Mission .000001 accomplished

I feel that today I started carving out a place for myself at the NGO. It seems I will have to be inventive and be the one in charge of assigning myself projects.

In the morning, I went with the administrative assistant on a few errands, including to the post office, and I found out that the streets in Nazareth don't actually have names (but buildings do have numbers), which is why people describe directions in terms of landmarks.

I also found out that Arab Christians aren't supposed to get divorced (like in Catholicism), and at Christmas, Santa Clause doesn't come down the chimney. Instead, he goes from door to door delivering presents. Imagine the relief that parents in America would feel if they could simply tell their children, "Wait for the doorbell to ring" instead of answering questions like, "But how will Santa get inside if we don't have a chimney?"

When we got back to the office, I approached the guy who I'm mainly working with, and sat down to clarify with him what my main duties are. He showed me a Word document and a few Access documents that contain information on foundations the NGO has relationships with, and I asked him if I could re-organize the information into one large Excel document.

We also discussed the possibility of my writing an analytical piece on how the use of different language in various newspapers can affect public opinion (for example, by using the word "killed" versus "died" to describe casualties of war).

I'm no expert at Excel (and I don't especially enjoy spreadsheets), and I'm not a journalist, but now I have these items on my agenda (including some other short and long-term goals). These tasks might not have a huge impact in the end, but what matters to me is that I feel more focused now. It's usually hard for me to stick up for myself and voice my needs, so it's meaningful for me that I approached my co-worker and lay down some concrete steps for moving forward. I better understand now how I can best contribute to the organization (mainly in the area of grant writing/fundraising, but also with PR).

Well, I'd better review my Arabic vocabulary. I might be hearing 3miyya (dialect) all day from my co-workers, but that doesn't take care of FusHa (Classical Arabic). For that, I need to listen to the BBC and absorb more words.

I have to remind myself to just take things day by day, and that microsteps may be easier to focus on than huge leaps when trying to adjust to a new environment - hence the title of today's post.