The Anne Frank Diary – B-sides, best of her unpublished musings.

I wonder what would have happened if Anne Frank blogged instead of wrote a diary. I’ve no doubt she’d probably of thought:

a. Get me the fuck out of here
b. This is going to effect book sales
c. I hope the Germans aren't reading this.

Of course, I don’t want to get the fuck out of here, although remove a couple of words from that sentence… (kidding) . I have thought about book sales and am also writing a Colm in Kenya b-sides book, back-up material to popular blog type thing (also kidding).

But whilst unlike Anne I have no blood-thirsty anti-Semitic krauts to worry about, I do worry about my colleagues googling Colm in Kenya.

So I tread carefully when I delve a little bit deeper into the mercurial workings of SCOPE. So in this delicately created Blog, I bring to you a brief intro into the dark under belly of the daily activities of a VSO volunteer in Kilifi.

The SCOPE office in Kilifi is on the second floor of a two story building on the main street. The office opens up into big reception room which leads into a large conference type room with large table (where most of us us congregate). There is also the managers offices, the Business Development office, Accounts office, a toilet, kitchen and testing room.

There are 6 full-time employees who manage the core activities of SCOPE and 8 volunteers who do a variety of aministrative jobs.

The 6 employees are almost always very busy implementing development programmes – Voluntary Testing & Counselling, Food Monitoring, Health Clinics and Peer Educator programmers – and are often out of the office. The other volunteers are not so busy.

So my walk to work takes about 30 minutes and I grab three samosas from one of the women traders on the way. With a modest layer of sweat, I arrive in work at about 8-8:15.

The first 30 minutes are consumed with eating my breakfast and sucking down a litre of cold water under the fan reading the latest political scandal in the Kenyan ‘Government’.

When you arrive into work in a Kenyan office, you greet everyone with a hand shake. I once said I was troubled by mozzys at night and asked if any of the girls if they’d perhaps come over and help kill the said insect in bed with me (Dirty old bugger!) so my handshake is usually shared with some mozzy joke or other.

After this hilarity, I open my laptop and try finish the most detailed, elaborate and assumptious (look it up) business plan ever created. Not much else is really going on around me due to, well really, lack of work so the other unpaid volunteers read the paper, chat and ask me a variety of personal questions on topics such as marriage, sex and girlfriends (Imagine the monosyllabic answers to those questions!).

Around 11am I go across the street to grab a soda, sit on the chair beside the shop and watch the world go by contemplating what craziness I’ve put into the Business Plan (it’s not all that crazy).

The Kenyans don’t understand why I would want to do this i.e. sit on my own. So I had to do a bit of convincing that its not personal, I’m just better fun on my own, wild craic in fact a lot more fun then when I’m with people. If only you could see, oh the banter I have….

Back to work for an hour, maybe a discussion on what we have to do for the week or some of the problems we are having – which there are unfortunately many, but that’s what a pilot project is far, right?

Then it’s off to lunch, usually early – like 12:15. Sometimes with other volunteers from Peace Corp, sometimes with colleagues and sometimes (best fun of all!) on my todd.

The morning routine is usually repeated in the afternoon, including water to cool down, soda at about 3:30, Business Plan or Project planning/review and answering some question as to why I don’t want to marry before I’m 40.

It is, like I was told, hard to get things done here. There have been a few power cuts, there is no www to do research, it’s not a task orientated culture and it’s too hot to work. But it is a nice environment, everyone is extremely friendly and I wear shorts, sandals and a t-shirt!

But more importantly, I am working on something that is genuinely worthwhile and I’ve never been able to say that before.

There’s obviously more to it than that, but I’m not going to make the same mistake as Anne Frank would. I’ll reveal the rest to you in the ‘Too hot for the blog’ book – pre-order now I suppose.

Ok, hope all is well at home and elsewhere.

Take it easy

Colm