Saturday, April 28, 2007

I think I've survived today...

This one is in blast facts again, because that's how the day went...

One car left at 5 to pick up nutrition staff from their houses. I got up and continued the finance work from yesterday while waiting for the kettle.

Finally had a late breakfast at 7:30, because the office isn't open today. Thanks to the Danish Red Cross kitchen, for the gift of shrimp cream cheese for my bread!!! How do you say 'God is good' in Danish? The second car left on another program, gone until night.

At 8, went to send the financial statements by email while car 1, the Land Rover, drove the nutrition team to their day's destination. I was still working on emails when the car returned to pick me up, and I drove to see the team from last night. We couldn't find them. They weren't at the camp where they were supposed to be digging wells.

30 minutes later, we found them - appraently the village split in two when relocating from the flood, and the UN registered camp is under the assistant mayor. my team of course went to the mayor, who showed them where he wanted the well. They had already started working, and the truck was no longer available. So, we packed up everyone except a guard, and took them back down the road to the right spot, where we outlined our plan for Monday. Then, we went to another location that just needed some repairs to their well, to see if we could get something accomplished there. There was no sand or bricks available in that village, so we couldn't do the repairs, and I had forgotten an adaptor for the sump pump, so we couldn't clean the well. Meamwhile, the nutrition tem was done, and needed picking up.

Now, I had a car full of construction workers and tools that were supposed to be digging wells, materials in a place that didn't need them, three wells that were not started, and only two days left to complete the wells, with one of them being Sunday, when no one works. We drove right past the nutrition team (one of whom is quite pregnant), so we could unload all the equipment from the Land Rover, and then we had to send the car back to get the nutrition team. I got to the house at 2 and sat down for lunch. The nutrition team arrived shortly after, but we couldn't take them home, because the driver of car 1 had been driving since 5, with only a bun for breakfast. So, we squeezed our lunch to cover all the nutrition team.

I had the first pre-season soccer match for my new club, Sporting Club of Caia, at 3. After getting prepped and trudging to the field, I found out the match was postponed until tomorrow, because we're playing the nearby bridge construction crew, and they work full days on Saturday. With the necessity of getting to Maputo tomorrow night, I need to do a handover to our team leader in Caia tomorrow morning at 6, because he'll just be back tonight, and I need to leave by 9 to get to Beira in time for collecting all the financial data, being briefed and getting to the airport.


I forgot to mention that, in the middle of yesterday I was called by Samaritan's Purse Mozambique and offered a position for up to two years. However, today I received an offer to extend from FHI, so I will remain with them for the next two months, after a much-needed break in Sao Paulo...20 more days!!!

Now, after posting some blogs, checking my email, and exhaling, I think I'm done for the day. There's a farewell party for Julie tonight, and some others from other orgs, but I'm not in charge!

1 comment:

Beth said...

hey chris,
good to finally have an update on u! thanks for mentioning my blog; but it really wasn't necessary as i don't care if people read it or not; it just gives me something to do. :)
mis you!
beth