This morning is supposed to be my weekly field officers meeting in Adet. This is a time to touch base with the team at the beginning of the week and also to deliver instructions and training for the field activities for the week ahead.
Since my field team works in such far flung rural areas, getting them all in one place twice a week is no mean feat. Half of them must drive three hours from Mota to Adet for the meeting, while I and my field coordinator must travel two and a half hours from Bahir Dar. It really is the most efficient way to do things.
Except when something goes wrong. Which in Ethiopia is all too often. This morning when I got into the car with all of my material for the meeting this week, I was informed by my field coordinator that today was the day all the students who live in Mota had to get into Bahir Dar, 6 hours away by bus, to start their semester. As a result there was no space free on the buses my field officers normally take from Mota to the Monday staff meeting in Bahir Dar. Time for some on-the-fly decision making.
The bus situation tomorrow looks pretty bad as well, given that many students also didn't make the bus today and will need to go tomorrow. I decided the most efficient (or perhaps the least inefficient?) thing to do would be for myself and my field coordinator to go all the way to Mota today, deliver the training to the field officers there, stay there overnight, and then backtrack to Adet tomorrow to give the training to the other half of my field staff team. Why do my field sites have to be so far flung? Hoping this hiccup doesn't set the tone for my week.
On the upside, the drive to both Adet and Mota are crazy beautiful.
No comments:
Post a Comment