lunedì 24 settembre 2012

Making budget calculation is good!

This blog was written two days ago

Third day in Arba Minch. There are several naturalistic attractions to visit here such as the Nech Sar national park with its zebras, gazelles and, if you are lucky, elephants and ostriches, the near-by highland Dorze villages, the highest lying at more that 3000 meters, famous for their tall houses and cotton weaving, and, of course, the two lakes Abbaya and Chamo. The second is visited by tourists because is its rich population of crocodiles, some of which really big and 'prehistoric', and hyppos. There is also the so called 'crododile farm', where they breed crocodiles and sell the skin to the international market. There is no tourism in the Abbaya as far as I know.
I could have organised some visit. Instead, I spend the whole day, 12 hours, in doing budget calculation and accountancy for the project. It is something I hate and postponed as much as possible. At a certain point the other members of the project asked me to do that otherwise we where stuck. In Addis I was attracted by other organisational things that put the calculations at the background of my priorities. It is only here that I found the peace of mind to do it.
I have to admit that, however, having a clear picture of the money that you have in proportion with the things you want to do is very useful. It helps to plan and be realistic. It is still very difficult because the project is complex, involving four researchers who do intensive fieldwork and another one coming to the field for shorter stays and aiming to the documentation of two languages. And I have to repair to budget mistakes I made at the moment of the application. The biggest one it the underestimation of the costs for the boat to go to the Gidiccho island. I did not have any complete information and I misunderstood how to elaborate the proper budget. Now, for the first fieldwork we are already going to spend almost half of the whole budget for internal transport. It is a problem because I cannot increase the budget of this voice more that 30% taking the money from the other voices. This is possible because we are going to spend less for personal contracts. 30% will not be enough. I really do not know for the moment how to find a solution. Better thinking about the research. For the first year we are fine.

Ciao!

Nessun commento:

Posta un commento