He says... 'In Omnia Promptus'

A few people have asked me for more details about my job. What does a Country Director actually do?

Good question. 

I thought that a good way to answer might be to walk you through a day in the life of a Country Director. Yesterday, for example, was a particularly interesting one.

My day normally begins around 6:30am. I stumble out of bed and boil enough water to make a coffee and a bowl of Weetbix. We may be far from home, but every good Country Director needs at least three Weetbix to start the day. They are the British variety (Weetabix) so they are ridiculously wrapped in this flimsy white paper. The end result being me spilling  crumbs everywhere. I know I digress, but anyone who eats Weetabix on a daily basis will share my frustration. They ought to make a visit to Sanitarium to improve their packaging.

Enough about Weetabix.

'She' is normally still sound asleep so I have a bit of time to myself to collect my thoughts and get ready for the day. By 7:30am-7:45am I am normally ready for work. The wonderful thing about living two stories above the office it that it takes me less than thirty seconds to get to work.

I normally arrive at the office at much the same time as the cleaning lady. She doesn't speak much English and I don't speak much Siberian either, so we always have fairly short conversations. She doesn't like it when I open all the windows, 'cause it lets all the dust in and I don't particularly like it when she puts the fan on a full speed, so already we have a bit of a fractious relationship. She generally cleans at the same time as I am trying to check my emails, which means all my stuff gets moved about, so I can't then find it when I actually need it... However the best thing is that around 9am she brings me a cup of hot tea, with lots of sugar, so all is forgiven.

Yesterday, at 9:30am I had a meeting with the Europeans to discuss an upcoming call for proposals. Most meetings are much the same. Beforehand you swap small talk, and being a newby I get to hand out business cards to the same people you meet at nearly every meeting. We are a fairly tight bunch here, as we are all operating under a fairly restrictive environment. The funding opportunity looks promising and I think we are well placed to submit a concept note in early March. We are not flush with funds at the moment, so the call for proposals has come at a good time for us.
 

After the meeting, I decided I couldn't be bothered waiting for the driver to come and collect me, so I jumped into a local taxi. My Siberian is very limited but I know the three key words for left, right and straight ahead. I am also able to pronounce the names of the two key roads/streets near our house... It's always an adventure. I quickly realised that the taxi didn't have very good brakes, so thought I should put my seat belt on. Oops, no belt. Right, let me hold onto the door handle... Ummm, I think the door might come off if I do that. How 'bout holding onto the dashboard? No joy there either as it too started to come apart. So it was quite an interesting ride home. The driver was very friendly and knew all about Australia and Kangaroos. Thankfully I got back to the office in one piece.

By midday I am always hungry. On Sundays and Thursdays I have initiated a staff lunch (they call it breakfast). I figure a team that eats together, stays together. It's a small way of appreciating the staff. It's also a nice way to get to know them a little better in a more relaxed atmosphere. On the other days, I duck upstairs and have lunch with 'she'. It's nice to have a break and catch up on her morning.... Although of late it's more about her complaining about not having a job and being stuck at home, which is a fair complaint. We are both looking forward to her starting some meaningful employment soon. 

 

By early afternoon my brain is normally fried. I tend to look at emails and spend time meeting with staff, things that I enjoy and find less mentally taxing. I reviewed and suggested some changes to a proposal that we are submitting to OFDA in Washington. It has been an interesting process as we are at odds with the donor on some of the key design issues. We are quite determined to 'push  back' because we believe that we know what is required on the ground and the local OFDA post here (who approved the initial design) are in agreement. Interestingly, the staff at our HQ, want us to go with what the good folk in Washington have requested. They don't want to upset the donor. There is always lots of backward and forward when negotiating on new proposals.. I hope that at least Washington might engage us on the issues rather than simply saying no. I'll be interested to see what happens....

The staff normally leave the office around 4:30pm. We have begun to assist with providing transport to and from the office to our staff in the City. This is due to the massive price increases that took place during October and November of 2013. Fuel went up by 80% and so public transport services have somewhat diminished and have become increasingly unaffordable for the local staff. Looking at the payroll, I have to admit I have been very shocked at the little amount that local staff earn. We have given them a 20% increase to start the year but when the cost of living is increasing at between 40-60%, I still wonder how they manage to survive. If our funding situation improves I hope we will be able to review staff salaries again later in the year.

I decided to close my laptop at 5:00pm and spend some time with 'she' on our front verandah. I had just sat down and taken a sip of soda water with a slice of lemon, when my phone rang... It was my Senior Program Manager who is based in the main conflict area of Siberia. Staff at one of the field locations had reported heavy fighting between government forces and the local rebels. We had eight staff stuck in the office who were unable to move from their location. 

Fighting lasted for between 1.5-2hrs, during which time I was trying to phone either WFP, UNDSS and the local UN peace keeping force to see whether it was possible to relocate the staff to either of their compounds. In the process, I discovered that the majority of the emergency phone numbers in the evacuation plan were either wrong or outdated. Staff turnover is very high here with key staff (UN) often only staying in country for three to six months at a time. Thankfully, I managed to get hold of the key people and was able to keep in touch with the situation on the ground. The fighting was too heavy to consider an evacuation so the staff were forced to stay in the office and wait things out. Fighting ended around 7:30pm and the rebels then took control of the town before looting fuel supplies and retreating back into the mountains. By 9pm the streets became quiet and all of the local staff were able to return to their homes.. The one 'relocatable' staff member was able to go to the WFP compound and will stay there till we decide it is safe to re-open the office.

Having decided that there was nothing more needing to be done, I went back upstairs to find "she" doing a puzzle. We (more 'she' than 'he') have been doing a puzzle based on the City where her family live. I found about two pieces and then decided I was ready for bed...

Just as I was about to go to bed, the electricity failed, well we went from three phases to one phase. I am not an expert on things electrical but I have seen this several times in Zim, It's like having a third of your normal power voltage. Things don't go completely dark, instead they go a romantic shade of sepia. I thought it was time to try the generator. It's a 15KVA generator (Zim folk will remember the infamous15 KVA generator I had in BYO) that powers our whole office. However the downside is that it makes a huge racket. Most of our neighbors don't have generators so I decided it was prudent to leave it off. The downside being that both 'he' and 'she' lay on our bed getting hotter and grumpier as the mosquitoes circled around us. 

By 11:30pm I'd had enough and got the guard to fire up the generator. With the fans and A/C working again we were able to finally drift off into a deep sleep.......

To conclude, I would use the Latin phrase of 'Omnia Promptus' to best describe my role. My sister, the Latin teacher, will tell you it means 'ready for anything' and it also happens to be the motto on our family crest. Even after two weeks in this role I am learning to be ready for anything.

Postscript:

My initial writing of this post has again been interrupted by another dreaded phone call. A key staff member has been given 24 hours to leave the country by security. So once again I spent yesterday (Thursday) on the phone and in meetings trying to seek a resolution. I am not hopeful of the outcome but I hope at least we can buy some time to allow him to have an honourable exit.

It frustrates me that we spend so much time in damage control rather than  focusing on the true nature of our work. I have been here almost two weeks and I am yet to actually see the work we do. As my colleague said yesterday, he too was cynical about our presence here until he saw first hand the work in the field. I hope that some of my cynicism will be washed away when I finally get to travel.