The road

The road sucked. I already wasn’t happy that despite my plans to be in the office all week, I arrived on Monday to the news that I had to leave Tuesday to be part of a meeting in the south. I was told I would return Friday, which greatly displeased me, so I changed the plan to a Thursday evening return.

We left the office later than we were supposed to on Tuesday, arrived in a town called Mwanza, on the border with Mozambique around 8pm. I white knuckeled it most of the way after it was dark because there are no street lights and you can't see the people walking on the side of the road in the dark until you've almost hit them. I stayed at a different hotel than my colleagues cause they didn't want to pay the $20/night and chose a place for $2 but said it would be better if I didn't stay there with them. Got up Wed morning and when they came to pick me up they said that our meeting for the day had been cancelled. We visited a support group instead, which was interesting and I liked doing, but by 11:30 we were done for the day. After eating some boring lunch I went back to my room to nap and sulk, under the guise of doing some work. Around 6 the power went out and stayed out until 8:30, so I laid in the dark with too much time to think.

The first night the hotel didn't have pasta to make the spaghetti bolognaise that was on the menu, so I had picked up some pasta at the store and asked them to prepare it for me. Also asked if I could have a side of veggies since I hadn't eaten any in 2 days, but they returned saying that they only had these green leafy veggies and I said I didn't like them, so just the spaghetti bolognaise (meat and tomato sauce right?). Finally my dinner arrived at my room (I didn't want to eat alone in the empty dining room) and lifted the plate to see plain pasta with butter on it, and a hefty side of green leafy veggies. Gee, thanks.

Today was better though, except that we had to spend over 2 hours on a vomit inducing road. I honestly don't know how I made it through without having to ask the driver, James, to pull over. It was sheer willpower. Our task was to meet with representatives of support groups of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) from all over the district to form a coordinating committee. The meeting went well and I made the accounts woman, Clara, earn her allowance by making her translate for me. It was also the first time that it really hit home for me that my position is one of power... even though the other 3 staff members have worked for MANET+ for years, my position as "M&E Advisor" places me directly below senior management and therefore directly above everyone else in the org, and I was the authority on the trip! Power. I kinda liked it :)

So now I'm back home and happy to be. And the internet we have tried to long and hard to get working, at great expense, is in fact working and that is fantastic.What is also fantastic is that Alexio returns tomorrow night! YAY! We are going to the lake for the weekend with Lindsay and Andrea and I hope it will be fun.