Beavering away like an ant!!

Ok. So today Vivian and I, who does the accounts here, got down to the real work in hand, in front of an audience of little black ants running over the desk! Eek, where did they come from! I must be getting more resilient by the mere fact I even contemplated sharing a room with them...and only swore at them a couple of times! Ok so I only counted about 3, but then some tiny little ones appeared, not sure if they were procreating before my very eyes.


It’s also the first time I have shared a small office with a very large consignment of condoms - obviously waiting for free distribution. A very serious issue over here due to the incidence of HIV/Aids, so not too many jokes in the comments please! :-)  A picture of the said boxes is below (well give me a break I’ve not been out much today).

It is the first time I have done one of these assignments but my first observation (when I manage to move beyond my obsession with the plumbing) is that you do need to be very self motivated and organised, there is no one going to tell you what to do other than yourself. Although you don’t have to look too hard to find what to do! I guess every assignment will be different and it suits me to manage my own tasks and workload.

Vivian and I got off to quite a good start this morning. I showed her some of the things that I set up over the weekend, including some pivot table reporting in Microsoft for her expenses. Then we moved on to the free accounting Software I had downloaded called TAS. The task was to replace the archaic cash book and get it on to TAS. First off all I had to get Vivian to bring the reconciliations up to date, and as you can see from the picture, we are not talking a small notebook here. I think she is as keen as me to see it go! Unfortunately, we were going great guns with the software until we tried to enter a cheque withdrawal of several million Kwachas. Now it might sound a lot but with £1 being equal to over 7,000 kwacha it’s not really! The system was just not for having that many digits in one bank transaction. So things have grind to a halt having eventually admitted defeat and e-mailed TAS support. Looks like it might have to all be on Microsoft.

Say hello to Vivian - at least one of us was working! But then it is all about mentoring!!

I am about to go off to the ZNBC studios soon (Zambian National Broadcast Corporation) with the guys. They are running an SMS competition and a live draw is being done tonight. It was meant to happen on Saturday but the technology failed. Do you think I will bump in to anyone famous? Maybe George Clooney is on a ZNBC chat show! Maybe George Clooney hasn’t heard of ZNBC just like I hadn’t until Thursday!

Lazy Sunday

No internet at Jedone's so couldn't do a posting on Sunday. It was a bit of a strange day but I did quite a bit of work as there is only so much book reading a girl can do in one day (and I only brought 3 books and am halfway through my second one). Did feel a little bit isolated as everyone seemed to disappear for quite a lot of the day - probably trying to get away from me!!. I thought off going for a walk but the chances of me finding my way back were pretty slim. These pot holed dirt tracks all look the same to me! Everyone seems very friendly but I get stared at all the time in the village, which is understandable. I think they are all just curios and I don't feel threatened.

I do have a TV in my room but it is linked in to the TV in the living area, so I have to watch what they are watching - which kinda defeats the purpose! There are a couple of BBC channels with programmes from back home, but they tend not to watch them. I have to give them their due they seem to have a thirst for news or knowledge programmes. Whereas me...well I just want good old light hearted nonsense!!!

Jedone is widowed and divorced and has two children from his first marriage. He also has two of his brothers staying with him, one so he can help him through school and the other because he has no work. His mother can't afford to feed all the family as they are quite poor. He has 8 brothers and sisters, but only 2 of them (including himself) completed school. You have to admire Jedone, he seems to dedicate his life to helping others, both within and outwith his own family and makes a lot of personal sacrifices to do so.

The kids are so well behaved. They are brought up to respect their elders which is so evident. When I think of the kids back home, with their expensive trainers and stroppy attitudes and then look at the children here who have nothing but are so respectful and appreciative of little things....! Broken Britain has even more meaning out here!!

But then there is the poor dog!! They have a dog called spot who lives outdoors all the time and doesn’t get much attention from the family. Jedone told me he is a village dog and they always stay outside for protection, but the poor animal is craving attention. I am trying not to give him too much as (1) I am worried about rabies and (2) he won’t get it when I am gone. I guess if they can’t manage to feed their kids they are not going to get too upset about a dog. He has a bald batch on his side with a wound on it from having hot water spilt on him! I was asking Jedone how much it would cost to take him to the vet. I can see me caving in and paying the vets bill!!

Internet painfully slow and I have to go and get on with some real work today. Will blog again later if I get the tme,
P.S. Thanks for the comments that are being posted – they are keeping me amused. And for those of you concerned about the footwear issue I brought 3 ‘nice’ pairs of sandal. One pair of which I carried to work in a plastic bag so I could swap out of my flat frumpy ones here in the office – like it matters really!!!

 

Footwear Crisis!

I always knew I was going to get the footwear wrong. This is the road down to Jedone’s house. So we think we have potholes! And this is on a good day, can you imagine if it was raining? I think some of those nice little sandals I brought with me may as well go right back in the case now! Otherwise I will probably break an ankle not to mention ruin the sandals for life!!

The minibus challenge

Second day in Kitwe, it's Saturday and I am actually in the office (yes the one without a proper toilet, so trying not to drink too much water!). The good news is Jedone had the toilet fixed back home so it no longer leaks - and it has a seat! Yippee! The shower is also fixed, but on the basis that it only has cold water I decided to stick to the buckets of hot water.


Getting to work was entertaining. We took the minibus today, although for a while I was convinced we were doing some sort of Guinness book of Records stunt to see how many people we could fit in. Timetables don't exist; the priority is definitely how many you can get in, even if you have to shuttle back and forth to find them. Which is what we appeared to do as we spent about 5 minutes reversing backwards. For what I am not sure, although we did squeeze another person in before we actually started heading forwards and in the right direction again. I guess that could be a new twist to transport making you late for work, 'sorry boss, the mini bus driver couldn't find enough people to fill the bus so he wouldn't take us in to town'. Might be a bit difficult to get off with that one back home but...!

I was right at the back as you can see from this picture, along with several others!

The church is still going full pelt next door - wonder if they have been there all night? Must be worn out with all that shouting and singing! Needless to say I came prepared today and have the iPod on - which works for the more sedate celebrations but it's a bit of a battle between them and Snow Patrol at the moment, with the latter loosing.
 
This is my second attempt at this posting as the inernet went down earlier. Such is life!

Day one in the Office

My first day in the office and I am still here at 6.30 pm (since 8 am).  Admittedly I spent most of the morning doing e-mails and blogs and checking I could still communicate with the outside world.  All is well in that area.    Did a brief financial review with the accountant here Vivian.  She is doing a certificate at the moment and hoping to start CIMA.  She asked me for any tips on studying - determination and discipline was all I could give her, no magic tricks for that one.  Will be starting in earnest on a new cash reconciliaton system on Monday.  Ah the fun to be had!  I also helped them respond to some queries a previous donor had on their funds. Which they thought I did a very good job with, which just goes to show us accountants can blag our way through anything even when we don't know what we are talking about!!  :-) 

The actual office itself is a wee bit smaller than Gogarburn as you can see from the picture below. No Starbucks or Tesco Express here.

But boy is it noisy.  It is joined on to a church which has had some sort of conference on all day.  I did eventually have to ask why they were shouting so much and was told it was a form of praying.  It was definitely very enthusiastic prayng.  My poor head is banging with it all. I think they have all gone in to a frenzy of excited singing and dancing now - perhaps this is the grand finale!

The gifts I brought are all being sorted and catalogued meticulously - poor Moffat one of the co-ordinators drew the short straw on that one.  Though didn't manage to get him in the picture - maybe on Monday.

Thirty three very long hours later!

Yes that was how long it took me door to door to get to Kitwe.  My flight was good and landed on time just before 6.30 am.  I even managed to successfully haul all the boxes, cases and holdalls off the carousel all on my own (those weights at the gym paid off!).  Then the fun started with customs.  Long, boring story short I got to take all my personal stuff with me - unchecked so haven't been done for carrying suspicious looking vitamin pills - but we were told to go back at 8 am for the boxes.   Then we were told to go over to the customs office where we were  told we had to do a full itinery of what was in the boxes - although 7 boxes off used school books seemed to work for them!  We then spent several hours watching lots of people with ID tags wander (slowly) around wth bits of paper, did some arguing over what fees we were to be charged, and then waited, and waited, and waited...!  Eventually 5 hours after I landed the car was loaded -  boxes hadn't even been opened and we just had to pay the minimum in Government fees - success I guess!  Although I was by this time very hot, sweaty and having a seriously bad hair day!!

There then followed some running around Lusaka with Jedone and Gideon which I was fine with until I got left in the hot car on my own for 10 minutes that turned in to at least 30.  But they did take the brand new laptop with them for safety - just left me in the car!  Duh! 

We eventually arrivied in Lusaka at 7.30 pm, with me having left my flat at 10.30 am the previous day.  I was very tired and feeling decidedly grubby and have to admit felt a tad emotional when the hot bath I had been promised was a  plastic tub of boiled water - there is no running hot water.  The toilet currently has no seat and I have to remember that once the cistern is filled I need to turn the water off at the inlet tap otherwise the cistern will overflow - I have fogotten twice already!  You don't even want to know how long it took me to get ready this morning, with water boiling to be done and hair rinsing with a cup only. Will need a 5 am start most days at this rate.  But hey, on the upside the cold shower might be fixed by the time I get back tonight!!!  We have no idea how good we have it until we leave it behind!!

I am now embracing another plumbing crisis as the office toilet has a sign on it 'for urination only' and yes, this one doesn't even flush. I haven't worked up the courage yet to ask about ....well lets not go there on this blog, especially if you are reading it during your lunch hour!! Last time I grumble about the toilets back in Gogarburn!

Must go and do what I am here to do and stop stressing over Kitwe plumbing.  (Although may be shopping for a toilet seat in my lunch break today!).

Love from Zambia! x

BA lounge - London!

Phew!  Made it through the Edinburgh snow down to London.  Typical it has to snow the day I am leaving. Had a small delay due to a technical problem with the plane - given my current run on technical clitches that is no surprise.   

It was the turn of my iPod to get sick now - it sadly passed away some time during the day on Tuesday and was just not for reviving.  Admittedly, I am surprised that did not happen earlier given I did accidently sit it in a full cup of water one night while camping - but no time for that story just now!!  Anyway, as a consequence I was sat outside Argos at 8.50 am this morning!  Poor lad on the till was cut short in his well rehearsed narrative for warranties etc. with me barking at him that I just wanted the iPod, so could he just give it to me!!    Well I did have an entire library to load on to it and was leaving for a flight in 1 1/2 hours!  For those of you who might be interested it actually doesn't take long to load your entire iTunes library on to a new iPod!  And I now have a nice new shiny blue one. :-)

Now all I have to worry about is getting 10 pieces of luggage off at Lusaka - it took 3 trolleys to get it in to Edinburgh airport.  :-(     Think I need to go and avail myself of a nice glass of wine courtesey of BA!!

Next blog will be from Zambia - well at least it had better be!!

Enjoy the weather everyone!

:-)-