We Shall See How it Goes

Well I have to honestly say that the last week has been a bit of a blur. I don't even recall the first portion of last week so it couldn't have been that exciting but I definately remember it being a busy weekend so I guess I'll start from there.

I went into work on Friday as usual expecting it to be a usual Friday but Musu, one of the program officers, asked me to go with her to partners planning meeting for Act!onAid. Act!onAid is one of CPA's biggest donors and every year they hold a planning meeting with their partner organizations to discuss the activities they have planned for the following fiscal year and to get input on what their partners think; it is also a new opportunity to bring new partners on board. It was pretty interesting to hear about some of the up coming projects but I think it was even more interesting to hear about the budgets. Some were incredibly small; I could believe the ambitions they had for an education budget of 700,000 dalasis (sorry, I don't know how many CDN dollars that is but just divide by 20 if you are interested)! Of course, like everything in The Gambia, the meeting started two and half hours late so obviously it went much later than it was supposed to. The last activity involved thinking of a witty name for the country strategy plan; a bit of a waste of time in my opinion considering it was 4pm on a Friday afternoon in the middle of Ramadan. Regardless, we finally got out of there and proceeded to a symposium given for the International Day for Peace. That was also interesting; most of the speakers understood that their address was to be SHORT but some must have thought they were the only ones presenting because they just continued to ramble on and on, even when the power went out, that did not stop them from talking, they just continued on. I think I finally arrived home that night around 7:30, only six and a half hours later than normal for a Friday. But it did not stop there. Saturday was the Global Peace Games; it is a "football" (so soccer) tournament put on by one of the NGOs here. It started late (do I even need to continue metioning that or is it just assumed by this point?), absolutely no one paid attention to the opening speeches given by the Secretary of State for Sport & Development and UN representative. The games were good though, our team lost but they did quite well considering most of the other teams were semi-professional clubs and I thought they did extrodinarily well considering two of our players played in their sandels while all the other teams were decked out in proper gear. So came the end of Saturday where I didn't arrive home again until about 7pm. Amat came over to visit and we sat outside chatting for a couple of hours because the power was out again (about the fourteenth time that week) and the candles were making the house extremely hot! Sunday was just a day of relaxation...definately needed.

Another week has come and is in the process of going. Njundu (the National Coordinator) is on a workshop in Kenya this week so the office is quite peaceful. The VSO intern also started work this week so it is nice to have someone to commiserate with. Have done absolutely no work yet this week and there is likely little to come other than proofing and making comments on a document that the Department of Social Welfare is putting together for a Child Protection Database. I had completed my part alredy because the meeting was supposed to be on Monday but they post-poned the meeting and didn't bother to contact us about it so now I have MORE time to make comments! Looking forward to Monday. Well I suppose that is about it for now. People always say "how can life be boring or mundane...you are living in Africa!" but this blog must be proof that life is just about the same wherever you are in the world....just different scenery.

Goals for this week:
- Bribe top immigration officials to extend my visa for "free"

Goals for next week:
- Tell the Department of Social Welfare that their database document is a peice of literary garbage.

What a Month it will be!

So it's only been a week and I'm trying to be more contientous about posting regularly. Sadly enough, I feel like I don't have much to write about at the moment. Work is plugging along slowly but surely; this week in particular is just dragging along. My theory is because the extended breakfast breaks no longer exist to break up the day. Ramadan arrived on Friday; it was supposed to start Thursday but like everything else in The Gambia it also did not manage to start on Thursday, apparently you can't start Ramadan if you can't see the moon and I guess it decided not to make an appearance on Wednesday evening so it started Friday instead. It's been an interesting few days to say the least; I actually fasted on Friday as well. I hadn't really intended to but I arrived at work knowing that I wasn't going to eat until after 1pm when I left the office but as it turned out there was meeting that afternoon that someone had forgotten to tell me about so I ended up being there until 4pm without having had anything to eat or drink so I just decided that I would continue on until that evening. It actually wasn't that bad, I didn't even really get really thirstyuntil around 6pm so all in all it went pretty well. I have not fasted again properly and don't really intend to; I generally fast at work because I usually feel too guilty to go and get food in an office full of tired and hungry people.

Ramadan has definately had an interesting effect on people; people's tempers have been better than I expected but they are all very tired all the time because they were up at 5 am to pray and eat before the sun comes up. As you can imagine, in a society that's already kinda lazy, this leads to futher slacking. Yesterday, one of my co-workers decided to take a nap in the conference room when the National Coordinator left the office fore a training seminar. Then the power went off for awhile and when I went back to her office a while later she had disappeared; her computer was off and her bags were gone. It was about 1pm at this point; the office now closes at 2:30 instead of 4pm because of Ramadan and she couldn't even manage to wait the extra hour! It makes me laugh and cringe all at the same time!

Other than that things are going well; it will be nice when Ramadan is over and Amat and go back to accompanying me to the beach so I don't get harassed. I was bored on Sunday evening so i decided to take a walk to the beach...BIG mistake! In the 40 minutes that I was there, 4 people invited themselves to sit down and chat not understanding "I want to be alone!" and that four doesn't include the one who caught me on my way home!! One guy suggested I give him my number so we can get together sometimes...and this was AFTER I told him I had a husband about six times!! Then I ran into him AGAIN, lucky me, when I was walking back alone the beach to go home and he invited me to his house for dinner. I near strangled the guy..."what didn't you understand the first fourteen times"!!! By the ned of the experience I was so frustrated so I don't think I'll be going back to the beach until after Ramadan...only 25 days to go! But overall things are good; can't believe it's nearly 7 weeks now. In a way it still feels like I've been here forever but in another way I can't believe the end of September is already approaching. It certainly doesn't feel like fall here...but I wish it did...without the winter to follow of course! Anyway, I hope all is well with everyone, wherever you may be.

Until next time,

Excuses Excuses

Ok...well I guess I haven't been so diligent about keeping the blog for the past couple of weeks; I really don't even know where the time has gone! I guess things have been pretty busy as of lately; work has finally picked up...well a couple of weeks ago now I guess. I have been busy writing reports, I don't know what the development world would be without all these reports which I am CONVINCED donors don't actually read! It doesn't actually take me that long to compile these reports (for a one day training, I completed the report in two days which apparently has never been done?!?!?) but of course life is never that easy because life in the office is all about democracy (interesting considering the country); everything has to be read by everyone in the office for them to make comments on and as I'm sure you can imagine, people forget about it, promise to take it home and read it and then leave it at the office or simply just let all the other papers pile on top of it and it takes weeks before you get it returned to you to make the adjustments. I find this particularly interesting because there was such stress that the report needed to be written by a certain date because it absolutely HAD to be sent to the donor...that was probably about two weeks ago now and I still haven't seen the necessary revisions. But that is life at CPA. This week I am at another training session in Brikama; this one is for final year students at the Teachers' College and they are being trained on Child Rights, Child Protection, Corporal Punishment and Alternative Methods of Discipline. It started on Monday and will go until Thursday; it has been an interesting session so far. As per all trainings here in The Gambia, we were late to arrive. I kept encouraging them along but all to no avail and we were an hour late; thank goodness one of the facilitators went there directly from her house and as a result was on time. Luckily we arrived only for the power to go out a short while later; it was out of about 3 hours and the room was boiling!!! Lunch was supposed to be from 1:30-2:30 but (Gambian style) it was not ready on time; it was finally ready at 3:45, just 45 minutes before the session was supposed to end for the day but of course, everything here starts late and runs late so we did not end up finishing until 5:30. By the time I got home it was nearly 7 and I was exhausted only to do it all again today. Today really wasn't much different; we were 2 hours late this morning but the power didn't go out today, lunch was on time and we finished a half hour early (only because of the looming thunderstorms I'm sure) so I guess all and all it was a pretty good day. Hopefully the rest of the week will continue just as nicely.

But of course, just because the end of the week comes does not mean that the work is done. On Saturday, the youth group, Voice of the Young, is having their monthly General Meeting. I was given (or rather forced) the task of giving this months presentation. So on the first Saturday of Ramadan I have to give a presentation on Effective Communication skills to a bunch of tired, hungry and thirsty teenagers...should be interesting...I guess I should start preparing at some point....maybe Friday.

Other than that things have been quite relaxed. I had my first Africa dress made last week in anticipation of wearing it on Friday but when I got it back from the tailor the skirt turned out to be about 6 inches too long! So I took it back today and told him he MUST have it ready for Thursday (the tailor is in the same town as the training this week which is quite far from where I live so if it is ready by Thursday the driver will take me to pick it up, otherwise I have to make my own way there and I am refusing to do that)! So fingers crossed that that works out!!

I'm sure there are other stories to tell but I am running out of time and I should probably get back before it starts to get dark and I trip over the sandy road. I have been trying to upload pictures but none of the internet cafes have the proper plug ins; one has told me that they will install them but I'm sure it'll take ages. I tried emailing but then the internet crashed and that didn't work either so I guess it might be a little while but I am working on it I promise!!!

I hope that this note finds you all well...I haven't heard from some of you in awhile...you know who you are but I hope that things are well regardless. Hope to hear from you all soon, it's always nice to get news from home. Anyway, take care and until next time...

From the Smiling Coast of Africa!