A day in the life....

0500 Chicken reveille!

0700 Rearrange my desk after cleaner lady puts it back how she likes it after swishing the dust onto the floor. Fish out things to play with today – budget for tour to the north, contact list for all the health related NGOs in the country, analysis of CPD logbook spreadsheet)

0730 First customer of the day – Rwandan man coming to check what is happening with his registration (he came Monday to apply, Tuesday to bring papers, Wednesday to pay money…)

0745 Get rid of Rwandan man by sending him off to find out about the Malawi Blood Transfusion Service who he wants to try and work for having done the same in Rwanda. Plug in computer, ask it nicely to not bugger about and let me check emails. Start emailing people from the ‘A’ section of the NGO list (I’m trying to figure out who is in the country, what they are doing, if they employ nurses and if so, what training they get and if they’d be prepared to allow other nurses to attend for their CPD)

0800 Scoot round the office for the morning hellos.

0815 Back to emailing – connection conks out so play with calculator and budget instead.

0900 Nurses x 2 arrive to collect certificates. CertificateGivingLady (CGL) is no where to be found so I put down the budget and hunt for the filing cabinet keys where the certificates are kept. Ask their names and riffle through the several hundred envelopes in drawer – you’d think perhaps that having them in year of qualification or alphabetical order would be useful – but why?? when you can have all that fun searching through them all. At last find them, stamp them and hand them over. Back to the budget...

1000 3 Ladies arrive with their registration documents – they’ve been away in South Africa studying for Nursing degrees and are now back to work. We have to check everything is in order, organise for them to do a re-orientation, take their money and wait for them to come back in 4 weeks. Lady1 doesn’t have her money so goes to the bank, Lady2 hasn’t filled in her forms so sits and does that, Lady3 gives me all her bits so I start with her. Go to get an orientation form but there are none left so get Mr Photocopier to do some more. Start writing introduction letters to the Matron at the hospitals in which they’ll work while we're waiting. Sudden arrival of MoneyBags, the finance director, looking sweaty, slightly unwell and short of breath – plonks down on my chair and demands a check up – her BP is sky high, she has a headache and blurred vision – no chest pain thank goodness but there is no way this woman is going to stroke out or infarct on my carpet thanks very much. So I scribble in her health passport (can’t see a Dr without one!) and pack her off to the chipitala quick smart!

Lady1 had arrived back from the bank mid-BP drama and Lady2 completed her forms so they hand them over and just as I’m wrapping everything up OfficeMate (who is meant to be at a workshop all week on midwifery assessments) arrives and starts interfering. She ‘checks’ everything, confuses everyone and then disappears for a phone call. The Ladies stay put on their chairs, I crack on with the budget. OfficeMate returns, pronounces all is in order with their papers (Yes, we know!!) and that she is leaving for home – a brother is sick. Ladies and OfficeMate leave. Return to the budget…2 minutes later, put it down again – 3 more Nurses have turned up to collect certificates. CGL still AWOL so I fish out the keys again, riffle through the collection, stamp them and sit back down at my desk wondering if I should pop the budget aside for a while and continue with the CPD logbooks instead? Go to get them but the phone rings – DeputyBossLady would like a summary of all the people who have been ‘sensitised’ to CPD over the past year. “Soon, soon Clara – GTZ need it”. Eh? Since when were GTZ (German international development agency) involved in our CPD project?? Well, it seems that they would like to give the NMCM some money so DeputyBossLady is jumping through hoops. Put the logbooks away and fish out the training file, open up a new computer document and start compiling her a list – power goes off! Join the rest of the office in a communal groan – work on the list until the battery dies.

1115 Power back on – print off the list. On the way to pick it up from the printer I'm collared by VisitingLady (who is helping the NMCM with some investigations) she came to borrow the BP cuff to take the Accountant’s blood pressure - he too wasn’t feeling well. She couldn’t hear it properly so I had a go – definitely hypertensive. He has a history of ulcers and headaches (I would too if I had to do maths all day everyday!) Advise a trip to the clinic and once a week BP checks here. Before I can leave his office, ComputerGuy comes in saying he’s heard we’re doing BPs – can he have his done. ‘Sure, why not!’ I think - its not like I have anything else to do today!!

1200 People disappear for lunch, I half close my door and decide what I should try and work on while its quiet! Budget, logbooks or NGO list – luckily I don’t have time to think about it – a gaggle of people are here wanting their certificates. CGL is on lunch so out come the keys, into the drawer I go and have another flick through the envelopes. I can’t find one of them, I have another look through – its definitely not there! I start to apologise and tell her that some of the certificates for the NMT (nurse midwife technicians) are not made yet. Pepani. “No” she says, “I not an NMT, I’m a registered nurse”, “Ahhh, I see” says me locking up that drawer and hauling open another, smile fixed on my face, teeth clamped together underneath - why didn’t you flipping well say so in the beginning!!! Grrrrr. I find the offending article, stamp them all and say goodbye. Sit back down at my desk and decided logbooks it is – open up my spreadsheet aaaaand the power goes off! ARE YOU KIDDING ME???? There is a knock on the door and I see 6 faces staring in, scrubbing brushes in hand, buckets at the ready – its carpet washing day. They file in, like a swarm, everything is picked up and plopped on the desks, I’m shooed out and they scrub, scrub, scrub. I seek refuge with the VisitingLady.

1400 Get back into my office and put everything back to normal, fish out my lunchbox and am about to have a bite of a delicious peanut butter and banana sandwich when CGL arrives, puffing and panting, “Ca-lara, Ca-lara” she wheezes, “Some…some-one is con…con…convulsing” “Where?” “Down” she says pointing towards the floor. “The guards hut”. Good grief! I pop on my shoes, grab the bag of stuff I’m intending to make first aid kits for all the Council cars out of and whizz down the stairs. I arrive at the guard house and fight my way through the cleaners who have obviously stopped their scrubbing activities because this is far more exciting and get to the girl who is lying on the floor in a heap, wedged between the door and a bench, in a 2 metre square hut. She is not having a seizure but she is not responding either, I check she is breathing and has a pulse, both are fine but she isn’t opening her eyes. Her eyelids are flickering though like when you know someone is watching you keeping your eyes shut. H’mmmmm, so whats this all about then? 45 mins later after much too-ing and fro-ing of conversation and translations it appears that the girl had been summoned to her supervisor’s office to be ‘disciplined’ for a misdemeanour from earlier in the week. On hearing she had to go, she flipped out and collapsed on the floor. Excitement over, I lugged my first aid supplies back to the office – disappointed I hadn’t even got to pop on a pair of gloves let alone a bandage!!

1500 I'm settling back to my sandwich when who should enter but Rwandan Man, back to see what is happening with his application. SERIOUSLY?! I got rid of him and took another phone call from DeputyBossLady. Could I see someone with a problem about a certificate. “Yup! I can"i say through my same smile and gritted teeth. ProblemLady comes and hands me a certificate that has been scribbled all over by a child. I explain the replacement process – usually we need a police report for lost or stolen ones. Are they going to care about kiddy scribbles and write a report for that? I think not. I tell her to leave it with me! She leaves and I boot up my computer again the battery having died while dealing with the drama downstairs. I find my spreadsheet and get out some logbooks and then who should turn up but the Supervisor of the Girl. He wants to know the story. As I’m telling him (the short version obviously) I see yet another gaggle of Ladies outside the door – more certificates?! They’re packed off but just as I return to the books, ProblemLady returns – she needs to know what the new fee paying structure is. The NMCM confused everyone by changing payments to follow the financial year (July – Jun) not calendar year but forgot to tell people that payments made still mean the licence is valid Jan – Dec. She thought that by paying in Dec last year meant she had to pay again in June. It all got terribly difficult and we both got wrapped up in knots about Julys and Junes and what needs to happen for 2011!!! Half way through I heard the ominous beeps of the server on backup – another power cut.

1600 Despite the rumblings about home time from the rest of the office – tiwonana mawas (see you tomorrow) and keys turning in locks, I knew I just had to sit back down and get something useful done while my battery lasted. I fiddled about with some data and tried to make sense of it but my heart wasn’t in it. I checked some emails – news from home – and then started to pack up, making a new to do list for the next day, everything from today still there, boxes not ticked – a baaaaad thing for me. I like a least 3 ticks a day!!! A last minute phone call from DeputyBossLady added another few things.

1715 As the padlocks were being clanged on the security gates I left the building, a huge rainbow, bright against the dark grey clouds, appeared as I drove home - just the thing I needed to see after such a day. Driving dreamily into through my gates I noticed the security lights were on – hooray – power!! I thought of what to have for dinner…its been cereal, sandwiches and mangoes for a few days mostly because I haven’t been shopping but also because palibe electricity. I switched on by mini oven and popped in a potato to bake and got out some beans – yum scrum! I’d like to say I poured myself a glass of wine and sat out to enjoy the sunset but sadly not – as I reached in for a bottle of icy water I watch lightning strike the bamboo in next door’s garden, it fell onto the power lines and exploded in a fireball! Next thing the lights buzzed, the switches tripped and everything went out.