Reflections from the first full week of work

Monday started and stuttered and was a reminder that I am not in a hospital setting now. I was late to work, and as someone who is routinely 20 minutes early every shift this is weird for me. But I have to wait for a driver to be available to take me to the office.

Then there is the 2 hour meeting. I’m not sure if every Monday staff meeting is this long but I certainly felt like it was long. But it did give me a sense of who the different people are in the organization, what each role may include, resources, and what challenges are common or at least keep occurring. It also gave the team a chance to meet me and for me to discuss what I may be doing and what services I may be able to provide to their staff.

It is a slower pace here at times. I have a lot of time to wait for a ride or someone to escort me places. I am not sure if it will always be this way or if it is just that I am new. But I am trying to use this “dead time” to the best of my advantage, either working on different plans and tools to try and help with the different projects, or doing research or studying local languages.

It’s slow until it’s not. Suddenly Monday I am sitting in with the head Doctor of Nzara’s hospital discussing the mental health clinic they want me to start. And we’re meeting and talking about what I will be teaching the staff, and patient care, and then I am shown to the space where the new clinic will be. Then it’s back in the SUV, driving back to the office for another set of meetings and office work.

Tuesday is filled with more meetings, and then time back in the office where I work on my presentation for my project proposals and research into the area. There are other things that I have to research. I am doing a lot of typing and a lot of reading. Tuesday afternoon I had a meeting with all the project managers to present my project proposals and get their feedback.

That has led to more work. I spent the entirety of this week in the office. I have my own space with my own desk and a fan which is nice. There are lots of people around the office, so I get to socialize with them a little. That has been nice.

But most of the time I am tucked away in my office. Most of my interactions come from my conversations with the drivers that bring me wherever I have to go. One is going to try and teach me Arabic. Hopefully, he is successful.

The rest of the week passed by quickly. I have several projects I am working on and spent part of my time meeting with various people individually. More plans are being made. More work I need to do. More research to be done.

I work a little at night and I will probably work more this weekend. I have more to do and it might be easier to get it done when I am not in the office, since I have better Wi-Fi here to do some of the research I need to do. I have my list and my goals for next week.

This is my guide for the priorities for the rest of the weekend when I do work. But I won’t work all weekend. I have plans and want to spend some time with the other people in the compound. All work and no play… You know the rest.

This work was not what I was expecting to be doing when I got here. Or at least so much office sitting as I am doing now. I really hope next week I get to go out into the community and really start interacting with people and being more a part of the culture.

I want to interact more with people and I hope that I will also start to get to see some patients. Even if there is nothing really established here for mental health care I think seeing some patients and giving them some support and guidance while I am setting up, or trying to set up more of a system, will be helpful. I don’t want to spend the next 5 months in the office.

I am enjoying the work. I hope that some or all of my projects will take off and will be successful. There are so many little components that I have to take into consideration when I do this work. New clinics and new mental health outlets are complicated at the best of times. With limited resources it is going to be a challenge. But it is a challenge I am excited to take on.