#202 Italians

#202 Italians

FEBRUARY 13, 2013

tags: #stuffexpataidworkerslike, Italians

by seawl

Photo: http://www.italianmade.com

Submitted by Brian Harding who blogs a little bit at ANairobic Inspiration

As members of the EAW community, Italians are a valuable resource when in [enter any country here]. Many Italians understand poverty deeply, simply because they come from Italy. This also means they know how to create the most nutritious of meals from the simplest of ingredients. (And everyone knows that EAWs love food).  This skill is exceptionally useful when in countries that do not have access to proper food such as packaged chicken breasts, boxes of frozen burgers or a choice of fresh imported vegetables.

Making friends with Italians can be tough, though, as one of the favourite activities for Italian EAWs is spending time with other Italians. However, when this barrier is broken, Italians can be some of the greatest friends an EAW can have.

Italians offer glamour in places where glamour has not been invented yet. Their knowledge of La Bella Figura can mean that even when going to the expat bar or the house party, they know how to dress appropriately. They are also important at sourcing food and items that can make life for an EAW much easier. “No, dai, no, ….you musta go to the street where the butcher lives to get the best pieces.” Italians also import many delicious treats on their return from R&R in Italy and are like a hub in and of themselves.

Italians also generally work for “small Italian NGOs” that have many hallmarks of being GONGOs. These can have names that most EAWs have never heard of e.g “Dante Onorario Organizzazione per la Liberazione” or “Cooperazione Organizzazione Nazionale”. Such organisations never get an acronym. When Italians work for larger organisations; these are generally ones that have a headquarters in Rome. Italian organisations also like working in ex-colonies of Italy.

Italians can give other EAWs much to talk and gossip about. Italians are one of the few EAWs that like to meet locals in intimate ways, are known to go native and on occasion this can result in children. Invariably as Italians are a good-looking bunch, the child of such a pairing generally tends to be very beautiful.

Italians EAWs are also dedicated to staying in their duty station for many years. This is principally because they hate Silvio Berlusconi and Italian politics. The fear that Berlusconi (or in the future his ghost) may come back is also reason enough to maintain their position working as an EAW.

Overall Italians are great contributors to making the life of the EAW easier…. Oh yeah… and for the local people… they help those guys too.

#208 Hanging with people from the same chronology

#208 Hanging with people from the same chronology

MARCH 13, 2013

tags: #stuffexpataidworkerslike, hanging with people from the same chronology

by seawl

Submitted by Brian Harding who blogs a little bit at ANairobic Inspiration

You are a few weeks into your new duty station and you have made a few friends. These friends will be your friends for the rest of their time in the duty station. This is because EAWs don’t like to mix up chronologies.

If you arrived in June 2010 in your new war-torn country, then your friends will principally include those people from plus or minus three months of your arrival. These are your friends. You will most likely not hang out with people who arrived in 2008. They have their own friends that arrived then.

There is only one way to get access to people in different chronologies. This is simply if you are vouched for. It could happen that you got to strike up a conversation at the cluster meeting or the house party and you did not make a complete fool of yourself. Like the young kid who joins the older guys, Red, Andy Dufrain, Floyd and Ernie at the dining table in Shawshank Prison, fundamentally, you better have something to offer fast. (Do remember he ended up dead and the other guys ended up at the beach.).

Making a complete fool of yourself is easy however. If you do not know the name of the president, his party (it’s generally a man), what FGM stands for, the local name for transport (e.g matatu), have some local words, the location of anything, the head of such and such an agency etc or if you make the mistake of possessing any degree of idealism, you’re doomed. The list of potential errors is long and not clearly defined and if you mess up, you are out, before you even have a chance.

An important part of being new and meeting people from outside your chronology (even if you have made a complete fool of yourself) is to say that you are staying a long time. “I have a 90 day contract but I’m planning on staying for 2 years”. This is appreciated by all EAWs and some day you will appreciate hearing it too.

If you do meet people from earlier chronologies, you will find that indeed many of their friends are from around the same time that they arrived but initially they didn’t like all of the people in their group. “when I first met him, I thought s/he was a complete [alcoholic, womanizer, A-hole, etc] and didn’t want to be near him, but then we ended up on a weekend away and now s/he is like one of my best friends”. Yes, “like one of my best friends” …..but certainly not my best friend.

EAWs learn fast that first impressions count for nothing when your friends from the duty station begin to leave. It’s always better to hang out with people who you don’t like but are from the same chronology than with the newbies

Stuff Expat Aid Workers Like - #214 Writing their own job descriptions

You are not a true EAW until you have written your own job description at least once. In the real world, this is generally unheard of, but in the land of EAWs this is a well-established norm. The only place where someone advises you to write your own job description in developed countries is in visualization games in self-help books.

EAW offices are very busy places. People are knuckling down fighting poverty and building resilience and capacity.  This can mean there is a terrible strain on staff to get mundane tasks completed… such as actually developing a well-thought-out job description.

There are a number of scenarios where you get to write your own job description. You might be an intern or volunteer and have proven yourself in some way. It could be that you slept with someone, sucked up a lot or astonishingly actually did a good job. Anyhow, you are put to work at developing some terms of reference for yourself and someone looks under couches to scrape the money together to pay you more than a top national civil servant in the country you now find yourself in.

You may be a consultant or freelancer and you know an office has some money that they need to spend. So, yes, they come up with something for you to do. It is important to approach organisations at the end of their fiscal year. You can prepare the job description before the meeting. What you actually do may not even be needed, but it will keep you in a faraway land on your tourist visa and get you paid– and that’s what really counts.

On occasion you may get the big paid job with the allowances and the over-inflated prestige with the dark side of the UN or with an actual donor. Normally this process will take as long as the gestation period of a blue whale, so by the time you actually get the letter offering you the job, the original position is no longer relevant. First day, first task …… “update” the job description.

Since there is so much capacity to be built and gender to be mainstreamed, the EAW manager is generally too busy to have any concept of the actual role or name of anybody in the human resources section. They must always feign shock that such a simple administrative task (i.e., hiring someone) should take so long, roll their eyes at the administrative deficiencies of the organization and beg to push this new job description through immediately.

Of course, many EAWs believe that because local staff are often the ones responsible for admin, it can’t help but be inefficient – the poor dears don’t understand the urgency in hiring this new person. Let’s not consider that local staff know full well that 47 of their colleagues have been bypassed for pay increases for the last four years and rushing that job description stinks more than an EAW riddled with giardia.

Of course, if the job description ever hits the internet, it is imperative to: give it the absolute minimum amount of allowed time to be displayed on a website that no one checks; have a start date that is ridiculous and could only be fulfilled by someone who already sits at the desk; have qualification requirements that exactly match that of the person who wrote it; and, importantly, include a section on upholding the ethical principles of the organization that you are about to work in.

Nairobi alternative things to do

1. Take a driving lesson in Nairobi
2. Visit Shamura restaurant and see the old swimming pool.
3. Go to the Arboretum on a Saturday and see people bible bashing themselves.
4. Invest in pirate dvds.
5. Go to an Ugo/Jean Marie/Zelalem party
6. Visit Karen and look at KC's
7. Go shopping in the city market
8. Go see the mechanics at the Globe cinema roundabout
9. Figure out how to avoid traffic
10. Walk
11. Go to Kibera (also they festivals there).
12. Eat Ethiopian at Habesha and speak to the owner
13. Go to Kengeles, Lavington and watch football
14. Find someone who works in the UN and visit the compound
15. Go to Village Market at lunch time.
16. Check out Mpaka Road on a Saturday Night.
17. Learn some Swahili
18. Visit Uhuru Park
19. Try and understand Kenyan politics
20. Drink wine at the Art Cafe, Westlands
21. Run in Karura Forest
22. Go to the Casino.
23. Catch yoga at the holiday inn.
24. Learn about Kenyan Indians
25. Play pool at K-Club or Crooked Qs
26. Check out the Jacarandas when they're in full bloom
27. Try eland at Rudy's Restaurant
28. Speak positively about Nairobi after your visit