Sylvia's Journal

We have a saying in Dutch, ‘een graantje meepikken (help oneself to a few grains).’ It is about helping oneself to food that is being spread around, though not necessarily intended for the one who is serving him or herself. On a large scale there is much of this going on in this country – not just a few grains, but whole silos. It’s of course also happening on a very small and petty scale. Workshops are great occasions for picking up some grains; not just here, but everywhere I have worked.

The other day, during the last day of our workshop, Mustafa, our admin assistant came to talk with me about the secretary of the hospital director who had reserved the room for the workshop, a few key strokes on her computer. She claimed that she should receive transport money. Her argument: she had facilitated that our meeting could be in the hospital. And, to bolster her argument, she said that the two cleaners assigned to keeping the room tidy, serving us at tea break and lunch, had been given transport money and a free (and fancy= much meat) lunch. So what about her?

The fact that my colleague would even contemplate her request is indicative of the degree to which the workshop culture has distorted things, like doing the work one is paid to do without expecting supplementary payments; payments masquerading as ‘transport money’ or ‘facilitator fees’ or simply a reimbursement for effort expended on doing something like reserving a room.

Of course the salaries of these people are nothing to write about, barely covering a month’s rent. I don’t know about the secretary, she may have as a husband a corrupt government official, a lowly clerk, a war victim or she may be the mother of a fighter or a kid who died young of a preventable disease. I don’t really want to know, because it messes up principles, rules, policies about paying people extra for things they are supposed to be doing anyways.

All this context, especially the human dramas we don’t see in our everyday interactions, makes standard operating procedures so very desirable, so very necessary and also very unfair.