Battling the flu

You haven't heard from me lately as I am battling the flu.  We are in day six now with slow improvement.  I haven't had flu in ages and always get a flu shot, including last fall before I left, so this was unexpected.  I assume it is a strain that is not in our vaccine.  I have largely been spared the chills and joint aches, but have all the other symptoms.  I feel like I almost turned my lungs inside out with the coughing.  Luckily we brought a wide variety of OTC medications which treat the symptoms, so the rest is to just wait it out.  I have two reasons on the calendar to get well soon.  On Sat. I am scheduled to give a talk on studying in American colleges and scholarship opportunities.  They tell me they have 250 people registered.  I was tapped for this as the rest of the office is in Bali for training. (BTW, negotiations are ongoing as to whether my boss is staying.  I think it's probable.)

The other reason to get well is we will meet our son, Steve, in Bali next Wed and hope to have a fun week with him there and in Lombok.

Wishing you all good health,

Anne

Ratna walks?

My boss Ratna told me just before Christmas that she had sent in her resignation (by email) to AMINEF in Jakarta.  I was very surprised and asked her why.  She said she had received a bad review-not in person, but by email- and they wanted her to sign it and send it back.  She said she wasn't going to sign it because it wasn't fair.  Furthermore it brought up a lot of other frustrations.  The long and short of it was that she was feeing underpaid and under appreciated so she had resigned.  Well!  I was very surprised and personally disappointed because she has been so good to me and she works tirelessly and knows everybody here in the educational establishment.  I thought to myself that they would be crazy to let her quit over this.  I said that I would personally support whatever she wanted to do, but that she shouldn't be surprised if they did not accept her resignation.  She seemed taken aback by this.  I explained that organizations will sometimes make a counter offer or have a what-can-we-do-to-make-you-happy talk.  She indicated a willingness to reconsider, so I was hopeful.

But, several days went by with no word from Jakarta.  And then Christmas intervened.  I still couldn't believe it.  The Tuesday after Christmas we had lunch with Emily, who is our liason at the consulate.  Ratna told Emily about the resignation and she was speechless.  Actually, not speechless, but offered her "congratulations, what are you doing next", bit.  I was sitting there, frustrated because Ratna didn't say why she was leaving and Emily didn't ask.  It seemed like they were going to let her leave and nobody understand why.  I figured I better keep my mouth shut.

But, Emily called the boss, Mike, in Jakarta, and said how awful that Ratna was leaving.  It turns out that he didn't know!  He says he didn't get her email resignation.  But he immediately called Ratna and said, "hold it.  Don't do anything until we can talk".  That should happen this week so I am cautiously optimistic.  Ratna has said to me that if they will give her the resources she needs, she will stay.  For example, they want her to do more outreach but won't give her a budget for it.  She runs the office so leanly with just me and two student volunteers and has negotiated free office space in a university building.

I suppose I would continue as a volunteer if possible if she left, but she is the one who arranges everything, so I would have to see how things shake out.  She will be out of town in early Jan. and asked it I would do one of the outreach programs by myself.  I appreciate her confidence in me and said I would as long as the organizers understood my talk would be in English and that she send one of the students along with me.  So that is scheduled.

Stay tuned...

Some photos of other outreach visits below.