And finally…
Before I even arrived in Zimbabwe, I was promised a PC upon arrival. I had to struggle for some four weeks before I could actually use one. Way before I arrived, the SRC had already planned to buy new PCs for some of the workers. Nothing had ever come of that. That is, until this morning when, at 10, authorisation was given to buy PCs and network cards for the old PCs. I laughed hard and told them that, with me leaving in only a couple of hours, buying the PCs was pointless.
They did buy the network cards which arrived somewhere after lunch. Late, so I only had time to install two of them. The rest of the cards. Well. Whatever.
I said my goodbyes to everyone and some didn’t even know I was leaving. Great internal communication.
I also talked to the lady from HR. Only last Thursday did she come up with the shortlisted candidates for my ‘counterpart’, a position that should have been filled more than two months ago, after the original counterpart got fired. After having gone through the shortlist myself and selecting the candidates that had potential, she had called them yesterday to invite them over for an interview. None of them was interested. The salaray and package was, they said, way below par.
In fact, when I returned to say hi-bye a bit over a month later, Greens, the fellow who had some low-ranking job at the SRC but a keen interest in computers, had been transferred to take over from me. Sadly, his (mine) computer had been moved to Bulawayo and no one knew what needed to be done.
The evening was enjoyable. Together with some hashers, Ivor and a whole bunch of locals, we watched Germany and Holland fight it out during one of the opening games of Euro 2004. The Germans scored first and Betsy and I were afraid we were starting to look like fools, dressed in orange and waving flags and all. Thankfully, they equalised the score a while later.
It was good to see Lovemore also at the Keg. Lovemore’s working at UTI, the company Betsy and I are shipping our statues with back to Holland.