Barbecues, barbecues everywhere, nor any time to think.

"...try to avoid it."

It was a quintessential 'nice house'. Quiet area, garden, near shops and public transport. Not pretty. Not big. I began hoping; my experience taught me that we'd be pretty much be able to settle into whatever we'd arranged in the first month, and that delay only led to despair. "Get over it and get on with it," had helped me settle quickly into new countries in the past. Maybe it would help us here too.

Barbecues. For some reason everything was barbecues in our first couple of weeks. Maybe those around trying to help us settle thought it would remind us of home? Can't think why though.

Giving an impromptu speech at my predecessor's reluctant farewell took the biscuit however. I'm not sure I can give you useful guidelines if you face it yourself, except perhaps to try to avoid it. I didn't know him from Adam and it was hardly tactful to lay out my agenda for changing everything he'd cherished till now. (Maybe there's another guideline for you.)

Did Jesus promote Dependency?

"Tried to snap out of it with a rubbery omelette"

Awoke to the nauseating smell of breakfast at 40,000 feet. Dreamy cobwebs remained, mostly related to feeling too young and stupid to be doing this job. I'd also been debating whether or not Jesus promoted Dependency ("Come to me all you who... I am the way, the truth and the life... No one can come to the Father except through me... Take my yoke upon you... Follow me...") or was a model for Participatory development. Tried to snap out of it with a rubbery omelette. (Please don't send me your comments: it was just a dream.)

What wasn't a dream was the paperwork for a poorly constructed project which someone was funding and I was doomed to oversee. I re-read it. Worse, the donor wanted to take the project to the public for funding. Talk about negative exposure! And who was I - green about the gills - to question what others had previously approved? Just move forward and be accountable for it's implementation! Not something to fight over. Yet.

We landed. Hot. Sticky. Strange temporary lodgings with unrestored pre-war furniture and about five mezzanine floors like giant steps up to the ceiling. Anyway, shops nearby, food manageable, and kids and wife reasonably happy, so that's good enough for me for now. Only the jet lag to defeat.

I'm back. And I'm going to tell you a story.

"I'm too passive, verbose and terminologically convoluted"

Hi! I'm Dan - Dan the development man. And it all began with a turkey. Or a turkey farmer anyway. He saw the advertisement (I thought he was my friend) and he e-mailed it to me. "Do it!" he said. So I did.

First came the interviews. I was embarrassed by my high powered competitors. But apparently the Board wanted a change of direction. And being the only one pointing in that direction I was offered the job (although apparently I'm too passive, verbose and terminologically convoluted). Surprised, I took it. Anyway, another application had just been rejected and the job I was otherwise heading for would have had me walking the streets at night (seriously).

Next came the admin. I'd forgotten the complexities of taking on a new overseas assignment. Or the orientation: anachronistic to say the least, with some crucial aspects underdone and others overdone. But a bit of self-advocacy; incorporating a couple of field trips; and I was pretty much as well prepared as I think I could usefully have been.

Themes from The Poisonwood Bible drifted silth-like through my nightmares as I flew, with my young family, into the darkness.

Abandon ship?

"I might even get a nice reference..."

It's all very well gaining the security of guaranteed donor income. But the stress is astonishing. I hypothesise that the resulting strain is not about personalities but structures, yet because structures are not being addressed, it is manifesting itself in inter-personal ways: being visible, this apparently ‘proves’ to those who won't act that the problem is merely one about personalities – hence justifying their not acting. Now I feel stuck:

• Either our donor needs to historically revert themselves radically (though they have an equally valid perspective in my view); but I know their management won't, and their board whilst disagreeing with management has minimal apparent control over them, tinkering with communication-related discipline rather than tackling incipient mutiny
• Or our organisation needs to reinvent itself in the image of our donor: unlikely to happen more than incrementally given the caution of our management and board (though I have noted some significant changes such as a generally expressed desire to follow 'best practice')
• Or we should take a break from each other's embrace for a season: this is considered by the board on each side to be a bad option, not the more therapeutic ‘still waters’ I would predict if it was done soon
• Or I am 'beating a straw man': my structural hypothesis is wrong; I am the problem - and for what? I don't actually care much about the position I am defending, nor do I particularly desire to preserve the loyalty of staff whom I am afraid are inappropriately reactionary. (I have pointed all of this out to our management, highlighted it in discussions with our donor's management, and discussed it with our donor's chairman.)

Maybe I should hold out just a little while longer? Maybe change is on the cards? I am unsure enough to have begun preparing my exit. I'm too tired to go on fighting, and it detracts us pointlessly from our beneficiaries/participants needs/aspirations. Anyway, if I am the problem and my own management is unable to say so, it would be more honourable for me to quietly bow out. Who knows, I might even get a nice reference?