And the good news is.....

Not only am I still alive and kicking (not that it was really ever touch and go, but still), I got my first postcard! From, of course, Saks, my sister who is now stopped traveling and is in DC finishing up law school. It was a very sweet postcard addressed to both Mick and I and it is in Ampara and I am in Colombo which is why I have not written about it as yet since I wanted to do it justice but I suppose I can wait.

Bill in Liberia said that there is no functioning postal system in Liberia. I don't believe him and think he is just being a lazy. A lazy lazy. Both adjective and noun.

So, ends up that I have an enlarged liver. Not so nice. Either some strain of typhus or tick bite fever. And I was on the mend too, which was annoying since I felt lovely a week ago for about half a day and then crashed all of a sudden again. Another round of tests, possibly...no, probably tomorrow and then back to good ole Ampara on Thursday. My time in Colombo has been lovely. I have been a grown up living with my boss and his family (I made a big fuss and was being a total baby about coming out to Colombo since I complained that no one would look after me and better to be miserable in Ampara where atleast Mick could see me pathetically passed out on my bed than being alone in some hotel room in Colombo....still had bad memories of my rib recovery from the last time). Anyhow, so my boss and his lovely family have been looking after me, cooking lovely meals, having birthday parties and just all around being great company which I am sure has speeded my recovery. And no, he doesn't really read my blog (though he should every once in a while for content to make sure I am not crossing any lines and he claims that he has at least once come on here), so I don't have to be nice about him just in case he might be on here. His son, however, does read my blog...well, one of them does at least so I should be more careful since....since I should.

He owes me a postcard.

No photos. No real stories either. I could come up with some if I tried. I should. But later. And no, I didn't finish my thesis and the party I had planned went on without me in Arugam Bay. Sad, but true.

Bits and Bobs

I did mean to be better about writing. I am being notty. Just a quick one, to say HI to Pam, who commented on my blog and yes, of course I remember you and I need to write a blog entry about my travel writing days in Indonesia and all the people I met and things I saw and first time traveled with a backpack and was not a good backpacker since I don't like being smelly or living in crappy quarters.

The dissertation as I was so nicely reminded by Bill about it and I know you are all agog with exceitement to hear about this: I have not finished it yet. It is due in about a week's time...little more but let's say a week and I am starting to take it seriously, which for me translates to a light at the end of the tunnel. Everyone around me here is being very supportive (and no, no one can read it), and I did some shopping on Amazon and got some really cool books which will make me smart but they won't write my dissertation for me (neither will my sisters, and I thought blood was thicker than anything, goes to show you).

I still love work. My luggage is still lost. I bought new clothes. And new shoes. And all sorts of pretty dishes. Plan ongoing to revamp the house. Oh, and most importantly, I finally get what I am doing at work and have started taking ownership of programs and decisions which is both terribly exciting and scary.....would not want it any other way. Will attempt to put up a photo, but it was being bad last time....

And it is still being bad. Next time, but till then, big kisses.

yay, yay and more yay

I'm going to Sri Lanka. Yippee, Yay, Hooray. I can't believe I am this hyper excited about it. Well, I can believe it. I am going back to the same place as I was before and the people have changed, the situation (has hopefully) changed but there will be familiar faces and places and it has been great reconnecting with some of the people who are still there. I am going with a different organization this time and staff from the previous organization have found out that I am coming back and I really can't wait to see them all as well. It will be fun. When I was leaving last time, I said very specifically: the only thing that will bring me back is a job with the British Red Cross. And that is exactly what I now have. I loved the work they were doing while I was there, I like the people they have working for them and the most interesting bit for me professionally will be seeing what is is like to go into a program that is already set up, one that is running, has its rhythm already etc. When I was there before, I helped set up the program, hire new people, write proposals and gets things moving. It will be nice to see also, if those programs were successful, and the hows and whys of what went right and what went wrong. Will have to be careful though to not get too involved in that part of things since I have a new job and new responsibilities and grilling the Field Officers I left in charge of my other projects about why they did things differently from what I would have done or getting excited about how they did do things differently from what I would have done will only bog me down.

I was asked what I will be doing in Ampara and I will be: running economic recovery programs in both conflict and tsunami affected villages. This involves (my favorite bit), a lot of community participation (meetings, brainstorming sessions, plans and strategies), asset replacements, grants and loans, micro finance etc. All of this is seen through a disaster management framework which I think is sooooper important.

I think I have about ten days before I head out to London for a briefing. Not sure since my visa is still in limbo but things are looking good and if I can only get a first draft of my thesis out, things would be prefect. The thesis is due Sept 15th but I MUST, for my own sanity, have a draft before I go so that I can then change things around and think things through and make it tighter since I know that work will consume me my waking and sleeping moments the first two months I am there.

I was really lucky that one of my professors at SOAS, Jonathan Goodhand, is a Sri Lanka (and Afghanistan) expert so there was a lot I learned from him that I want to be able to apply this time around in Sri Lanka, esp since the conflict has escalated since I was last there. Ampara is still considered a conflict zone but honestly, in terms of the other areas, we are not so conflict ridden. The interesting thing about Ampara however, is that it is the district where all three populations, Singhala, Muslim and Tamil co-habitate. Co-habitate is the nice way of saying it. Each village ends up being divided along ethnic lines and we tend to deal with this more on a day to day basis rather than the larger conflict in the country. ICG, by the way, just came out with a great report on HR abuses in SL, which can be found here.

Quick question for all those dev workers who blog and may be reading this. How much information is too much information on my blog about work? I totally shied away from talking about work or even mentioning which org I worked for before and I have seen some people who talk about things openly and others who do not. I can understand if you are working in say, darfur etc, that you do it anonymously, but I don't really think that it is such a problem in Sri Lanka. Any advice on this would be very helpful.

No photos today. I haven't showered and parts of my camera are still missing which is problematic but something I really do need to fix before I get out of here. Signing off for now and I really do hope I blog again the way I used to. Ahh, the good old days...