Tough Times

Even though Meghan and Marlee were still around, and the new volunteers had arrived the night before, I couldn’t help but feel like holing myself up in my room all weekend, and that’s just what I did. That Saturday and Sunday completely blur together. Somewhere in there Meghan left to climb Kili and I watched the first two seasons of the TV series Weeds. I walked around town like a lost puppy, stayed in bed until ridiculous hours and just felt sorry for myself.
I had heard that things hadn’t gone well at Camp Moses on Friday. From what I had been told (I spent the day saying good bye to Andrea and Cassie), there had been a huge meeting (that I wasn’t told about… my first frustration) that discussed Joseph and who was in charge of the funding and monitoring of his care. The new Americans insisted it was their prerogative to continue with Joseph’s well being, even though Caroline and I had done of the legwork to get him admitted to KCMC. The main issue, I guess, was that everyone wanted to help Joseph and the attention was being diverted from the other 120 kids LOHADA helps. With all of this happening, I dreaded more than ever going back to work on Monday.
With this terribly negative attitude, I did just that. Went to work, was a grouch and didn’t last long. Caroline’s co-ordinator, Eamon, came to Moses to discuss what had happened at the meeting on Friday and to see how things were in general at LOHADA. Five or six new volunteers had also shown up at Camp Moses, and I felt useless. We hung around until noon or so, then Caroline, Eamon and I went into town for lunch.
There were miscommunications left right and center and nothing was being done to fix it. I should’ve been on the ball at this point but was too pre occupied with being homesick. I was frustrated that it felt like no one was listening to my opinion and it just seemed like no one wanted to change anything or strive for what I saw as improvement. The pole pole nature of everything had gone from enjoyable to the source of frustration in a matter of days. I was clearly on the African emotional rollercoaster that I had been warned about.