Solidarity

Later that afternoon
I walked back downstairs into the office in a trance. HQ said to check our emails for further information. It had already arrived marked “Confidential”. To print things our you have to take your laptop to the printer and sit on the floor while it prints, right in the middle of the office. As I waited for the printer to connect I read the words in the harsh reality of black and white print. Silently I began to cry. Big, fat tears rolled down my face and I couldn't stop them. Elvie, our local HR, noticed and came over and sat on the floor with me. Her arm wrapped around me protectively as I pushed my computer screen towards her. She read it too as she repeated in confusion, “Why? They can't do that. Why?” I just shrugged as Indra, our local logistician laid his hand softly on my shoulder and shook his head in disbelief.
We have such a great team and I care about them all so much. We each have our different faiths; our local staff are all Muslims, but grief is the same in any language and the simple act of sitting in solidarity on the floor made me see the bond that connected us.

I walked into Laurie's office and she also looked stunned. “Did you know about this”, I asked. She replied, “I just got a call 3 minutes before you guys asking me to take over as Country Director. I had no idea what was happening”. I sat by her side and mumbled through my tears what I knew. “They say my contracts being terminated immediately. No discussion. No warning. Nothing. They don't even want us to handover.” Her eyes welled up with tears as she offered to pray for us.

All this time Chris was upstairs in a meeting with Pieter, his project manager. He had agreed to do his end of probation appraisal and carried on with it, without mentioning to Pieter what had just happened. There's no way I could have strung together a coherent sentence but Chris seemed to find the strength to plough on. I said, “Chris I think you need to come downstairs and make an announcement”.