Feeling better

Last night I had trouble sleeping over fears that the SDI people would find out that I knew about their devious plan and decided to kill me. This morning I woke up and felt better, ready to make a new pass at it. I went with Turay to the internet café and sent yesterday’s blog post. I got a response back from Steph that apparently this is how all the African NGOs act. That actually made me feel better – not so much like an idiot who didn’t do sufficient investigation.

Damn, right now it’s 10:15pm on a Thursday, and it sounds like they’re having a party in the room next door. There are music and tubas and steel drums and it sounds like a dance hall party. I guess that’s what happens when your windows are open. It’s like Jamaica here, I swear – the climate is fairly wet and there are lots of black people walking around, hanging out and selling things, and there’s a party every night. I think they’re doing African “Hot hot hot” right now ;-)

Anyway, I ran into that guy Martin on the street walking home and talked with him a bit. Then after I got back home was talking with Turay, and he started explaining how the people on the board, such as Martin, only stop by when there is food, and that him and the rest of the Executive Board don’t really do anything; they are only around when there is money to spend. Then he started complaining about how the board was supposed to run meetings and come up with projects, and that nothing has been done at all recently.

That leads me to a new conclusion about the organization: Turay has dreams about helping lots of people, but he’s more of a day-to-day run-the-office type of person. He was depending on the Board of Advisors (BOA) to figure out what to do, and then he would do it. You can tell he likes to help people – there are always students and ex-students at the office who he is helping. The problem is the people that built this board teach stuff like finance, and so built this big silly bureaucracy to organize this little NGO. I was reading the constitution, and it says there must be a minimum of 15 members of the Board of Advisors, and a minimum of 6 on the Executive Board. In reality, there are (I think) 7 BOA members and the only one that does anything is Turay, the Executive Director. There is a person listed in charge of specifically gender issues for fuck’s sake – and I wrote last time how little the org has really accomplished.

So, Turay and I are both in agreement: we need to amend the constitution, get rid of a bunch of people that don’t do anything, and get an international Board of Advisors, all of which are dedicated to the cause. I also talked with him about going through the material and figuring out where we are at, and then coming up with a future direction.

So, I feel much better than before. There is a direction (which I always like) and I’m in the driver’s seat (again, I like).

Oh, also I used my water purifier for the first time today, and drank 600 mL of purified water. Hopefully my stomach continues to like me; this morning it felt a little weird – kinda like when you haven’t eaten for awhile and are really hungry. But nothing too bad so far.