In Which It's 3rd Time Semi-Lucky With The First Day At Work
on Zoe Page (Sierra Leone), 12/Oct/2010 06:50, 34 days ago
I try to make this, my 3rd attempt at a first day at work, a little different. I start the morning with porridge. That always used to work at Stepping Hill. Though there, of course, I wasn’t trying to make it in a pan on a temperamental stove. It is...not bad, all things considered, and I feel good as I set off to work.It goes downhill from there.I sit in my usual spot and pull out a book. It is 9am. There are lots of people behind me, and it looks like they’re kicking off the UFC (under 5’s clinic) with a round of nursery rhymes. It’s hard to know without being able to understand the words, but the melody and tone make me think they might be belting out a local version, along the lines ofIncy Wincy Spider gave you a nasty bite, because for Incy Wincy Spider there was no mossie net in sight.Or something like that. They finish and dissipate. I stay put and read on. When I get to the end of a chapter, I nosy round and find the highlight of my day: a dubious, small piece of machinery stuck to a wall of a nearby office. It’s about the size of a pat of butter, and has fabulous flashing lights that chase each other round in the edge and a plastic body. It looks like Orac.The matron finally appears at 10.30am just when I’m thinking of leaving. Dr S is also not here. I’ve not seen him at home, either, though he was due back from Freetown on Friday. She shows me into her office, and I think we’re going to have a conversation about why I’m here, but alas no, and she disappears. The office is not air conditioned and the sofa is hard. I was fine on the bench outside.She comes back and says the same as Theresa last week, that I must tell her what my job is. It becomes very clear, very quickly, that my posting here has been at the direction of the MOHS, not through an identified need in Kenema. This is not how VSO is supposed to work and I’m still struggling to see how it even can. How I can be expected to know what I could / should be doing if no one will start by telling me what the issues are (or, even, how the organisation is structured, where the loos are or any of those other things on my clearly redundant VSO-issue inductionchecklist). She decides to show me round, which is great. I see where they weigh and measure the babies, where they do the jabs, where the prenatal exams take place. The mothers are all brandishing yellow pamphlets, a sort of child health record with notes of immunisation deadlines and a height/weight graph. There are 3 categories:ok, monitorandquick, take action, this child’s well skinny. Being overweight, it goes without saying, is not an issue for children here.She shows me the M&E (monitoring and evaluation) room and tells them I like data entry so they can call on me for that. I have said no such thing, and while I’m always happy to help out, if I’m copy-typing for the next 12 months words will need to be said to the programme office about the appropriateness of bringing me out here to do that. Our final stop is the nursing office, where qualified staff see and treat babies who are unwell. The matron decides here is as good a place as any to start, and I am left, much to the bemusement of the staff.And so, I spend the rest of the day here. I hold a toddler whose baby brother is being checked, and then hold the baby brother when the mother swaps them over. I amuse / confuse a whole host of other kids who are looking at the white think in the room. I watch the simplistic but pretty effective way in which they record the illnesses they’re seeing. They track first and follow up attendances in 3 age groups and just mark off on a pre-printed grid whether it’s Malaria, a skin infection, worms... There don’t seem to be any case notes, but the nurses scribble comments down on pieces of paper.After a while, the admin type who is writing furiously gives me a stack of papers too, and for the rest of the morning I write:NameAgeAddressDateHt                              Wt                       SexOver and over again, to form registration forms the mothers then fill in before being seen.At 12.50pm it’s lunch time. Out comes the communal pot of rice, potato leaves and random meat. In go everyone’s spoons. Again, and again. It makes me nostalgic for the days when Teacher’s dubious salad cream/balsamic mix and melee of fish were the most interesting thing at lunch. I eat my crackers and sitback down. The sign outside says the clinic runs until 3pm, but practically no one comes after we’ve eaten (just as well, as lunch lasts an hour). 3pm comes and goes. They sit on in virtual silence. I surreptitiously dig out my book. It is hot, and I desperately need the loo, but no one has shownme where they are and I don’t really want to ask in case there aren’t any. At 3.45pm I make a move. There is literally no point in me being here, and no one seems at all bothered when I say I shall be leaving. Then again, they never quite worked out why I was there in the first place.On the way home, to cheer myself up, I buy some American Cadbury’s, and then take a picture of a goat, chained up outside the Muslim hospital. But I’m still feeling at a bit of a loose end, so I email Carole for her worldly advice which comes in next to no time, and goes someway towards perking me up. I will get up in the morning, cook some more oats and goback to work, whether or not they want, need or expect me. I will make such a nusicance of myself they will give me work to do just to shut me up. And, if all else fails, I shall spend my day tickling the toes of adorable little ones, and reflecting on the fact that with a few exceptions (this meansyou, Emilia) brown babies are so much cuter than white ones. I may even take some photos to try and convince Jo to let me DHL her one...