Untitled
on George Hamilton (Jamaica), 25/Jun/2010 12:01, 34 days ago
Since we’ve now been here for exactly 3 months, I asked George for a first quarter report. Not only does he have to do reports for CUSO-VSO and DRF, now he's been asked to do one for me. After all, we are here for a reason – it’s not all exploring and sight-seeing – lots of good work is being done as well. Here’s what he wrote:We have a small crowd here at the Dispute Resolution Foundation (DRF) volunteer section today - Jacquie, Mark, Alastair and myself. The rain is still going strong but did not flood the parking lot this morning probably because somebody with a machete went by yesterday and chopped down a lot of the undergrowth next door in the old prison yard. The water can now flow directly down the hill without being caught at the bottom of the car park fencing.Nobody ever goes round with Brasso and shines up the top of the barbed wire in the prison yard, but otherwise it's now spic and span. I must confess that I will feel insecure going back to Canada and seeing houses without eight foot high walls surrounding them which are topped with accordion razor wire - reverse culture shock.I had a few drops of rain on my desk this morning but nothing serious. I do have my garbage can on my desk behind the computer as a safety precaution. None of the electrical outlet cables or computer leads are in the water today. I'm glad Jamaica uses the non-lethal North American electrical current as opposed to the supertest British electrical system.Lunch break has finished now (I had my usual plus a spice bun with the incredible magic cheese that you can only get in Jamaica that does not need refrigeration). Our lunch discussion included a quick review of the Underground Slave Railway, management styles of program managers, the role of volunteers where they may be isolated or not, speak the same language as the people they help or not, the G8 and G20 conferences, and thanks to Alastair a sentence in Spanish. We didn't even talk about the World Cup.DRF work is very challenging in the sense that it is unpredictable and never repetitive. Right now I am putting my law skills together to review the legality of what we do within the context of the Supreme Court rules of procedure - this all flowed from a loosely structured meeting yesterday that was agenda-challenged and started with a free-form don't interrupt me while I'm interrupting you style of debate. You know me, I don't talk all that much, so I was not one of the more guilty parties. To be fair to the meeting, it settled down a little bit and I was able to contribute my 7 or 8 key sentences of wisdom near the end without being shouted down. Eventually some progress was made and it was great to see the Jamaican passion coming to the forefront during a discussion about accounting and office procedures.Every now and then Mark chuckles into his headphones so I assume that something funny has just come over the radio, Alastair is plugging away on the 5 year plan next door in our little volunteer cul-de-sac. Jacquie has returned to the youth section to bolster up support there. Another mystery at DRF is these incredibly well-dressed immaculately-uniformed high school children visiting the youth section who could well be the trouble-makers that their schools could not handle.George took the camera to wok today so there will be new photos later tonight. I just plunked in a few from my previous posting about the DRF to add some colour til he gets home from work.http://mwapoleni-bunty.blogspot.com/2010/04/dispute-resolution-foundation.html