I finally started work! (Is it odd that I'm so excited about working?) Last Monday, the 24th, Charity (the MCC Haiti Country Rep) picked me up from the apartment and we headed down to RNDDH. After a few formal introductions & a quick refresher-tour, Charity wished me luck & took off. It felt like the first day of kindergarten. Not that I remember my first day of kindergarten, but I'm sure it was similar.
Then, we had our Monday staff meeting.
Every Monday, all 10 or so of us gather in the conference room for the weekly staff meeting. RNDDH's structure is highly collaborative, so the Monday meetings provide the opportunity for progress updates, collaboration, brainstorming...and debates. Haitians (yep, I'm giving in to generalizations) love people and love talking, and the "highest" form of talking is debate. You can get into a debate with anyone anywhere in this country. And in an office full of people with varying amounts of training in law, watch out! The wonderful thing is people get so caught up in the debate that you think they're about to start a fist fight, but then everyone is friends again when the debate is over. The not-so-wonderful thing is that it's really hard to follow debates when you're learning the language. The other not-so-wonderful thing is that when people debate every topic brought up in a staff meeting, the meeting literally goes all day. Oh, and I'm supposed to take the minutes next week.
The office provides lunch for us, which is great. Long about 1:30 we all gather 'round the dining room table to feast. Pierre, the director of RNDDH, provides the entertainment by selecting one or two people each day to tease. The first time he picked on me, I tried to pretend I didn't understand what he was saying. Unfortunately for me he also speaks French & English, so my lack of Kreyol was no hindrance. It's quite fun, though, particularly since he spreads around the teasing.
As for work, things have been slow for me so far. I'm in charge of laying-out the newsletter, so I've been trying to teach myself Microsoft Publisher. Oh now I miss the days of InDesign. Not to mention using a Mac. (Can you be homesick over a computer system?) I translated a short 3-page piece yesterday (French to English). It took me longer than it should have, but I figure that's ok for my first time. Today I believe that I agreed to work on the website, so I'll soon be teaching myself the basics of website management. At some point I should have the opportunity to accompany my coworkers when they do prison visits, but I have to get my clearance first.
Sorry, I know this is again just a big dumping of information, but hopefully it gives you an idea of how I'll be spending my days.
-L
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2 comments:
Yes, it is perfectly acceptable to be homesick for an operating system (he says while he stares at his HP which he would replace in a second for the now 6-year-old powermac he had to give up when he left his last job). If you can get it, I find Adobe Contribute to be a wonderfully simple way to keep a website up to date (assuming that you can build it in Dreamweaver).
You know how I feel about Macs, but even I'll admit they're way better for design work than anything else.
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