On damage, work and random thoughts

Hi there!

Wow. 2 Months without an update. It almost feels like I haven't done anything in the meantime. Almost, so to speak. Well, I never got bored before, and that still sure is the case since I arrived in Africa.

More on work later on. First, one of the things I do love, is exploring the countryside. A couple of months ago, I really got bored with the Chinese imported bike ... and decided to seek for an alternative. Which I've found, more specifically, named Yamaha XT600e. And all of a sudden, I'm the coolest guy around - ya, finally !!! In the last month, I've done bout 3000 kms, mostly ... getting lost somewhere - and desperately trying to find my way back to Ouaga. Joy oh joy! Damage so far: one broken suspension (ok, entirely my fault, as it's not a good idea to go over potholes at more than 100km/h), a couple of flat tires and some minor leg injuries (also, again, my fault - some hills are just too steep). Overall though, a great success. In order to avoid constant warnings and harassment by other volunteers, I even got myself a helmet, almost white as preferred by VSO insurance. Well, it got a tiny white 'yamaha'-sticker on it.

The bike, patiently waiting for a couple more miles.

Now, work. Last months, that has been keeping me busy like a monkey pulling a lorry. There were 3 projects were pulled heavily:

• setting up a monitoring and evaluation system for people working at the mairie. In general, everything related to human resources management is completely absent in this country, so I was more than astonished when I got the request from someone who really wanted to set up a system, but lacked any experience or guidelines to do that properly. Funny story: after working a month on creating processes, forms, documentation, etc. I headed out to the municipality to give a presentation on the subject, and with me, 2 journalists from VSO Canada, and one Burkinabe journalist, working for the capital's radio station. Remembering Murphy's law, the car broke down halfway, so it took bout 3 hours before the major picked us up. In true African style, we spent that time discovering some houses of people living next to the road, no stress, and as if we had arranged for the meeting to start 3 hours later, everybody was present; a general remark: "you've made it, that's the important bit"; and we kicked ass. 
• working at civil services: birth certificates, marriage documents, ... well, every document a mairie has to provide to its citizens. In this case, I had been asked to reorganize the service. At the end of my first visit (in which a generally do nothing, except ask silly questions and try to understand how things work) we had our visit-meeting, in which I announced I was willing to continue, on the condition they would clear up the mess before I arrived again. Well, one month later I came back, and they were waiting for stage 2 from behind their cleaned desks. We started working on adapting the procedures, and setting up a basic IT-tool to help them create documents easier. Too bad I got quite ill, so we'll have to continue the work in 2012 to get everything up-n-running. 
• at a regional tax-office, setting up a management tool for improving the management of land lots. We started that one in august, and now there's a first released version in production. 

Working with the tax-office team at Hounde.

So, let's talk a bit further bout work in general. Over the years in Belgium and Holland I worked on interesting projects, defined to meet business demands in a precise set of tools. This resulted quite often in custom-build - or the improved COTS (common of the shelve) with adaptations. Looking back at these experiences, it still hits me how often we go for customization, and how complex the world is we create. 

Working in Africa, one has to take into account the limitations of the environment. Lack of finances (for equipment), lack of well trained staff, lack of ... well, almost anything. Which brings out one clear conclusion: adapt the KISS-principle where possible. The management tools that do exist here, were created about 10 years ago, and - without any exception - are completely useless. They look like dinosaurs, as well as the people who maintain them.

So the approach I've adapted is to go for essential functionality and simplicity. Rather deliver something which does only a limited thing, but which does that well. Principles ... sometimes they do work, certainly when I explain to the people using the tools. 

On the procedural part of things, one has to accept the number of stamps and signatures before things actually get carried out. Well bugger, it's just that way. Am thinking though of making my own stamp to be seen more important. 

To end this post, another set of random events and thoughts:

• Denise is having more success than her employer used to have at school, as she started second year, and every test results in a 10/10
• 3 more working weeks to go this year! Yay! After that, there's 3 weeks holiday.
• it doesn't work to upload an audio file on this blog. Again bugger, as it was a radio-interview with the major on the HR-tooling we set up. 
• In regard to that radio broadcast, Murphy struck again, so when I got interviewed, the audio-recording quality was so bad and therefore not suited for radio. My chance for fame ... again ... down the drain.
• I adopted a dog! Well, at a friday a pup showed up on the premised of the association, thirsty, kicked out somewhere, so I decided to take him to a vet, then home, and gave him the name of the major of Ouaga - Simon. Well, good end after all, as Denise volunteered to continue the adoption process, and he's now well been taken care of by her and her family. Unfortunately, they didn't want to call him Simon, so he got transformed to Bobby.
• On the animal-part: for the second time since I got here, there are chickens running round now. A total of 3 hens and a cock. I decided to call the cock Simon. It's not an obsession though, I just prefer one Simon who actually listens well to me. This time though, they got vaccinated against some strange african diseases which makes them fall down, dead. The price for vaccination is 50 F CFA per chicken (about 0.76 euro). 
• Sleep: I've been quite exhausting myself over the last months. So since temperatures are dropping as low as 22 degrees, I've decided to get myself back on track, and focus on resting enough. 
• Sometimes enough is just enough - bye !