Little progress
Before our departure, I had promised I would stop by the SRC, before heading out to Holland. On the road, I had already picked up the news that the SRC board of directors had been fired by the minister of sports. Now, talking to some of the people at the SRC about it, it wasn’t really clear whether they got fired for political reasons or for not resolving the mess that’s football (soccer) in Zimbabwe.
They had managed to get an IT-‘specialist’ to replace me. Not anyone who really had applied for the job (none of the candidates was willing to even talk about the low salary on offer), but the young fellow, already working at the SRC who, according to management, could impossibly be transferred internally.
But the best part’s still to come. My PC, the PC with all the documents this guy needed, assessments, project plans, time lines, next steps, etc., had been taken to an SRC field office in Bulawayo. The boy had nothing to work on or with. But what’s even better; shipping the PC, they hadn’t taken the little note I had left with the computer, with the username and password. These people in Bulawayo had been sitting on a PC they hadn’t been able to work with for over two weeks. These people.
Last time I checked, the PC was still in Bulawayo.
Then, it was really time to wrap up. We checked the status of our shipment of statues, now in Beira, and Betsy had her hair done in braids. Some last minute shopping and we went back to the lodge, where Bowasi, Darlington, Victoire and Nicola had prepared a delicious braai and I got totally pissed, leaving me with a headache the next morning.