Project Office

This year I’ve been half time in the Project Office, filling in for someone on furlough.  I had about a month of very part time training at the start and have basically had the office to myself since then. Janet worked in the same room on a related role for nearly six months, but since she left I’ve had to pick up that work too. Thankfully my boss across the corridor has a good knowledge of my job and a seemingly endless patience for my seemingly endless questions.

The graduating class of one of many courses at least partially
funded with project money, with at least one of the staff at the
course funded through a different project, on the steps of a
building constructed through yet another project. Course
participants could also purchase subsidised computers
 through a project.

It’s been a challenging eleven months of office work, especially as I am not the office type. My favourite office is an open deck or a village or a regional centre. Answering emails and demanding…sorry, politely but firmly requesting…reports is work I can do, but it is just not me. I found I can do the work quite well in fact, but it is the sort of work which tires me rather than inspires me. I’m rather excited to have two half days left before my office time is done!

Problem is, the person who is returning from furlough is not returning to this job, meaning the office will be officially vacant as of Wednesday. As we have oversight and administrative responsibility for around 100 projects and a million dollars in funding, this is a problem. We do not manage all those projects, but keep an eye on them all. Some take more time, some take almost none, but responsible management of donors’ money means that someone needs to be in that office.

The problem is not actually the job, but the general lack of personnel to fill all the necessary support roles or to allocate to all the languages wanting translation work done. Most people on the field are already working more than full time, but somehow we have to cover one more critical need. Everyone who might be able to do the job is already committed. I won’t continue on the job as it is time for me to focus on language work again and get out to other regions. That is the work I’m trained for, inspired by and here to do.

VITAL  has two complementary projects associated with it and at

least two interns with separate projects involved. Funding for 

printing of their Scripture publications will also go through

the project office.

Although I’ve been a reluctant office worker for the year, escaping to the regions to do language work whenever possible, I’ve also tried to be a cheerful office worker, so I shall finish my office time by listing some of the things  I have learnt or appreciated about this role.

Sunniest office in the building: this may seem like a trivial thing, but I had a view of the mountains surrounding our valley and enough sunlight to rarely need the room light. I think if I worked in an office full of cubicles, instead of my sunny room, I really might have gone mad.

Friendly co-workers: not just my patient boss across the corridor, but a whole corridor of friendly people. The return journey to the far end of the corridor to get a cuppa could take some time as I stopped to chat.

Broad knowledge of the work we do here: I’ve been dealing with project details covering the spectrum of what we do. One email will be discussing technical details of 4WDs to access projects in difficult to reach corners of the country, the next will be about font size for printing the New Testament. A project may be training Nationals from around 100 different language groups, or renovating our clinic, or buying spare parts for a plane, or teaching Oral Bible Storytelling as the first step towards translation work. I’ve seen the beginning, middle and end of translation projects and a range of support projects. Printed word, recorded word, performed word...and more. After 18 months in the field I suspect I know a lot more about what goes on in the Branch than some people who’ve been here several years.

We have projects for remote airstrip maintenance, plane spare

 parts and hangar upgrades, as well as a travel subsidy project to

make it more affordable for language teams to reach their allocations.

Project managing is hard work: There was one project for which our office was the official project manager. This meant writing the reports, balancing the budget, writing the project renewal and all the other associated paperwork. When I was asking all the other project managers for something by a certain deadline, I was having to complete the same paperwork for the same deadline myself. It certainly taught me to have compassion on the people at the other end of the email.

Emails go to real people: The fact that we live in a small community means that emails go to real people, not just a faceless names. The people I communicated with were people who I would meet at the store, sit next to in church, pass on the road or who live over the back fence and agreed to feed the cat when I went away. Knowing people kept me polite in emails, as I still wanted to be friends when we next crossed paths… and for the cat to be fed.

The cat could feed herself, but the local

moth and gecko population would suffer.

She’s welcome to eat as many rats as she

can catch.

‘Custodial Room’: Politically correct American English for ‘Cleaner’s Cupboard.’ I had no idea what this was when I first read it in a project proposal and had to ask for an explanation. It is just one example of the challenges of communicating with colleagues and funders from around the world. Some nations express themselves very bluntly and I have to remind myself they’re not being rude, just to the point. Other cultures are always so polite and formal that I need to remember to respond in kind.

OptimiZation: As PNG is a Commonwealth country, we use Commonwealth spelling. This means ‘ize’ is out and ‘ise’ is in (optimise). The same is true for ‘or’ and ‘our’ (flavour) and ‘er’ and ‘re’ (centre). When a proposal written by a US citizen for a US funder had ‘Optimization’ in the title, and the most important thing the approval committee could find to discuss was the ‘z’ I knew the proposal was well written and that people take these things very personally! For the amount of funding we were applying for, I was happy to leave the ‘z’. Goodness, at that price you might even convince me to call it ‘zee’ not ‘zed’!

The NITI generator house: the new generator cost was split

between two projects.

I don’t like numbers: Those who knew me in high school will know that I am capable of doing maths quite well, but my favourite part of year 12 maths was quitting it to do an Arts degree at Uni. That is a decision I’ve never regretted and one that lead me into translation work. When budget revision time came up in the office, I was reminded of just how little I enjoy working with numbers.

Six week rule: In the future, I plan to not agree to any sort of temporary role that lasts more than six weeks unless I am convinced that it is something that suits me well, rather than just something I can do to fill a need, even if that need is critical. Someone may need to remind me of this along the way!

Multicultural Community

Table setting by the UK and Aus collective.
We had to explain that a bottle of wine
is okay in our home countries. 

Working overseas in an international organisation means negotiating the ins and outs of various cultures. Sometimes we’re aware of our cultural preferences and reactions and are able to moderate our behaviour in the face of other cultures. Other cultural judgements are so deeply ingrained that we don’t recognise them, react because of them, and can’t believe that ‘they dare to call themselves Christians when they do/say/think that.” Meanwhile ‘they’ are thinking the same about us.

Place setting for one by the Koreans.

To aid in understanding our own and each other’s cultures I attended a workshop on multicultural teamwork. In our class was a good cross section of the cultures within the organisation. I was the only Aussie in my group. I always felt uncomfortable saying ‘In Australia we…’ because I’ve always lived around migrants and am well aware that Australians have many flavours in how we do things. Still, it was good to share stories, reflect and discover. Seemingly small matters such as how a house ‘should’ be arranged, what is ‘clean’ or dirty’, what is ‘work’, what is ‘good’ food and how a table should be set or a meal arranged all revealed to us our cultural preferences and expectations.

Mumu (food steam-cooked using rocks
and banana leaves in hole in the ground)
for a crowd by the PNGn table.
Note the pig on the side that has already
been removed from the mumu and
is ready for cutting up and sharing. 

The main key for understanding culture was looking at how cultures vary on two spectrums; community and structure. Valuing strong community and minimal structure results in communal cultures like PNG. A strong sense of community with a strong structure describes hierarchical cultures like Korea. The strong structure, but valuing individuals rather than community  results in more institutional cultures like the UK. Individuating cultures like the US place a high value on individuals and a low structure. All of us move between cultural types in different settings, but we all also have a default where we feel most comfortable and where social interactions make the most sense.

I feel that Australia falls between the strong individuating culture of the US and the strong communal culture of PNG (Meaning low structure but an in between value placed on community or the individual). Each of them had familiar elements, but neither quite fit. Meanwhile, I function well in the hierarchical culture when sailing and in institutional contexts such as church and educational structures.

Table setting by the US participants

The workshop was not revolutionary for me, probably because I’ve long lived in multicultural settings, but it was a good reminder of some of the values which underlie our differences. None of us can claim our culture is entirely correct, for each cultural type also has its typical weakness. What we can do is learn from each other, valuing the strengths of the other and finding ways to know each other better and to live together well.

*This course was based on Sheryl Takagi Silzers book ‘Biblical Multicultural Teams’ if you want to find out more.

Toilets

Newly dug, just for Tuula and me.

Toilet humour is everywhere. Seeing as my last few posts have been reasonably serious, I thought it time to be a little bit silly, as serious as sanitation is.

Loo, long drop, dunny, outhouse, thunderbox, watercloset, facilities, bathroom, restroom, liklik haus…so many names, but just one function. Some many forms, but still the same function.

In Milne Bay, the toilet is often over the water, at the end of a long, slippery, wobbly, narrow, bamboo walkway. It is the sort of walkway locals wander along without thinking, but I treat with all the care of a gymnast on a balance beam, for fear of falling into the mangrove mud or ocean water below. Thankfully, when Tuula and I visited the Anuki people, they were kind enough to dig us an onshore toilet where we could squat in safety. Still, when we visited other villages, we had to brave the walkway.

The ocean loo, for the brave and balanced

Going to the toilet at night in the village is always a challenge, as women should not be out alone at night. This can mean waking a friend to accompany you, holding on till dawn or other creative alternatives…but never drinking kulau (green coconut milk) in the late afternoon, else you will have to go before dawn. I understand why translator friends save money to build an indoor toilet in their village house.

For village living, our waspapa (host father) was asked to build us a new toilet, just for us. On one of the preparation visits which our staff did before we arrived, one of the staff needed to go, so asked where the toilet was. She was lead down a slippery path, away from the village to a well used toilet. Afterwards, when she expressed concern that they still needed to build the toilet for their guests, they  then pointed out the new toilet, right beside the house we would be staying in and explained that it was only for us. Sorry Ginny, but our Papa was looking out for us!

Our village outhouse: death to mice and home to snakes

We had an amusing incident during village living in which a mouse nearly drowned in a bucket of water, but escaped. Being thrown off the verandah with the water meant it nearly died of concussion, but it escaped again. As it was recovering from the impact with the ground, it was nearly eaten by a chicken, but escaped again. It ran to the nearest available shelter, the toilet.  Here, it fell into the hole and was yet again faced with drowning. It is hard to use a toilet when you can hear a small animal splashing below you. It wasn’t heard from again, but if it drowned or was eaten by the snake who sometimes lived in the roof of our toilet, we do not know.

In New Ireland we were given the use of the VIP toilets, right on the foreshore, with a lovely view and breeze to go with it. Some toilets have ‘sea breeze’ deodorisers. This just had a sea breeze. The common toilet in some of these areas is the beach, below the tideline where nature provides a twice daily flush. As much as I love to swim in the ocean, it is no longer so appealing when it also functions as the public toilet.

Sea breeze loo with a view

On road trips and town trips in PNG, I deliberately don’t drink enough, as the mild headache at the end of the day it preferable to the road side options available. Thankfully, in bigger towns, my skin colour gives me permission to use the toilets in fancy hotels. It is an injustice, I know, but I admit to appreciating it when the smell of the public options reaches me. Flying in our small planes, strapped in with a full harness and no facilities is another time for deliberate dehydration.

Although toilets may make an amusing topic for tale swapping (competing?), they are also a serious issue. Good sanitation and the separation of drinking water from toilets are two issues which make enormous differences to public health. If you’d like to purchase a toilet for somewhere in the developing world, there are many options, including these two.