Sustainable Success and a day to High 5!

Work has been successful this week. Small achievements include teaching them about backing documents up and creating a new process to produce the donor payslip. I also made progress with one of my main projects – trying to produce an organisation wide budget for 2011/12 – and have organised a meeting for all key staff at Bwafwano for tomorrow.

At the moment, the organisation only has a budget for specific projects which receive funding from international donors.  They don’t have a budget for any income or expenditure for the community clinic or the skills training programmes, and therefore are not monitoring these.  This means that the organisation cannot plan for the future as they are unable to determine how financially viable they are as an organisation. As a community project which is providing life giving services to a wide number of people it is vital that they start becoming proactive in financial management.  Hopefully I can contribute to making some small changes within my 4 weeks.

I have also been updating the fixed asset schedule – I will never be able to escape capital accounting!  I have been impressed and motivated with sharing ideas with Patricia (the accountant) who appears to have sound accounting knowledge and is keen to put many of the policies Bwafwano have into practice. ‘Lack of time’ appears to be her major obstacle and she would like me to do this for her.  I am very aware that to make any changes sustainable I need to involve the finance team as much as possible and let them take ownership of these changes.  This is probably the biggest challenge so far!

• Power cuts – three in three nights last week. Ranging from a couple of nights to the whole night.  I made a resolution one night to get all cooking done in daylight.
   
• Nshima.  This is the national staple food. A maize based thick porridge (slightly more stodgy and firm) which is served with two relishes (often pumpkin leaves) and eaten with the hands.  I have tried it and am not a fan. Personally I think it has the taste and texture of cardboard, however the making of it is considered an art form and as one taxi driver said to me today ‘my stomach needs it three times every day or it will be the end of the world’. Zambians love their nshima. 
  
  

• Religion. Zambians like to know which church you go to.  If you do not go to church, they find this hard to contemplate and often follow up with ‘But you do believe?’ or ‘Who made you?’.   Religion is an intrinsic part of daily life here, with people wearing their best clothes attending Church on Sunday for 2 to 4 hour services.
   
• ‘Muzunga’ – (white person). Whenever I am walking to work, or back home, going on my recent morning runs or going to the local shop all children like shouting muzunga as a greeting followed with ‘how are you?’. You cannot walk anywhere without getting this greeting and no response in required – just a smile and a wave.  You are then treated to one of the highlights of Africa – a smiling child's face followed by laughter.  I am learning to catch them out by saying ‘I’m okay’ in the local dialect.
   
• Nigerian films and soaps are the new Bollywood - (actually known locally as NollyWood!).