Engine trouble

We stopped by this motorbike after returning from a productive meeting with our main local partner. Souped up and decked in the Liberian flag, it caught the eye. At the meeting Andrew, our key contact, used the word 'rigmarole', which just sounds excellent in a Liberian accent with its Caribbean lilt.

In NGOs the volume of work can be overwhelming and the relatively unstructured context can be exciting yet unsettling. I often get a real high after good meetings that later gets lots in the morass of battles over finances, processes and deadlines; none of which we do as efficiently as in other sectors.

One of the mentalities that has developed in the NGO sector over its history is a collective 'martyring for the cause'. Demands, workloads, needs and structures have evolved without adequate safeguards and resources so that it has become impossible to achieve enough in a 7.5 hour working day. It's tragic that we feel we have not done enough in that timeframe and entirely unsatisfactory and unhealthy.

Prioritising of a workload certainly helps and I wonder how many of us are actually effective at this; as effective as we claim to be at each job interview. Over the last decade in this organisation I've improved my ability to prioritise by about 1%.

I worked then realised it was too late to sort out proper food, so I had a muffin (which is called shortbread here). There is much confusion between the UK and Liberia when it comes to baked goods.