Yesterday was much needed. My sleep is still suffering for some reason, but I was able to power through the day! According to my watch, I was averaging under five hours a night on the week after waking up yesterday. (Spoiler: today is much better).
At work I had a very productive day. I’m still going to be working for Water for Good for the next month and a half, but I know once I get to Arusha my productivity is going to slow down with all the distractions there. So, it felt good to have at least one more day of good, hard work.
I had an interesting conversation with my boss. She had asked me if I had time to do something and I replied honestly and said no, because I’m very busy with other projects that need to take priority. She whined about it for a little bit, but I kept saying that I just didn’t have the time but in a few weeks I could reevaluate and see. Eventually my point got across, but it led us into talking about work dynamics. At first we talked as representatives of our cultures and countries, but I’m not too sure whether I was in the right doing so (you can judge for yourself).
She said that if a boss asks for something here, you don’t say no (as long as it’s within reason of course). I said that it depends, but that in the U.S. you can say no (as long as there is a reason of course). I’m sure that there are different environments and cases for this, but from my experience this is general true. Anyways, later in the day we had a meeting where a field team informed us that they weren’t going to be able to meet some of the new benchmarks (e.g. 90% of the 5,000+ project area households need to have safely managed latrines) because it was simply too high—and they were adamant about knowing that it won’t be possible. And again this issue arose. I said that she needed to tell the person above her (so maybe the benchmarks could be adjusted) but she shook her head with a look of fear on her face. Anyways, that little anecdote reinforces that I will always value an environment where people are real about their limits rather than try to keep everyone happy.
The rest of my day went smooth. I went for my run and began the task of packing my bags. I didn’t get too far with that last night though because I was really tired—and thankfully I was actually able to fall asleep early—and left myself some of that packing for this morning! Today is my last day in Shinyanga and it’s going to be interesting to see how it goes! I’m excited to be moving on though, I think I need a change of scenery.