Still got 'em.
Two and a half weeks and three full cans of bug spray later things aren't looking good over here, bedbug-wise. They're the worst! I don't ever see them, but I'm getting eaten alive in bed, and I suspect a lot of my wardrobe is infected as well. Round two of the war begins this weekend, I plan to buy a giant cauldron and boil every single thing I own while simultaneously spraying down my room AGAIN with bug spray. Desperate times, desperate measures, folks.
In other news the past couple of weeks have been difficult because I'm struggling to retain my field staff in the face of massive government pay hikes. Walking the line between the organization not wanting to pay staff more than it needs to to retain solid workers and remain competitive in the job market, and the perception that the staff have of us as an uber rich foreign NGO determined to pay them less than we ought to while padding our pockets, ultimately at the expense of farmers is really distressing. I can see both perspectives, but it really doesn't seem as though the staff are able to do the same. The organization's original response was accepted joyously in one of the regions where we work and was rejected outright in my region at a staff meeting the same day. The staff literally walked out of the meeting where the announcement was made on Monday, and the worry is that with harvest coming up, people will begin misreporting data collection or not showing up to work in protest during the most crucial data collection time of the season. Tomorrow is definitely going to be dedicated to formulating/revising the plan and trying to put out these fires before they grow any bigger than they already are. I think it's do-able but will require careful orchestration because going back and forth with staff like this can continue much longer, and it's killing morale.
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