the field, the lake and a tow rope

After a few painstaking weeks in the office, I've finally managed to pry my butt from it's nearly fused state in my desk chair, and have been busy with activities out of the office.

I spent 3 days last week running a workshop for some colleagues in monitoring and evaluation, gender mainstreaming and then brainstorming ideas for tools we can use to make things happen more smoothly at MANET+. I think it went pretty well and everyone seemed to learn a lot. The final evaluations were good too, except that a couple people didn't like the venue (admittedly it was a new place that I took a gamble on because they would give me a good rate - I liked it, but the rooms were quite hot.) I think my favourite part of the workshop however, was that I could make sure we were done in time to run down the sand dune and into the lake from 4-5pm each day! (I had to get out by 5 each day though because there are these little minnow type fish that would start nipping at me around that time - I think they were attracted to my pasty white legs and confused them with the fisherman's lights!!)

I was lucky that Janna was also in the same town for her own work function and was able to stay at the same place as I was - it was so nice having someone to hang out with in the evening!

Friday we changed locations on the lake and were joined by Jules, Regan and Terri, and proceeded to spend a wonderful weekend lounging by the beach. On Saturday, Bryce, Francesco and Carmen also came up. It was tough to leave today (though I doubt my sunburned skin could take any more of my relaxing)

Ours was the first vehicle to leave the beach - carrying Jules, Janna, Regan and I. It was a pleasant ride until about 35kms before reaching Lilongwe, when the car overheated and was smoking like crazy! We pulled over and decided that we needed more oil. Luckily the other 2 vehicles still hadn't left the lake, so went sent out SOSs to please bring oil. As luck would have it, Francesco is a mechanic. By the time Carmen, Terri and Francesco arrived about an hour and a half later, we had amassed quite an audience of young locals who seemed to be happy spending their sunday afternoon staring at us. Unfortunately, Francesco assessment is that the engine might be toast. Moments after they arrived, Bryce pulled over to join us, and as luck would have it, had a tow rope. In a matter of minutes, we had unloaded the 3 passengers and luggage that were in the back of Bryce's Landrover and relocated them to the back of Francesco's pickup truck, along with Janna, Regan and I, hooked the mini Pajero to the Landrover, waved goodbye to our little local friends and continuted our journey to Lilongwe! We were quite a spectacle! It was slow going, and with only a few minor set backs (the tow rope broke a few minutes away from our house, and we drove the pick up into a ditch), but we finally made it home. TIA! (this is africa!)