Dikdik a variant meal- and corresponding paperwork

Not to spoil the surprise... 

but this is what I ate at the end of this day. 

*** If you’ve spoken to me or read my blog in the last few months, you know that I am desperately looking for creative ways to vary my diet of goat and rice. I think that moving to Sudan may have been the universe’s way of restoring a balance in me after the over indulgence of New Orleans. All those creamy sauces, spices, fresh seafood, farmer’s market veggies and cocktail soaked dinners have been replaced with boiled meat, tasteless ugali and occasionally lukewarm Coca-Cola. The next few blog posts are about my journey towards a variant meal.

 (actually they’re about bureaucracy, soldiers, refugees, speaking bad French, negotiating the return of a mattress… and a variant meal…)***

On Monday, I went to Napere refugee camp in Ezo County to conduct an assessment of refugee health and education. The day started bright and early-- with paperwork.

Lots and lots of paperwork.

This paperwork is supposed to ensure good stewardship of resources, transparency and order. In reality, it ensures high printing and storage costs, forging of signatures and receipts, (not something I personally do), lots of running around and high levels of frustration.

Paperwork in NGO’s permeates everything that we do, it saturates your inbox, clutters your desk, finds its way into your room and is always, always in need of just one more signature. For example, in order to take a car for a day trip I have to fill in 7 different forms. These forms require the signature of 5 different people, in 5 separate departments, plus myself, plus anyone who I pay along the way.

It goes like this: I decide I need to go on a trip. I fill in a “Travel Authorization form” which needs to be signed and stamped by my manager. Then I fill out a “Pilot Requisition Form” to request funding and arrangement of a hired car and a military escort. (Unfortunately, this form has nothing to do with actual pilots). This has to be approved by my manager and the finance department. If that is approved, I have to get admin to book said car and said soldiers.

Then, I need to find a car. After talking to admin, the head driver and our mechanic, I determine which car is a.) functional and b.) available for the day.

Then, I fill out an “Internal Vehicle Request form”. This form needs to be signed by the administration officer. I tell him that I want that car in 1 hour (after telling him the day before… twice) and that it needs to be fueled. He says, “OK” I come back to check 20 minutes later. It still hasn’t gone to be filled. I get annoyed. I get a driver into the car to fuel it. 20 minutes after that, he comes back with an empty car, because he forgot to get the “Fuel Request Voucher” signed and stamped by the regional manager. I tell him to go do it. I check on him 10 minutes later and he is still standing outside her door… I get the form signed myself. I tell him to wait; we will all go for fuel together and leave straight away. I am stopped. Another group from our office was supposed to travel to Napere that morning with a UN convoy, but since they were going through the same rigmarole as I was, they were also running late, so they missed it. This meant that we had to wait for them to get going… and they hadn’t fueled yet. I decided that we would leave, get fuel, and pick up the escort. They could meet us along the way. When we arrived at the army barracks, only 1 of 6 soldiers was ready and the hired car to drive them wasn’t there yet, so we waited another 20 minutes. Of course, cell phones don’t work there, so we couldn’t call admin or the supply chain officer to ask them what was happening. One of our staff members was tagging along because he has to stop at a village called Diabio to talk to a local chief about something for a project. So, we decided to carry on without the soldiers to Diabio, and wait for them there. 

This was a temporary clinic in Diabio. 

They do vaccinations, maternal and child health, 

distribute drugs, treat malaria, worms, 

eye infections and do minor first aid. 

We were supposed to be in Diabio for a maximum of 20 minutes, 20 minutes turned into 2 hours. I should mention that I was getting antsy at this point because we're had to leave Napere by 4 in order to make it back to our camp in Yambio before dark. Every minute on the road was eating into my time to do my assessment.

We are about to leave when another one of my colleagues calls, says he’s on the way from a northern county, and he will be in Diabio in 10 minutes. Can we wait for him? He wants to catch a ride with us and send his car back to Yambio. We wait. Another 45 minutes passes. The second car arrives. We wait for the third car. Another 30 minutes. We decide not to wait any longer and go. The truck that carries the soldiers won’t start. We wait. Another 20 minutes. The soldiers go for a drink. Still no third car; still a broken truck. I make the decision that we will go and the truck will catch up with us.  It’s pointed out to me that time constraints and frustration at inefficiency are harder for me to deal with than the threat of an LRA attack. I agree. We go. At 2 pm, we actually make it to Napere…

I'm left with 2 hours to do an assessment on the health and educational needs of thousands of refugees and host community members… if this sounds frustrating, it is.

…But the time in the camp was some combination of heartbreaking, awe-inspiring and exhilarating…