Without the people I would not make it through the day. Just thinking about them makes me smile. It’s not the roaringly-hilarious kind of funny that I am talking about, but the chuckly-I-would’ve-never-imagined kind of funny. Each of them is like a private joke, and together that makes a lot of jokes – enough to get you through the day.
Before I came here I had brooded for hours, trying to ‘prepare’ myself for what I would find – in terms of the work, the people, the history, the war, the peace and the political process … and of course the ‘tribulations’ of doing humanitarian work in ‘Africa’. What I hadn’t even given a thought to were the people – not the Sudanese folk, but my co-workers. Yes of course they are a bunch of inefficient bureaucrats and yada yada yada, but without them, this story doesn’t even go half the way. They are important, you see – you learn about them and their experiences, as much as you learn to do your job. I think that it should be a part of your ToR that you spend at least 15% of your day gaining ‘anecdotal experience’! And their experiences and their circumstances are quite distinctive … they are of every ethnicity … they just been just about everywhere … speak every language possible (sometimes one person herself). Its like a mini UN or something … oh, hold on – it is!
Jocelyn and Emmanuel received me at the airport. Jocelyn is an HR assistant, and she is the quintessential Philippine in her 30s – round, chubby face, long black hair, synthetic floral printed shirt and white capris (which too, are of course Philippine in my mind). In an airy style she ordered Emmanuel to put my bags exactly where they should go. Then we whizzed around to everywhere I needed to be on Day 1… first the accommodations, and then in the office. Immaculate execution! Jocelyn loves routine … and rules! Emmanuel is chill, but all I saw then were his latest Matrix-style sunglasses – quite a rarity in Juba!
At the office, there was Peter Butili – Sudanese, smiling, short and stocky … upon introduction he was delighted to offer me the other desk at his office. I later found out that his delight was partially due to the fact that I had off-loaded one of his core responsibilities … but I’m not bitter. Peter can give you more local news and analysis in a half hour than can Anderson Cooper with his imitation of a speeding human train. And he knows people in every government office South Sudan … it shouldn’t be long before I meet the President.
Ditas (head HR) is also Philippine. She smiled more than actually telling me what exactly the Code of Conduct and ToR that I signed would do to me. She said it was mostly common sense anyway. She makes life easy … she was the one that told me they wear sandals to work, prompting me to bring all of my open, summer footwear. She was so casual that she even offered her phone code to call internationally! Yum yum.
Our office head, Raja, towers above everyone there – he is authoritative, but is also witty, warm and un-intimidating! If you can put those qualities together, you’ll understand why I find him the most unruffled person I have come across. I don’t know why no one has thought of this yet, but if we were to put him between the Turks and Greeks in Cyprus, that problem would be solved before the end of the summer! And to top it off, he introduced me to all the department heads himself!
I wanted to start the Raja Fan Club, but apparently it has been there since he joined.
Now with the second-in-charge at the office, I didn’t have such a wonderful unification. Ann’s Guyanese, and a power-woman. Her frame and her looks belie her tough personality. On first encounter, I remember wondering how she managed not to stop traffic in Juba … but as I went on around the office minding my own business, I was duly enlightened of her policing abilities that would be sufficient to send any traffic – even Juba’s – right on its way!
It happened like this – with or without reason, I had stepped out of my office into the hallway … with none of the world’s greater problems on my shoulder at that point, I was returning quite absentmindedly when I passed Ann and three other colleagues … she stopped and turned back to ask me who I was. Then she asked if I worked here … which should ideally have given me the clue about who she was, but I ignored all interventions from my sixth sense, including the fact that the others who knew me, didn’t jump in to do introductions … and began explaining to her in very simple terms what I do at this office … she stared at me quite hard, and the colleagues’ eyebrows went higher and higher … but I continued missing the point. Ann said nothing – and thinking that she wasn’t understanding, I might’ve simplified my project details for her … arrghh. Situma behind her, was going slightly blue from the need to laugh, and had there been a table separating us, I would certainly have received a sound kick under it, but no such respite graced us that day, and I went on explaining – and embarrassing – myself for a good two and one-quarter of a minute! I might’ve stopped after realizing that it was more a monologue than anything else … and she continued briskly again, followed by the others, … walking right into the office of the second-in-charge. I had just explained to my semi-boss what my job was. Life can be cruel.
My office with Peter Butili looks like it might only be a temporary arrangement. Thanks to my loud mouth combined with my low-life status, I might have actually talked my way out of this office. A glass window separates Peter Butili and me from our number one man of business, Girmai. He was on holiday, and my first three weeks were spent in concern about his absence as I needed to get his help on something. But when he arrived, he spent no time in informing me that he has absolutely nothing against interns, but he would like someone else doing my job – because obviously my job was extremely important to the office – and that he would also like to move in another employee to my location. Mm-hmm – I said I completely understand if he needs to have his supervisees near him … but I guess until that point, I didn’t understand, because before we ended our short but productive meeting he informed me that I need to keep my voice down for the time being because noise carried. Oops. So I’d gone and lost myself my office.
But my consolation was that Raja had assigned me my duties, so he obviously knew my abilities! Hah!
The rest of the people are crazy in their own way I’m sure, but I’ll wait to find out about them a little more.
What may not be the ideal setup, but has to happen in Juba is that there’s no work-life demarcation. You spend 10 to 11 waking hours at the office, and then you return to camp to find most of the people there, so it is imperative that you at least not take an intense dislike to anyone! I am happy to say that everyone was just too wonderful my first week … Situma, our Air Ops guy asked me to do a headstand, and when I did not, proclaimed me a sane person, and invited me to join the group of the real crazy people. The Crazies usually sit in one place, and find names for the others … someone who’s eating too much jam – ‘jam finish-ist’ … one who is forgetting to pay their share – ‘bill-avoidist’ … someone who is always late – ‘tardist’. And believe me, in this place, there’s no avoiding the public eye … everyone is in everyone’s face. Then there’s George from Cameroon who is possibly the loudest person in Juba … if you’re going to argue with him, you had better bring your spare pair of lungs, and your wit – last week, I saw him eating what looked like my leftovers … “George!!?!! What is THAT???? You’re eating my curry!”
“Ma friend, it is youh curry? I say your name is nowhere on it!”
“I don’t BELIEVE this! How could you DO THIS!”
“If you do not bee-leeve, I suggest you walk to the fridge and check inside, so you can beeh-leeve, before I eat my lunch! Do you want to go look now?? I’M WAITING!”
I could only fume and point my shoes at him.
“Little gahl! There’s nothing at the bottom of youh shoes!!”
Sigh. But when George is nice, he can also be quite charming … one time he asked why a nice person like me was here … wasn’t I too young? How would I survive? Of course, when I shut him up, he became even more curious and interested. Great I thought! I was setting myself up to be harassed by big men who were hardened by living in the field …
Fast forward two weeks –
Grace: “Farheen, please make him change the channel … this is enough!”
“George, change the channel”
“No!”
“george! Why noT?? You have the remote!”
“And SO?? Mah friend, I’m watching Africa Magic – cant you see!?”
“I can seee!! And I don’t want to see it!”
“You go change it!”
“George! …. Geor-ge! … Don’t let me get up”
“This GAHL!!!! Three of them in any house, and everyone will GO MAD!”
*Victory!*
And there’s Etienn! He is just there... for everyone to throw their demands at him, just because he is the elec. engineer! That has partly to do with the fact that all our troubles stem from stopped air-conditioning, stopped geyser, stopped air-conditioning, busted light, non-functional fan, stopped air-conditioning, fridge droning, stopped air-conditioning, and stopped air-conditioning. Poor thing – he and I are good friends because of the bonding we had when I had to be rescued from a ditch. Although ditches are a common phenomenon and quite visible, but why we found ourselves in this one is just fate! But thanks to that, I have another friend.
Eva is my buddy at the camp. She is Czech, and I think established her own identity slowly but surely, so I just follow her meekly! When she had first told everyone that she was going jogging in Juba in the morning, the collective jaw at the camp dropped with such a clang!=. But of course when she continued to do it, they all forgot about it. Jocelyn, with her love for rules, had made such a fuss that one would think Prince Harry had escaped to fight in Iraq! But Jocelyn keeps her own self busy, trying to control a campful of Crazies … each morning she threatens to leave for work at 7:15 which gets everyone scuttling about like squirrels because that threat could be painful. She dispatches the vehicles. But invariably, she delays and takes us with her. Most days a second vehicle also comes at 7:45 to pick up the stragglers. One of my best memories is the day when my alarm malfunctioned and I woke up at 7:45! Oh my … this should be interesting … I stepped out to see Jocelyn getting into the last car.
“AAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!”
If my late appearance didn’t give her an immediate heart-attack, then my relaxed attitude was about to! I had broken the 7:15 rule – heck I’d broken the 7:45 one! She looked as though she might call the firebrigade to air-lift me to work. But firebrigades don’t do airlifts. And there are no fire-brigades here. Neither are there air-strips at work. So there was nothing to do. Just a little bit of unnecessary excitement. Nothing happened of course – another car came later, and I just watched a little more tv that morning.
It feels like a waste if you aren’t using all that security language you’re taught, and the emergency talk that’s thrown around! Its not our fault that we sometimes feel the need to have our little situations too!
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