De grote ontwikkelingsorganisaties van deze wereld, zoals CARE, hebben typischerwijs hoofdkantoren in de Westerse wereld en veldkantoren in het Zuiden. Het is normaal dat mensen die op de hoofdkantoren werken jaloers zijn op hun colega´s “in het veld”. En terecht, want werken op een veldkantoor is veel interessanter, leuker, je werkt direct met de mensen en de materie waar het omgaat, je ziet vaker direct resultaat van je werk, en het weer is er beter. Maar dat het leven van een velwerker niet altijd in alle opzichten beter is blijkt uit de onderstaande email conversatie tussen mij en een colega die op het hoofdkantoor werkt.

Collega: First of all, Happy New Year! I hope you had a bit of time to rest and enjoy the festivities. Apologies for nagging you in the first week of the year… but could you please send me asap email regarding […etc]

Arthur: Happy New Year to you too! How did you spend the Holidays? With(out) the intention of making you jealous: I spend New Year under the stars in the desert of Southern Angola.

Nagging us the first week of the year would have had no effect. The two weeks around Christmas, New Year, and the remembrance of the Massacre of Cassange, Angola shuts down totally. Nothing is open. Nobody does anything. Nothing is available. Nothing functions. The
process of shutting down and restarting also takes some time, causing Angola to function at only about 50% capacity for some weeks more. (that is 50% of Angola´s normal functioning, which would be a frightening small percentage of European normal functioning anyway)

Collega: Thanks for making me laugh on a gloomy morning… but very unfair to make me jealous! I had the brilliant idea of going to Israel for New Year, so basically had my holiday taken over by the conflict. Next time I'll make sure I'll go to an uncomplicated country like Angola

Arthur: I was actually thinking to be even much more unfair to you, by attaching some of the pictures from the desert-trip including one while swimming in a river surrounded by sand-dunes at the 1st of January. But I spared you all that, how considerate of me.

However, thinking about the lack of productivity in this country makes me want to be in your place just a little bit. Take this morning's task: looking up two pieces of information in my (online) inbox, which I use for another email, which should be addressed to 10 recipients to be found in my inbox: 100 minutes. It would have taken you 3 minutes, meaning that I work only 3% as effective as you!

Or take a regular meeting. Let´s say it would take you 4 hours. I reserve 1) 3 hours of traffic going and coming back.  2) 99% starts at least an hour late. 3) Angolans like talking a lot and generally repeat 1 argument 3 times, thereby reducing productivity by at least  30%.  4) Roughly 30% gets cancelled because nobody showed up because of a variety of reasons. Meaning that step 1, 2 and 3 have to be taken again another day. Your 4 hours take me at least 12. That did not include, of course the time it takes to confirm the meeting 3 times, using the same slow internet connections, necessary to prevent that the cancellation rate will not be 90%.

Hope you feel a bit better about yourself and your work environment.

Best,
Arthur