In Which The Power Of 3 Seems Too Confusing For Some
on Zoe Page (Sierra Leone), 13/Oct/2010 19:33, 34 days ago
Very Important People are in town to deliver training, so the‘in charges’ for each of the Chiefdoms are all sitting in the makeshift meeting room when I arrive. We start at 10.30am and for the next three and a half hours my bum goes numb on the hard benches as we discuss the micro planning for Child Health Week. It would be fine if it weren’t so, well,simple. If in doubt, the answer’s 3:How many people are going out in each team?3How many initiatives are there?3 (Vitamin A, a de-worming treatment and ITNs)How many ITNs can each household have?A max of 3How much longer than necessary does this take in hours?3The complications arise when trying to define households (they say‘people who eat from the same pot’ but then get into debates about families with more than one wife, and whether they all cook for each other’s kids). In the end it is refined to be each wife has her own household. The census reckons the average household has 6 people, and they get one net between two, so it’s a maximum 3 nets (even if the occasional household is larger). If it’s an odd number, we round up. Since this isn’t the same group who learnt rounding yesterday, we have to go through it again.How many nets would you hand out if there was 1 person in the household?12 people?Still 1.3 or 4 people?That would be 2.5 or more people?3 but no more.Sigh.At 2pm we break for lunch. Clifford has asked me if I eat Rice (and remember, in Salone if you have not eaten rice you have not eaten) so I’m confused when the food comes out. Lunch, today, isdelicious and nutritious(their words) Glucose Biscuits, and cans of Pepsi. Where’s Gaynor’s catering request sheet when you need it? I eat the biscuits. They’re not bad, but then after 3 ½ hours of that anything would be good.When we reconvene, they are given forms to fill in to help them with the numbers. The calculations are all there for them, so once they know how many children they have in each age range (Vitamin A dosage differs, apparently) and their overall population, they can work out how many tablets and nets and loudspeakers and banners they need... They are talked through the sheet but told to go away and fill it in, and bring it back by Saturday. I could have filled the whole thing in for Stockport while he was talking. Beore he got to the 3rd section (of 30) in fact. Suddenly I see why everything takes so long here. If this was the pace we’d worked at last year, I might just be coming to the realisation that an S2 issued on a Friday at 5pm might possibly sometimes cause problems...Clifford tells me I can leave as I don’t have a Chiefdom (although apparently my name is similar to a Mende word for head honcho tribe woman). I hope I’m not too obvious with the speed at which I leg it out of there but I want to either tear my hair out or take over the whole friggin’ presentation at this point. I instead walk swiftly to Choitrams and then home, finally remembering to buy my first fruit since I got here. The bananas are green and squidgy, but I know from experience they taste ok. They cost 14p a bunch. It hurts my head to think how much the same ones would cost back home.