Grrrr

I'm sitting at my computer, checking emails, listening to cicadas in the cool dark night, listening to one of the night watchmen muttering his prayers outside my office window and thinking back over the day.

Life just doesn't go according to plan here...ever. I left the house this morning with the whole week locked in and mapped out and a few hours later had a completely different programme. I don't think it's unrealistic expectations by me- It just that in this culture daily activities are at the mercy of those with more power than you. In this culture powerful people don't consult- they dictate. And nobody questions- not openly at least.

So I was half way through a meeting with the farm manger about the final details of the trainings tomorrow when he casually mentioned tha there was training in XYZ for all staff members (except me) all week, but it was ok, because I would have the driver and a Government trainer with me for the trainings. It took a while to sink in. The field guys won't be coming? the organisation that is running the training won't be making an appearance?! That's ridiculous. Then I felt the anger starting to burn. Why wasn't I told before today? Who made the decision anyway? Is this sudden training 'need' more important than the farmer training that is a key component of what the organisation exists to do?!

Culturally learned responses run deep. i felt incensed and wanted to tell management exactly what I thought. My colleagues, equally incensed, smiled and worked out an alternative. We postpone the trainings til next week. 'But we shouldn't HAVE TO!!' I almost exploded. The trainings are already late due to elections and they've been planned for over a month. My colleagues tried to calm me down before I went to find out if there was any OTHER uncommunicated, last minute, haphazard things that management would like to delay real work for?

I don't have any answers. The fact is; africans and australians deal with blatant injustice/incompetence/abuse of power etc in really different ways. One passively, one explosively. Is one way right? or wrong? Should I too paint on a smile and pretend everything is fine and normal when it's not? Not rock the boat? Don't shame anyone because it's not my culture? I try. I really try to let little things wash over me. But little things are indicative of much bigger things. things that grow in the dark til they can't be hidden any more. things that destroy. Call me an idealist, but ...oh I'm mad.

The question is: how to be mad in a culturally appropriate way?!
even more important- how to respond to the whole thing in a Godly way?