3 weeks ago we had a Partner Workshop in Lira for representatives from all of our partner organisations. The Programme Officer facilitated sessions on Tuesday and Thursday, allowing the organisations to showcase their work over the grant period, discussing issues around reporting and looking at gender main streaming, both within the organisations and within the programmes.
I took over on Wednesday for a Finance day, aimed at both the finance people and the programme people. We had a very busy interactive day focussing mainly on reconciliations (led by the Finance teams) and coding (led by the Programme teams). I had prepared two case studies, based on experiences at various partner organisations, which everyone tackled with enthusiasm and then we had a lengthy discussion about some of the challenges in coding up expenditure. Overall a thoroughly enjoyable and productive day, which I hope I will see put into practice as I travel around to the various partner organisations. I was very pleased when the group agreed a 5/5 score for both of the main sessions of the day during the evaluation at the end.
Break Tea at the Partner Workshop
In Uganda it is common practice to intersperse the day with Energisers, run every time the energy levels drop during the day. We had a designated participant to lead the Energisers so after lunch the whole group could be seen jumping around the room to a well known (by everyone except me) Ugandan action nursery rhyme. That was a first during finance training! I wish I had a picture but I too busy laughing and trying to join in!
So back to Kampala leaving at 7.30am on Friday to get into the office for a couple of hours before the end of the day. Then we found out that we needed to leave again on Sunday afternoon in order to take someone else to Soroti for a Monday morning meeting. So Saturday was a rush of washing and shopping.
It was interesting to head eastwards on Sunday afternoon along the Jinja road then to Mbale and Soroti. It made a nice change from the well driven route north via Karuma.
Crossing the Nile at Jinja over the Owen Falls Dam opened in 1954 by Queen Elizabeth
Mbale late afternoon on Sunday - note the interesting road surface at a major roundabout on the entrance to the town and the foothills around Mount Eldon in the background.
On Monday I had the use of the car and driver to get across to Lira, about an hour and a half on a good road. It was a beautiful warm sunny day and I wasn't expected at the organisation's office until Tuesday morning so I settled myself in the hotel garden with my laptop and a cup of coffee to catch up with some e mails and reports. The hotel had even thoughtfully provided electrical sockets in the trees so that laptops could be recharged! I was working, honest!
The rest of the week was spent working with the partner organisation to review their systems and the expenditure charged to the grant. We worked on reconciling from the cashbook to the monitoring information, putting into practice the skills developed at the workshop the previous week.
The weekend back in Kampala was only the second where I didn't have to do any work or travel for 5 weeks. We made good use of it having Facetime and Skype conversations with family and friends, catching up with e mails and sorting out the date for the quarterly Volunteer meeting for the Kampala volunteers. As well as the inevitable washing, ironing and food shopping. On Saturday lunchtime we went to the delicatessen at Quality Hill and bought pate, goats cheese and a French style bagette and had a lovely, if expensive, French style picnic lunch on the balcony!
Saturday night saw a group of about 12 of us gathering at a volunteer's apartment overlooking lake Victoria for an Indian curry. Later in the evening the guitars came out and were passed around and we spent a very happy 3 hours or so sat on the roof terrace (as usual it was a lovely warm evening and we only needed summer clothes to sit out even at midnight) singing all the old songs - American Pie, California Dreaming, Always look on the Bright Side of Life etc. etc. We didn't get home until 1.30 so felt a bit jaded on Sunday!
Bright and early on Monday morning I was back in the office trying to tie up the paperwork from the previous week and plan for the week ahead. We were a bit late leaving so didn't arrive in Gulu until 8.30pm. Both my placement organisation and VSO have policies that we don't travel after dark if it can be avoided except on the Kampala to Entebbe road. As we dodged the potholes, full beam headlights coming straight at us and disappearing bikes and pedestrians on the final section of road I could see why. Luckily we arrived safely at the hotel.
I must stop trying to fit 2 days work into each day, especially when I'm at a partner organisation. It's not doing my stress levels any good! The problem is that with two day's travelling in a week when we visit partners there is always so much to try and fit in while we are there! Anyway I saw 2 partner organisations in Gulu and my colleague visited 3! I left them both with spreadsheets to complete and workplans for the next few weeks until I can visit again. I left myself with half written visit reports to complete and send and promises to review work forwarded to me. I'm not sure where I'm going to fit it all in as I'm visiting 2 more organisations in Kampala this week! So much for being 'only' a volunteer!
Driving back into Kampala from the north.
We spent the day yesterday showing a new volunteer around Kampala and introducing her to some of the other volunteers over pizzas in the evening. Today is a catch up day with a trip to a bar to view the sunset over Kampala this evening. Hence the title of this post - Busy, Busy, Busy!
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