Following my fiasco at endeavouring to
close my school yesterday, I arrive on campus very early expecting to find a
clean and sparkly compound. It looks no different from the outside and i check
in the first KG classroom on the corridor. Lying in the middle of the floor is
a half eaten piece of pizza in aluminum foil clearly left over from
yesterday. With no-one on compound to
vent to i write a email to all SMT members informing them my school is dirty
despite the request to take it to hospital levels. I then ask an urgent request
for liquid soap dispensers in each bathroom, disinfection daily of the
building, rodent situation tackled immediately, extractor fans for every room,
toilets that flush and faucets that work”. As soon as my Secretary arrives i demand an
explanation from the Maintenance team as to why the building wasn’t cleaned,
and she scurries off.
I call an emergency meeting with my
Primary Management Team telling them to use their line-up time to make sure all
the children wash their hands before and after eating, and to instruct their
respective teachers to keep their windows and doors open at all times.
I have no qualms in calling the school
lawyer to check the “correct procedure” for getting the school closed. I like
Ato B alot – the only straight-talking no-nonsense Ethiopian i have ever met.
He tells me he will call me back and true to his word he does within the hour.
He tells me to collect as much data as
possible and then bringing the information to the Bureau of Health. I set to
the task immediately, and have the Records Officer to systematically call to
homes of absent students to find out why they were off, and if through
sickness, symptoms observed.
Unfortunately, the symptoms for typhus are
pretty generic and diverse; headaches, stomach pains, diahorea, fever, rashes,
aching limbs. Misdiagnosis is common and can only be confirmed 100% with “The Typhus Test”. This clearly isn’t
going to work in my favour, but i want to persevere nonetheless.
At midday Ato S and new DGM arrive at my
office. Ato S. goes completely mad at me. He accuses me of trying to go behind
the back of everyone with my own agenda of closing the school down.
“Are you trying to put me in prison Ato
Mountain?
He tells me that we should all live
under the law of the country and i am disrespecting Ethiopia – “channels and
protocol are necessary”.
I tell him just how screwed this is and
how wrong.
“I can’t work like this” and get off my
chair n storm around Mountain’s Den.
He asks me to sit back down and tells me
his medical studies and reassures me that it is easily treatable. As he
accurately says, all clinics in Ethiopia misdiagnose, and all i am doing is
over-reacting and scare-mongering the community. The calls to parents must stop
immediately.
He tells me i am not allowed to speak to
the lawyer without his express permission, and orders me to justify my actions
in a report over the last 24 hours with any raw data that has been collected so
far.
Well we are all accountable not least
Mountain Man, so i do – immediately, and send it off to all SMT members and even
Boss back in England.
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