Meeting protocol

written Tuesday, 29 May 2007

 

 

Yesterday I went with my counterpart to a meeting at the health post in Dialacoto for local health education volunteers (villagers, not Peace Corps volunteers), and I got my first real experience of how meetings are run here.

 

I left the village with my counterpart just after breakfast, at about 8:00 (even though it would mean getting to the meeting too early, but it is better to travel as early as possible, before it gets too hot).   We got to Dialacoto between 8:30 and 9:00 and were the first ones there except for the Africare (an American NGO) staff member who would be running the meeting.   By 9:30 there were several other people there, but it didn't seem like we were getting started anytime soon, so I asked my counterpart what time the meeting was supposed to start.   "As soon as everyone gets here," he said.  "Some people have to come from far away."

 

We finally got started around 10:30, but for the next hour people kept trickling in.  And whereas in the US if you are late for a meeting you usually sneak in quietly and sit in the back, here every time someone arrived the whole meeting would stop for five minutes so the newcomer could greet each person in the room.

 

The meeting was mainly conducted in French, but there were a few people there who didn't speak French, so every few minutes the meeting would pause so someone could translate what had been said into Mandinka.

 

So the meeting, which I had expected to take just an hour or so, lasted four hours.  I think it was a good experience for me for planning health education meetings in my village.