Christmas Spirit?

My kitchen with fixed water filter,
green bathing bucket and gecko cupboard.

Ooookay, I'm afraid I had to laugh at this. 

I took a load of sweets and biscuits into the office today, and some for the Rastas. The idea was that they were for anyone who dropped by, and would last today and tomorrow, which is my last day of work for a week! :) 

They lasted all of about an hour, with one colleague in the office. Then he put the remainder in a locked draw and told me not to tell anyone else they were there, and that he'd eat them when he got back from a meeting!

I couldn't believe it. I explained they were there to share with people - it's what you do at Christmas. He laughed but didn't relent!

I was agog lol Totally stunned.

Christmas really doesn't happen here. Many people work Christmas day just like any other. Woefully lacking in any decorations or cheer. Karen said it's because it's so commercialised in Britain that, although they're very Christian here, a lot of what we do back home has nothing to do with the church, it's capitalism. Which, for obvious reasons, isn't big here - namely, nobody has any money. 

I think, undoubtedly, it is partly to do with that, but I think it's also a seasonal thing. Yule and the mid-winter celebration has always gone on to provide some cheer in the midst of the freezing winter and dark nights. There are other festivals of light held in the darkest times, like Diwali. But here there are no real light/dark seasons. The sun comes up at 6am and sets at 6pm, every day of the year. There are two wet and two dry seasons, neither of which are particularly cold. Also, things grow here all year round, so no agricultural seasons really.

Anyhoo. Tuesday was a great day. Went to VSO to pick up some files on my flash disk and bumped into Karen from Gitarama, trying to send an e-mail. There was a major power cut, so I invited her back to mine to pass the time on my internet connection. We had a really good natter, and she got her e-mails sent, then we went for a working lunch and she explained all about this project she and Antonia have secured funding for from the International Deaf Children's Society, which is brilliant. My organisation will be involved later next year. It's a pre-school communication project to get parents of very young Deaf children to communicate with them.

That was really nice and gave me some news to take back to the office, plus I stuffed my face on melange. Not strategically a good move as I then went for pizza at SoleLuna with Philip that evening. I hadn't eaten so much in weeks! Hugely decadent. Love that restaurant, it's utterly beautiful.

Wednesday was the longest day of my life. Seriously dragged. We're supposed to be filling out a VSO quarterly report form for our project, but let's just say it's never that simple. Lots to be ironed out in the New Year. I was getting frustrated because I desperately wanted to achieve this (to me) simple step forward, but it just wasn't going to happen. Then my colleague disappeared for a meeting and I just sat there twiddling my thumbs for five hours, waiting for a meeting with the Chair in the afternoon. It was a useful meeting, I learned a lot more about how the organisation perceives its situation. It's given me a lot to do in the New Year regarding meetings and workshops to get this project moving forward in the right direction.

I was dead stressed and tired by the end of the day. Today has been about as stressful, with the same issues really, regarding reporting and procedure. I took a huge step back from it all and watched my colleague eat all the biscuits instead ;) Then he left for a meeting and I stayed around for a couple of hours and wrote a story, for lack of anything else to get on with.

I have thankfully managed to have a good chat with Augustin about hours. I've explained that I'm often in the office with very little to actually do and few resources to work with. I put forward the idea in the New Year of having two 'resource days' a week where I can travel out to other organisations, use the VSO resource library, and get on with suff on the internet at home. I have issues with taking my laptop in regularly. As happened to another volunteer, it may get broken or stolen. People also want to use it for the internet, which means it's highly likely to get a virus and people can look into my personal files. Anyway, he said 'yes' happily, so that'll be brilliant. I desperately need a wall planner so that we can start telling each other where we're going to be. Although, Karen started using one and had to explain to her colleagues how to read it! They'd never used a wall calendar before. Everything is stored in their heads as it's an incredibly oral tradition still, people don't read or write much.

I had a similar experience where I filled out a strategic plan as part of a grant application. Along the top were the months: Jan-Dec, then a grid where you coloured in the months that you were going to do each task. I did this in Excel, shading in the months in grey that things would be achieved. I showed it to my colleague and he looked at it and said "That's really good, but I think we need to tell them when we're going to do this." There was a pause. Once I showed him how to read it, he understood instantly, but to begin with he really couldn't see it because it's not something people tend to do here.

It makes you realise how much of what we think is 'obvious' is hugely cultural.

I'm hoping to organise some basic IT training in Excel and Word Processing for some of our volunteers and staff, as part of Capacity Building. I'm discussing the teaching with an IT guy who works for the Rastas next door. I'll ask Alexis tonight if we could hire his computer suite.

Anyway. I got home today really early because there was nothing for me to do again. It is hotting up here now. Combined with the sweets and no proper food, I just passed out when I got in. Fell asleep for an hour and woke to a wonderful, wonderful sound.

The cistern filling up.

It meant I had water! After 24 hours you have no idea what a wonderful thing it is to flush a toilet. I washed my hair in less than two inches of amazi this morning. Plus my internet connection was arsing about and that's just come back online about an hour ago. Been a weird couple of days - everything has been Mercury retrograde.

I am gagging for it to be Friday. Tomorrow night I'm off carol singing at the Ambassador’s house. All the vols have been invited. I'll be very disappointed if the floors aren't paved with Ferrero Rocher :op 

After that, I am going to sleep for England. I feel absolutely, totally whacked. Wondered if I was coming down with something, but think it's honestly just exhaustion. My guard woke me up at ten-to seven this morning to tell me there was a water cut. Errr, thank you Fabian *sigh* He meant well. He was asking whether I wanted him to go get any, but I explained I kept a bucket in case. I may have been a bit curt, I'm not good first thing in the morning. I shall try and make it up.

The kid I gave a peanut butter sandwich to the other day came knocking again. I'm afraid I refused this time. I didn't want to get into the habit of dishing out food because then I'd be obliged to do it. Very sweet kid, and I did feel bad. I don't mind doing something one-off, I just don't want to make it a routine. My home is my sanctuary :o/

Anyway, that's a long enough ramble. I have electricity, water, an internet connection, and I'm going for brochettes with Alexis later, so things are good here. Holiday starts tomorrow! :)