a week)
12) Bread (breakfast, thank God!)
12 things may sound like a lot, but that’s ALL there is. When rotating them everyday, there’s really not much variety, trust me.
5 favorite new slang terms:
1) “To Hammer.” An all purpose word that has many practical uses. To hit, to be hit, to be overcome, to overcome…
In a sentence that was actually used by one of our employees, “I saw a black mamba coming down the path! First Bartho screamed and hammered himself into the bush. Then I screamed too and the bike hammered me when I swerved into the bush. Then we got up and started throwing stones at the snake, just hammering it!”
2) “Peddle Down.” To bike fast.
In a sentence, “I am so exhausted, I was peddling down all day, from A to D and back home.”
3) “That Side.” A term used to refer to anywhere but wherever you are when the term is used, similar to “over there.”
In a sentence, “And how are things that side?” “I’ve just come from that side” “Where is everyone that side?”
4) Chimbo. A term in Luvale (local African language) that means cheap, backwards, a simpleton, or ignorant.
In a sentence, “My bike is so chimbo, it’s going to fall apart any day now.”
5) Eeway. Another Luvale term. A combination of “hey you” and “get lost.”
In a sentence, To the neighborhood kids, “Eeway! Stop clicking the gears on my bike.” To our cat, who is also named Eeway (he really lives up to his namesake), “Eeway, get out of there, that was going to be MY dinner.”
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Hold On (/On Hold)
The tribulations of being a manager in the setting of an African refugee camp are many, but so far, one of the most constant is the level of interruption (more or less daily) we face from either life taking its course or other unavoidable occurrences.
Over the past eight days, we have celebrated a staff member’s wedding, visited another’s new baby, and attended the funeral of another staff member’s brother. The circle of life here is so visible and constant and holy. Yesterday one of our staff members helped dress the wounds of a burn victim on a volunteer basis at the clinic, and in the morning, the girl died. As a result, he has asked for the day off to counsel the family instead of manage our health services center. Last week there was a fuel crisis in the province and transportation into and out of the camp became impossible, and anything running on a generator (shops, clinics, offices) needs fuel. Without preventative healthcare, our refugee staff are ill and constantly taking days off. Roads here are pretty rough so bicycles (a necessity in a cap our size- 500 square miles) are constantly broken and limit our staff’s ability to come to work.
Living without any escapist pastimes here, it is actually refreshing to experience the robust joy, sorrow, excitement, frustration, and pain of these real life stories. But these occasions constantly put work on hold, and another day is escaping us now.
Today we are in Solwezi and much of the city is shut down in mourning of Zambia’s president’s (Mwanamwasa) death yesterday, and this will continue for 10 more days. I knew adapting to the pace of life here was going to be challenging, but being unable to schedule more than two tasks a day, can be frustrating.
Apologies for this short draft blog, but this week, our first really on our own, hasn’t left too much time for contemplation and eloquence. Next time I promise something fun and thoughtful and well written!
Over the past eight days, we have celebrated a staff member’s wedding, visited another’s new baby, and attended the funeral of another staff member’s brother. The circle of life here is so visible and constant and holy. Yesterday one of our staff members helped dress the wounds of a burn victim on a volunteer basis at the clinic, and in the morning, the girl died. As a result, he has asked for the day off to counsel the family instead of manage our health services center. Last week there was a fuel crisis in the province and transportation into and out of the camp became impossible, and anything running on a generator (shops, clinics, offices) needs fuel. Without preventative healthcare, our refugee staff are ill and constantly taking days off. Roads here are pretty rough so bicycles (a necessity in a cap our size- 500 square miles) are constantly broken and limit our staff’s ability to come to work.
Living without any escapist pastimes here, it is actually refreshing to experience the robust joy, sorrow, excitement, frustration, and pain of these real life stories. But these occasions constantly put work on hold, and another day is escaping us now.
Today we are in Solwezi and much of the city is shut down in mourning of Zambia’s president’s (Mwanamwasa) death yesterday, and this will continue for 10 more days. I knew adapting to the pace of life here was going to be challenging, but being unable to schedule more than two tasks a day, can be frustrating.
Apologies for this short draft blog, but this week, our first really on our own, hasn’t left too much time for contemplation and eloquence. Next time I promise something fun and thoughtful and well written!
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