Making friends

The first week at a new workplace is all about making friends.  New colleagues want to know who you are and what you're doing here.  Mostly they want to know how it will affect them - will it make their lives easier or more difficult!  Ands that's everyone from the Director to the tea lady and the drivers.

We had two days of induction - hearing and then forgetting names, learning who is responsible for what and where things are kept.  The NARI HR and IT crews could not have been more helpful.  We have desks, laptops, keyboards and monitors.  We have NARI email addresses that are .gov.pg.  How official is that!  We have coffee mugs and plates for the cake and donuts that come at morning tea time on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.  We feel well and truly inducted!

The work canteen - NARI Coffee Shop - is a winner.  There is excellent fried rice topped with an egg for 7 Kina ($2.50) takeaway and there is also a little shop that sells essentials.

A fair amount of time is spent chatting - or 'building relationships' as we call it in the development space.  Chatting with Margaret, one of my colleagues, she told me she was from the Highlands Sepik region.  I said that a friend of my mother, a Franciscan nun named Sr Jo Scanlan, had been a teacher at the Fatima school near Lumi in the West Sepik area.  Margaret knew Shirley, another colleague, was from up that way and It turns out that Shirley's father was taught by Sister Jo.  They were so excited by the connection!  My sister is going to look for some photos of Jo to show Shirley and her dad.  Unfortunately Jo died late in 2023.  I know she would have been very pleased that I am working in PNG and that she is remembered so fondly by a student she taught over 60 years ago.

 I'm getting more of an idea of what I might usefully do and have spent some time on my assignment plan.  I need to discuss it with my colleagues next week.  More on that next time.

In another instalment of differences between Arusha and Lae, we noticed that the small public transport buses here are undecorated.  In Arusha there is no square centimetre not covered with a religious saying ( "The Piece of Jesus" for instance) or an English Premier League team motif.  We think that must be an opportunity for an enterprising entrepreneur.  Here yoghurt is not available unlike Arusha where it is easily  found.  Today I bought an EasiYo kit so I will be able to make my own.  Today we were asked if we go to pray on Saturday or Sunday (Adventist or other),  in Arusha the question is Are you Christian or Muslim?   I'm sure more differences will occur to us over the next 12 months.  I have only lapsed in to Swahili a couple of times - one 'sawa' (ok) and one 'samahani' (sorry).  I'm making an effort with Tok Pisin but it feels like speaking English badly - it's not, it's a proper language with its own grammar and vocabulary - and I just feel silly.  I will have to push through that and persevere.

More soon, 

Jenny