I'm sitting here in the UN NGO office and freezing my little tail off! But there is no electricity on our compound, so here I sit, freezing - perhaps I'll just chock it up to basic training for going back to Canada in 12 days! Besides, it's December 1st, and one should feel at least a little wintery now that December is here.
Today, even though I dressed "smartly" for our meeting at the Ministry of Education, I'm still dressed wrong to be here at the UN compound. Today is "World AIDS day", which means that everyone is running around here in AIDS awareness T-shirts and funny looking green hats. It's funny that there are so many NGOs and awareness campaigns around here and they all make T-shirts. So everyone proudly wears their t-shirts, emblazoned with various NGO logos, and slogans such as "Stop AIDS" or "Educate the girl child"... I think our organization needs to make a few T-shirts. Perhaps we can emblazon them with an advert for our guest-house and drum up some business... hmmm... this could have some possibilities! It would certainly make the decision of what to wear out every day that much easier. Even at official meetings and in the Ministry of Ed., you find women wearing their fancy high heals, dress skirts and then an NGO t-shirt to top off the outfit.
So yeah, yesterday and today we went for meetings at the Ministry. IT's great to see the place because it's really a picture of how this country is working at the moment. People are really doing their best to get some work done, but it's hard to do when your office is a bench under a tree! I really wanted to take a few photos to show, but with it being a gov't office, they weren't too keen on me snapping photos. And I don't want to pull a "Jan Pronk" and get kicked out of the country for saying something that could be wrongly interpreted on my blog :)
Anyways, it's good to be meeting people in the ministry and starting to figure out more about what this whole job is going to look like. And it's also amazing to me how busy we can be doing stuff, without even having much direction from the folks that we're going to working for... I think this whole chaotic scenario would drive some people truly batty... but somehow, I think God created me for ambiguity and flexibility! So I'm loving it!
I would be loving it that much more if that pesky Templeton would just take the bait and get stuck in that bucket! Last night, he didn't come to take the bait, but he did come visit my hiking shoes while I was getting ready for bed. I think I'm going to relocate the trap tonight, though, and try to catch the little guy that's been hanging out in the kitchen. I just don't like the thought of those furry little feet running amok in our kitchen every night! Next year, I really think we need a kitty cat to live with us in our guesthouse. Plus, having a kitty would give me someone to talk to in the middle of the night now that Grace isn't here anymore!
OK, now I'm frozen solid, and my fingers aren't typing so well and my tummy is growling. So it's time to blow this popsicle joint. Mmmmmm... Jackie and I decided to go for Ethiopian for dinner tonight. I can already taste the k'itfo!
Today, even though I dressed "smartly" for our meeting at the Ministry of Education, I'm still dressed wrong to be here at the UN compound. Today is "World AIDS day", which means that everyone is running around here in AIDS awareness T-shirts and funny looking green hats. It's funny that there are so many NGOs and awareness campaigns around here and they all make T-shirts. So everyone proudly wears their t-shirts, emblazoned with various NGO logos, and slogans such as "Stop AIDS" or "Educate the girl child"... I think our organization needs to make a few T-shirts. Perhaps we can emblazon them with an advert for our guest-house and drum up some business... hmmm... this could have some possibilities! It would certainly make the decision of what to wear out every day that much easier. Even at official meetings and in the Ministry of Ed., you find women wearing their fancy high heals, dress skirts and then an NGO t-shirt to top off the outfit.
So yeah, yesterday and today we went for meetings at the Ministry. IT's great to see the place because it's really a picture of how this country is working at the moment. People are really doing their best to get some work done, but it's hard to do when your office is a bench under a tree! I really wanted to take a few photos to show, but with it being a gov't office, they weren't too keen on me snapping photos. And I don't want to pull a "Jan Pronk" and get kicked out of the country for saying something that could be wrongly interpreted on my blog :)
Anyways, it's good to be meeting people in the ministry and starting to figure out more about what this whole job is going to look like. And it's also amazing to me how busy we can be doing stuff, without even having much direction from the folks that we're going to working for... I think this whole chaotic scenario would drive some people truly batty... but somehow, I think God created me for ambiguity and flexibility! So I'm loving it!
I would be loving it that much more if that pesky Templeton would just take the bait and get stuck in that bucket! Last night, he didn't come to take the bait, but he did come visit my hiking shoes while I was getting ready for bed. I think I'm going to relocate the trap tonight, though, and try to catch the little guy that's been hanging out in the kitchen. I just don't like the thought of those furry little feet running amok in our kitchen every night! Next year, I really think we need a kitty cat to live with us in our guesthouse. Plus, having a kitty would give me someone to talk to in the middle of the night now that Grace isn't here anymore!
OK, now I'm frozen solid, and my fingers aren't typing so well and my tummy is growling. So it's time to blow this popsicle joint. Mmmmmm... Jackie and I decided to go for Ethiopian for dinner tonight. I can already taste the k'itfo!
Since I haven't posted any pictures in a few days, I'll just post this one, showing what a "literacy specialist" does in this city. Our organization has published some books on learning the local "lingua franca", and they had been stored in a container... which started to leak in the last rain storm. So the other day, we went and dug them out of the container. And then they had to dry. So while Grace painted boards, Jackie and I used the boards as drying racks for our books. For a few days, we were carefully tending to our sun-bathing books... We've already had several people inquire about buying multiple copies of the book, though, so it was worth it!
2 comments:
Is it even colder at the UN NGO office than at your compound? Say "hi" to Templeton for me and tell him I say he needs to go find another place to live. :) A cat sounds like a great idea. I really like having an animal around when I'm by myself!
Yeah, I definitely think I need a cat! I'm going to work on that when I return back there after Christmas!
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