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.