Annnddd........ I'M BACK!

Hello, hello, hello again blog world!

It has been awhile (as I had to modify my type and form of communication while in a particular -stan country the past 2 years.) As I am now in Madagascar my life continues (shocking, I know). So instead of writing ANOTHER email (which is what I already spend much of my life doing) I figured I would at least change the mode of transportation - I mean communication.

So, what to start with, to wow you back into spending a tiny portion of your life in to reading what I write......hmmm. Tough. Here are a couple of random thoughts from my day to start with, both the deep (at least I think so) and the ridiculous.....

- Getting older gives more opportunity to see things from new perspectives and the grace to work with people who have no ability to view things from another perceptive. (of course we know which person I AM!)
- I really, really like working out/ physical activities. They just make everything better or easier, that may have something to do with workout = Jesus talk time.
- It is definitely in the 'storms' of life where you find out who you are and what you can be.
- I would HATE being a celebrity, it is soooo tiring to be stared at and yelled at ALL the time! (Being a white person in a small African community this is what happens).
- It is really, really hard to press on when everyone around you seems to be expecting perfection or failure and no matter what you do it is misunderstood and you are looked at like 'why are you here again?'
- Thank you  America for letting me grow up playing indoor soccer. It is good to be back!
- Not thank you 'Merica for being in such a funk of an election and giving me absolutely nothing worth saying when every person asks me "what do you think about the candidates.....?"

Ok, I suppose I should give a bit more context to things, especially as this is my first posting in a while.

I am still working with Medair and enjoying it. As a relatively small NGO it is great to know people across the organization and globe on a personal level and interact directly with beneficiaries as well as national staff. This is my 2nd posting with them and I have made a big step up - though you wouldn't know it necessarily by the title change. I went from Project Support Manager to Program Support Manager. Shocking, I know. But really, in relief and development there is a known and significant difference between the words 'project' and 'program'. If you are not aware of this I will spare you the masters degree explanation and simply say that as Project SM I was over the support aspects of one base before, where as now I am over the same areas, but for a country, which includes 3 bases. The benefits of this are that I get to move around between bases. The negatives....my team is spread out and thus more challenging to manage. :)

I am based in the capital city of Madagascar, which like all other Malagasy words --(no, I am not making-up the word 'Malagasy',  that is what you call 'that' of Madagascar) -- Antananarivo is a very long, complicated spelling, multiple syllable word. For example, I cannot even pronounce a single full name of my staff! They all go by one part of one of their names, which is usually three names.

So I am head of logistics, finance, HR, IT, and security for the moment (which seems a bit...different, from my previous experience in security management). Our current work is focused on water and sanitation work, for those of you in the know, that would be WASH. There is also a bit of health and nutritional education thrown in the mix.

Some tidbits about Malagasy culture:
-people are highly sensitive, to most anything, but they are very gentle calm people (for the most part).
- Sometimes too calm. There is not an overwhelming amount of energy, motivation, loud voices, or going out after dark. All of this has its pluses and minuses of course.
-So far, coconut foods and vanilla season are awesome. I am looking forward to mango and avocado season in the coming months!
- Traveling around the country is challenging, options include ' taxi brusse' which are local taxi vans which carry a bus load of people in a van for many hours, smallish boats - in which all seats come with their personal barf buckets, moto (i.e. motorcycle) riding on the back of someone who knows how to drive in 2 feet of mud, Pinz (old army supply vehicle) which needs special training for driving because of the gears and the special axis, and of course cars, in the cities.
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What's Next.......?

This coming week I will be headed to one of our field bases (my 2nd visit) to go for a deeper field visit. My next posting should include pictures from this trip. So keep watching for what is yet to come!!! I love comments and love hearing from you. Do you have questions or suggestions for me on what I should write? Let me know.