[Sigh]. Now why can't they do that on our beaches over here...
Monday 24 November 2008
Nekkid All Blacks...
Just to make up for the gratuitous 80s photo below, here's what the world needs more of. Next to World Peace and Obama.
[Sigh]. Now why can't they do that on our beaches over here...
[Sigh]. Now why can't they do that on our beaches over here...
80s parties. Even more bleh...
Also, for those of you who are misguided enough to actually like 80s music and, even worse, 80s themed parties, here’s some photos of our last one. Yep, in Haiti, we party like it’s 1986.
The guy in front is my crazy Dutch collegue doing his Springsteen. Apparently.
Budget cuts part 2, power cuts part 3209, Xmas shopping and the Dominican Republic. Bleh.
Saturday evening:
I’m currently writing this by the light of a very noisy gas lamp as my inverters have once again crashed and I’m waiting for the generator to come back on to give me a previous 2hr more of electricity.
To explain for those of you who live in places where you have 24hr mains electricity 7 days a week, in Haiti, like many developing countries, most businesses and households who can afford it live on a combination of inverters (ie specially designed batteries) and generators. As running a generator is pretty costly, what they tend to do is charge up the inverters so that even when the generator is off, we can still function to a degree. We can’t run kettles, irons, rice cookers and, most crucially of all, computer servers on inverters, but anything else is pretty much OK.
Unfortunately, the connections between generators and inverters are pretty fragile – if you sneeze, something somewhere seems to go wrong. And it always seems to happen when I come into work over a weekend to get stuff done for a particularly looming deadline and, of course, this is the time when nothing bloody works. Having watched too much "Heroes" recently, I'm starting to think that I have an anti-tech superpower. Hmmmnnn...
Another rant (which makes me glad I've been nominally keeping this blog semi-anonymous): had to find another EUR600k for our 2009 budget once we got the latest forex rates from Head Office. They gave us a USD/EUR rate of 1.47 in September for the original budget only to give us a rate of 1.25 last Friday for the final budget. And this is actually halfway through our field budgeting process so, thanks loads guys for leaving it practically to the last minute, we really appreciate doing the last-minute slash n’ burn... And that’s sadly not all – they actually only realised yesterday ie A FULL WEEK AFTERWARDS how much the rate change would fuck us up budget-wise. I mean, this is not something that was unexpected – we’d been worried about in-country ever since the Euro started its freefall and we’re only managing the finances for one bloody country, not 40!! The CEO then sent us an email last thing Friday (their time) to get us some info on currency spend by first thing Monday so that they could finally put together a plan. Stupid me, I just thought that they obviously must have had a plan for some time but were being bureaucratically crappy in not sharing. Really should stop giving people the benefit of the doubt here and just assume that they're all idiots.
So that was a bundle of laughs but we’re more or less there – it’s going to be fucking painful and will involve the “r” word for some members of staff but we just about got our budget to balance. After some playing around with the figures, of course – isn’t that what a Finance Coordinator is meant to do afterall?
Anyway, enough about work - had a great day today in Jacmel, a small but charming town a couple hours’ drive from Port au Prince. It’s lovely – not only is it peaceful and calm and not as frenetic, stressful or dangerous as the capital, it’s also the handicrafts capital of Haiti. Which, judging by the amount of Haitian art/handicraft on display in the Dominican Republic for one, is saying a lot (although perhaps more about the quality of local Dominican art...). Hence my shopping trip. Aside from the mountain of presents (to the point that I was trying to calculate my baggage allowance while shopping), I spent the equivalent of USD25 on a huge papier-mâché frog – it was sooooooooo cute I just couldn’t resist. Will hopefully take a pic of it to upload so you can see exactly what I mean. Might try kissing it later to see if I get my Prince Charming but only if I get the option of turning him right back if PC does not measure up to the cuteness of my personal Gromit...
I also spent a long weekend last week in the Dominican Republic which was very much needed but a bit underwhelming. Most of that was my fault not speaking Spanish or having any real interest in Dominican culture outside its shopping and beaches. Also, I found it unexpectedly lonely. I suppose I should have realised that the Caribbean is not exactly a backpacker place so difficult to do what I normally do and meet up with fellow travellers. Still, it was relaxing to say the least and I probably will go back to do it properly. Did do a whole load of shopping and went up to Las Terranos for two days for some time at the beach. This beach:
I’m currently writing this by the light of a very noisy gas lamp as my inverters have once again crashed and I’m waiting for the generator to come back on to give me a previous 2hr more of electricity.
To explain for those of you who live in places where you have 24hr mains electricity 7 days a week, in Haiti, like many developing countries, most businesses and households who can afford it live on a combination of inverters (ie specially designed batteries) and generators. As running a generator is pretty costly, what they tend to do is charge up the inverters so that even when the generator is off, we can still function to a degree. We can’t run kettles, irons, rice cookers and, most crucially of all, computer servers on inverters, but anything else is pretty much OK.
Unfortunately, the connections between generators and inverters are pretty fragile – if you sneeze, something somewhere seems to go wrong. And it always seems to happen when I come into work over a weekend to get stuff done for a particularly looming deadline and, of course, this is the time when nothing bloody works. Having watched too much "Heroes" recently, I'm starting to think that I have an anti-tech superpower. Hmmmnnn...
Another rant (which makes me glad I've been nominally keeping this blog semi-anonymous): had to find another EUR600k for our 2009 budget once we got the latest forex rates from Head Office. They gave us a USD/EUR rate of 1.47 in September for the original budget only to give us a rate of 1.25 last Friday for the final budget. And this is actually halfway through our field budgeting process so, thanks loads guys for leaving it practically to the last minute, we really appreciate doing the last-minute slash n’ burn... And that’s sadly not all – they actually only realised yesterday ie A FULL WEEK AFTERWARDS how much the rate change would fuck us up budget-wise. I mean, this is not something that was unexpected – we’d been worried about in-country ever since the Euro started its freefall and we’re only managing the finances for one bloody country, not 40!! The CEO then sent us an email last thing Friday (their time) to get us some info on currency spend by first thing Monday so that they could finally put together a plan. Stupid me, I just thought that they obviously must have had a plan for some time but were being bureaucratically crappy in not sharing. Really should stop giving people the benefit of the doubt here and just assume that they're all idiots.
So that was a bundle of laughs but we’re more or less there – it’s going to be fucking painful and will involve the “r” word for some members of staff but we just about got our budget to balance. After some playing around with the figures, of course – isn’t that what a Finance Coordinator is meant to do afterall?
Anyway, enough about work - had a great day today in Jacmel, a small but charming town a couple hours’ drive from Port au Prince. It’s lovely – not only is it peaceful and calm and not as frenetic, stressful or dangerous as the capital, it’s also the handicrafts capital of Haiti. Which, judging by the amount of Haitian art/handicraft on display in the Dominican Republic for one, is saying a lot (although perhaps more about the quality of local Dominican art...). Hence my shopping trip. Aside from the mountain of presents (to the point that I was trying to calculate my baggage allowance while shopping), I spent the equivalent of USD25 on a huge papier-mâché frog – it was sooooooooo cute I just couldn’t resist. Will hopefully take a pic of it to upload so you can see exactly what I mean. Might try kissing it later to see if I get my Prince Charming but only if I get the option of turning him right back if PC does not measure up to the cuteness of my personal Gromit...
I also spent a long weekend last week in the Dominican Republic which was very much needed but a bit underwhelming. Most of that was my fault not speaking Spanish or having any real interest in Dominican culture outside its shopping and beaches. Also, I found it unexpectedly lonely. I suppose I should have realised that the Caribbean is not exactly a backpacker place so difficult to do what I normally do and meet up with fellow travellers. Still, it was relaxing to say the least and I probably will go back to do it properly. Did do a whole load of shopping and went up to Las Terranos for two days for some time at the beach. This beach:
I also took the opportunity to see a gratuitously violent American action flick where Paris was portrayed as THE place for the abduction of young white nubile American teenagers into sex slavery and the pleasuring of sleazy middle-aged Arab businessmen. Yep, Paris should henceforth be known as the City of Crack Whoredom - might actually give a boost to their tourist industry and keep them out of recession. It was the type of film with that peculiarly Hollywood construct of a machine gun that can’t seem to hit a guy running towards you 5 feet away – if those machine guns existed during WW1, maybe the whole thing could have been over by Xmas... Needless to say, I loved it. And the popcorn. Although there was this Dominican guy sitting behind us in the cinema who took the piss out of me when I refused to watch the screen during a particularly gruesome (and, if I may say so, pretty fucking prolonged) scene of torture. I love screen violence – I’m a chop-socky girl after all - just more the really brilliantly choreographed violence of Tarantino or Shaw Brothers where the violence is cool/funny or almost like a dance. I’m a real wuss when it comes to realistic violence or torture porn which doesn’t do much for my “hard as nails” image.
OK, you guys can stop laughing now – I like to at least THINK I have a hard image. Come on - shut the fuck up. Take that back, I am not a sweet motherfucking bunny!! I'm hard grizzled cynical aid worker, I am.
Right, I’m leaving. Got no respect here.
-----------------------------------------
Sunday afternoon:
Got power back this morning – yippee!! Apparently, it was something so simple as the breakers not, erm, breaking. Or something. It took the electrician exactly 2 mins to fix and make me feel like a stupid female. Wherever you go in the world, that never bloody changes...
Saturday 1 November 2008
What to say...
Friday evening and waiting for our night driver to pick me up for dinner with the boss and the internal auditor...
Actually, it's not as bad as it sounds - I really like my boss and have bonded (as much as is possible) with Zoe. But still, not my ideal way to spend Friday night. It has been crazy over here, though - the pain of uploading revised 2008 budgets which you know are completely useless due to the apparent freefall of the Euro since when they were done. And then preparing for 2009 detailed budgets/activity plans... Oh yes, small matter of quarterly reporting to Dublin. And the internal audit.
So, same old same old.
What has been pretty depressing, though, is reading about what's been happening across the world. In a rare moment of reason, the BBC World Service actually spent most of their newshour today on the DRC and the events happening over there instead of boring us with things we already know about the US election.
DRC was my second mission after Darfur - which sounds well hard but my missions at that time were quick in/out deals to sort out the latest financial crisis (of which there were many...). Still, as wretched as Goma the city was, it's hard to describe the effect that the East DRC has on you - it's too bland to say that it's beautiful: it's so much more primal than that. To be surrounded by jungle and overlooking Lake Kivu - however long I live, I will never forget that frisson... When I was there back in 2005, in contrast to most of the surrounding area Goma actually felt very safe due to the large contingent of MONUC soldiers over there. Still, you always had a sense that it couldn't last, that there were too factors pulling the area down the abyss, too many "skirmishes" and "incidents". And it looks like it's finally happened. To be honest, it's miracle it's taken that long for something to finally break.
OK, driver has arrived. Let's hope when I get back, I'll be in a better mood.
Actually, it's not as bad as it sounds - I really like my boss and have bonded (as much as is possible) with Zoe. But still, not my ideal way to spend Friday night. It has been crazy over here, though - the pain of uploading revised 2008 budgets which you know are completely useless due to the apparent freefall of the Euro since when they were done. And then preparing for 2009 detailed budgets/activity plans... Oh yes, small matter of quarterly reporting to Dublin. And the internal audit.
So, same old same old.
What has been pretty depressing, though, is reading about what's been happening across the world. In a rare moment of reason, the BBC World Service actually spent most of their newshour today on the DRC and the events happening over there instead of boring us with things we already know about the US election.
DRC was my second mission after Darfur - which sounds well hard but my missions at that time were quick in/out deals to sort out the latest financial crisis (of which there were many...). Still, as wretched as Goma the city was, it's hard to describe the effect that the East DRC has on you - it's too bland to say that it's beautiful: it's so much more primal than that. To be surrounded by jungle and overlooking Lake Kivu - however long I live, I will never forget that frisson... When I was there back in 2005, in contrast to most of the surrounding area Goma actually felt very safe due to the large contingent of MONUC soldiers over there. Still, you always had a sense that it couldn't last, that there were too factors pulling the area down the abyss, too many "skirmishes" and "incidents". And it looks like it's finally happened. To be honest, it's miracle it's taken that long for something to finally break.
OK, driver has arrived. Let's hope when I get back, I'll be in a better mood.
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