Categories: uncategorized
Date: 03 July 2004 13:46:21
Yesterday evening I managed to do my final partner interview for my research - one of the partners is actually a Westerner married to a Moldovan who lives out there and leads a church, but he's been back in the UK the last couple of months so I missed him whilst I was in Moldova. It was very interesting to get a Westerner's insider view of things - very different I felt from most of the Moldovans I spoke to the other week - although I also found it quite difficult as he seemed much less enthusiastic about working with other partners generally. What I mean by that is that the work with the other partners is very much secondary to the work of his church, rather than being an integrally linked part of the ministry of the church, if that makes sense. The Moldovans seemed to value the mutual working much more, although of course there's still plenty of room for improvement. One of the things I wanted to look at generally in my dissertation was how realistic it is to expect genuine "partnership" between groups and organisations when those individual partners have their own priorities and agendas and ministries. I think this conversation will give me some more meat to work with.
I'm currently trading answerphone messages with a girl from my previous church who knows that I may have a room in my house soon and who is looking for somewhere to live. I'm not sure what to do - deep down to be honest I really don't think I want another lodger (although J. is very sweet and I'm sure would be fine to live with), and I've been really looking forward to having the space again. But on the other hand can I justify having a spare room when I know someone who needs the room? I've no idea yet when my current lodger's moving out (she's had an offer on a house accepted but who knows how quickly things will progress to exchange and completion?), and I want to sell this house next year so I'll be going through all that uncertainty as well, so I can't offer her any guarantees of a year in the house or anything and she may well have to move out at short notice. I think I'm just going to have to say if my lodger's gone by the time she needs somewhere and she's not found anywhere else then she can move in here for a while, but that she'd be better off looking elsewhere. I feel really mean but I think I need to go with my gut feelings here - I can manage without the rent money, I'm really craving some space at the moment, and it means that I have a decent spare room for guests rather than them having to sleep on the sofa. Or maybe I'm just being antisocial. I don't know.
[Edited a couple of hours later to add: lodger has just withdrawn her offer so is back to househunting. So I guess that solves my problem]