Work/learning begins

Posted by Ali

I was up bright and early this morning (and would have been even if I hadn't had an ADRA worship at 8 a.m.  I'm waking up between 5:30 and 6:30 without being tired at all, despite going to bed at 12:30 a.m. even though I'm not tired then either.)  Yesterday Max said he would really appreciate my help with the two grant proposals and one concept paper that he has to have finished by Monday.  I agreed to help, although I told him I might be more of a hindrance than a help at this point in my grant writing experience.  He said that he knew I'd be a big help so, today I left my room at one minute to 8 and walked to the conference room (really a separate stone hut near the ADRA huts).  I miscalculated how long it would take me to walk to the conference room and opened the door slowly (so as not to disturb the ADRA worker's worship) three minutes later to find the room completely empty.  I thought maybe I'd misunderstood where the worship was held and went to find Max.  He was in his office and informed me that I'd been in the right place, but this was Africa and people sometimes come late.  I was just relieved I hadn't been late on my first day of work.  Max said that he'd just finish one thing and come down to worship so I walked back to the room and flipped through a Swahili songbook sitting on one of the chairs.  Max came in a few minutes later and taught me how to pronounce some words.  He told me Swahili is an easy language to learn because it's all pronounced phonetically and each letter only makes one sound.  A couple more workers showed up and Max made introductions while I realized that I will never be able to remember all the Swahili names unless someone writes them down for me.  I'm a very visual learner, and I guess that carries over to languages a bit, too.  Then I chose a few chorus from the back of the book that I knew the tunes to and we sang them in Swahili, which, as Max said, actually isn't too hard to pronounce.  The hard thing for me was knowing where to sing the syllables, since there wasn't music in the book, just the words.  More people showed up as we sang, but not the lady who was supposed to be putting on the worship so Max read from Colossians in his English/Swahili Bible.  I looked over and read the English to myself while he read the Swahili to the group.

After a closing prayer and then more introductions, we headed to Max's office and I spent the entire day learning about proposals and grant writing.  For the first hour or so, Max gave me background information for the proposal he was working on and then we got down to business.  Or rather, he got down to business and I sat in the chair beside him looking and feeling rather lost, but giving suggestions when he asked for them.  The proposal we worked on today will be sent to ADRA Canada and then sent from there to CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) who will provide the money for the project of getting better healthcare for mothers and children under 5, and protecting teenage girls.  For almost the whole day, we worked on just one of the many sections that have to be sent it by the end of Monday, the performance measurement framework (PMF).  Other sections that I learned about today are the proposal narrative, the logic model, the risk register and, of course, the budget and each proposal also has certain other miscellaneous forms, too.  Throughout the day I learned more acronyms than I care to remember at the moment and between all that I managed to sneak in quite a few glances at Max's large map of Tanzania that hangs on the wall beside his desk.  From the map I've taught myself two Swahili words: mto and ziwa (river and lake).  I'm quite proud of the fact, actually.

When 5:30 rolled around both Max and I were worn out mentally, but the PMF was finished.  I went back to my room to relax for a bit before tackling the huge chore of unpacking.  I'm still not done, but I wanted a diversion for a while and wrote this blog.  More to come tomorrow, including learning how to write a concept paper and meeting the newest volunteer on campus.  She flies in some time tonight.  I've been told her name is Danielle, is from PUC, and will teach Max's second-youngest daughter, Stacey, in the mornings and then have a preschool program for the older Cradle of Love children in the afternoons.

PS - Although I now have some food, I have yet to make myself a real meal since I'm rather scared of the imposing-looking gas stove in my kitchen.  I've been eating open-faced peanut butter and raspberry jam sandwiches, but soon I'm going to have to try my hand at turning that thing on.  Those sandwiches are good, but there's only so many of them you can eat before you want something else.  Plus, my bread stash is getting kind of low...