The waiting game

Sometimes it seems to me that we are spending our lives as if we were sitting in the departure hall of an airport, waiting to board a plane that keeps being delayed, canceled, re-scheduled. Making matters worse, we don't know where the plane is going, once it is actually going.  So we keep repacking our bags, from tropics to arctic, but we can't really unpack the bags, either, even if we get to stay at the airport hotel for some nights. 

It has been this way for almost three years now.

In order to understand this, you have to know a little bit about how AID consultant work, well, works.

USAID is running aid projects all over the world.  Once they decide to run a new project somewhere, they come up with a fancy acronym (like, CLERP or EPT) and put out an RFP - a request for proposals.  Whichever consultancies are interested in running the project now put together a bid - complete with budget, goals, and a team.  Enter Doug.  

He checks with various consultancies for possible projects.  Sometimes, he reminds them of his existence, more often he gets requests from the companies about bidding with them.  It's not easy to decide which company to bid with.  Who has the best chances?  Who is the incumbent, if there is one? Who offers the best package?  He's more or less committed to a company that has had a fabulous string of lost bids - but they do give him regular short term work, so they get dibs on him.  The big consultancies don't like it if you bid with multiple companies for the same position ("non-exclusive" is the technical term) and like you to sign something accordingly.  Smaller companies sometimes do it. (USAID allow this, btw, for non-vital positions.)

Once you decide this, you need to submit a CV, sign papers, promise various things like being available when the project starts.  You negotiate moving allowances and educational expenses.  Sometimes, at this stage, a company pulls out, horrified by the four kids and the school fees they'd have to pay.

[This happened to us, once.  "You homeschool, right?  No?  Oh, sorry."  So we didn't go to Haiti.  Sometimes, refusals can be all the luck.]

You agree to pay for one or two kids out of pocket.  You gamely do your part and after four to six weeks of this, the bid is submitted to USAID.

And then USAID ruminates on the bids.  And you wait for a decision.

USAID is a government agency, which means the wheels turn slowly.  Typically, a bid will be awarded within two to four months but it can also take a lot longer.  Rarely it will take less.

So what here is what our last few months were like:

Possible jobs in Georgia, Somewhere[TM], and Palestine.

We think about them, we talk.  We need to have an exit strategy in place since the typical mobilization time (i.e. the time between the award and the start of the project) is 30 days.  Right, hurry up and wait is very typical for USAID.

So we plan for eventualities.  We look at the various schooling options, I obsess about lunch menus. We check the housing markets.  We know which pieces of furniture to take, which to leave, which to buy.  We think about birthdays and presents to take along, clothes, gear.  A hundred little decisions that are too much to make once you get the "go" signal have to be done in advance.  There will be little time so you need to be organized.  

What if the project is awarded before the big wedding?  What if it hits while Doug is in the DRC for three weeks?  How can we combine house hunting, a quick trip to the US to visit the ailing father-in-law, and the move within 30 days?

Apart from that practical side, there's the emotional side:  every time you are asked to do something at some future date, you think, "But maybe then I'm not here anymore".  Alan had to change schools this fall, and my first thought was, "Maybe he won't have to because we are somewhere else".  You live your life half a step removed from everyone else.

You homeschool your kids in English reading and writing so they are not too behind when they have to change from a German to an international school.  You sign them up for English learning web sites and hope for the best.  The earlier the switch, the easier.  Time ticks on.

You can't help but check out the tourist websites and dream of trips you'd like to take.  You also can't help having that shopping list in the back of your mind for when the money isn't so tight anymore. 

The necessities, like health insurance.  Or replacing the temperamental front door of your house, the one you can only really open without problems when the temperatures are above 5 degrees.  Repairing the car that makes these odd noises all the time. Taking that photography workshop that you can't possibly afford right now. A new camera. A cute dress for the girl.  A bike for the boy. An iPad.

You tell yourself, don't do this! it makes the disappointment even bigger!

But for most of these, you need to think about them because you need to be prepared.

You check your email a thousand times a day.  You obsess about where the phone is.  You wait.

And wait. 

And somehow, you wait more than you live.

And then, the first bad news one evening.  Then, the other pieces of bad news the next evening, bang, bang.

Disappointment, almost despair.  Why, oh, why?

You take solace in the laughter of your kids, in the fact that your family is happy and healthy.  You list the things that are good about your life.  You try to get some ground back under your feet.  You make sure to take your meds.

You look at your Excel file with running bids, and scratch those three off.  One left, to be awarded sometime in November or December.

Two more months.  A possible winter move.  A new target zone.  New problems, new decisions that have to be made.  Schools, housing market.  Back to square one.

Waiting. 

Comments

[Lucy]

So good to see you write again, Claudia. This post really resonated with me -- it sounds so much like the present state of States-side academia. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the waiting will be over soon.