With the news reports of the last few weeks, I was expecting to write a post about the passing of the king and the resulting funeral pomp and ceremony. It seems the news is greatly exaggerated, and short of regicide I have had to come up with other topics.
I haven’t written about work for a while. I wanted to keep the blog humorous and to give the impression that I was enjoying everything about Tonga.
I have certainly been enjoying Tonga, but it is only in the last week or so that I have really started to get something out of going to work at the planning department and to laugh at the if-you-don’t-laugh-it-will-make-you-cry humour of what that involves.
A couple of things happened around the time of my arrival that meant I was always going to have to wait for work to be good. The department had played the Australian volunteer lottery and won twice, with two volunteers for the one role. I arrived second, so was squeezed out of my intended role. Also, the government had agreed to a restructure of ministries – planning would become part of the finance ministry – and large scale voluntary redundancies – a quarter of public servants would be made redundant.
Understandably, working out what to do with me wasn’t a high priority. But they have tried. In June, the minister’s office requested I be moved there then. Planning agreed. In July, the company managing the AYAD program requested I be moved. Planning agreed. In August, AusAID requested I be moved to the minister’s office. Planning agreed. It is September next week. I wonder who will ask for me to be moved in that month.
Any day now, I will go somewhere.
In the meantime, and with the likelihood of me moving to a new role increasing, they are starting to invite me to meetings, ask me questions and, very occasionally, listen to me as if they want me to stay.
Tonga, its fun.
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