In a recent e-mail my mother commented that I don't say very much about my work in my weekly entries. Fair point, and in fact this week I actually did something interesting and out of the ordinary. So here it is, a work-related chat.

First of all I need to point out that the work in question was actually for VSO and not BRIF. That arguably doesn't respond to my Mum's comment but this will have to do until a later date. Anyway, one of the VSO Programme Managers (Moni) rang me up on Habib's mobile a few weeks ago asking if I'd like to do a PAP in Barisal. I imagine to the non-initiated that sounds like a rather bizarre code language but not so. PAP stands for Partner Assessment Process and Barisal is a large town directly south of Dhaka in that part of the country where it's all just rivers leading into the Bay of Bangal. To put it simply, before VSO sends a bright-eyed and innocent volunteer to work with an organisation they assess the NGO, or partner as we prefer to call them, to see if they're suitable and ready. Basically, having a volunteer means an organisation is about to embark upon a period of perhaps considerable change with a strange foreigner in their midst and not every NGO is able to handle that.

So, after various preliminary contacts and discussions, one or 2 members of the VSO office will go off to the NGO and run a workshop to find out more and test their state of readiness. In Bangladesh, perhaps due to the unusually high number of management volunteers, VSO includes the volunteers in the process and usually invites at least one of us to co-facilitate the workshop with a Programme Manager. I'd never done one before, so when I got the call-up I was actually rather pleased and a little excited. I also saw it as an opportunity to ensure that the outcome of the process would be positive for the future volunteer, as to be perfectly honest I feel that some of the failed placements I've seen since I've been here could have been avoided had the assessment been a tad more honest and objective.

When I discussed PAPing with other volunteers who had already done one they all basically said that I'd probably play a fairly low-key role during the workshop i.e. sticking up flip-chart paper and organising things, and would then do some leg work around the town etc. to research local facilities and shops. In the end I actually co-ran the workshop with Moni, and in the report I wrote up the key part about the organisation's weaknesses and the future volunteer's focus areas!

The PAP itself started with a 8.30 meeting Sunday morning with Moni at the VSO office to prepare the workshop. In the end we had a 15 minute chat just before driving to the airport at 10 about the workshop's agenda and the sections I was to cover. There's nothing like really preparing an important meeting is there? Next up was the check-in at the airport as we were flying to Barisal! It was a tad unusual as my experience of check-ins go as a member of the ground staff did it for us and no ID was required. Then it was into the departure lounge where I drank my first ever whole cup of coffee and I still don't know why. Seriously, I don't like the taste of coffee, and while I've tried sipping from cups over the years in the hope that my taste buds will have changed and I'll be able to hang out with all my friends and parents in cool coffee shops, I've never drunk a full cup. Another odd moment was in the toilets as the man next to me at the urinals had the flush button come away in his hands. It was at this point that I started wondering about the state of airplane maintenance in Bangladesh.

Finally we boarded, though it wasn't at all clear when we should, but everyone else seemed to know so we followed the crowd onto our twin propellor plane. After a bumpy 22 minute flight we got a microbus ride into town where we were met by 2 women from the NGO we were assessing. They took us to the office in rickshaws - my companion spoke some English, was boss-eyed and was nowhere near as pretty as the other one. Actually, I saw quite a few boss-eyed people around the NGO's office and in town, and I'm not sure whether I was just looking out for them more than usual or whether I was in the land of the boss-eyed. Once at the NGO's office, we met the Director etc. and were shown to our bedrooms on the floor above the offices in the same building. It is a general Bangladesh tradition for NGO's to have their own guest house, and this extends all the way up to the Bangladesh Parliament which has red brick appartment buildings around the main assembly building where MP's stay while in town. It's essentially for cost cutting reasons, but it's also an indication of how many training courses people attend and the time it can take to travel somewhere.

After a quick lunch we went down to the training room where the participants slowly drifted in so that by 2.45 we were eventually underway. The late start was then further hampered by the fact that the participants seemed to have no clue about VSO or why we were there so we, or rather Moni, spent quite a long time explaining it all to them and answering their questions. Eventually got into the various exercises to find out more about the organisation, its activities, its future hopes, its strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats, until finally, at around 8pm, we had a prioritised list of issues they wanted to address. From 6pm onwards the power had gone off so the last presentations were actually done by candle light (see photo).

When we asked for feedback on the end result the Director said that the organisation could handle the top 3 items itself without external help. This left us a tad bemused, as after all we were there to see how a volunteer could help the organisation to develop! It turned out that the management wanted help developing skills in a variety of areas, including monitoring and evaluation, reporting, project management and administration. Ironically, when it had come to identifying the organisation's strengths the overwhelming winner was skilled staff! In the end we wrapped up the workshop feeling rather confused and unsure of what to do with the information we had. A late night discussion to clarify matters with the Director was required...

After a wee rest, a refreshing shower and a chat over some food, Moni and I went down to the Director's office where he was waiting with one of his 2 left-hand men. After some informal chit-chat I'd sort of assumed that Moni was going to take the lead but in the end she turned to me and gestured with her hand that I should start the real conversation. For the next 15 minutes I explained why I was confused about the day's outcome, that I didn't think a placement focussing solely on the top priority issue (monitoring and evaluation) would satisfy the Director's needs, and how, as a volunteer myself, I wasn't comfortable at that time recommending that VSO send a volunteer. The Director sat back, as did his left-hand chap, pondered what I'd said, then started a conversation about what he wanted and why. From there we narrowed it down, discussed the reasons why and eventually came to an agreement that we thought satisfied the NGO and would make for an interesting placement for a volunteer. The only problem was of course that I couldn't justify all of the final decision in the report using the workshop's conclusions but it would be a good test of my creative writing skills.

The next day I went out with the other left-hand man in search of foreigners. As isolation is one of the biggest issues that volunteers face outside of Dhaka it is always useful to know if there are other foreigners in town that the volunteer could potentially befriend. As it turns out, Barisal is in a strongly Christian area so contains several church missions funded from abroad. I visited the Oxford Mission church and school (beautiful place) and met with the aging Mother. I also went to the Catholic church and briefly chatted with Sister Rose, a Canadian nun who's been in Bangladesh for over 40 years. Both gave me the same story - many foreigners used to come to the various churches and missions over the years but a change in the political climate and the ability of the local brothers and sisters to run the organisations themselves now mean that Sister Rose is pretty much the last one in town, and she returns to Canada in May. All in all it wasn't a terribly successful morning, but then as we got a rickshaw to the airline office for a bus to the airport my morning companion tells me that CARE have a big office in town with 20 foreigners on the staff! As it turned out this was a complete lie as there are only 87 staff in total, CARE has no more than 10 foreigners in Bangladesh in total, and none of them are based in Barisal. Still, it was worth a shot eh?

Around 1pm we flew back to Dhaka, picking up, as you do, a local MP's wife on the way to the airport. As of now I'm finishing off the placement documentation to help Moni meet her end of April deadline, and she's given me an additional section about the localty to write about as well! I sort of feel a weight of responsibility on my shoulders as someone will base at least part of their decision to change lives and volunteer in Bangladesh on what I write and how I write it. I hope I've found the right balance between accuracy, objectivity and making the placement sound attractive at the same time.