After a pretty good start today with the money and everything, I ended up having a totally pants day. Sitting here feeling well sorry for myself and homesick.
I must have eaten something earlier that I shouldn’t have. It might have been the meal last night, I feel like I’ve swallowed glass. Sharp pain in my stomach, and sort of just above. Not major, just nagging and causing me to feel seriously tired.
Augustin called a meeting to discuss the IT project at 3:45. He can only do evenings because he works days. He turned up at about 4:30, which wasn’t his fault really, he had trouble with transport, but I sat getting progressively iller whilst one of my colleagues told me all about the project he wants me to find money for. I feel like it’s a bit BDA at the moment: "Oh, I’ve got this project," "oh, I’ve had this idea," "oh, we could do this"... and muggins here has become the Fund-finder General again, which is absolutely nothing to do with the job I came out here to do.
Usually I don’t mind too much, but then we keep calling these late afternoon meetings to discuss very little, nothing that couldn’t be said via e-mail. I think the Chair feels he has to come over to show his commitment, as courtesy or something, which is really nice - better than him not caring - but it means that I have to spend money on a moto to go into the office, to say very little, and sit around waiting for people to turn up.
I don’t mind so much most days, but today I had this pain, and then flushes, and felt tireder and tireder. By the time he actually arrived, I couldn’t get my head around signing. I’m absolutely worn out by all the languages.
The meeting I interpreted the other day was in French, then had to be translated into English, then I had to turn it into AKR and do the process in reverse when Francois or Augustin wanted to contribute. If the meeting had been held in any one of those languages, I reckon it would probably have taken around 45 minutes. As it was, it took over two hours to do that process. The remainder of the time, you just sit there gazing out of the window, waiting for someone to say something you understand.
It’s worse for the Deaf. I can at least listen to the French and pick little bits out, but they just sit there in silence doodling or looking ready to fall asleep. Tri-lingualism DOESN’T WORK! It barely works in Wales when you have two languages (three including BSL) and the Welsh and English is concurrent because you have headsets to listen on. Here, it certainly doesn’t work. Throw Kinyarwanda into the equation, and everyone’s stuffed. Consigned to an hour and a quarter of meaningless babble in at least two languages.
Of course, most of the information gets missed. Especially for the Deaf. If business is held in French, then English only gets the short summary. If English, the same for French. It just doesn’t work. No such thing as adequate interpretation here. Most of the interpreters we’ve had have packed-up halfway through the meetings from sheer mental exhaustion or lack of ability. Most people interpret for themselves if they know both French and English. It’s utterly painful.
Anyway, my brain totally melted today in the office. I couldn’t sign, I couldn’t understand sign – so I broke. I had to ask Léon to interpret into English for me as Augustin talks a lot to him in Kinya. I knew how it felt for him - half the meetings he can't understand because he doesn't sign. I just couldn’t cope, and it was making me more and more tired and tearful.
Thankfully, they let me go because I wasn’t well. Once outside, I had to try and get a moto back and every bastard was trying to overcharge me. Usually, if I say 200, they go to 300 and I accept straight away. But they just kept on with 500. I tried to call Martine. I was half tempted, rotten as I felt, to get a bisi over to hers and just curl up on her couch, but she wasn’t in.
Eventually, I got one home for 400. The experience just made me desperately homesick. All I wanted was to get on a fucking mode of public transport that said: ‘Ah, you want to go here? This is how much it will cost,’ and for it to just be the same price in either direction, no argument, no feeling ripped off.
I got in and just had a mope. Still feeling crap. I have some fennel tea someone left in the VSO office, so maybe that’ll calm my stomach. I’m hungry, but it just hurts a bit and I think eating will set it off again. I'll boil some rice later. If it’s still like this tomorrow, I’ll go to the Polyclinic. I’ve started taking my doxy again because it’s an antibiotic and can help with some tummy upsets. I’m supposed to be meeting a colleague again tomorrow to go back over the thing he wants to find funding for. Hopefully I've organised it for VSO though, as it’s closer to both of us and at least it has internet.
It’s really hard, I’m coming to equate the office with mind-numbing boredom. I keep getting asked "Are you coming in tomorrow?" and I keep nodding and smiling and thinking "Oh, God." People are piling on the work – they want funding for this, that, and everything – yet somehow fail to understand why sitting in an office with no telephone, no fax, no internet connection and, most of the time, no power, isn’t something I feel to be hugely beneficial. All I can do is take a good book. I get tons achieved from home with the internet. It's no bother contacting funders and getting information if you have it, but sometimes I need to go into the office, just to be seen to be in. I know a lot of volunteers get the same – either not enough work or too much. I have not enough to do in that office, but too much to do in terms of funding and things that I don’t really think I want to be taking on.
I’m just having a whinge because I feel absolutely shattered and sorry for myself. I miss home a bit when I’m ill. At least you can phone up your mates there, or go buy yourself some comfort food. They don’t even have baked beans here, and I can’t make toast. Here, everything can just be a bit of hard work sometimes. You don’t notice most days, but when you’re ill you really feel it.
Still, I took a couple more DVDs out today, so I might watch one of those to take my mind off things. Feeling right sorry for myself and miss home food a lot. This place sucks for food. I mean, the food is good, but it's always the same food. There are so many things you crave, that you just can't get.
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Hah. Went to upload this and the site was down. Never too sure if it’s down or the speed of the connection? You frequently have to refresh pages to get them to display. Another thing to add to the list of things I miss: broadband.
And hot water. I haven’t had a shower in almost three months.
Welcome to the developing world.
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