Simple Meeting

We came to a brand new realization yesterday when we were attending a staff meeting...we are no longer in the United States. This may seem obvious, however, it is amazing how quickly things we are experiencing become normalized as a regular part of our lives. For example, bucket showers, lots of highly starchy foods (white rice, white potatoes, white bread, everything fried in palm oil...good times), heavy, thick, and polluted air, poverty, HIV, singing, dancing, passionate sermons, being a racial minority, etc. However, yesterday, we were out of our normalized experience.

As we attended this staff meeting, we thought it was going to be about collecting data for Monitoring and Evaluation Services. We thought it would be a quick 15 minute or so meeting on fixing the problems with gathering data. We learned quickly this was not the case. We learned that Nigerian meetings do not operate the same way as U.S. meetings. For example, as the issue started to be presented, something of an outroar came about. Everyone started talking at once, loudly, in what seemed like distress. Then people would try to talk over each other and interrupt each other as each was trying to make their point. As each was trying to make their point, they seemed agrivated at the situation. There were definately more concerns than a 15 minute meeting would allow. A meeting about data collection eventually turned into job responsibilities and requirements, as well as patient responsibilities. It is difficult to know your job if you have no job description. They've been working on it...for at least a year. However, Faith Alive operates like a family. Job descriptions are absolutely blurred anyways, you see a need, you help out, it's family. However, the culture also lacks a sense of personal responsibility, because they take such great care of each other, which we so highly emphasize in the U.S. So, this family mentality also leads to...it's family, it's their problem, not mine, that must be someone else's job within the family. There is also the issue of people just trying to fly under the radar. Nobody wants to rock the boat and nobody wants to cause trouble, because they're incredible self conscious about criticizm. It also runs through the patients. Sometimes Nigerians are too compassionate, maybe? I'm not sure this exists, or it's my own American frame of reference. But, when people miss or come late to their appointment, they still see them and give them medications, with reprimanding, but no initiative to change the behavior. This would NOT fly in the U.S. You miss your appointment, you must make a new one...sorry. Compassion can sometimes make work hard. This seems to be a problem for the smallest of tasks, which all seem like they could be resolved with a computer database system. However...the clinic is not ready for that yet. It would take a lot of work and retraining to get the system there. It's amazing what the base level of education and capacity of the local work force does to your ability to try to innovate and move to the next level. The issues brought up were apparently issues that have been "worked on" for the past couple of years. There were no raising of hands to discuss your opinion in this meeting. There was no order or set agenda for the meeting...did I mention it lasted 2 hours? There was no one taking minutes on the ideas that were brought forward to implement. There was no leader of the meeting to get things "under control" when everyone was talking at once. It was intense, yet a good experience...we are no long in the U.S. The meeting ended with people hugging each other, laughing, and all getting along, apparently people weren't REALLY mad, or aggrivated, or upset. It's just how they discuss things. Ah, the new experiences of the Nigerian way of life.

Again, we love you, miss you, and value our relationships above all else, so we are thankful you all are hanging in there with us, and continuing to value the relationships as we do! Talk to you soon!
Peace,
Kristen