Bank Around the World

I’ve been feeding Diane’s rubbish cat again this week. As a reminder, the cat is rubbish because it’s scared of birds and mice and is allergic to grass.

Anyway, Diane is away in Indonesia, somewhere within commuting distance of Jakarta, on a work experience exchange. She went out there to work with an Indonesian youth worker and he will be coming to England in October to shadow Diane. Diane got on the Global Xchange scheme because she has a wide variety of youth work experience, including her Youth Council and Youth Bank work.

Her partner was in Barcelona for a week on business at the same time, which is why I was feeding and watering her cat. Not really fair, is it? Spain for him, Indonesia for her and Stoppatome for me!

Her partner was due to return today, so before going round to feed rubbish cat, I phoned, in case he’d got back already. He was there (good, that saves me a trip), so I asked if he’d heard much from Diane. He told me one thing that had me guffawing out loud. Somewhere in the translation, the fact that Diane is a youth worker had got lost and they had picked up on just one word – “bank” – completely out of context, as it must have come from the mention of her (only three months) youth bank work.

It turns out that Diane’s work experience exchange partner is a bank manager! Nothing to do with youth work at all.  Now, halfway into her work experience, they’re looking to find her another project to work with that’s more relevant.

It’s funny, but what a waste of money!