Last weekend
Ok, so this is getting fairly bad- waiting an entire week after an event before posting it on my blog. However, work has been fairly busy this week- we've had a major meeting between government and donors to look at how things have been going on the PRSP, aid harmonisation, and various sector strategies since the CG meeting in November. The DEPAC is only one day long, so not quite as manic as preparing for the CG meeting, but it's still been busy. Also, the DEPAC is meant to happen every quarter (unlikely with elections coming up, but still possible) so that people at the top are kept informed on how things are going to reduce poverty.
Anyway, that was all out of the way by the end of yesterday and today has taken a more relaxed pace, meaning I can write a bit on my blog.
Last weekend was a break from the walking, swimming, beaching of previous posts. we left town on Friday afternoon and went down to the beach, about 7 cars worth, but there were spaces- but in any case there were quite a few of us.
Those who wanted to be prepared to roll into bed at any hour sorted out mosquito nets and hammocks and various other contraptions that they intended to us to catch some sleep. we then chilled and chatted on the beach, ate fish and rice (with fruit for dessert), listened to music and started the campfire going.
Now, this is meant to be the warmest time of year in SL, but I'm not convinced since I felt slightly chilly when wandering away from the fire (there was a very slightly breeze which also decreased the temperature slightly). We consumed a lot of marshmallows and there was a fair amount of alcohol drunk considering the hangovers several people had the next morning. I didn't go for a 3am swim (too cold and not looking forward to the prospect of going to bed cold and wet), in fact, slept very snugly and warmly to wake up just after 7.
Someone who was very well prepared had brought a camping stove (and cafetiere) with them- I love the smell of coffee and even quite like coffee beans covered in chocolate but still don't like the taste of coffee, despite housemates and friends trying to encourage me that it's really quite nice and probably won't poison me after all ;-)
A morning swim was definitely in order and was absolutely brilliant- the water wasn't particularly cold and allowed me to work off energy without disturbing those recovering from the previous evening's undertakings.
The journey back to town was a slight fiasco- two clutches gone (one recovered enough to get back to town and the other had to be towed), so a journey that can be done in an hour took well over 2 hours, but all made it safely back to town again in the end, which was a relief.
In the evening I was at a leaving party- two of the leaders of the walking club are leaving at some point in the near future and so we had a pot luck supper to say goodbye to them. Being highly unimaginative I took along a fruit salad- I'll see what I can do about tray-bakes in the future, but having spent most of the day at or returning from the beach, I didn't really feel like I had the opportunity to try anything more adventurous.
Sunday I went to church and heard a good talk from a guy who works for YFC and then relaxed and caught up on sleep in the afternoon (so pretty boring really).
This weekend- well, if all goes well then I hope to go up country to one of the parks. Being in West Africa, we don't get the big animal safari's common in East Africa, but we'll see what wildlife is willing to be capture on camera. Will let you know sometime soonish, but probably not on Monday- Sierra Leone being a majority Islamic country is having a bank holiday to celebrate their Isalmic prohet's birthday this weekend.
Labels: beach, car, coffee, leaving party, weekend, work
End of the week
Have just spent an exhausting couple of days doing the CG (Consultative Group) meeting, so am now trying to sort out and finalise the minutes. It was a good couple of days and provided a lots of useful food for thought and for further work in the future. It was a really useful interesting meeting to be involved with from a personal perspective- you get to hear a lot of different views from different people on the state of the economy and the social side of the country and where people think more work is needed to improve the country in 2007.
The workload was pretty huge leading up to this all and then I and another person had the unenviable job of typing the minutes as the meeting progressed. The good news is that my typing skills were up to it (tho’ I did need to correct quite a few typo’s) and that I kept concentrating for the whole way through the 2 days. The bad news is that I was absolutely exhausted by this (and wasn’t the only one)- because no one else needed to concentrate so much for so long. Anyway, it’s over for another year and hopefully means things will calm down a bit. Having said that, there’s still loads of stuff to be done as follow-up to this, so looks like work will be keeping me out of trouble for sometime to come!
I would’ve posted some pics from Bouray (or it may be Bouré) Town beach that we went to last weekend, where I began to attempt to learn to surf- just about managed a crouch but then fell off. However, my work computer has crashed, the hard board failed (tho’ I don’t think I lost too much work since I’d e-mailed most of the important stuff to other people already) and I’m having to borrow someone else’s computer and net connection for the moment. The upshot being that I’m having to use a slightly older version IE instead of Mozilla (which I was previously using) and blogspot doesn’t allow me to upload photos using this version of IE (and since it’s some else’s computer I don’t want to mess around with it too much!), so you’ll have to wait until I get to an internet café or manage to get a new computer with web connection before I’m able to upload more photos.
Not sure what the plans are for this weekend, but since I’m hoping to come home soon, will probably involved a spot of shopping and being hopelessly ripped off by the market traders-ah well, never mind, I just hope that I don’t get too annoyed by the endless haggling that will probably come my way as they start off the prices at 10 times more than you should expect to pay.
Wow- can't believe it's December already!!! There's none of the Christmasy things you'd expect to get 3 months early at home- tho' I did see someone carrying two fake Christmas trees with a few bedraggled bits of tinsel down the road yesterday. I think the heat also means that it feels like it really can't be coming up to Christmas yet!
Labels: bouray, CG, work
I was right
This week has been totally manic in getting all the preparations done for the meeting next week. It's been really interesting and fun as well, tho'!
Some good news-have passed my Masters, which is a relief and means that I do have a reason for heading back to the UK slightly earlier than I would otherwise (of course, 2 of my friends are also getting married at the end of that week, so I was planning to come back around then anyway of course!)
So what news from hot and sunny Salone? Well- the weather's heating up at bit, which means it can be really nice to escape into an air con room for a rest. It also means that sleeping is getting harder because our fans are broken and the main generator still isn't fixed (meaning air con units won't work), plus our connection to National Power still isn't working. The main upshot is that we still eat out a lot- which is of course very sociable but could pall after a while. however, we do have light in the evenings, which is nice and means we can do more stuff round the house than was previously possible.
Anyway, am hoping to escape work early today so will sign off and wish you a happy weekend (am hoping to see if I can begin to learn surfing if all goes well).
Labels: electricity, weather, work
