Confusão

Confusion. Never has so much of it reigned on the subject of public holidays.

Ramadan is due to end today, depending on the sighting of the crescent moon, although this cannot be confirmed far in advance. Our Tanzania office yesterday announced a public holiday and office closure for Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of Ramadan, although the length of this holiday varies between countries. There was then lots of frenetic group WhatsApp chat about the real date of Eid, but no change to the office closure arrangement. When I referred in a message to the team being unavailable due to the holiday, HR (the same person who had announced the holiday; see also yesterday’s reference to shoddy HR practices) replied that there is no holiday. As someone trying to lead a programme and be accountable for our impact, the lack of clarity is annoying.

In the Mozambique office where I currently am there is no official public holiday (probably because Muslims make up a smaller proportion of the national population than in Tanzania) but those observing Ramadan are allowed to stay at home more informally.

Regardless of all the Eid confusion, the Mozambique office always observes a half day on Fridays. So in homage to the fact that colleagues here rarely partake in outrage over HR issues and generally have a much healthier attitude towards work stress, when my call finished at 3pm I went to get beers with my colleagues Ana and Milton at a restaurant by the beach. HR practices don’t seem so shoddy after a few canecas (pints) in a spot such as this.