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Aine Seitz McCarthy
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The office of DFP

8/12/2012

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Although we stayed at a guesthouse for the first few weeks in Meatu while the contract was being negotiated, we finally moved into our actual house/office.  The combination of the fact that we own a crazy amount of technology, that the house came with minimal furnishing and that no one really cares to decorate it means half our home looks like a barren storage room and the other half looks like a University office. The only major purchase was this lovely table/desk. The house has become a strange mix of cement flooring, teacups, PDAs, ants, flash drives, water buckets, to-do lists on graph paper, cardboard boxes, computers, extension cords, flies, peanut butter and the ever persistent dust.

Within a couple of hours of my arrival, the neighborhood kids realized a mzungu had landed and they hang around outside the gate now, ready to carefully observe me the minute I walk out the door.  And about a week after we’d moved in, I was on the porch when a lady came to the gate to greet me.  We were chatting and she asked me for the location of the DFP office because she was looking for work.

DFP? I ran through a list of acronyms in my head; CHW, DMO, FZS, CBD, SEECF, EU, CREATE, TAWIRI, TANAPA… PB&J… No DFP. I asked her again, what is DFP? She seemed to be indicating that I work for DFP and that she wanted a job from me. Not entirely surprising given that we just hired enumerators, but what on earth was DFP? I looked around; at my t-shirt, at the porch. And then I saw the license plate of our EU-funded vehicle: DFP 1289.  Donor Funded Project. Vehicles in Tanzania that have outside funding get a sort of tax-exempt status, which is indicated on their plates, to keep track of the many foreign-funded cars and trucks.

I had to laugh. Ohhhh. I explained that DFP wasn’t my employer or any organization; it just means that the vehicle, and thus the passengers in it, are funded by foreign donations. But, in reality, she knew exactly what DFP meant. DFP translates to jobs.

Anyway, I explained that we weren’t hiring now, but the project will continue for a couple of years and there is always a possibility of something in the future. And then I headed back into my donor-funded house.

2 Comments
Jason Kerwin link
8/12/2012 03:26:43 pm

I often have very similar experiences (random people either begging for or demanding jobs) here in Malawi. I blame the ultra-high going rates for positions on projects: http://nonparibus.wordpress.com/2012/08/13/is-it-a-moral-imperative-to-pay-people-above-market-wages/

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Keta McCarthy
8/14/2012 12:11:13 am

Home, sweet tech. home.

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    Aine Seitz McCarthy

    International development, economics and some pretty ambitious ideas from a stubborn graduate student clinging to her sense of adventure.


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