Excuses

I had the interpreter call the mayor four or five times today. I wanted the mayor to schedule a meeting with the provincial governor, the city engineer and the chief of the agricultural department, and to call me back and tell me where and when that meeting was to take place. Instead of calling me back, like he repeatedly promised, he had lots of excuses for not making the meeting happen: the city engineer had been in a car accident, the mayor was busy, and the phone of the chief of the agricultural department was off. In the afternoon the HQ called me again and asked how soon they would have the land ownership certificate. I told them that I was trying my best.

Then the chief of ANP came over to discuss some issues. He said that as we hadn't come to see him recently, he was forced to come and see us. I said that he is always welcome. He had a piece of paper which I wanted to have translated, but the IPs said that it was such bad handwriting that if you wrote it down in the sand the text would start walking away. It took them quite a while to decipher the text, and as the text was to be included in my report, I couldn't start writing it until it was late.