Working Values?

One of my continual stresses with working for LUGANDA is the feeling
that I'm not taken seriously. I resolved this stress yesterday. It's
not that I personally am not taking seriously—LUGADA listens to my
concerns and my suggestions and pays attention to my proposals, but
everything other than work is taken more seriously.
Yesterday, I had planned to spend the day preparing for our workshop
on Thursday. My facilitator and I were to go shopping for materials,
plan the catering menu and make sure that all the members have been
mobilized to attend and bring their groups.
"Yes, yes," said Florence. "That is fine. But today you will learn to
make chapatti."
"Maybe another day," I answered. "We have lots of work to do. We must
meet with the microfinance expert, maybe go to the site, type all the
papers…"
"No, today is the best day."
I had expressed a desire to learn to make chapatti about three weeks
ago and my host organization made a list of Things Sarah Must Do
Before Leaving Uganda. I love that they made me this list and I love
that this list has about fifty things on it and cannot possibly be
completed. But yesterday really didn't seem like an ideal time to fry
tortillas. It seemed like a better time to organize a workshop on
microfinance.
Florence showed me that we could do both. We built a fire and put the
grill in the courtyard, right outside the office building. I learned
to make chapatti from the local expert and in between steps,
disappeared inside to meet with the microfinance expert who didn't
seem to find this arrangement strange.
My organization is run by a family and the personal/professional line
dissolved in my first week. My facilitator is also my adopted mother
and she believes it is far more important for me to learn to make
chapatti, visit a community member, meet her uncle or attend a Bible
recitation contest than it is for me to create information packets on
microfinance. I fought this the first six weeks of my internship, but
I'm pretty cool with it now. The work will eventually get done. I'm a
little concerned that the workshop is still very up in the air, but I
think I have a much stronger community experience than other Masaka
interns.