The Grind

There is not much to report from that last couple of days.  Mostly I've settled into a grind here of around two to three meetings a day with local NGOs or INGOs or government agencies.  The people I meet are all lovely but I'm working on getting more out of people who are usually dealing with a second language and often don't have the technical language to know what I mean when I ask about things like case management, following up on trainings, etc.  Being patient with people and recognizing that things will not run on the time table I've set are also daily challenges I'm working on.  I'm trying to let go of my idea of Western time, but it's easier said then done.

The meetings I have with the social workers/Ministry often require my boss to give me the "chill out" sign about half way through when I try starting to get people back on topic.  I'm recognizing that letting groups of people move at their own speed, however glacial it may seem to me, is an important part of the "local ownership" that she keeps teaching me about.  This may require several tangent conversations, but ultimately leaves them with a sense of accomplishment and hopefully feeling like they've actually engaged in the process in a meaningful way rather then me rushing them through the meeting agenda.  I'm learning to schedule meetings further apart.

Other then that it was a mostly uneventful week.  It's Saturday afternoon as I write this now, there's apparently some sort of America party happening in delayed-4th of July style tonight at one of the places Americans live or frequent so I'm excited about that, and then apparently a birthday party for someone I've never met, but that doesn't seem to matter so much.  My friends have all moved up to a hotel on the far side of town due to some sort of vague threats towards Western targets in the area.  This is bad news for me since now all my friends live about a half hour taxi cab ride away, good news for them since they now live in a much nicer place with a pool.  I will be consoling myself with as many visits up to swim and hang out with them as I can finagle.

I've recently been waking to minor infestations of flying ants hanging out on the outside of my mosquito netting each morning.  I'm not sure why they've started to appear, and they seem to be mostly dead by the time I wake up in the morning to clean them up, so I'm a little confused as to what's going on.  But given that they are easy to kill and not getting through my mosquito netting I'm not going to worry about it too much.

Anyways, that's about all to report for now. I've got reports on my meetings from the week to type up this afternoon before the America celebrations start so I'd better get started on those.  Hope everyone had a good fourth!