And just in case this isn't already evident: 'the views expressed in this blog are not representative of the United States Government or the U.S. Peace Corps but are my personal expressions and experiences" :)

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Not the way we do things in Mozambique


“No, no, no. You don't understand. Maybe that's the way you do thing in your country but here we do it this way....”

I don't think this is a characteristic exclusive to any one country, in fact I'm pretty sure that every community in every country thinks that they are in one way or another unique and special from the rest of that wide, barbarous world out there. It's not xenophobia, just an elevated self-worth which, in moderated quantities, really is quite healthy. Up to a point. For there are certain things in this world that in fact are NOT done differently in different parts of the world. Like science (the chemistry of cooking isn't dependent on your language), math (no matter where you were born, to find the percentage of a number you have to multiply by the percentage, not divide), and some universal terminology...

I had a bit of a skiff with my organization this week when we were preparing a big report of all the work they've realized since their funding in 2005. I don't know how I'd missed this up until now, but when we were gathering the data of their clients I asked them to explain to me how they came to each number for each trimester, and there arose a small hitch in their reporting techniques. They have 4 trimesters. No, not 4 quarters, but TRIMESTERS. But they never talk about the 4 trimesters out right, they only ever talk about the 1st, the 2nd, and “the last” (since evidently the 3rd is just included into the last, which is another problem in of itself.) When I tried to explain that “trimester” by definition means that there are 3 equal parts of the whole they simply shook their heads and said “no, no, no Emily. Maybe where you're from trimester means 4 months but here in Mozambique a trimester means 3 months.” I drew out pie charts and tables and explained the differences between trimesters and quarters, giving different examples like the school calendar (where in fact there are 3 months periods since they only work 9 months out of the year).... nope. They all just laughed and continued with their head shakes. I called 2 fellow peace corps volunteers just to make sure I wasn't going crazy, and finally, I called in the highest hospital staff member in our hospital, university educated and all, to come over and clear the air. Well didn't I look stupid to my coworkers when he said, “of course, trimester means 3 months (tri means 3 of course) so in complete the year we have 4 of them.”

....

Ultimately, we agreed to disagree, removed all talk of trimesters from the report citing instead the yearly totals, and rain-checked the debate for a later date when there wasn't a report deadline looming above our heads. Not sure how successful I was that day in human capital and organizational development, but the argument was a reminder that even though hings aren't always as easy as I may hope I can't allow that to discourage or impede me from doing my job.

And the luta continua of trimesters vs quarters!!!

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