This afternoon, I am departing for Salima...or more accurately, Senga Bay (the beach) for 11 days. Don't get too jealous - I will be working for 9 of them.
We have two workshops in the same location so I thought we could tie the two together with a weekend of camping for Jules's birthday. I will be doing my best to access internet while I am away, but don't expect that it will be all that frequent.
In the first workshop, I am facilitating an M&E section, but in the second I am mainly a partcipant and am looking forward to being immersed in Disaster Risk Reduction concepts.
I will miss two volleyball games, which I am not excited about, though I do wish my team luck!
And also I might miss (but will be trying my damnedness not to) So You Think You Can Dance. For those that watch at home, I am sure you realize that the show has already shown in North America, but it just started a few weeks ago here, so I am avidly watching every second.
Wish me luck in finding a place in Senga Bay that will allow us to watch on DSTV!
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Life in Lilongwe
I just realized that I haven't posted since last Friday! How does time pass so quickly?
Anyways...last weekend was a lot of fun. On Friday we had a chill night in. I have started watching Buffy again (SO addictive) so we watched a few episodes.
On Saturday we got up to go for a walk. Jules had a coffee while Regan and I had some beauty treatments at the salon and then we did some grocery shopping at the market. Since we have been walking everywhere lately, this whole procedure took quite a bit of time, so luckily we ran into Heather, who offered to drive us home. Before we went home though, we found a new restaurant (well, new to me - Jules's colleague had taken him there before). The restaurant is called Amina's take-away and serves local fare. What was remarkable about it was the size of the servings...Jules and I had decided to split a t-bone and rice - when they brought out the t-bone, it was the size of the whole plate! And the rice, veggies and beans were on a separate plate! Between us, we couldn't finish it all and we were stuffed. The whole meal cost $4, so it was $2 each....I don't know how they can stay in business.
After I got home I had to bake some cookies and arrange some flowers to add to my Martha Stewart costume for the Alter-Ego party. Before we left in the morning, I had sewn my apron and looked up Martha's actual number to put on a black and white striped shirt. Once the cookies were ready, I helped braid Heather's hair so that it looked crimped for her 80s rock-chick costume and helped Jules get his hair to stand up for his Einstein costume. I haven't downloaded my pics yet, so check out Heather's blog if you want a preview.
Sunday was sweet - we relaxed by the pool at the Capital Hotel (where the water is NOT green), while Regan spent the day hanging out at ABC and playing frisbee.
This week has been busy so far - I was able to work from home for two days (Monday and Wednesday) to try and finish up some followup activities from my workshop. I also had a tripartite meeting (these are meetings with the partner organization (CADECOM), the volunteer and WUSC), where we discussed what I shoudl focus on during the remainder of my time here. Although the goals are still very ambitious, I am happy that I feel they are acheivable. Some of the items originally included in my workplan have been removed and we will inclued them when we write a position description for another volunteer so they will get done eventually.
Last night, Chambo with Head won our first game of the season (and it's only our second time out!!!), so that is super exciting - we look forward to a better season than last, with a couple new players and a great core team.
Tonight Jules was invited to a formal reception - I am a little nervous that it might be a little stuffy, but we will check it out and see what it's like.
No big plans for the weekend - apparently the Portuguese Club pool is scheduled to be repaired and treated this week, so maybe it will be a good place to go on the weekend - we will see.
Anyways...last weekend was a lot of fun. On Friday we had a chill night in. I have started watching Buffy again (SO addictive) so we watched a few episodes.
On Saturday we got up to go for a walk. Jules had a coffee while Regan and I had some beauty treatments at the salon and then we did some grocery shopping at the market. Since we have been walking everywhere lately, this whole procedure took quite a bit of time, so luckily we ran into Heather, who offered to drive us home. Before we went home though, we found a new restaurant (well, new to me - Jules's colleague had taken him there before). The restaurant is called Amina's take-away and serves local fare. What was remarkable about it was the size of the servings...Jules and I had decided to split a t-bone and rice - when they brought out the t-bone, it was the size of the whole plate! And the rice, veggies and beans were on a separate plate! Between us, we couldn't finish it all and we were stuffed. The whole meal cost $4, so it was $2 each....I don't know how they can stay in business.
After I got home I had to bake some cookies and arrange some flowers to add to my Martha Stewart costume for the Alter-Ego party. Before we left in the morning, I had sewn my apron and looked up Martha's actual number to put on a black and white striped shirt. Once the cookies were ready, I helped braid Heather's hair so that it looked crimped for her 80s rock-chick costume and helped Jules get his hair to stand up for his Einstein costume. I haven't downloaded my pics yet, so check out Heather's blog if you want a preview.
Sunday was sweet - we relaxed by the pool at the Capital Hotel (where the water is NOT green), while Regan spent the day hanging out at ABC and playing frisbee.
This week has been busy so far - I was able to work from home for two days (Monday and Wednesday) to try and finish up some followup activities from my workshop. I also had a tripartite meeting (these are meetings with the partner organization (CADECOM), the volunteer and WUSC), where we discussed what I shoudl focus on during the remainder of my time here. Although the goals are still very ambitious, I am happy that I feel they are acheivable. Some of the items originally included in my workplan have been removed and we will inclued them when we write a position description for another volunteer so they will get done eventually.
Last night, Chambo with Head won our first game of the season (and it's only our second time out!!!), so that is super exciting - we look forward to a better season than last, with a couple new players and a great core team.
Tonight Jules was invited to a formal reception - I am a little nervous that it might be a little stuffy, but we will check it out and see what it's like.
No big plans for the weekend - apparently the Portuguese Club pool is scheduled to be repaired and treated this week, so maybe it will be a good place to go on the weekend - we will see.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Random updates
So this week has been productive....I think September must be the only month so far that I haven't been out of town for work! My feet are even starting to get (a little) itchy.
Jules is actually out of town for one of his rare trips next week, so I am glad that he will get to see a little more of the north while he works with farmer groups in Ruimphi.
After finally getting everything under control for my workshop Aug 26 - 29, it has taken me most of September to finalize materials for sharing and working on the follow up from it....but the end is in sight - by the end of next week, I should have a good handle on the workshop follow up stuff and be working on the M&E framework for my organization....whew!
This weekend a friend of ours is having a birthday party, combined with another friend's housewarming...the theme is alter-ego - so you are supposed to dress up as someone you've always wanted to be...it threw me for a loop for sure - it really is hard to say!
I feel like I respect a lot of people, but I am not sure I actually want to BE any of them...finally I decided to take it a little tongue in cheek and go as Martha Stewart. Though I wouldn't want to actually BE her I was a former Martha addict....
Anyways, so our weekend is shaping up - we have been a bit hermit-y lately, partly due to lack of funds and due to the flu that I had, so it will be refreshing to get out to a party. On Saturday we have tentative plans to maybe do a bit of climbing as well as we have friends going to hike in Dedza, but the jury is still out on whether or not we will go...since we have constumes to finish!
Regan has been busy lately with joining an Utimate Frisbee team and studying for her upcoming ICGSE exams....she even has to write TWO exams on her 16th birthday, poor girl.
Back to preparation for the next M&E workshop (only 2 days this time, thank goodness!)...
Jules is actually out of town for one of his rare trips next week, so I am glad that he will get to see a little more of the north while he works with farmer groups in Ruimphi.
After finally getting everything under control for my workshop Aug 26 - 29, it has taken me most of September to finalize materials for sharing and working on the follow up from it....but the end is in sight - by the end of next week, I should have a good handle on the workshop follow up stuff and be working on the M&E framework for my organization....whew!
This weekend a friend of ours is having a birthday party, combined with another friend's housewarming...the theme is alter-ego - so you are supposed to dress up as someone you've always wanted to be...it threw me for a loop for sure - it really is hard to say!
I feel like I respect a lot of people, but I am not sure I actually want to BE any of them...finally I decided to take it a little tongue in cheek and go as Martha Stewart. Though I wouldn't want to actually BE her I was a former Martha addict....
Anyways, so our weekend is shaping up - we have been a bit hermit-y lately, partly due to lack of funds and due to the flu that I had, so it will be refreshing to get out to a party. On Saturday we have tentative plans to maybe do a bit of climbing as well as we have friends going to hike in Dedza, but the jury is still out on whether or not we will go...since we have constumes to finish!
Regan has been busy lately with joining an Utimate Frisbee team and studying for her upcoming ICGSE exams....she even has to write TWO exams on her 16th birthday, poor girl.
Back to preparation for the next M&E workshop (only 2 days this time, thank goodness!)...
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Not too much that is new...
But I thought I would post anyways - since we had to pay Regan's exam fees this month, money is pretty tight - so we have spent a lot of time in Lilongwe with not too much to do.
Unfortunately the pool at the portuguese club (which we were so excited to join as it would provide countless hours of free entertainment once the membership was paid) is completely green. They ran out of chemicals in May and have not treated the pool since. It is totally gross and I don't want to go to the club and just hang out BY the pool because #1 - I like water and want to be in it, not by it and #2 - it is free to do that anyways - the only thing we were paying for was access to the pool. What a miserable situation....
But we have been going for lots of walks, so that has been nice - and we found out that a bakery I like stocks BRIE. So I think we might indulge in a little fresh bread, brie and procuitto on Friday night as a treat!
Today is the start of the hot season of volleyball, so Chambo with head will start the season off tonight at 6:30 - I am excited to be playing again but wishing we had managed to slot at least ONE practice in during the six week break!
Anyways...on the work front, panic is setting in as I look at the crowded weeks ahead - you can now count to the end of my contract in weeks (well I guess you always could - but the number was much bigger before) and there is SO much still to do. I am trying to come up with a reasonable work plan for my remaining time here, but as weeks pass - I am so busy with other things that my work plan items get pushed to the next week...a process that can not continue indefinately!!!
Anyways - wish me luck as I continue to plug away!!!
Unfortunately the pool at the portuguese club (which we were so excited to join as it would provide countless hours of free entertainment once the membership was paid) is completely green. They ran out of chemicals in May and have not treated the pool since. It is totally gross and I don't want to go to the club and just hang out BY the pool because #1 - I like water and want to be in it, not by it and #2 - it is free to do that anyways - the only thing we were paying for was access to the pool. What a miserable situation....
But we have been going for lots of walks, so that has been nice - and we found out that a bakery I like stocks BRIE. So I think we might indulge in a little fresh bread, brie and procuitto on Friday night as a treat!
Today is the start of the hot season of volleyball, so Chambo with head will start the season off tonight at 6:30 - I am excited to be playing again but wishing we had managed to slot at least ONE practice in during the six week break!
Anyways...on the work front, panic is setting in as I look at the crowded weeks ahead - you can now count to the end of my contract in weeks (well I guess you always could - but the number was much bigger before) and there is SO much still to do. I am trying to come up with a reasonable work plan for my remaining time here, but as weeks pass - I am so busy with other things that my work plan items get pushed to the next week...a process that can not continue indefinately!!!
Anyways - wish me luck as I continue to plug away!!!
Monday, September 8, 2008
Where do I start???
Well, I have yet again to apologize for the length of time it has taken for me to get around to getting another post up. I think besides being busy, I was a bit intimidated by the fact that since I now know how to upload pictures, I should be loading pics into every blog...and I haven't had time to sort through my photos, so....
Anyways, as I am sitting here today, I figure it will be better to just get a darn blog up than to fiddle with pictures, since it seems to be a bit of a block!
So I never really did justice to Mom and Meghan's trip here with us - I know my mom kept great notes, so I am hoping she will do a guest blog and email me some of her details so I can post them.
Since my last post, I completed the daunting amount of work required in order to facilitate my week long workshop on M&E....it was a battle, but I got the job done in the end, and have recently compiled the results of the workshop evaluation - it seems that many people were extremely happy with their experience and learned some valuable lessons, so that made me feel great. I can see how teaching is a rewarding experience - one day we were doing a recap and people were all participating a lot, and I realized that they learned some of the things we were talking about from ME! I was pretty tickled.
Anyways, the week after the workshop was a bit of a blur - I arrived home on Friday night and Jules and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary (1 day late) with Regan by going out for dinner, and then Regan went to a party while we went home and crashed out. On Saturday we went to a friend's birthday/one year in Malawi party, which was really nice - we met some new people and had a brilliant evening. On Sunday, I started getting really puffy eyes - I used to get this occasionally in Canada - some kind of undiagnosed allergy I guess, so I wasn't too worried, but it did continue until Monday when I spent the afternoon at home to rest my eyes. The rest of the week was taken up with trying to capture the notes from my workshop in order to create my workshop report and thinking about the best way to divide the rest of my (too short!) time here.
I don't know if I ever reported that we were finally able to recruit a counterpart for my position here? Originally, they were hoping to hire an M&E Officer that I was to work with way back in February just after my arrival...unfortunately the recruitment was unsuccessful, and my colleagues decided to wait until new salary levels were approved before attempting to recruit again. The new salary levels were supposed to be approved in February, but in actuality were not approved until June! Then there were all sorts of administrative delays involved and we didn't actually make offers until much later. Finally we thought we had the candidate lined up and the position was filled - the officer was invited to attend my workshop as his first week of work. I am trying not to be personally offended, but in fact, since the workshop ended, he has not been seen again here at CADECOM. Sorry - slight exaggeration - we had his computer all set up Monday morning and he did pop in Monday afternoon (when I had gone home to rest my poor eyes), but since then, he has not returned.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, I asked my boss what he was planning to do, and his response was that we should give him to the end of the week!!! When he hadn't shown up for two days with no phone call or anything??? Anyways, it was not my call, but he didn't show up all week, so we are now assuming he is not interested. I wasn't too sure of him after the workshop (he was pretty quiet and I worried how we would get on), so I am not sure if I am relieved or dissapointed, but I am definately back at square one. Not having a counterpart here has severely limited the amount I can hope to get done in my year here, and now with a new recruitment scheme on the horizon, it seems unlikely that we will get someone in before Christmas.
Anyways, most of this month I will be focussed on rewriting my work plan to accommodate these new circumstances and trying to plan for my highest impact activities to be completed before I go.
This week there is a week long training in Nutrition, but I am staying back today and tomorrow to try an finish up some loose ends from my workshop...I will attend while the focus is on successful program design and indicator selection for nutrition.
This past weekend was super - on Saturday we walked around and did some errands on foot, which got us outside and also some exercise. On Sunday, unfortunately I had puffy eyes again, worse than last weekend, so I wasn't capable of doing much and just laid around watching movies - since this is something I rarely do, I have to say it was a pretty enjoyable way to spend a Sunday! I am better today, so that is good.
Anyways, have piles of work to do so I must get on with it - I promise (AGAIN - do you still believe me at ALL?) to try and update more regularly now that things are back to normal after vacations and workshops etc...
Anyways, as I am sitting here today, I figure it will be better to just get a darn blog up than to fiddle with pictures, since it seems to be a bit of a block!
So I never really did justice to Mom and Meghan's trip here with us - I know my mom kept great notes, so I am hoping she will do a guest blog and email me some of her details so I can post them.
Since my last post, I completed the daunting amount of work required in order to facilitate my week long workshop on M&E....it was a battle, but I got the job done in the end, and have recently compiled the results of the workshop evaluation - it seems that many people were extremely happy with their experience and learned some valuable lessons, so that made me feel great. I can see how teaching is a rewarding experience - one day we were doing a recap and people were all participating a lot, and I realized that they learned some of the things we were talking about from ME! I was pretty tickled.
Anyways, the week after the workshop was a bit of a blur - I arrived home on Friday night and Jules and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary (1 day late) with Regan by going out for dinner, and then Regan went to a party while we went home and crashed out. On Saturday we went to a friend's birthday/one year in Malawi party, which was really nice - we met some new people and had a brilliant evening. On Sunday, I started getting really puffy eyes - I used to get this occasionally in Canada - some kind of undiagnosed allergy I guess, so I wasn't too worried, but it did continue until Monday when I spent the afternoon at home to rest my eyes. The rest of the week was taken up with trying to capture the notes from my workshop in order to create my workshop report and thinking about the best way to divide the rest of my (too short!) time here.
I don't know if I ever reported that we were finally able to recruit a counterpart for my position here? Originally, they were hoping to hire an M&E Officer that I was to work with way back in February just after my arrival...unfortunately the recruitment was unsuccessful, and my colleagues decided to wait until new salary levels were approved before attempting to recruit again. The new salary levels were supposed to be approved in February, but in actuality were not approved until June! Then there were all sorts of administrative delays involved and we didn't actually make offers until much later. Finally we thought we had the candidate lined up and the position was filled - the officer was invited to attend my workshop as his first week of work. I am trying not to be personally offended, but in fact, since the workshop ended, he has not been seen again here at CADECOM. Sorry - slight exaggeration - we had his computer all set up Monday morning and he did pop in Monday afternoon (when I had gone home to rest my poor eyes), but since then, he has not returned.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, I asked my boss what he was planning to do, and his response was that we should give him to the end of the week!!! When he hadn't shown up for two days with no phone call or anything??? Anyways, it was not my call, but he didn't show up all week, so we are now assuming he is not interested. I wasn't too sure of him after the workshop (he was pretty quiet and I worried how we would get on), so I am not sure if I am relieved or dissapointed, but I am definately back at square one. Not having a counterpart here has severely limited the amount I can hope to get done in my year here, and now with a new recruitment scheme on the horizon, it seems unlikely that we will get someone in before Christmas.
Anyways, most of this month I will be focussed on rewriting my work plan to accommodate these new circumstances and trying to plan for my highest impact activities to be completed before I go.
This week there is a week long training in Nutrition, but I am staying back today and tomorrow to try an finish up some loose ends from my workshop...I will attend while the focus is on successful program design and indicator selection for nutrition.
This past weekend was super - on Saturday we walked around and did some errands on foot, which got us outside and also some exercise. On Sunday, unfortunately I had puffy eyes again, worse than last weekend, so I wasn't capable of doing much and just laid around watching movies - since this is something I rarely do, I have to say it was a pretty enjoyable way to spend a Sunday! I am better today, so that is good.
Anyways, have piles of work to do so I must get on with it - I promise (AGAIN - do you still believe me at ALL?) to try and update more regularly now that things are back to normal after vacations and workshops etc...
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