Seriously Hacked Off

Blah. Having stressy day.

Text from Chair saying '...meeting on monday before departure fr rsl ok' - I hate this culture of calling last-minute meetings without a time. It's anyone’s guess as to when. Texted Léon to try and find out, only to be told we're going on Tuesday instead. I turn up on Monday morning to find the pre-departure meeting isn't until about 4pm when the Chair finishes work.

So, my colleague in Youth Development comes in asking me to print off a load of letters for him. This is for funding Deaf kids to go to Indonesia for the World Federation Deaf Camp. I've written the letter template and the budget for him. Then I e-mailed it to him in the hopes that he'll be able to just change the address at the top of the letter and get on with applying to donors - but no. It's very skilled work, apparently.

There's a wonderful saying here: 'But you're a volunteer, you're here to help us.' Yes, yes I am. I am here to help you to develop skills of your own, not to do it all for you. All I keep thinking is: what happens when I go home? How on earth are you going to survive? You've managed it so far, so you must be capable...?'

The major reason I was annoyed is because our computer is absolutely riddled with bugs. The concept of virus protection is pretty much unheard of. My flash disk, like most volunteers', is absolutely buggered. All of my files get corrupted. Even my regularly updated virus protection at home doesn't seem to catch them all. So, I'm reluctant to transfer anything between home and work. I have to completely format the pen drive every time.

I've brought this to the attention of management, but nothing's been done. Let's hope it doesn't get to the stage where it wipes all of our research.

Anyway. I come home to put this file onto my colleague's flash drive, and scan it for viruses whilst I'm at it - caught nine! Then he took it back to the office and I wrote a funding application for the American Embassy's Democracy & Human Rights fund. Took it with me at 4pm.

The meeting started around 5pm. I assumed it would be a pre-departure research discussion to co-ordinate efforts, tell everyone when they would be leaving and where they would be going. I'd causally been told that I wasn't going to Butare after all, but to Gisenyi in the North West, with a different group.

The meeting wasn't anything of the sort. It turned into a discussion about getting Sign Language recognised by the government, and how we should all be applying for more funding from anywhere we can. I sat through until about twenty-to six, then excused myself.

Again, the argument for 'work any hours we choose' is that I'm 'a volunteer, I'm here to help.' It's making me so mad when people continuously use this phrase to justify giving me absolutely any task at any hour. I hadn't eaten again. My cut-off is getting home in the dark after I've worked a full day.

The last thing I saw signed before I left the meeting was 'meet 8:00am tomorrow morning to write a letter to lobby the government.'

On the way out, I ran into D and expressed my overwhelming need for beer, now! lol He was locking up the studio in an hour, so I said I'd go home, get changed, then meet him back at the studio and we'd go for drinks. He works stupid hours. 12 hour days, around six days a week! Makes my stresses seem trivial. He burned me a CD of some of the studio stuff and I put it on when I got home, it's pretty cool.

I came home and got cleaned up. At about half-seven I headed back to the office. My colleagues had apparently just left, so I could potentially have worked a ten hour day. All it would take would be a text telling me 'meeting, this time' and I would fit my hours around that. I don't mind what time the meetings are, but I hate turning up in the morning, doing absolutely nothing all day (due to the computer/communications/resources issue) and then sitting discussing work issues into the evening on an empty stomach. It's normal working practice in Rwanda, but I just can't do it.

So, yeah. Met D and Steve (Ezra's brother) outside the studio. We got a bisi and then walked over to his. They live in this amazing building. It's huge and Ezra's project, Narrow Road Ministries, runs a tailoring training centre there - rows of sewing machines. It's a useful skill here. They take on widows and orphans and support their school fees, training them in vocational skills and so forth. He also runs a halfway house for young men. Really amazing bloke. The studio and the media company are his businesses, and he runs another 'free-time' project giving young people free recording time.

Anyway, D and Steve live at this centre with another guy and a woman (two of the people from the project). It's a great place.

D and I went up the road to his local, a quiet little bar where Steve joined us later. It was a really nice, chilled-out night, and I felt distinctly less stressed by the time I took a moto back. Got in around 11:30, bit later than I was hoping for. Did some panic packing and got everything ready for the cats, then fell into bed. Set my alarm for six to get to the office by eight. Also, because D had to get up at six so I told him I'd do it in sympathy as I'd forced him to drink on a school night! ;)

It was a little painful, but I made good time. Everything packed, moto into the office. Arrived dot on eight.

9:00 - still nobody there. I sat in the studio watching Rwanda's one TV station and reading my book. There's a very cool Rasta artist in town, recording. We were chilling out and watching the world go by, eating chapatis.

About 10:00 Léon arrived. I walk in to be told, actually, we're going Tuesday and the morning meeting was cancelled as two of the people couldn't make it.

I was spitting! All it would have taken was one text message! Apparently the Chair is the only person who can take money out of the bank, and he was too busy yesterday. He's called another meeting for 4:00pm today.

It's times like this I worry about our office being on the first floor - I'm tempted to throw myself off.

I told D I was going home to cry ;)

Wharra way to run an organisation *sigh* It's absolutely no different to anyone else in the country, it would seem. All of the above complaints are regularly heard from frustrated volunteers.

So, don't know what time we're off tomorrow, or when I'll be back, or whether this will get covered at the meeting that might be happening around 4:00-4:30 this evening. Who knows? Anyone's guess.

Still, couple of on-the-sides:

Firstly, if anyone would like to donate to RNAD or to Ezra's Foundation, let me know. If you're in the UK you can transfer it to my Dad and he'll Western Union it out as a bulk.

Finally, if anyone is looking for a graphic designer for anything - T-shirts, illustrations, merchandise, company logos - anything, please, please consider D! He's a qualified graphic designer who moved down here from Uganda in search of work, and fell victim to Rwanda’s huge unemployment problems. If anyone could help build him a website, that would be immensely cool too - I'd be willing to support that myself. Just e-mail me.

Really appreciated guys.