High(s):
Travelling back from Easter weekend. Got an Espresso Milkshake in Jinja and a Calzone as I passed through Kampala. Also got to meet a new Peace Corps volunteer that will be serving just about 15 K from my site.
I found an ally in Michael, my counterpart, who seemed to be the only other person in the room besides me who realized how useless the business meeting described below was.
A 3 day strategic planning session that I found was dedicated to writing a 5 year work plan. I was invited to this meeting the day before (really about 12 hours before it started). When I arrived I found out that I was in charge of the meeting. A few hours of being extremely annoyed with this I hit my stride and we were actually doing good work. We suspended the meeting, assigned some responsibilities for that night, and then set a time to meet in the morning.
It rained the next morning and I had no electricity that night, but I still finished my assignment and emailed it in to the office with instructions on how they should proceed without me while the rain slows down a bit. (I have to walk 2 miles to get to the road) I returned to the meeting to find two of the most useless members of our organization had not only joined the meeting, but hijacked it, and were re-doing everything I spent the last 2 weeks doing. While I found this annoying, I also found it tragically entertaining. It's kind of like reading Hamlet; I am content just to watch the impending disaster.
So I sat through the next two days of the meeting counting the minutes until I get to escape to see some friends over the weekend and eat some Indian food.
Uganglish Annoyance of the Week:
Yes, thank you for that... I agree with XXXXX ... and think that we need to ...
This is how a typical Ugandan business meeting is done, except instead of one person doing this, every person in the room does it. We Had a 3 day meeting to create the strategic plan for our organization, and spent literally more time talking about our ideas on strategic planning in general than we did talking about our organization that we were supposed to be doing strategic planning for.
What I Accomplished:
Built 2 Tippy Taps at the World Malaria Day event in Nkokonjeru, administered 1 day of a meeting intending to build a strategic plan for our organization after I thought I was just attending the meeting. Was visited by my Peace Corps Program manager who apparently thinks I am a rock star. Yay for low expectations.
What Is On The Agenda:
Do laundry, spend time with my friends, and get on a plane for America!!! Also want to setup a demonstration so that my organization can add ISSB bricks to our Building & Concrete Program curriculum. This might have to wait until after I return.
Luganda Exercise of the Week:
None (didn't have it in me this week)
Observation of The Week:
The useless accountant in our office has 3 wives... thats all...
Sanity Meter:
Hitting a low point. One day this week I looked for apartments on craigslist Greenville, looked up business articles about my old company, and went on Monster.com and did a quick search for job opportunities.
Too much strategery planning, and it doesn't help that nobody here gets my strategery joke.
Book(s) I'm Reading:
Continuing Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead' this week. I am not keeping up with my 50 pages a day. Not even close. Too distracted by work during the week and spending too much time with people whose company I enjoy on the weekends.
"You get all the new Glee!!!"
-Nick Duncan (in a jealous spat towards Jenny)
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