My Send Forth from Bauchi

It was at the Monday staff meeting that my final departure from Bauchi was announced.  I didn’t anticipate the swell of emotion as I spoke about my departure.  The journey and experience from October 14^th when I arrived in Bauchi to this day had been both rewarding and challenging. 

As I glanced around the table, fond memories were revisited: the women of Yankari Block-Rabie, Helen, Aisha and Maryam, my soul sisters who were essential to my education in the culture behind the culture; the guys from finance, always ready to say No, but in a helpful way; Bright, the energetic M & E staff person; the System Strengthening team, and of course, Nurudeen, my colleague and coordinator of the Teacher Education component, and all the others.

The Acting Director proposed a send forth on Thursday afternoon, my last full day at work.  A couple of people were volunteered to coordinate the event then we were all off to take care of the business of the day.

It’s an extremely busy time for all project staff--third quarter reports are due, as are projections and plans for the upcoming year.  The annual work plan conference was scheduled in about two weeks and drafts and revisions had to be done.  There is no ‘down time’ when it comes to international development projects; particularly this one which I feel is understaffed.

The women of Yankari Block minus one.

Knowing the crunch under which everyone was working made me more grateful for the time everyone took out of their busy schedules to say goodbye.  It was a fun-filled, reflective occasion. I hope it wasn’t recorded :-).

I was touched by the sentiments expressed by my colleagues.   After being invited to come back to continue working with the project, the parent organization decided the liability of protecting volunteers and interns was too great, so I was in a sense, ‘kicked to the curb’.  It was a decision that disappointed many. They jokingly suggested marrying me off to one of staff members, so I could become a Nigerian citizen.

Great friendship have been made and I hope cultural barriers have been bridged in the process