Leadership

Soon after I arrived in my post here, in an attempt to figure out what I could usefully contribute, I conducted 1-2-1s with every member of the team I’m working with to find out what they felt about their role, what they thought needed to change in the department and what made them want to come to work in the mornings. Overwhelmingly, the single clearest message from these meetings was that the motivating factor for all of them was the Head of the department: the fact that he is so busy and works so hard makes them want to do well in their jobs (“If you’re boss isn’t sleeping, you won’t sleep either.”).

I’ve been very fortunate, thus far, to have worked mainly for excellent – and in some cases truly exceptional – leaders, and on the few occasions when I haven’t, it’s completely destroyed my motivation to do any work. So I have to say I’m relieved that that part of the jigsaw is clearly in place here – a good place to start from. Particularly because Nigerian culture is very hierarchical - if the boss tells you to do something, you do it.

Last weekend we had dinner with our boss from the Funder – a huge relief to clarify some things about our roles, why we’re here, what they want us to do, etc. – and it made me realize: all I need to be content in a job is a good leader. If I believe in the person at the top and I know they’re on the ball, I can quite happily put up with a lot of things. But what kind of a person does that make me? The kind of person who goes along with anything so long as the person telling me to has charisma and seems to know what they’re talking about? The kind of person who votes for Tony Blair, that’s who. 

The Simple Life

The thing I love most about living in Nigeria so far is the simplicity of my life out here. It would be naïve, patronizing and almost certainly inaccurate to say that people in developing countries live more simply than we in the West do – having only seen how a handful of Nigerians live, I couldn’t possibly make that judgment. But my life here is far less complicated than it was at home. With frequent loss of power, no television, and a far reduced social life, I have more time to read, and think – and just be. It’s calmer, less frenetic, less guilt-ridden. I don’t have long to-do lists and somehow, even though household tasks should take longer out here (e.g. hand washing), there’s not that same feeling of ‘I really should go and…’every time I sit down.

In large part I suspect that’s to do with my job. I’m not saying volunteering isn’t challenging – far from it. Working within an entirely different culture in an ill-defined role can, at times, be hugely frustrating and confusing. But it’s less hectic; not only because I’m a volunteer and am supposed to be supporting and facilitating rather than jumping in and doing things, but also because the work ethic is very different out here. Added to which, the lack of power and computers means there is no email culture, which in turn means communication takes a LOT longer and slows the decision-making process right down.

I had worried about my health while I‘m volunteering: 18 months without a trip to the dentist, limited fruit and vegetables available, lots of fried food and meat… But actually (malaria aside) I think I was wrong to worry. A lot of ailments back home can be attributed to stress and so I actually feel much healthier here, where I’m not stressed about anything and I’m getting plenty of sleep; since I’ve been out here, for example, I haven’t had a single migraine. The warmth, the sun (when it’s not pelting down with torrential rain), and the joy and laughter of Nigerian people can’t help but make you feel happier and healthier.

I have to say, it makes me a little anxious about returning to the UK. With any luck, out here I’ll learn how to take things slower and not to invest so much emotional energy in my work. But is that even possible in the UK? In a culture where people go to work bleary-eyed and clutching a cup of caffeine, work 8, 10, 12 hour days and then check their blackberry several times that evening, what hope is there of taking things slower? When you’re trying to dress in ironed, sexy-yet-professional (and I’m quoting from Cosmopolitan here) Top Shop clothing and heels, work a 10 hour day making high-powered pitches and winning deals, come home and cook a Nigel Slater ‘quick supper’ for the family, spend an hour playing with the children and putting into practice Supernanny’s naughty-step-and-reward-chart routine and then finally reply to the many messages on Facebook which have accumulated since you were last in front of a computer screen 2 hours ago – where’s the opportunity for taking your foot off the pedal and just enjoying life?

I think we’re back to Maslow again. When you’ve basically got everything you could want, it’s not that you find things to moan about, but when you’re at the top of the pyramid, all you’re concerned about is self-fulfillment (or I think it’s called self-actualisation). You’ve got nowhere else to go, so you just stay there finding more and more ways in which you’re not fulfilled and trying to address them. Whereas, when you’re in sweltering heat and not sure where your next bucket of water is coming from, the range of things to worry about – whilst far more serious – is far narrower and you just focus your attention on finding that water.

Today

Today has been a much better day. I've walked along the railway and busy dusty roads, I've squished myself into the back of a bus, travelled through the busy market, made friends with a wannabe footballer called Kaz, shopped for vegetables at the side of the road and returned home to find a herd of cows on my road. Much more like it.

Fear

Yesterday, I came the closest I’ve come to throwing it all in and going home.

After a week of being in Abuja, of standards of living comparable to the UK, and of taking taxis everywhere, it was always going to be a shock to come back to Kaduna and to taking okadas. I felt a little unsafe on our ride into work (but then I always do – I never feel fully safe on those things), but then the journey home was something else.

For some reason, the main road had far more traffic than we’d ever seen at that time of day, and it was backed up a long way from one of the roundabouts. When okada drivers come to traffic jams (or ‘go slows’ as they’re known here), they try to find ways through them. Or around them. And if there isn’t a way, they invent one. So we found ourselves weaving in and out of tightly packed cars and buses, mounting curbs, humps and bumps to take muddy dirt tracks at the side of the road – onto the road, off the road, back onto the road, each time colliding with the driver and feeling like I was going to come off. Twice I had to slam my hand onto the bonnet of a vehicle – a 4x4 and a bus, both much larger than we were – which was trying to drive into us from the side.

That’s beyond my risk threshold, I’m afraid. I stopped the driver and got off – in the middle of what seemed like an industrial estate, and with no other prospects of getting home for a while since the roads were too crazy to catch a bus or bike and far too busy to consider walking alongside or crossing. After a bit of a walk along quiet side roads, we found a chop house (café) where we sat down for a drink. Weeping into my bitter lemon, I wondered how everyone else does it. Other volunteers seem happy enough to take okadas, or to take shared cars or buses along busy roads at alarming speeds; and Nigerians do it all the time! I’m finding it really hard to know that whatever I want to accomplish today, I’m going to have to take a potentially terrifying and dangerous journey to do it. And it’s exhausting to tense all your muscles and hold your breath for large portions of your commute because you’re worried you’re going to hit that car or come off the bike.

I know the answer to how Nigerians and other volunteers do it – they don’t worry as much as I do. And actually, in the case of many Nigerians, the answer seems to be that, since they believe that God will choose their time to die, they have no control over it and there’s therefore no need to worry about it. I have to say that’s becoming an ever more appealing philosophy. Although, it’s also the reason why no okada drivers wear helmets and presumably the cause of many deaths which could have been avoided.

Bedbugs and Boundaries

Each night, as I’ve been lying in bed going to sleep, I’ve heard a clicking sound. Like an insect or rodent was nibbling at something solid, or, maybe, like some larger insect was communicating with another of its kind. Since it started after Simon fixed the mirror so that it stood high enough to see our faces in, I had assumed that it was an insect – probably a large one like a cockroach – living in the piles of cardboard on which he’d stood the mirror.

Last night, the clicking was so loud that it woke me up. This morning, as I was getting dressed, I noticed a sizeable pile of what looked like sand at the foot of the bed. It turns out that the noise was, in fact, some sort of wood burrowing creature, eating its way through the foot of the bed. There are no holes like you’d expect with woodworm, but the outside of the wood is all cracked, like it’s pushing at it from the inside. Urgh. We have sprayed it with Rambo – strongest insecticide known to man, kills cockroaches which have merely walked through a patch of floor that was once sprayed. In fact, we sprayed so much that the air is still pretty toxic in there – we may end up sleeping on the sofas.

On an entirely different note, I’ve been thinking about boundaries. In the UK, I pride myself on maintaining strong boundaries between my personal and professional life. Here, however, that simply isn’t proving possible. For one thing, many of our colleagues working for the Funder are ex-pats – some are consultants – who are working away from their families. I imagine that for them, their entire life when they’re out here is work, so calling on a Sunday night to discuss meeting times in the upcoming week doesn’t seem odd. For the Nigerians we work with, there simply isn’t the distinction between the two worlds, I don’t think. Either that, or since home life is essentially family and home-based (most of our colleagues don’t seem to do much socialising), friends and colleagues become the same thing. Or perhaps it’s because we’re trying to make friends out here that I’m ignoring the boundary I would hold so strictly at home? Either way, I think I’m going to need a serious acclimatisation course when I return to work in the UK!

Luxureeeee!

This week we have escaped the diluvian streets of Kaduna for some Abuja luxury and a workshop at the funder’s Head Office.

We’re being put up in a very lovely hotel; our room has carpet (clean, fluffy carpet), a kettle, a functioning shower (hot), a bath with a plug that fits, and just a generally clean and extravagant feel. I didn’t expect that living in Nigeria would make me get gleefully excited at expensive hotel luxury – in fact, I expected that it would make me place less importance on mini-bars, flat screen TVs and room service and instead appreciate the simpler things in life – but I have to admit to being overwhelmingly happy to be here. It’s also fun to be with some other volunteers – we’ve met a great couple from California, and have finally been able to meet up with Lucy from the UK who we met on our VSO course back home and have been in touch with ever since.

I’m learning patience here. The last two days of the workshop have focused on financial management for schools. The facilitators have taken us through topics such as accountability & transparency, the importance of having more than one signatory on an account and how to fill in a bank deposit slip – all things with which I am very familiar. We have spent two days going through these principles (we have returned to most topics at least twice over the two days) and have had lengthy and heated arguments about certain issues, such as whether there should be two or three signatories and how to account for travel allowances. If I had seen the session plan, I would definitely have thought that the content could have been covered in half a day; but I’d have been wrong. For the majority of the people in the room, these weren’t everyday topics – these were brand new concepts. And as most schools here do not currently handle significant amounts of money (since none ever reaches them from local government) and do not follow many basic accounting principles, this will all be completely new to them too (it’s not difficult to see how corruption is entirely possible here.) It was obvious from discussions that it was very necessary to go over and over the topics, however frustrating it may have been for us. So sitting there is that room, reminding myself of these facts, I came one step closer to being a patient person.

I’m also learning that Nigerians see and talk about things very much in black and white terms (figuratively, I mean). Many of the Nigerians with whom I have worked and shared training are very keen to identify a ‘right’ and a ‘wrong’ answer in every situation. This, in my mind, is both a cause and a consequence of the situation described in a recent report on the educational system in five Nigerian states, which identified a lack of open questions being asked by teachers, and a distinct lack of opportunity for pupils to discuss or write in their own words. This workshop has also reminded me of Nigerians’ love for vociferous and heated discussion, and perhaps this too is linked to a passionate desire to arrive at the ‘right’ answers.

This black-and-white outlook seems to lead to a blame culture which is evident here. If there are only right and wrong answers with no grey area in between, compromise and agreeing to disagree don’t really come into it – someone is right, which means their opponent must be wrong and should get the blame. To my mind at least, this does not lend itself well to effective working relationships. And therein lies the challenge. I love it.

Marooned!

And now we are somewhat stranded. As the river level creeps ever upwards, and ever closer to our friends’ front door, our road has now started to flood – not just from the over-saturated swamp, but because the river is so high. When we went out earlier, the water was covering cars’ exhaust pipes in places and has risen since. The traffic has in fact increased along our street, because the next road down is now submerged in river, so when you’re not trying to avoid the puddles, you’re jumping out of the way of motorbikes. One man in his car, which had just very nearly run me over, shouted “White woman – what are you doing here?!”. I wasn’t sure whether he meant in front of his car, in a flooded area of town or in Nigeria, so I just kept walking.

The okadas continue to run down our road, with and without passengers. Passengers roll their trousers up and take off their shoes, and drivers hold their legs straight out in front of them to keep their feet wet whilst their wheels are submerged; it’s a miracle I haven’t yet witnessed anyone falling off into the water.

So we can’t get to the main road now. Not unless we’re prepared to wade in significant depths, and since someone told us they saw leeches in there, I’m not. We paddled to a riverside bar, where we sat above the swollen river and observed as the rapid currents dragged large tree parts pasts us, drank a couple of beers and watched a beautiful sunset. The river didn’t look like it was getting any higher, but by the time we came to cross that same patch of water to get home, it was considerably larger, deeper and faster-flowing and we had to wade almost up to our knees.

The volunteers who live next to the river are now two or three doors away from the encroaching Kaduna River, and have brought another couple of bags over to store in our – as yet – dry house. We met our landlord on the way out and he seemed ever so slightly less confident about the situation than before. Since we’re heading to Abuja for a week tomorrow – provided we can get someone to come and pick us up in a 4x4! – we’re piling everything on top of furniture and hoping for the best.

Water, water

Now it really is everywhere. This is proper rainy season. It’s kinda cool.

In the last few days, there has been at least one session per day of proper, heavy, tropical rain: the kind of rain that means you’re going to get wet if you even step into it for a second, and the chances of getting to work at all are minimal. The river has flooded. That’s the Kaduna River, only one street away from us. Today, our neighbours (two other volunteers) who live on the road right next to it came to let us know that we should go and take a look. Most of the road is covered, many houses are flooded and there was a Red Cross van there with an inflatable raft. For those who have been shipped (literally) out of their homes, it’s not kinda cool.

On our street, there’s one compound that’s flooded, and when it rains heavily, there’s a sort of swamp to the side of the road which saturates and overflows, turning the road into more of a river which we then have to wade through in our sandals. But our landlord very confidently told us today that, no matter that people down the road were packing up, the water wouldn’t reach us so we shouldn’t worry – and who am I to argue?

The volunteers who live on the river bank have left a couple of bags of stuff with us to stay dry, and we’re expecting them to come over at some point during the night to sleep if their place starts to flood. We have taken everything off the floor and out of bottom drawers and piled it high on our many sofas.

So in many ways, it’s not at all cool. But there’s still a definite air of excitement about the place. Several roadside shops were shut; they weren’t flooded, but I think the owners just wanted to join the groups of people standing around, looking at the flood and chatting – like normal life was suspended, a sort of Blitz spirit. And of course, because it’s Nigeria, there’s a lot of laughter and joking.

We attempted to go out to a bar tonight for beers and suya (barbecued meat), but halfway through eating, the sky turned a very ominous shade of black and we all dispersed sharpish (with half-finished beers. Sigh.). So here we are. Sitting in the dark, finishing off our suya and starting on a bottle of red wine. The thunder’s rumbling and the lightning flashes occasionally; the rain has died down a bit, but when it’s heavy the sound on our metal roof is amazing!

In other – still water-related – news, the plumber (to be properly Nigerian, pronounce every letter) came today and fixed our ever-running tap. He broke our sink in the process, but you can’t have everything in life.

Getting Angry

After yesterday’s post, I couldn’t have asked for a better illustration of what makes me angry here than the workshop Simon and I delivered today.

After a day of very active, participatory and resource-heavy activities which had taken a long time to plan and prepare and had seemed to work really well, Simon invited someone in the group to give us a closing prayer (every workshop begins and ends with prayer here). Instead of which, one of the group stood up and took centre stage to give Simon a lecture about how the per diem he had arranged for them was so insultingly small they had all discussed giving it back.

To put this into context, here are some of the facts about today’s workshop. It was held at the workplace of almost all of the participants, so that they would not incur additional travel or accommodation costs. Because the logistics of providing food for them were tricky, instead we gave them a daily allowance of 1,000 Naira. To give you an idea, 1,000 Naira is the VSO volunteer’s daily living allowance (outside of accommodation); this is what volunteers live off on a daily basis. Last night we went to a normal ‘chop house’ (local restaurant, full of local Nigerians) and got four evening meals including soft drinks for a total of N1,600.

Talking to our colleague afterwards, we asked how N1,000 could possibly not be enough for the participants to buy their refreshments for the day. He explained that it has to do with status, and that people of this stature are insulted that it’s being suggested they eat so cheaply.

There was also outrage about how undignified it was that Simon had told them about this allowance in advance of the workshop as part of a text containing all details of the session. Since some of them do not have access to email and since it seemed that lots of professional communication was done via text, it didn’t seem like an unreasonable thing to do. Apparently, it’s not the fact that details were communicated by text that has offended them, but the fact that the amount being offered as an allowance was specifically named in this text.

So there are cultural differences we’re yet to understand, and we have learnt a big lesson today about running everything by a Nigerian colleague before taking action in case there are hidden faux pas. But I’m not sure whether something being an aspect of local culture means I can’t find it unacceptable. This per diem culture – which, it seems, we are only seeing the tip of: apparently civil servants here would expect a daily allowance of N15,000 to attend a training day – is found everywhere, and not just in the development sector. To me it just seems the wrong way round. What value can people possibly see in the actual training if they’re being paid – over and above their salary – to attend it? How on earth do Nigerians react when they move to the UK and suddenly discover that training is actually something you have to pay for, rather than be paid for?

In the ‘development context’ – as VSO likes to say – I can see that you can’t expect people to immediately see the value in what you’re trying to achieve (and certainly I’m not saying I’m expecting gratitude). I can see that, at a community level, it makes perfect sense to me that you would provide food at a community meeting, knowing full well that the food (rather than the agenda) would be the incentive for most attendees, but hoping to achieve something with them while they are eating. Why should it be any different at government level? I suspect that it is this very development work which has created this per diem culture – you start by providing rice at a community forum, and it escalates to persuading government ministers that the education programme is relevant by paying for a day of their time. I can’t see how it’s sustainable.

It also makes me wonder – are there no private training businesses in Nigeria? Is it only development agencies with enormous budgets who provide training and therefore per diems? There probably are training businesses here, or more likely leadership gurus who deliver conferences. Book shop shelves are full of business and leadership guides, and there is a very entrepreneurial spirit here, so I imagine it’s the self-employed self-starters who are willing to actually pay for developing their skills and knowledge.

All of that said, I understand that this is the culture I’ve chosen to come and work in and with; and you can’t change anything by stepping outside of people’s culture and all that brings with it. That doesn’t necessarily stop me being angry about it.

Footnote: I should say that Simon and I are paid incredibly handsome per diems by the funder when we travel to workshops like this, which we had been using to supplement our volunteer allowance. I am now reconsidering what I should do with this money.

Work culture

The VSO strapline is Sharing Skills, Changing Lives; we volunteers enjoy creating alternatives to fit our own experiences. One of my fellow volunteers is frustrated that all she feels she can share with her colleagues is how to perform certain computer functions without using the mouse; or Sharing Shortcuts, Changing Lives. Another of my favourites is Sharing lunch, Changing Waistlines. My own variation of the moment is Getting Angry, Changing Nothing. It’s been a frustrating week.

I think it’s fair to say that, in general, Nigerian timekeeping is very different from our own. Of course it’s a generalization to say that people here always arrive much later than the time agreed, but it’s one that Nigerians recognize. I think this trait fits with the happier, more relaxed view of the world, in which people can be without the staples of a Western lifestyle (power, water, wealth) and yet laugh all the time.

Planning, too, is far less evident, far less formalized, far less systematic than I am used to. Again, I can rationalize it. If your life expectancy is 45, why would you constantly think of tomorrow? We’re a long way from the pension debates of the UK: provision for life after retirement just isn’t an issue for most people here. There’s little foresight, little thought given to long-term implications. It’s seen as strange that we should want to book one of the office drivers to take us for a three-day work trip any more than 2 days in advance. There are whiteboards in the offices with dates on, but activities seem mainly to be entered retrospectively. I haven’t seen anyone in one of the organizations we work in with a diary (and they don’t have computers either); it simply isn’t done to arrange a specific time and date for a meeting – instead, you wander round the site, hoping to find them in their office and with fewer than 5 people in the queue to see them. (Incidentally, though there are no diaries, most people’s offices contain at least 3 calendars; they’re almost always for past years.)

And yet, as another volunteer put it, everything seems to work; things seem to come together in a “haphazard, happy and effective way” in the end. Which, I have to admit, is infuriating to me. It does not help to convince people that planning is essential, when things seem to work out with or without it. Am I, paradoxically, here to learn that planning is, after all, not essential? That all of that stuff I’ve learnt on training courses about ‘Fail to plan, plan to fail’ and ‘Prior planning and preparation prevents poor performance’ is nonsense? I’d like to think I’m open to this possibility (although it’s not in my nature to do anything other than plan and make spreadsheets), and I can certainly see that it’s true – things do seem to work out here, and without the, seemingly unnecessary, stress and panic which a serial planner would go through. But I can’t help thinking that things would be so much better if the planning were there. If Nigerian people can achieve so much with this haphazard approach, think how much they could achieve with some planning and structure! And – is it too simplistic to say it? – if it worked so well, would Nigeria still be a developing country?

Clearly, imposing my UK-based idea of planning, project management, systems etc onto Nigerian culture wouldn’t work. But I’m struggling to know where the line should come between cultural acceptance and holding onto what you believe to be the best way forward. To what extent should I accept that the Nigerian way is to be flexible about what time a workshop starts, to invite people to meetings with less than 24 hours’ notice, to assume that things will work out and that a driver will be free if you need one? And to what extent should I hold onto my standards from home, where I wouldn’t accept anything less than a three month workplan in Excel, where meetings are chaired to within a minute of the agenda timings, and where people have synced electronic calendars I can have access to? My fear is that I will either end up trying to impose a structured system in my work here, which simply won’t work with this culture, or that I will go home with significantly lower standards in my professional life. At the moment, I’m just Getting Angry and Changing Nothing, which isn’t very satisfying; but when did anything change without someone getting angry about it?

Potograps

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=230607&id=506605378&l=4e447b865e

Week Eight, and I think I've finally figured out how to share photos. Use the link above and, I'm reliably informed, you will be able to see a selection of my photos so far. Quite a large selection - feel free to pick and choose; there will be no exam. (As an aside, native Hausa speakers who learn English often have difficulty distinguishing between 'f' and 'p' sounds, and similarly between 'v' and 'b'. So, children in a class might be told to 'stand uff so that the putograpper can take a potograp'. Hofe you enjoy my potograps.)

Spent last week travelling around in the south of Kaduna state, visiting the LGEAs (education authorities) and community-based charities who are delivering training to the School Based Management Committees (kind of like a board of governors, made up of representatives of the local community - still very new and needing a lot of support to make them functional). The last section of the photo album is of this trip. In a nutshell: there was lots of rain, we successfully made one particularly hairy journey up and over a rocky hill, I ate a lot of Nigerian food (so far, I'm not its biggest fan, but there's still time) and overall spent a thoroughly enjoyable 5 days with two of my colleagues. Also, I managed to watch all of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves on the TV in my hotel room (who remembered that the cast includes Sean Connery and Brian Blessed?!); shouldn't have been the highlight, but probably was.