Hello, I’m a comin home:
When I arrived here for this term, I checked my tickets to see if my seat assignments were what I wanted for my return flight and the website said I had 99 days till departure. That’s a long time, especially looking forward 99 days. Looking back it was a long time but I survived. At times I didn’t know if I would, you can ask Debi.
Not much happened this week that was good and exciting. There are continuing problems at work. This is an interesting mix of people. They have many interesting traits that you could write volumes about. Some of the men have NO industrial experience at all. They can watch the plant go into failure mode and not have a clue what to do. Just watch and wonder “should that be happening”. I’ve been working with the HR people to replace the temporary workers with permanent employees so at least once they are trained they will stay. The temporary employees work for nine months and then leave and someone else comes in and works for nine months. A rotating training routine where no one ever gets good at what they do. This week there were two days in a row where I arrived to find one plant down. The crew leaving had messed things up so bad it was ridiculous. When I talked to the supervisor, he said he didn’t know how well trained his crew was. That was when I told him that was his job to train his crew or watch them close enough to make sure they didn’t screw up. So we will see what the new week brings. In the plant that I thought was going to be the challenge, things have been going well. It is getting close to meeting production targets (the targets are low and need to be raised) but it is doing fairly well.
There was a guy that came in to see me this week. He said he had a problem and needed my help, which is what everyone tells me that walks in my door. I told him I couldn’t give him a job, that he would have to go to HR and then I asked him if he wanted money. To that he said no. So I asked him what he wanted then. He showed me papers going back to 1976 that he has carried all his life. They were papers from when he had worked for an NGO (non-governmental organization). He had some safety training paper-work and a bunch of other papers coming forward to the 1990’s. He then began telling me how he was an orphan. With that, I asked him how old he was and he told me he was 52. My patience was about shot with that and I told him he can’t use being an orphan as an excuse for his entire life. He needs to get over it and move on. He was able bodied and in good health. He needs to show a little ambition and take responsibility for his life. So I don’t think he wanted to hear that and I doubt it will make a difference.
One last comment before I go. To all the women reading this you can feel yourself blessed for where you were born and for the opportunities you’ve been given. No matter how bad you think you have it, it would have been worse had you been born in the bush in Africa! Girls from the time they are born are viewed as little more than property. Most of them are sold as wives when they are in their early teens, mothers not long after that and have a very hard existence for the rest of their lives. Fathers will sell their daughters for cattle, goats or anything else they need or want to prospective husbands. Some of the prospective husbands are old men that just want a young bride. Women are always seen carrying water and food from the market to their homes. Their homes are nothing more than what you have seen in the pictures I’ve sent home. They have no rights, their husbands own everything. The longer I’m here the more I understand what the history has been. Some traditions are changing in the cities, but in the bush traditions change slowly.
So to end on a little more positive note, I’m sure looking forward to seeing you all.
Love
Paul/dad
No comments:
Post a Comment