Hot chocolate anyone?

End of Day 2, week 2

For the last 2 days, I have been a very dull girl indeed, all work and no play – forget about anything resembling 9 to 5! All the music people went away on Sunday and so, the real work begins for me. I am working with 3 music teachers, one female French secondee and 2 male, permanent, Haitian personnel.

I keep having to check myself – these 3 teachers have been working flat out for the last 3 weeks, so they are possibly slightly less keen to make progress than I do? My sometimes (too) high standards  could be another potential issue as well as my appreciation that  there is quite a bit of work and training to be done AND so little time in which to accomplish this. However, the real stumbling block is the lack of managerial and organisational experience, even at the most basic level. A simple illustration: there are 3 people supposedly dealing with finance; I asked for the bank statements and the reaction I got from all 3 was “I don’t know”! Great start to an accounting assignment, I tell you. I also have the impression that the 2 people at the top do not tend to sing from the same hymn sheet, hmmm… I have got my work cut out!

On a lighter note, I got accosted by the cook when I got home tonight. I got asked very sternly why I did not drink the hot chocolate she made for my supper last night. Fact is, it was SO hot, I did not really fancy a very stodgy, sticky, very sugarey hot chocolate. I don’t like very sweet things at the best of time. Not wanting to offend her, I only said that it was too sweet for me.

When I went down for supper tonight, she beamed at me and said – I made you hot chocolate without sugar. Really sweet of her but Aaaargh….

Beach, music, Prestige, beach...

First weekend – playtime!

2 teachers and I went to a beach on Saturday morning after their rehearsals. The scenery was nice, the sea nice and warm but the beach has too much rubbish for my liking. I guess the last time I was at a “foreign” beach was in the south of Myanmar, on a tiny island, in the middle of the Indian Ocean! It was good to swim in the warm sea though. Left the beach about 4.30pm, back to the house, showered and another disco nap!

Disco nap was NOT long enough! The concert started in time at 7pm and went on till … 10.45 pm with no interval! It was so incredibly hot anyway, but I guess with the body heat of 500 people (including pupils…) made it unbearable. The music was good though and the jazzy piece “Tequila” as the finale was just incredible. There was a girl sitting beside me who cannot be more than 2 years old – she slept quite a lot of the time but when Tequila came on, she woke up and started to bogey… It was lovely to see her sleepy, serious face light up with the music.

There was a party afterwards for dignitaries and volunteers but, I was a party pooper, escaped and went to bed instead. Bad girl!!!

Got up at 6.45am as one of the volunteers and I wanted to get to the Bassin Bleu before the whole world gets there. It was lovely, ice cool waterfall coming down from the mountain. Spent about an hour swimming and headed back to town. Went to another beach for the afternoon. Came back exhausted at about 5 pm and went to bed at 7pm, totally spent! I need to learn to pace myself better in this heat – it is just SO energy sapping to be doing much more than sitting and sipping Prestige! Wonder how long it will take me to get as laidback as this?

More photos

Music cabinets

There are about 10 of these music cabinets. Currently, trying to find a particular score is somewhat challenging!

Janet teaching... 

Rehearsal time 

2 music teachers at the barber's, but... 

...ah, are they talking about music though?

The night after full moon 

This is what woke me up at 5am a few mornings ago! The bright lights you see are from a church, right across the street from our dorm! The lights and the hymns / sermons kept me sleep deprived since I arrived (not parties!)

Jume's survival kit: 1 of 2

Local produce: baby pineapples, giant avocados, slurpy mangoes, green oranges and orange papayas...adorned with bougainvilleas...

Jume's survival kit: 2 of 2 

Look at the size of the avocado as compared with my glasses: the Swiss knife "must have" of: knife, corkscrew and bottle opener; a cute little fan that is powered off my laptop and of course, Prestige!

A gal has got to set the right priorities!

From my balcony, about 6pm

Recital time...

One full (work) week gone…

On reflection, it was a good move coming during the last week of the camp – it gives me time to get over the jetlag as well as seeing what the music school is about before plunging straight into work. There was time for quite a bit of work, getting to know each other, getting used to the new environment… it was not “wasted” time.

The morning was spent mapping out what requires to be done, following from the meeting the night before and writing up the minutes of the meeting for distribution.

The afternoon saw me sorting out the various gifts that volunteers have brought and wrapping up those that are going to be used for prizes. It takes an amazingly long time to do such a simple task, but in the heat, cramped office and with lots of little people watching and asking questions! It got done in a couple of hours. Went back to the house to have a “disco nap”…

There was a recital in the evening, from 7.30 to 9.30. It was a real mixture: some played amazingly well and some, not so well. However, what was obvious was the love of music, the enthusiasm that greeted all musicians and the pride of the audience (doting parents and other family members, no doubt). There must have been at least 200 in the audience (in addition to the pupils themselves.)

Beach time for the next 2 days. Apparently, beachside restaurants do very good (and lethal) rum punches!

Funny, fourth day

Tension is mounting…

Too many pupils or too few teachers, not quite sure which, but the end result is the same. Or is it artistic temperament? Whatever it is, there is definitely something in the air.

I did not have a good sleep the previous night and the day started pretty funnily; with me, walking to the school with an empty (beer) bottle in my hand, to return it to the barber.

The tedious work of writing a manual did not help. I struggled valiantly from 8 to just about midday. So, I left the school at noon, came back to the house, doused myself with lukewarm water and went to bed, having asked a fellow volunteer to keep some lunch for me but she should not, under the penalty of death, wake me up from my slumber, for food! Must have had about an hour’s snooze and felt infinitely better for it.

Went to work at 2.30pm and worked right through to 9.15pm as we had the first management meeting scheduled for 7.30pm but which did not start until 8.15 and it went on for just over one hour.

Came home, had very late supper and back to bed again.

Good result – another tedious manual has now been drafted. The meeting was good in that I have now the buy-in and authority to do what I am here to do.

At some point in the late afternoon, the now customary Prestige was very welcome. Shortly after this drink and I put it down to being a lightweight and got touched by the combination of heat and Prestige…  when an annoying “blan” (i.e. blanc, or white) individual who had been trying it on with me, verbally, since I arrived, and who would not take a barely disguised “Get lost”… I could not believe that I actually said to him “Boyo, stop it. I am out with your league!” Golly, do I cringe when I think about it now! BUT, he got the message!

Where has the time gone?

Third Full day

I truly believe that I entered a time warp zone when I arrived here on Sunday afternoon, local time. The last three days just passed me by – so much happened, good and not so good.

The “Not so good” bits were things that I had expected anyway: intense heat and high humidity, loads of mosquitoes, very poor standard of living, dirt, dust, electricity cuts, rationing of water… but still, it can, at times, be a little overwhelming, especially when one is tired and did not have enough sleep (before you even think it, not because of late night parties, I must add!).

The really good bits are a sense of achievement, the certain knowledge that what I do MAKES a difference to the school, in terms of achieving greater efficiency for mundane tasks… which means that the staff have more time to dedicate to teaching the kids, which is the school’s main raison d’être.  And when I reflect that what I do, has the potential of making a positive impact on the current 1,200 pupils on the school roll, year in, year out, it is simply awesome (in its truest sense, I don’t normally tend to use this overused word).

Today was BORING! Aaarrrrgh… writing up a Users’ Manual is just SO tedious, even for the music library database for the Ecole de Musique Dessaix – Baptist of Jacmel; but still, it will be very useful. Don’t know how I kept going, from 8 am to 5.45 pm with about one hour off for lunch break – sheer bloody mindedness, I suppose.

Tomorrow will be no different from today as I will be writing another manual, from the designer’s perspective. This will allow the school administrator to understand the mechanics of the database and deal with changes / improvements as may be required in the future, on an informed and effective basis. OMG, with at least 4 other databases to design (accounting / reporting, HR, pupils, instruments... ----> at least a further 8 manuals to write... Thank goodness for the reliable supply of "Prestige" nearby.

But until tomorrow, I make hay (the sun still shines, in fact). My little daughter has been commissioned by me to upload photos that I shall email her, to my blog. The internet speed here is just too slow for me to attempt to do it myself from here. So, look out for Jume’s survival kits in Haiti! ;-)

Got home today, pretty tired but had a smile on my lips when, in response to my “Bonswa”, the sweet little old man who seems to be working as a joiner at my house, replied with “Bonswa ma belle”! It cannae be a bad end to my third day!

Photos

My super cool mosquito net!

Just outside our house!

The school

Watering holes - the green building is the barber, the cream / pink one is a grocer. Either is good as a supplier of "Prestige"! They both are just opposite the school mmm....