Weekend worries
I departed from Birmingham early on Sunday, after having decided to skip the morning sessions, and turned on Radio 4. A serious sounding man was interviewing two members of the Zimbabwean diaspora about the current Mugabe shenanigans - a black doctor and a white farmer. So far, so interesting. He starts off by saying in a ‘I’m being very serious and political, hmmm, yes indeed’ voice “So, tell me about farming in Africa. It sounds so mysterious - almost impossible…”
I can only imagine the look on the farmer’s face. It must have resembled the look on mine - incredulity shaken up with contempt, and a splash of disgust. Do people actually do any research before they interview people? Do they actually know anything about Africa?
It was really the cherry on the cake of a most annoying weekend. The volunteers were all great, apart from the guy who insisted on telling me in minute detail about the trials faced by the Papua New Guinean people, when all I wanted to do was drink my wine and gossip about stuff unrelated to third world development issues. It was the VSO employees running the gig that really annoyed me. I just don’t understand why they would organise a weekend designed to address the complex issues faced by returning volunteers and staff it with non-volunteers with a collection of caring faces, and a tendency to say “I can’t imagine what it must be like”.
Bits of it were good, like the feedback to the Chief Executive, who actually listened and responded. Generally, however, I felt I really could have done with a bit more of the sessions about coming home, and less of the ones about how to use a photograph to tell a story.
It was a relief to get home, and do normal things for the afternoon, really. Being at the weekend was alternately unsettling, confusing, upsetting and encouraging, with rather too little of the latter. Could do better, VSO.
April 7th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Talking of “Could do better”.
Can you get your head around the VSO “moodle”
http://moodle.vsoint.org/
April 7th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
I saw something about that at Harborne at the weekend. I can’t actually get my head around what posessed them to call it moodle. It sounds far too cute and cuddly even for VSO. I haven’t really looked at it though, so can’t comment much, except to say it looks a bit like a mish mash of various existing resources, couple with volunteers’ own ’seminars’. I find that idea a little disturbing, certainly.
April 7th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
That said though, it does show that they’re engaging with technology!
April 8th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Moodle (http://moodle.org/) is the name of the open source software they ahve used to make this.
Sorry to hear it was a let down. It’s a shame that VSO can spend so much of its money inefficiently. But then, I suppose that’s how these things always end up working. They shouldn’t though!