Signs that my work life is not normal:
1) If I pull back my bedroom curtain (a bedsheet taped into place) from my bedroom window which, strangely, looks into the rest of the hoffice, I see my desk. In fact, I can open the window and grab something off my desk if I’ve forgotten it in my hasty commute home.
2) Incense has become as essential on my desk as a ballpoint pen. It masks the smell of burning grease coming from the kitchen, a mere 20 feet away.
3) Due to the lack of electrical plug-ins in the hoffice, our cook is forced to plug the blender and his small food processor into the power cord on the floor between our desks. This is not to be topped by his frequent trips to the deep-freeze (the only thing approximating refrigeration in our hoffice; a real refrigerator is making a slow journey from Kampala, Uganda) which is also lodged in the midst of our desks.
4) We have become accustomed to seeing one another in towels, sarongs, and boxer shorts with the comings and goings to the communal bathrooms.
5) Yesterday Alfie asked me if I had a headache. I was sprawled out on the sofa – which backs up against Tolbert’s desk – after an intense day at the computer. It was 5:30 p.m., which by my book is the end of the day, but in a house that is an office and in an office that is a house (house + office = hoffice), the separation is forgotten. “No, just relaxing in the privacy of my own home,” I quipped.
6) Also yesterday, I attended a meeting with my boss and the program coordinator – in the program coordinator’s bedroom.
Running a 10-person office from a five-bedroom house that sleeps six (and more on any given day, depending on visits by field staff) is as glamorous as it sounds.
1) If I pull back my bedroom curtain (a bedsheet taped into place) from my bedroom window which, strangely, looks into the rest of the hoffice, I see my desk. In fact, I can open the window and grab something off my desk if I’ve forgotten it in my hasty commute home.
2) Incense has become as essential on my desk as a ballpoint pen. It masks the smell of burning grease coming from the kitchen, a mere 20 feet away.
3) Due to the lack of electrical plug-ins in the hoffice, our cook is forced to plug the blender and his small food processor into the power cord on the floor between our desks. This is not to be topped by his frequent trips to the deep-freeze (the only thing approximating refrigeration in our hoffice; a real refrigerator is making a slow journey from Kampala, Uganda) which is also lodged in the midst of our desks.
4) We have become accustomed to seeing one another in towels, sarongs, and boxer shorts with the comings and goings to the communal bathrooms.
5) Yesterday Alfie asked me if I had a headache. I was sprawled out on the sofa – which backs up against Tolbert’s desk – after an intense day at the computer. It was 5:30 p.m., which by my book is the end of the day, but in a house that is an office and in an office that is a house (house + office = hoffice), the separation is forgotten. “No, just relaxing in the privacy of my own home,” I quipped.
6) Also yesterday, I attended a meeting with my boss and the program coordinator – in the program coordinator’s bedroom.
Running a 10-person office from a five-bedroom house that sleeps six (and more on any given day, depending on visits by field staff) is as glamorous as it sounds.
