27 August 2006

Stepping on the brakes

After yesterday's post I had an extremely unpleasant night, feeling ice cold and very hot, fever, aching joints, headache, nausea, diarrhoea, and then, miraculaously, this morning the worst seemed behind me. The Coartem had worked. I had some real sleep during the day, and even ventured for a light meal in the evening with some colleagues, also to get out of the house. Take it easy tomorrow, and I should be fine by Monday, as far as I can tell. What a difference with the previous malaria episode.
Meanwhile my uncomfortable night gave me some time to think as well: after the delayed delivery of study materials, further delays because of work load at the office and now this bout of malaria I don't feel like making the extra effort of catching up in the weeks to come. Next weekend I'll leave for another four days with A. and the children, and, unlike in August, I don't want to cut back on the little time I have with the children and A.
One notion I've learned in my studies is useful: sunk cost (costs that are not retrievable whatever the decision; in this case: course fee, hours already invested) should not influence future decisions. And what's the hurry anyway: I study for pleasure. I'll prepare the 'Perspectives and Issues' exam on 29 September at leasure, and suspend this Public Financial Management course, to resume studies in February.
I decided all this after I realised that my 3rd malaria seems, again, to have been triggered by intense stress, in this case caused by the hubbub at the office last week combined with considerable work load, all on top of a certain fatigue that had set in after months of work and study. Malaria makes one aware of the importance of stepping on the brakes on time when needed. So that's what I'll do for now.

26 August 2006

Sick



Feeling miserable, aching joints, banging headache. I presume it's malaria, though a mild one (I take prophylactics every day now since my experience in November last year). Absolutely nothing interesting to tell you, I'm idly surfing the time away, too miserable to do anything useful. Thought I should let you know.

22 August 2006

Keileuk ruften

Another news clipping: CNN carries a story of people claiming that cows moo with a regional accent- cow dialects so to say. I had heard about birds, dolphins and I believe whales developing group languages, but cows actually imitating the human local dialect when mooing?

As for absorbing local language, M. and T. are also getting more streetwise at their Dutch school. Among the new words they have picked up
  • 'kut' (one of the rudest words in Dutch meaning female sex organ; T., 5 years old, used it at home. Milan in his innocence told me he thought it meant 'middle finger', so I suspect she made the 'up yours' gesture as well - isn't that girl getting some fine education...)
  • 'ruften' (slang for 'to fart') ;
  • and that most typical of Brabant words: 'keileuk' ('very nice', 'great fun') . M. used the latter two words spontaneously while talking about school with me on the phone today.
The IMF and the World Bank are in town again to check on the country's economic and financial state (improving from catastrophic to merely disastrous). In the meantime the President buys a military transport airplane and it is not quite clear where the funds have come from. We can understand however that he feels he has to do something to get his troops in the North to control the rebellion. We are also hearing about enormous signing bonuses for government members on diamond and gold exploration contracts. Now that the country has been stable for some time all sorts of investors are coming in, and many play by their own rule-book.

A most unpleasant incident on Monday: my Italian colleague, as always difficult to handle in his last week before leave, completely blew his top and chose me as his target. I had organised the drafting of our next programming document, something to which all sections have to contribute, but mine (Social-Economic section) most of all. He complained by e-mail, cc. to all, that it was late (it wasn't, but he leaves soon and finds it impossible to delegate anything to his section members), and that his section would not be able to contribute etc (his section would have to draw about 3-4 pages out of a total of appr. 70), and that he should have gotten it sooner. He got a rather sharp public rebuttal by the boss and a one-on-one by me, saying that I didn't need my professional conscience to be chaperoned by him (his remarks had been preceded by numerous similar incidents in the past). At that point he went nuts, wrote back that I didn't have any conscience at all nor respect for others etc. I was seething with anger because of the completely unjustified personal insult. After that he received a message from the boss that was as close to an official warning as one can get, telling him to behave and to go home to calm down (which he didn't). The boss, very angry himself, showed it to me later.
I did what any aspiring Buddhist should do in such a case and tried to put myself in his place. He's tired, becomes completely impossible when tired and under stress, and has a fairly lonely life as far as I can tell so no way to take some distance from work. I actually think he has a bit of a mental problem, the way he went completely out of control, screaming and apparently close to tears in his office, over something utterly trivial; I've always found him rather on the paranoid side, seeing complots, frauds and hidden agendas everywhere. These thoughts were enough to calm me down, even though the incident continues to be on my mind. It was not enough for me to get over the insult, for which I want an apology which I know I will never get. Unnerving, but on the other hand something beyond my control, so I'd better forget about it.

It is now official: I am not very happy with my CeFiMS course on Public Financial Management, which is way too hung-up on public (financial) management methods (or fads?) (accrual budgeting and accounting, budgeting by objectives etc.) which are fine for New Zealand and UK city councils but completely impossible to realise in countries at the every bottom of the development ladder. Getting the basics of public financial management right is hard enough as it is, and the basics are given short thrift in this course. I'll just try to put up with it, it's only one of the seven courses needed for my degree. Pity though, I had expected more of it. I'd better check the remaining courses for their applicability.
Having said this, I'd better hit the books again. All this blogging is mere procrastination, an art I thought I had forgotten about, but on which I am rediscovering my considerable talents.

19 August 2006

M-a-a-a-rital bliss

On BBC online: A man in Sudan was caught abusing his neighbour's goat in the middle of the night. The village elders decided that as he had used the goat as his wife, he should marry it and pay the neighbour a 50 dollar dowry. Who said there's no humor in sharia? Some way to eternal fame too.

Here's another attempt at eternal fame, also on BBC: Rule of law takes on a curious turns in the Philippines where a judge lost his case in the country's supreme court: he is not supposed to concult three mystic dwarfs in his office. 'In a letter to the court he said: "From obscurity, my name and the three mystic dwarves became immortal."'

14 August 2006

Hail the Libyans!

Somewhat less than two weeks in Lith haven’t been enough to make me return completely refreshed. Obviously it was great to be with A. and the children again, we had all missed each other a lot. R. is going very fast now, talking, mischievous. T. was difficult to handle, sweet but won’t listen and has to be put right quite harshly at times. M. doing OK. He may not be changing physically right now, but last night when we went out together for a walk I was amazed how he is maturing at the age of 7. M. and T. are looking forward to going to school on Monday, but start missing Africa too, or at least that is what they say.

We decided I would come back for one week in three weeks in September, and not wait until October. I am a bit worried about the amount of domestic work A. has to handle on her own, even though she is the last to complain and, as I said earlier, seems to be happy to be on her own. But leaving her on her own with four children as of January for M. and T. to finish the school year in Holland doesn’t seem to be such a good idea to me anymore. We’ll see.

The roots issue, or the question where we will settle down eventually, remains. We like our two-bedroom holiday cabin in Lith, but a real place for the next decades and possibly to retire with A. eventually (there, I said it: the R-word!) remains on our minds. Last Thursday A. and the children had gone to Amsterdam to the circus and I went with Peter, my friend in Oss, for a meal and a chat to Megen, a lovely old village not far from Lith. Got very excited when I saw a beautiful 3-bedroom house for sale, new but built in old style, located at pittoresque square, with a lovely view over the polders. A. talked sense into me in the evening. Moving house during a pregnancy is not her idea of a good time. Plus she wants a place big enough to host several generations in the future. Fair enough.

I did study in Holland (in libraries in Amsterdam and Oss), but not nearly as much as I should have. I remained tired throughout my time in Lith, and didn’t feel much like studying anyway. Slightly disappointed this time with the course, Public Finance Management, which is much less applicable in a development situation,or at least on my host country, than the previous one.
Tripoli on the way up to Europe wasn’t a big deal, as I only got to see the airport. The way back has been quite different though. The major disruptions which I expected due to the foiled UK plot did not affect the Libyan air company I was flying with (perhaps the fact that they used to be in the plane bombing business themselves made them less nervous? Sorry, couldn’t let this one go…) I enjoyed my 24-hours stop-over in Tripoli, even though struck by some kind of flu. I went for a walk Saturday night in the old part of town, and then to the beach front the next morning. Some impressions: big brother Khaddafi everywhere on walls and TV; almost no commercial advertisement; Hezbollah lader Nasrallah on television; clean streets; people more or less friendly, with none of the ‘hello my friend’ harassment of other Arab countries; well stocked shops, or at least where I went; lovely sweet tea with fresh mint; the sweet smell of hookahs (waterpipes) everywhere. The most impressive thing came at the end, Sunday afternoon. My hotel accepted only cash payment, and ATMs refused my credit cards. I needed another 50 euros or so to cover hotel bill and taxi ride to the airport. At just 2,5 hours before departure, and with the airport still 35 kilometers away, I was in a very difficult situation. The taxi driver, Abdurrauf, then spontaneously offered me to advance me the missing money for the hotel bill, and take me to the airport, all without even being sure my credit cards would be accepted at the airport. Of course they didn’t, and I, deeply embarassed, offered him the choice between taking some newly bought clothes or other items from my luggage, or to double the amount I owed him which I would then send to him. Without knowing me, he chose the latter. It got even more incredible when a bank manager turned up, offered to pay the driver from his own pocket and I could then send the money to him through Western Union. Apart from immensely grateful, I felt quite ashamed as well: on Saturday I had viewed the taxi driver, who had approached me at the airport, with suspicion, and now he and the bank manager were bailing me out from an impossible situation.

Even though I came back with fairly low morale, it was nice to resume work at the office this Monday morning. In spite of the inevitable frictions, we do have a pleasant team at the office. No friendships for life as far as I am concerned, but lots of good laughs, and all with a willingness to work. This being said, the boss remains his old dominant self, and I can see my role will remain under pressure. I will inevitably have to put my foot down once again before long. But that seems to become part of the routine. As long as frictions continue to be handled in a relatively good humoured way by all, I guess it remains manageable.
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