January 27, 2005

Snippets of Wisdom from My Brother

Hi Dorothy,

Good job! It's great to have opportunities to change positions within a company. I must be perfectly honest with you, the prospect of work at the DRC really scares me. But let's take a look at the pro's and con's.

PRO:
1.- Interesting work.
2.- Different area, which gives you an opportunity to travel.
3.- Better pay, more vacation time.
4.- Different project.

CON:
1.- No infrastructure whatsoever. No access to phone or internet.
2.- The very real possibility of getting killed.
3.- Not staying with the same office for a long period of time.
4.- No possibility of moving around alone.

The big one, I think, is CON number 2.

4 comments:

Congogirl said...

OK, I'm sorry, I feel compelled to respond. I live here, and I have to say that #1, 2, and 4 are not realistic.

1. I have my own cell phone for work and personal use. I can make international calls whenever I want, as long as I reimburse at the end of the month. I am online every day, except for the occasional times when we have technical glitches, a reality of working anywhere in Africa. I am probably more in touch with people than before I left the US.

2. I have never heard of any expat based in Kinshasa getting killed. Nobody I know personally or by 6 degrees of separation has had anything remotely awful happen to them. Things are different in the East, but you would not be traveling there for work. You take sensible precautions the way you would most anywhere, or at least I would based on the places I lived in the States.

4. We go places on our own all the time. The only restriction is that occasionally there aren't enough vehicles to go around, if some are in the shop, so we have to carpool.

007 in Africa said...

Hehehe, I guess you'd have to know the relationship my bro and I have--we like to make fun of each other (and pull each other's hair).
his email's not entirely realistic (hey, you update your blog more often than I do so there's gotta have good internet connection there) but it's funny nonetheless.
So there are phones over there? Just kidding hehe.

Congogirl said...

OK, now I understand! Maybe if he'd been a bit more extreme...

Anonymous said...

I think you should come back to DC!
1/ Great, well kept roads.
2/ Fun-loving, open-minded administration
3/ No longer #1 murder and rape capital in the U.S.! (we're #2 I think)
4/ Great weather (except in summer, winter, and large chunks of spring and fall).

-Ammo