I've been wanting to join in the Expat Blog Hop hosted by Tales from Windmill Fields for a while. The way it works? http://www.windmillfields.com/ sets the prompt - the essay question as it were - bloggers all over the world go off and write their contribution, and then link them together with a special linky link on her page. Then we read the blogs posted by others all round the world. A potluck party or safari supper of a different kind.
This week her prompt is Why? - but its been a busy week here, and so in the end, I'm joining in with a post I'd written earlier.
Much of my job in career guidance is about supporting people to pose themselves wider questions. And about trying to ask clients better questions yourself. Moving from the closed
'Did you do what you committed to do?' to the more empowering
'What do you see as your next steps? What do you see as the challenges?'
So it's a bit ironic when you enter a futile rollercoaster tailspin in your own questioning.
'WHY [in a plaintive whining tone] is it like this?'
Cat chasing her tail, two years into our Kenya stay, my current questions:
- Why were the three massive water storage tanks and water pump at the bottom of the garden, and the large storage tank at the top of the garden installed, but never plumbed into the key area where we use the water, the kitchen/washing machine?
Why has it taken me 18 months of increasingly harassed measures to actually follow the pipes to the source and deduce this?
Why why why, did the original plumbers - or their many successors - never draw this to my attention?
It could have run like this.
'Hello Mama, well the reason you have no water is because you are drawing from the mains, which has no pressure because there's a drought and/or you live at the top of the hill. Yes you have four lovely full tanks, but they help you flush toilets, and have showers, they don't feed to the kitchen.'
Two unspoken sentences, pregnant with potential.
Other good, but more vindictive questions, might be:
'Which genius came up with this flawed design? Who was responsible for quality control? Where, apart from with me, does the buck stop?'
Futile questions. 'Brotlose Kuenste', 'breadless arts' as they say in German. Don't go there. Not worth the bitterness.
I'm in good company. Friends regaled me with the tale of a posh executive housing estate in Runda near the United Nations in which each house floods when it rains. One curious tenant eventually lifted up the grills on the storm drain in her back yard, to discover under the grill a shallow hole, just the size to receive the grill, - and nothing more. Why would you fit a whole housing estate with the semblance of storm drains but no drainage?
'Just because.'
Maybe it was a Friday, maybe their schedule was tight, maybe just because.
Another friend, recently moved in from Malawi, described the lengths she went to there, to demonstrate the inadequacy of her roofing to the roofer, who returned conveniently to work two weeks after the end of the rainy season. She scaled the drainpipe, stood on the roof lightly directing a garden hose, while the roofer, drenched in the living room, was forced to acknowledge the stream of water down the wall - because, as it turned out, he hadn't cemented in or grouted the chimney.
It's not that I complete every boring task. There's the cardboard model of the Austrian cathedral which I was helping FirstBorn to assemble in a GoodMummyDay over the Christmas holidays. But having decided she is now able to use the stanley knife safely on her own, while I slope off to read a good book, there it sits, lonesome and incomplete. There's the hay-bestrewn boot, remnant of the expedition two weeks ago to get two hay bales for the guineapigs. There's even, oh woe, the returned income tax return, waiting for me to find an envelope and stamp for the second time.
After a glass of wine I can often see the funny side. But not today. Today its just all too much. Too many phonecalls cajoling plumbers. Too many attempts to communicate my elementary understanding of physics. Too many people seeking, I fear, to string out a situation and inflate the bill for another 18 months.
This week her prompt is Why? - but its been a busy week here, and so in the end, I'm joining in with a post I'd written earlier.
Much of my job in career guidance is about supporting people to pose themselves wider questions. And about trying to ask clients better questions yourself. Moving from the closed
'Did you do what you committed to do?' to the more empowering
'What do you see as your next steps? What do you see as the challenges?'
So it's a bit ironic when you enter a futile rollercoaster tailspin in your own questioning.
'WHY [in a plaintive whining tone] is it like this?'
Cat chasing her tail, two years into our Kenya stay, my current questions:
- Why were the three massive water storage tanks and water pump at the bottom of the garden, and the large storage tank at the top of the garden installed, but never plumbed into the key area where we use the water, the kitchen/washing machine?
Why has it taken me 18 months of increasingly harassed measures to actually follow the pipes to the source and deduce this?
Why why why, did the original plumbers - or their many successors - never draw this to my attention?
It could have run like this.
'Hello Mama, well the reason you have no water is because you are drawing from the mains, which has no pressure because there's a drought and/or you live at the top of the hill. Yes you have four lovely full tanks, but they help you flush toilets, and have showers, they don't feed to the kitchen.'
Two unspoken sentences, pregnant with potential.
Other good, but more vindictive questions, might be:
'Which genius came up with this flawed design? Who was responsible for quality control? Where, apart from with me, does the buck stop?'
Futile questions. 'Brotlose Kuenste', 'breadless arts' as they say in German. Don't go there. Not worth the bitterness.
I'm in good company. Friends regaled me with the tale of a posh executive housing estate in Runda near the United Nations in which each house floods when it rains. One curious tenant eventually lifted up the grills on the storm drain in her back yard, to discover under the grill a shallow hole, just the size to receive the grill, - and nothing more. Why would you fit a whole housing estate with the semblance of storm drains but no drainage?
'Just because.'
Maybe it was a Friday, maybe their schedule was tight, maybe just because.
Another friend, recently moved in from Malawi, described the lengths she went to there, to demonstrate the inadequacy of her roofing to the roofer, who returned conveniently to work two weeks after the end of the rainy season. She scaled the drainpipe, stood on the roof lightly directing a garden hose, while the roofer, drenched in the living room, was forced to acknowledge the stream of water down the wall - because, as it turned out, he hadn't cemented in or grouted the chimney.
It's not that I complete every boring task. There's the cardboard model of the Austrian cathedral which I was helping FirstBorn to assemble in a GoodMummyDay over the Christmas holidays. But having decided she is now able to use the stanley knife safely on her own, while I slope off to read a good book, there it sits, lonesome and incomplete. There's the hay-bestrewn boot, remnant of the expedition two weeks ago to get two hay bales for the guineapigs. There's even, oh woe, the returned income tax return, waiting for me to find an envelope and stamp for the second time.
After a glass of wine I can often see the funny side. But not today. Today its just all too much. Too many phonecalls cajoling plumbers. Too many attempts to communicate my elementary understanding of physics. Too many people seeking, I fear, to string out a situation and inflate the bill for another 18 months.
Thank you for joining in with the blog hop. A very interesting post, I imagine its hard at times, even the most menial tasks can seem huge. Off to have a gander rounf your blog Thanks!
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