Workshop ruminations

I am, of late, a bit of a workshop/meeting/conference/work function floozy. Morning AIDS Development Partners Meeting here, afternoon Communication and Advocacy subcommittee meeting there, full day quarterly review meeting this side, 3-day counseling and testing conference that side. What can I say? Between HCP, Stop Malaria, and HIPS, I get around.

While the topic, attendees and location of these gatherings may vary, certain standards always apply. They will not start on time, they will not stay on time, and no one will show up unless you guarantee morning tea, lunch, and afternoon tea.

Entire agendas are padded on these principles. Knowing you’ll be lucky to have half your participants an hour after your scheduled start, you inform your invitees it starts at 8am, and build in 30 minutes for “Arrival and Registration”, another 15 for “Welcome and Opening”, and yet another 15 for “Introductions.” Hopefully, by the time your first meaningful agenda item rolls around, you have enough of a quorum to make it worth the however many millions of shillings you’ve shelled out to hire the hall, buy the bottles of water, organize the stationary, make the photocopies, rent the projector, and cater for the meals and tea breaks.

Tea break. It seems innocent enough, no? And yet, tea break is, I say with relative certainty, the thing I fear most in Uganda. Not the crocs, not the hippos, not the female Anopheles mosquitoes, but the tea breaks. They are as certain as death and taxes, and they are equally as certain to involve deep-fried samosas, carbohydrate-laden cakes, grease-glazed sausages, and other caloric-intense “bites.” They happen in the morning, and again in the afternoon – often less than 2 hours after you’ve just gorged yourself on the lunch buffet. They are the ultimate test of will power.

They are a test I regularly fail.

And lunch. For me, the social side to lunch usually goes one of three ways:

One: I sit down with a bunch of people I already know, conversation comes easy, and the lunch hour has come and gone before I’ve even had time to get my fruits.

Two: I sit down at a table full of people I don’t know, make some sort of witty quip to try and break the ice, which leads to laughter, introductions, chit chat about the weather, where I’ve been in Ug, where they’ve been in the US, a more in-depth analysis of conference topics, and, with any luck, the coveted business card exchange and long-lasting professional connections.

Three: I sit down at a table full of people I don’t know, make some sort of witty quip to try and break the ice, table-mates take a brief time-out to smile politely, return to their conversation, and the remainder of the lunch hour is spent with them going back and forth in Luganda, while I feign great interest in my food and silently saw at my meat, half hoping it won’t shoot off my plate and hit my neighbor in the upper arm mid-sentence, and half hoping it will. In these instances, I usually inhale my lunch in five minutes flat, excuse myself (audibly, although barely…this usually goes unacknowledged), and spend the rest of the time busying myself in the bathroom or messing around on my laptop back in the conference room.

Equally as awkward as 1/3 of my lunches are all of my after-work receptions, cocktails, insert euphemism for happy hour here. I’ve had two of these in the last two weeks – the first a gathering in honor of Susan Krenn, CCP’s new Director (congs, Susan!) who was in country for a quick four days, and the second to welcome Stop Malaria’s recently hired Chief of Party, Deputy Chief of Party, and Monitoring and Evaluation/IT Officer. What makes these gatherings awkward is not the forced social interaction, nor the obligatory after-hours nature.

It’s that there’s alcohol present.

The alcohol has usually come to be by unclear means, as it is not an allowable purchase under USAID-funded projects. The beer sits on the drink table like the 3-ton elephant in the room, the bottles dripping sweat while calling out, “Drink me, drink me, before I’m too warm!”

Everybody sees it. Everybody hears it. Everybody wants it.

But nobody wants anybody else to know they want it, to think less of them for indulging, to risk their professional repute in an office-esque setting. And so it sits, until that one brave soul walks up, takes a deep breath, and, instead of asking for Miranda Fruity, boldly whispers, “Give me Tusker.” While its poured into the plastic cup, his eyes dart around the compound, on the nervous look-out for those on the judgmental look-out, as he quietly begs the foam to reduce before anyone has a chance to notice it isn’t apple juice.

Work functions. Fascinating social experiments, really.