Hornswoggle

I learned a new word recently: hornswoggle, as in '"This is some high-risk behavior. They need to think about that," he said. "We're not trying to hornswoggle them on this." (CNN on Alabama church fires). It seems that the origin is in cattlebreeding: cows caught by a lasso trying to wriggle themselves free by shaking their head and horns. Interesting.

We've had two very full and busy weeks, socially speaking, varying from A.'s birthday the 13th of February in a restaurant with all her friends and their partners, to a dinner with two Ambassadors, a squash tournament for A. after which she had trouble walking for days, an 'grilled pig' evening, a farewell dinner for a colleague, and so on. All this socializing isn't doing my waistline any good, and I have given up all hope to look lean and trim on my 40th birthday. Time to do something about it though.

I had been feeling a bit uncomfortable with a few things at work, but one long talk with the boss last week cleared the air completely, which was a relief. It's clear though that I am more Teutonic in my habits than him: I like clarity, clear lines of communication and information, clear task descriptions, who does what etc. Hardly unreasonable demands, I should think.

A difficult moment occurred last Friday when my boss decided that we would have to exclude one of the experts whom I had been working with on the public finance project's terms of reference from participating in thjat same project. He had hoped to be working on that project in the future, and would have been a very good choice, but to avoid any conflict of interest our rules forbid that those who work on terms of reference of a project play any role in it later on. I think it is a perverse rule: experts on public finance willing to work for a long time in this kind of country are hard to come by, and you usually come across the same people time and again. He's also a very able expert, so he was quite indispensable for the ToR, which can make or break the success of a project. It was also personally difficult for me: as this is a small place, one changes roles all the time. Somebody you have to be tough with during the day may be sitting next to you at a dinner the same evening. The expert and his wife had actually become very good acquantances of ours, and I took some heat personally when I told him of the decision. He felt he had been trapped into this on purpose, which wasn't the case. Another lesson learned the hard way.

A week ago I had a meeting with the security company we hire. Mainly to be nice to our Head of Administration, who used to be in charge of security and who didn't seem to take well to his demotion in this respect, I had invited him to the meeting to 'profit from his experience'. He barged into the meeting 20 minutes late, drunk (when I say 'dysfunctional', I mean it) He kept smiling and shaking his head disapprovingly while I was explaining the new security procedures to the company, and then started interrupting the conversation, confusing the security people. When he also took issue with the instructions I had just given to the security people, I had had enough: I simply threw him out of the meeting, holding the door open for him. Time to put back some order in the house. It didn't feel great, kicking out an older colleague like that and humiliate him in front of the people he used to deal with (which is even more ironic when you realise that I had invited him to alleviate his sense of humiliation), but it was him or me. The message hit home with the security people as well: they were very meek afterwards, even though I hadn't even raised my voice during the incident. Speak softly but carry a big stick (Churchill). I can be tough if I have to.

Right now I am very excited about the adventure we'll embark on as of tomorrow afternoon. I'll drive up to a wildlife reserve in the North with my friend Jean, 2,5 days. The wives and children come by airplane. We'll stay there for 3,5 days. Then the women and children will fly back to the capital and Jean and I will descend in a 4-day drive back to the capital through territory where few Westerners, except hunting parties and aid workers, go. There is some risk involved, as there are Sudanese poachers and highway robbers in the area (an area as big as the Benelux though), but not an excessive risk we believe: we will be in contact with the French military for the latest information and will change plans if need be. There have been reports of people being made to pay, even rarer cases where they were robbed of their car (strangely enough, many bandits are said not to be particularly interested in cars as the fuel and maintenance is too expensive), and no cases of people killed, at least no Westerners. So while there is risk, it seems acceptable: if we were to avoid all risk we wouldn't ever see anything. We've also talked through the more difficult stretches of the trip with people who have been there. All in all a 2100 km trip over unpaved roads, rickety bridges etc, savannah, rainforest, dusty towns in the middle of nowhere,... We'll be travelling with almost 300 liters of fuel, lots of water, food, 2 spare wheels, machete, malaria medicine, and a satellite telephone. A big boy's dream. I'll tell you about it in two weeks or so.

Now breaks my wooden shoe!

Last week I was promoted, forcibly, to become our office's Security Officer. Quite a big responsibility, which I guess has mainly been given to me because doing a sloppier job than my predecessor, our friendly but alcoholic and utterly dysfunctional Head of Administration, seems a tough call.

I had a look at the things involved in the new task, and I'm afraid this new responsibility is going to be a major headache. It involves for instance dealing with our local security company... It is an ironic twist of history that this post was given to me: I am extremely absent minded, forget my keys, leave lights on, cupboards open, money lying about, and most gloriously of all leave my personal organiser (in a wallet with passport, credit cards etc. on the top of my car and drive off, with the organiser falling off the car somewhere on the highway (I managed to pull this one off twice in Luxembourg, plus left it once on the shelves in a giant DIY store: it took me 30 minutes to find it). In short, just the man you need to be in charge of your security!

On the other hand it's quite interesting, a wholly new domain, so a 'challenge' to use the usual cliché. And it may very well force me to change my ways. So there I was yesterday early morning, putting in place tighter security procedures and telling (even showing!) security guards how to check people for weapons etc. Hilarious, really. Fortunately there's competent back-up from HQ.

In the meantime my local reputation as a subtle diplomat is reaching dazzling heights ... Last week I was in a meeting with the boss and no less than three Ministers. They complained rather violently about the fact that our budgetary aid is not forthcoming quickly enough, as it is tied to all sorts of financial management performance indicators. Obviously they prefer blank cheques. The Vice-Minister of Finance said at some point that the fact the IMF had now agreed to a (rather modest) programme for the country, was proof that public finance management in the country was good enough to warrant our budgetary aid. That just did it for me. The lack of understanding, or unwillingness to admit it in public, even at the highest level, of how disastrous their situation is drives me up against the walls. So I sort of lost my patience at that point and snapped that if public finance management was really that good, we would not be working on a 6 million euro technical assistance effort to remedy just that. Ouch, that hurt! He was extremely unamused. I was right of course (with all due modesty...), but telling him so in front of two senior colleagues was probably not the most judicious thing I have done so far in my career.

On the other hand, I am what I am, and people here tell me that I am widely known as a straight-shooter. Some even appreciate it.... Anyway, it probably saves me lots of time and energy. This pertains to the work side though. Whatever my shortcomings (many), I do believe that I am more considerate with people's personal feelings, even though the Vice-Minister will not necessarily agree... I will meet him on Monday, see if we can kiss and make up.

To end on a sad note: the husband of Odile (one of our two nanny/maids) is dying. He had his milt removed a few months ago and has been going slowly downhill ever since (not surprising given the lamentable medical care available here). He went into coma yesterday. Odile was on the phone today choking with tears telling me that she couldn't come to work as her husband was getting worse. Heartbreaking, I don't even want to imagine what she's going through.

* "Now breaks my wooden shoe" = Nu breekt mijn klomp!: an utterly Dutch expression meaning 'that's the bloody limit!'.

Screwing up: some fine examples

My boss and other colleagues came back last Thursday from their regional seminar in Brazzaville. All frustrated with what passes for ‘policy making’ in Headquarters, but looks suspiciously like arrogance, ignoring advice from those in the field and imposing priorities and programs on partner countries we’re supposed to conduct a dialogue with and whose national priorities we are supposed to take into account (the answer to the latter is probably: “Oh, we do, but first we tell them what their priorities should be!”).

My boss returned quite depressed, as he and our aid program had taken a beating, yet again. I felt sorry for him, as he is undeniably very committed to his job. Nevertheless he is not completely free from blame: full of far-reaching new and often fairly wild ideas, he keeps coming up with them at the last moment, driving people in HQ mad (not to mention me and my colleagues here). He has a long field experience, he has a good intellect, he’s usually fun to work with (although I’ve come to see his limitations, which is only normal when you work together intensively), but his sense of internal diplomacy and ‘salesmanship’ is not great, and it’s harming us. A consensus seems to be arising among the heads of section that, whatever his human qualities, we’re not always happy with his go-it-alone approach, which often leaves us, his counselors, out of the decision making process.

On the other hand, he is what he is, and can be a quite inspiring boss at times – even if it’s wearing off a bit, given that his credibility in Brussels seems to be close to nil now. This would be a bad time to turn on each other, though. But when I see the amount of time we’ve spent on preparing ideas for this seminar, reprogramming etc, just to see it ignored or wiped off the table by HQ on very dubious arguments, or no arguments whatsoever, I feel strengthened in my newfound conviction to cut back on overtime.

My friend Hans B. was right some years ago when he told me, when we discussed the importance of family life, that “it won’t be your colleagues standing around your grave”. Simple, but how true.

This being said, I also have a firm intention to supervise projects managed in my section more closely than before. There are a lot of them, so it’s not easy, and to be honest I am not one of those natural born project managers either, to my regret. Especially mastering all the fine details (especially contracting and financial) takes quite an effort. To prove the point: my section screwed up last month when a contract with a local non-governmental organization (NGO) to accompany micro projects in the field hadn’t been signed on time, which has caused them to incur costs we may not be able to reimburse to them (we’ll try and see how we can work around that, bending the rules here and there). I am still trying to find out where things went wrong (I suspect a secretary put the contract in the in tray of a project manager who was absent for five weeks), but it doesn’t really matter: it’s my section, hence I’ll assume responsibility. The painful thing is that the project itself is managed impeccably well by that friend I spoke about some time ago, George D., the perfect project manager, who was a bit cool about it, and rightly so. A lesson learnt the hard way.

We had him, his wife and three other couples over for a dinner party last Friday. It’s nice to do dinner parties as we have staff to help us with it. On the other hand, I actually think we are no longer just employers: a part of our employing people is becoming plain charity. We have two nannies/housemaids (Amour and Odile), where one would suffice; however, Odile worked for a Dutch family who left last year, and were (rightly) worried about her future, so she came to work with us. Then there is old Alphonse, our taciturn but reliable cook and the ‘papa’ of the rest of our personnel. He won’t be able to work forever (he has a bad leg and a limp ever since his traffic accident a couple of years ago; we’re paying a physiotherapist for him to relieve the pain), so we offered him to bring one of his ten or so children as a ‘trainee’ so we could recommend him or her to other expatriates. He brought Ines, his 20-year old daughter (like Amour with a child she had at the age of fourteen, possibly thirteen).

With all these people around, I am not so sure we run a more efficient household: three ladies out there to help us and yet A. and I were still running about, opening winebottles, telling them what to serve to whom, etc. But it doesn’t really matter; we’re all getting along fine, the children are quite attached to them (and in fact so are A. and I), and we’re supporting them and their families.

I haven’t mentioned Désiré yet, who started out as our gardener, claiming he could also do pool maintenance. We paid for him to get a driver’s license so he could help us out with shopping etcetera. At the moment he’s failing us on two of his three supposed duties. It turns out that his competence on pool maintenance is patchy at best, often leaving us with a bowl of grey soup in our garden. And whereas he was doing alright as a driver at first, he soon became overconfident and started speeding when we were not with him. A friend told me so recently, and I put Désiré right rather harshly. Last week then he finally had the long feared accident, although nobody got hurt, thank God: he crashed into a parked car while driving in reverse. I was deeply annoyed, not least because of the damage (almost 500 euros), but also since it was such a stupid incident.(*) What annoyed me even more was that he subjected himself and us to harassment from the local police, who took his driver’s license, and made him pay a fine, so that A. and I felt obliged to intervene on his behalf. They charged A. 30 euros (a small fortune here) for doing their job, i.e. writing a report on the accident; they also tried, to no avail though, to make us pay about 25 euros for their déplacement to the crime scene, about 400 meters down the road…. I had, as often in these situations, trouble to remain calm, although I managed. Right now we’re trying to get our African insurance company (picture that!) to cough up the money for the repairs to the other car. In the meantime Désiré is only allowed to touch his spade, broom and lawn mower…

Yesterday morning T. fell suddenly ill with high fever and a bad headache: malaria. She is taking Malarone as a profylactic, which proves that the stuff does not make you immune for the illness. It does make a big difference though: at 'only' 39,9° her fever was not as high as the first time when she had malaria, and she recovered remarkably quickly after we started treating her with Coartem. Already this morning she was happy as a lark again, lively, no fever, great appetite. Ouf!

My sister turned thirty-nine last week (we differ only 10 months in age, which has always been a source of hilarity as to my parents productivity at the time). My friend Peter P. turned forty. Five more weeks to go for me. I’ll be happy to get it over and done with and to have again a decade ahead of me before the next milestone, 50, comes up. Completely irrational of course, but I don’t think I am the only one who’s not particularly keen on celebrating his fortieth anniversary.

(*) To be honest again though, two weeks earlier A. had done exactly the same in front of our house, crashing our car in reverse into a huge 4Wdrive I had brought from work (‘I hadn’t seen it’), leaving us with a bill of 350 euros for repairs...

At your service!

In order to have an idea of the number of hits I get on this blog and to have a broad idea of where readers come from, I have linked this blog to a tracking site, SiteMeter.com. Very convenient and quite interesting: a readership as far away as South America, Portugal (quite regularly), United States, Canada, Singapore, etc. and of course friends and family from the Netherlands and elsewhere. (Don't worry, the tool doesn't identify individual readers or their computers, just their service providers.)

I tell you this because Sitemeter sometimes also provides information on how people come across your site: a vexed soul somewhere in Michigan was directed to my 30 January posting 'Silly through a search on the keywords "military + husband + unfaithful". One wonders what the story is behind this search? A soldier looking for inspiration? A suspicious wife looking for clues? Anyway, glad to be of help, folks! ;)

Government overhaul

The long expected changes in the government have been made. I don't know what to think of them. They're not the big bang some feared: the Prime Minister remains. A Minister who seemed to do well, and a vocal critic of the Head of State in the past, has been removed from her post, which is not very good, and will be a 'special counsellor on reform' to the Prime Minister, which could be good if it doesn't mean she's simply promoted out of harm's way. Furthermore the Minister we would love to see fired will remain, which is very very bad news indeed. It will cause us some major headaches in the near future in terms of implementing our projects.

Continuity is a big problem in this country, largely because of the jobs-for-the-boys game I mentioned earlier. As Ministers and high officials get changed all the time, there's little experience and little corporate memory in key services where these are needed most.