The following is a story a friend of mine just sent from an unnamed African country, where he is serving as the acting Country Director of a large international NGO:
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Once upon a time….
The first part of my mission is to officially close a 7 year 10 million dollar project, that includes officiating at the closing ceremonies, shaking hands and deciding the fate of all that equipment; 11 vehicles, 20 computers, 40 motorbikes, 2 offices, furniture and letting go about 100 staff people. Mmm. Ok.
So on Tuesday 25 September I loaded up the proverbial wagons and set out on an 8 hour odyssey towards the first of two towns which are the bases for the project. I am in the expat special Nissan prado with my accountant, my administrator and an armed military officer. Now, that is an unusual complement since usually we NGO types don't like guns in the vehicles , you know neutrality and all that but I am heading out with the severance packages for the entire staff which comes to about $70,000. Of course that's in the local currency which is about 4,40 pound boxes of cash. Ok so I have to sit in the back, let the military ride shotgun, its all good. I had been warned that sometimes there have been robberies on the road, no reason to get done over project money. I thought "this might be enough money to cause someone to do something stupid". Anyway I made the call. Our vehicle is followed by another with a logistics team (in a white landcrusier of course). They are gonna take a final inventory so I can decide the disposition of the stuff. So we are set.
The first destination, lets call it town A, everything goes smoothly, we spend a day paying people and the next day we have the formal ceremony with the partners ie local government, local ngos etc. We get a great turnout considering its Ramadan and everybody, I mean EVERYBODY is fasting, even the Peace Corps volunteers I run into and of course all my staff. That means no stop at Mikey D's on the way up! Yeah and its about 90 degrees, sunny with 98% humidity. I had my water, believe it. Anyway, two days gone and the mission is 50% complete. Next stop, town B.
Town B is cool, we pay everybody their severance but the next day, the day of the ceremony the staff was to return their motorbikes, about 20 of the 40 or so staff in each town were issued project motos because they are Agents de terrain (field agent/extensionist). The project was health and Ag. One of the agents decides, unilaterally, that he is not bring back his moto. He's gonna keep it. Also he sends word that it's a political statement as well. So I enter into a chess game with him. Do I start the ceremony before I have the bike or wait till he returns the bike as he is supposed to before the ceremony starts? My responsibility as Chief of Mission is to have all the materials in so I send a search party out to find him. I mean I respect political dissent but when did I become THE MAN? The ceremony is scheduled to start at 9 and I basically hold it from moving forward until noon waiting on this guy. Needless to say there are about 300 hundred people including the mayor waiting in an un air conditioned civic hall waiting on me. At noon he rides in on his bike, its like when fonzy drove up to Arnolds on his bike , reall cool like nothing happened …heyyyyyyy. So he's drunk of course, so I walk briskly over to him and pull him aside for a little chat. "Oh excuse me I was with my girlfriend" he starts to explain. I don't know what happened I just couldn't stay mad, I knew whatever he was saying was probably half true but I was glad that he finally made it in. However, stolen bikes don't look good on mission reports.
Now we are heading home, mission accomplished all staff have been paid severance in both towns, closing cermonies in both towns with a speech in French from yours truly ahh life is good… maybe.
Now we have to retrace our travel back from town B to town A to spend the night and then the next day back to the capital. When I get to town A after leaving town B that morning I get the message: "The staff of town A refuses to return their motorbikes, they want to keep them." Ok now that is 16 basically brand new motorbikes that I am just supposed to write off and say "hey sure you've been driving it for a couple of years its yours." Tisk, tisk American tax dollars at work, this is not Halliburton, we can't just let a lot of US purchased resources go missing. I don't even know the Bushes.
Ok that message comes at night, Saturday night to be exact. Along with the message comes the demand for a negotiation between myself and the staff the following morning. Now, I am a reasonable guy but how do you negotiate with someone who is holding property that doesn't belong to them. Mmm. That's a dilemma, but this is Africa and I cannot afford to take a "I don't negotiate with terrorists stance" so I agree.
The next morning we have a 3 hour negotiation, they tell me how their lifestyles will be affected and bring out all these past ills including being underpaid, and their logic is that they should get to keep the motorcycles for their troubles. I am listening intently and then this one guy gets to the point, he says " the real problem here is the money" Damn, I hear that and I am in a rage. Let me stop here. Contextually I am sitting in near 100 degree weather in an office that is supposed to be closed with staff who are supposed to be home and me on my way home to enjoy the two hours of weekend that might be left on Sunday after a 500 k journey before work the next day. I didn't like the fact that they wasted my time and sympathy when it came down to the fact that even if I decide to sell the bikes they believe that they can't afford to buy them themselves. So I put it out there: " look I need the bikes back, it is not my property, it is not yours, they were donated by the donor government to the NGO for a project. I will make a decision on how to dispose or distribute them or sell them later, but now they gotta come back." Ok folks I am holding the line on this one.
So at noon I give them 5 minutes to "caucus" that's my word for it, I m basically like there is no point of negotiation here, bring them back and what means will you use to do that. So they come back in 10 minutes and say "we agree" and then they head home supposedely to get the bikes and come back. (yeah right) So I wait at the office like an ass for about 2 hours when no one lives more than 30 mins away. Then now I have to go to the Mayor and explain what has happened. Finally at 3 she calls them all to a closed meeting at the city hall (I am not invited) I am sure there were a more than a few choice words passed there.
Now, simultaneously as the staff in town A were busy holding property that does not belong to them (I will not use a strong word here), they have also called their friends on the staff in town B and told them of their plan. Now I get word that the staff in town B are bumrushing the office there demanding their motorcycles back. Here is a good space for a breath. I am like, damn, this thing is collapsing before my eyes, it's full scale staff rebellion and somewhat of a security issue. I send word to town B: "hold the line. There will be no redistribution of bikes." I notifiy the mayor there who notifies the police and the military so that gets cooled down somehow. Back in town A, after a 5 hour conference with the "rebels" as I now consider them, they are compelled to bring the bikes back with their keys to the Mayors house and leave them. Problem solved, everybody go home! All materials are back in possession of the NGO, all staff paid and all ceremonies had, babies kissed, hands shook, speeches given, that's it right? Not yet.
So I lose a day on the trip, its now Monday morning, after solving this little mini-crisis I am again in the backseat of the landcruiser, half-awake half-asleep with the new Kanye West on the Ipod…. Kanye singing " barry bonds, I come in the club with the fresh sh^% on with something crazy on my arm"
About half way home 4 or 5 hours left, zzzzz, I am sawing logs here, I mean it's been a damn week.
Screaming, screaming. I wake up and my accountant is screaming, she says look, look, and all I see is a flipping 20 year old kid with a flipping AK 47 standing in the middle of the road trying to get us to stop. Ok, Im not peeing my pants but I am sure my mouth was open… so in the span of a second the military guy (remember him) is basically getting his AK (I did mention that he was armed) and is getting ready to fire on the bandit (oh yeah it's actually a team of bandits with two more on the left and 3 or 4 on the right). In the span of 10 seconds, which seems like slow-mo, he locks his gun to fire and trys to put it up, breaking the front window in the process, the bandits have seen him so they are outie. Now the military is yelling at the driver to stop so he can get fire upon them as they run down the hill. Fortunately the chauffeur speds us off after nearly getting hit by the landcruiser behind us (remember them).
Whew. Ok take a breath. There is no commentary for that. Stuff happens. I was warned and fortunately we were prepared. And all this happened at 2pm. The rest of the trip passed without incident.
That's not a story to send home.
Well, I thought that I would read something interesting, something that would enlighten me about an African country and its social and economic hardships. Instead I wasted my time on this piece written by a person who didn't study at school hard enough to get his English grammar and spelling right in the first place, who is overwhelmed by his power-expat-international position, and who brags about him being an "authority" and a "fearless" man behind gun-toting soldiers. Now I understand why so many international aid and development projects fail to succeed: if the majority of the Country Directors are as "bright" as this one I am afraid all UN, WB, IMF, ADB, USAID, and other shambolic organisations' activities are doomed. In addition, just imagine how much they need to overpay for additional staff simply to re-write his programme, project, and country reports!
Surely, an i-pod loving Country Director in landcruiser is unable to understand why these "thieves" (and this was the word he was unable to use because it could cost him some trouble as all expat consultants contracts have a clause about the "respect to local society, culture, and regulations", the breach of which can lead to a dismissal - why these "thieves" cannot return their motorbikes!
Posted by: lady | June 11, 2008 at 12:16 PM