This is Thomas and Victor at the radio station where I work. The window on the right is my office.
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People are incredibly difficult to work with here. Nobody can work as a team and they don't trust each other. Everyone suspects everyone else of being corrupt. They are incapable of holding a meeting without an out-of-control screaming match. Even the kids accuse their group president of being a corrupt criminal. And this is supposed to be a Christian radio station. We had a ridiculous outburst last week and I was stuck in the middle. It involved the money (of course) which I budgeted and gave to the kids' coordinator to pay the caterers for yesterday. It's certainly not worth going into much detail here because it should never have been an issue. Basically, a couple people were upset that we were spending too much money on food and they didn't know about it. I guess they thought the money would find a better home in their own pockets. Anyway, after plenty of accusations, threats, and near-fistfights right in front of the kids, the whole thing sort of blew over. Days like that one make me think a full year of this is an awfully long time. It was frustrating and unnecessary. Nothing is easy in this country.
And now for some things completely different.
I marched through Freetown for World AIDS Day on December 1 and recorded the President's speech for later broadcast on Radio Maria news. The highlights? A bat pooped on me while walking under the giant cotton tree downtown -- a huge, nasty African bat, not some wimpy Congress Avenue bat. And our taxi ran out of gas in the pouring rain, so the driver left my friend Davina and I in the car, took our umbrella and went to fetch gas while we blocked traffic in a driver-less taxi. Good times.
I went to a birthday party at the British High Commission in Freetown. A strange scene, as it was full of expatriates hanging by the pool and dancing around big white Roman columns. Not more than five black faces in the crowd. An interesting experience to say the least.
Sierra Leone's 'winter' has begun. I actually have to cover up at night! Very exciting. The Harmattan winds are coming in from the Sahara. All the locals whine that it's so cold and they wear winter hats and huge coats. I'm sure it hasn't reached below 70 degrees yet. And you thought Texans were bad about cold weather.
Thank you and goodnight.
4 comments:
So wonderful to be able to keep up with you via this blog! Thank you for doing this and letting us in on what is going on. It makes it easier to pray specifically for you and the country!
Take care!
I can't imagine how frustrating it is to deal with people who, for obvious reasons, have trust issues like theirs. I can't imagine coming out of a terrible civil war and not having trust issues. I didn't think of that aspect of it. Something as simple as a business meeting could get so out of hand over nothing. So interesting...
Hilarious about the bat poop. I can't picture what an African bat even looks like, nor do I want to. Sounds big and scary...probably could produce alot of poop. :)
Only you would get pooped on by an African bat! LOL!
SHICACA!
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