Thursday 2 August 2007

Meeting... M-A-G-A-L-I

1 month that we’ve been coming to Crisis Nursery… 1 month that we’ve been waiting for someone to introduce us properly to the staff, to explain them the purpose of our presence … Share. Share knowledge, experiences, feelings, worries… in order to improve things at the nursery… Together. Until now most of the mothers are suspicious of our motives. They smile but their body language says differently. They think that we spy and judge. A proper introduction would have certainly made our lives easier.

Eventually, we have a meeting with the Head of Ministry of Hope today… Well Charles doesn’t know my name… and I don’t think he was even aware of my existence until now. He keeps asking my name again and again… I have to say that I’m not feeling very happy about it but choose to laugh about it instead… Charles “assumed that everything was fine” and “want to open a new chapter”… We talk for more than 1 hour… a very unproductive talk. He doesn’t like when I say that some of their problems have quite simple solutions… He tells me how different is the culture, how difficult it is to deal with Mr So-and-so etc. Fair enough… Let’s play the game. He seems to be interested to hear that I am an adult trainer and was a nursery manager… Suddenly he wants Johanna and I to be the “Mentors” of Crisis Nursery… At least we are ‘strongly’ invited to suggest ideas, solutions etc. Good...

1 comment:

Unknown said...

It will take lots of work and persuasion to change local ways of thinking. Change is scary and making them realize how simple basic solutions are is often perceived as showing everybody how stupid they were not to find these solutions themselves. I know I couldn't deal with this kind of situation but thank god you're more patient than me and Roxanna put together.
Lots of love,
R & H