Money. Money. Money...!

Stress, stress, stress, stress, and more stress! I feel like a total nut job these days! So, in just the last week or so all we (and by “we” I mean, myself, my school head, several teachers and grants advisors in both New York and England) have spent about two weeks just trying to get all the confusion of the banking information sorted out. Its’ still not entirely, but at least by now we have figure out where the money actually is…yes, that was an actual issue!!!
I’ve been stressing myself out, I’m sure more than I should be, but I’m learning how to not totally take everything on at once…still I clearly have a lot of work to do with that…but until my mental health gets a bit more on par with other normal people in the world…I’ve been me and going a bit crazy! So, I’ve been trying to start everything up because according the grant outline that I had made for the actual grant I needed to start training like a month ago and getting everyone on board and on task. It’s funny actually, cause I read my writing and listen to myself saying things like, “getting everyone on board and on task” and “getting everything started immediately” and all I can think to myself is, “are you freakin’ insane, what has ever proven to you that going to happen like that???” TRUE STORY!!! Things don’t happen like that here and really can’t if I’m so scatter brained like I’ve been. I have to be the motivator of this project and be there to try to get others to care and be inspired to do it…so If I’m all crazy like then it isn’t going to go all planned like I want it to, not even close…and that’s what happened so far. We’re on the mend and this thing will happen, this grant will be successful even if it kills me, which I don’t believe it will kill me but a nice ulcer from stress or stroke possibly…I’m betting its not totally out of the question at this point. NOT.AT.ALL!!!!
Anyways, I’m getting off track, shocking, but…so my school head told me months ago when I brought up this grant to her thinking it wouldn’t really happen, that we could use the school bank account. A week or two ago I needed to get that info to the Foundation so they could deposit the money and we could start everything. I asked my school head where the bank info was because I needed to email SAF (Staying Alive Foundation) with the info. She told me to go to the school head’s office and school and all the info is there. She wasn’t at school that day so I, in all my hurry and glory of thinking I’m so clever to get it all done so fast, found a bank account and one I knew I’d seen before and used that info, told MTV (SAF) and they deposited the money the next day! Oh yes, I’m amazing….haha…uh…not so much! So after about several days of my hounding my school head about how we get the money out of the grant she informs me, “oh we can’t…the bank account we use is for PTA (yes, we have Parent Teacher Association here too) and only the parents in the village have access to the money.” So, despite my minor stroke after finding out not only do myself or the teachers have access to the money but there is randomly over 6 grand in the parents bank account. COOL!!!! I could feel the ulcer coming…
OK, so next step, my school head two days later decided that we were going to open a new bank account for “fundraising” for our school that gave only teachers access to the account and would be based in Moleps which is 80K from us where as the current bank account for the parents and where the money was is in Gabs which is about 140K from us. So, ok, great! I liked that plan…BUT we have to transfer the money. So its already been over a week of nothing happening. Finally my school head last week took 3 parents from out village to Gabs to have then sign and get out $6,000 or about 40,000 pula out of the bank account so we could put it in out new one. Well, I was starting to think thing might work out when suddenly I got a call from one of the teachers at my school that went to the bank saying, “Emily! There is no money in the account…what account number did you give grant ppl?” I was freaking! I was shaking! All I could think was, “oh god I’m going to owe MTV $6,000….actually my mom will cause I don’t have any money…she’s gonna be pissed!” yep! My exact thoughts!!!! I kept telling the teacher and my school head over the phone, “I took the account number the only bank account we have, I took the account from the invoices in the office…why is there no money. MTV says they gave use the money!” Finally, my school head pauses for a long time, I was on the verge of tears but I think I was freaking out to hard to actually cry, my school head finally speaks and says, “what do you mean the ‘only account we have’? We have more than one!”
OH DAMN!!!!
Yeah, no one told me that! It never occurred to me that our tiny school in the rural bush of Botswana would have more than one bank account. We never have money or do anything with money so in all honesty, the idea we even had one bank account took me back a bit. My school head told me she would call our Deputy Head and try to figure out where or what account I sent the money to, said she’d call me back and then hung up! I was in the middle of having my ulcer/stroke/heart attack combo as I kept thinking about how I may have possible put the money in to god only knows who’s account and kept imagining all the money gone and having to explain to MTV that I accidently lost all their money because I put it in some teacher that used to work in my villages account. After several heart palpitations, my school head called and first, laughed at me and then informed me that I actually put it in the safest account possible, but its going to be some trouble to get it out of that account. I put the money accidentally in the councilmen’s bank account. I gave the money to the Botswana government! How did I do that!!!!!!!???????? I guess we have an account that is with the Bots government and the Council so that if we need any official repairs or something like that to the school then they give us money to do so….instead I gave them 40 grand! Yeah! Pretty much!!!!!!
So, good thing is that the money is still there. The only person from my entire village that can access that money is my school head and she of course hasn’t touched it and I really trust her…so that’s good at least! However, we have now written several letters and made numerous phone calls to try to explain the council that we need our money back. Apparently this isn’t a speedy process cause, well, they are shall I say a little perplexed as to how we got 40 grand in pula from our tiny village and they are definitely not used to receiving money in these accounts. So, the process continues! That’s has literally been my last two weeks…We should get the money soon and my school head is on it. That women is a force to be reckon with when she’s on a mission and its fantastic!!!! We did get the new bank account set up so whenever we do get the money then we do have a legit place to put it…so that’s a plus! Its still a bit of a hassel, but I need to count my blessing at this point…the bank account has the school head and two teachers that are authorized to withdraw money from the account which means they have to go in person. 2 of them always have to go…so that means whenever I need money for anything from the grant I have to organize 2 ppl to go 80K on a week day which can take all day just to get money…which is a lot harder to get organized then it sounds…but gotta do what I gotta do! So there you have it.
Mostly I need to calm myself down. I’ve been sick with a bad sinus infection for the last week, I think just from so much stress and everything. BUT that has not helped the situation…keep your fingers crossed for me. I sent a mildly threatening text (and I mean it was nice but firm) to the social worker today telling him that he had to come to my village next week to finish this second meal thing…HAD TO! He said he agreed and he’d be here all day Monday for the whole day so we can finally finish it all…we’ll see what happens. I’m normally a very nice person, or at least I try to be, but enough is enough! I started this is September 2009…its still not completed. So, I’ve hit that point of, as nicely as I can, I’m not asking…I’m telling! Which actually seems to work more. I don’t like being like that but it gets ppl to do things more and then I just still giggle a lot to make it seem not as mean…which also, kinda works. Haha