Another day in the life of....

Wake up at quarter to seven by the arrival of the day and its corresponding sounds. Roll over and snooze for another 35 minutes.
7.28 Get up and throw some water over myself.
7.35 Pack bag for a visit to the field
7.40 Go and discuss the plan for the day with the Beneficiary Accountability Officer (BAO). Discover that representatives from the Ministry of Health can’t make it that day and we’ll have to postpone one of the ceremonies to declare that the village no longer defecates in the open air (i.e. they’ve built toilets after sensitisation that made them realise they’re basically eating each others poo). Am thankful that we don’t need to leave for the field immediately and it gives time to make other arrangements.
7.50 Realise that the generator has been turned on and the cook has made some pancakes. Eat a couple with sugar and a lemon that’s been sitting in the fridge for a while.
8.00 Devotions start. A couple of songs, I’m leading the ‘thought for the day’ today, then pray through all the stuff we’ve got going on. Lots of notices today – what we’re doing with handover ceremonies to the community for the end of the project, some visitors from Bukavu and their work schedule, reminders about exactly what time work starts each day.
8.40 Ask HR administrator to phone Bukavu to follow up on a contract issue. Stamp some documents. Cleaner comes in to explain that her daughter has been taken to hospital – can she have the day off? Find out if her daughter is going to be ok, and send her to HR. Find out that contract issue isn’t yet resolved and wonder what to do.
9.00 Talk over the objectives of the day with the Food Security Manager. Put some documents on my usb stick for him to work on. Quick chat over the wording of the training certificates.
9.30 Call in people for a meeting on the grand closing ceremony to take place Monday. Discuss invitations, logistical arrangements, the programme, the budget and who does what. Discover that it’s not possible to have just some biscuits and cake as refreshments but that any celebration is not considered complete without some meat, fish, banana plantain and groundnut. Feel worried about what this is going to do with the budget.
10.45 Visit from another NGO wanting information about our WASH activities. Give him the information as concisely as possible and link him up with another staff member who can help.
11.15 Time planned to leave office for the handover at 13.00. Get delayed by someone requesting a requisition to be signed. Give documents to Food Security Advisor. Get lifejackets out of store. Check where Church visitors are. Ask Logistician to get the fuel requisition for me to sign so we can order it immediately. Sign authorisations for the motorbikes to leave. Wait for Church visitors. Wait for their motorbike to be filled up with fuel. Starting to rain and hoping it will stop so people won’t get wet. Wait for someone to check that they have the right ID. Get fed up of waiting.
12h15 Arrive at river. Get a phone call from agronomist saying that he needs help in transporting the drink cans for the ceremony – send off motorbike to collect him. The contracted pirogue (boat – hollowed out tree trunk) driver isn’t there. We ring him, he’s ill and says his son has the boat the other side of the river. Wait for him to come. Wait for motorbike and staff to return. They finally do. Decide that it’s getting too late to wait and hire another pirogue. Remind myself that it’s not the end of the world if we’re a bit late.
12.40 Finally cross over river. Thankful that the pick-up is ready and waiting on the other side.
13.20 Arrive in the village to do the handover. The 30 or so people introduce themselves, our Agronomist gives the background to the project, BAO asks for feedback. The big chef of the area stands up to give a speech, clear that he’s had a drink or two before he arrived. Spend the next 40 minutes hearing about how they don’t want Tearfund to leave them, as abandoned children, and what my responsibilities needed to be in finding funds for route construction, education, water, health and buildings. Most of that was addressed directly to me as ‘Mama Anna’ in a loud and forthright way – except that I don’t understand Swahili and had to reply on the quiet translation into French in my ear. Some interesting impressions of chickens laying eggs as well. I give a response, but the Chef has wondered off and doesn’t really listen. For everyone else, I emphasise my confidence in the Church, my explanation that we’ve given them the inputs for them to take forward, to share the knowledge and the tools, and that it is for them to think about what vision they want for their village and that they are able to go ahead and achieve it. Some feedback and stories of the impact are shared by the farmers, the person from the Church gives a speech. We hand round a can of orange fanta and do a toast to the project. People sign for $3 of ‘transport’ money and walk back to their villages some kilometres away. Drive back – discussing plan for Thurs and Fri en route, load up the motorbikes onto the pirogue and cross back over the river.
17.15 Arrive back at the office. Check in with HR about whether there’s a resolution to the contracts issue. Get told there’s an email waiting for me. Take a copy of the draft invitation for the closing ceremony and sit down with the BAO to work on the wording. Check that everything is ready for tomorrow and Fridays field trip.
18.00 Persuade the Logistician to give me a lift to the Bishop’s house. He’s a key person for the ceremony and we need to make sure he’s available. Some people are in his garden practising a dance for a wedding to take place at the weekend. Have a quick conversation with the Bishop, get a positive response, leave an invitation and am glad that he’s easy to approach.
18.15 Back in the office. Get my things together and go to the internet café. The email I’m waiting for isn’t there.
19.00 Am hungry. Eat chapatti, beans, a piece of meat and some avocado that looks as if it’s going to be rotten but is actually ok. Half watch an incredibly melodramatic South American soap opera that the other two are in the house are watching.
19.30 Go back to the office and sign some requisitions that are waiting. Look up the budget codes and try and see how much money we’ve got left on those lines. Try and contact Benoit in Bukavu, but it’s not getting through.
20.00 Decide to finish for the day and write a blog post.
20.40 Have a shower
20.45 Get through to Benoit and discuss a load of outstanding things
21.35 Finish chatting. Play guitar for a few minutes then realise my colleague might be wanting to go to sleep so stop.
21.45 Bed. Sleep. Hooray.