Activity Update

The ball is now rolling and I'm trying to keep up. Our trainings started this week. Three days in a row with three different trainings in three different places with three different trainers all at the same time. Terrible idea and I will never do it again. Turns out I can't be in three places at once. Who knew? There was some serious regulating that had to go on in almost every zone. Not easy with terrible cell phone reception, crappy French, lots of rain, and a generator running right next to you. Of course the ministry of health didn't do their job properly and somehow my organisation, once again, got blamed for it by the MOH. Beyond annoying. But I'm starting to realise that my crappy French might be a blessing in disguise, because if I had the French abilities to really tell the MOH what I think of them, I probably would. Instead I'm forced to keep quiet, which is probably better. Always a silver lining...

One of the trainings that was supposed to start yesterday had 4 of the 29 volunteers show up. Yikes. Turns out no one informed them as to when the training was actually happening. And despite that very clearly being the responsibility of the MOH, my organsation was blamed. So I had to scramble around (on the phone, next to the generator in the pouring rain) to try and fix this situation an hour away. We ended up pushing back the trainings for that particular zone one day, meaning they get one day less of sensibilisations than the other zones, but oh well. Better than having that zone on a different schedule than the 5 others for the rest of the campaign.

I already know about a million things I would differently if I had to do this all over again. And the actual activity itself hasn't even started yet. Talk about hindsight being 20/20. Yikes. I almost want a chance to do a redo, and yet the thought of doing this all over again makes me want to throw up. I've determined that it is not sustainable for me to get up at 5:45 every morning, no matter how early I go to bed. It's sad that my current 13 - 15 hour days make me long for me 10 - 11 hour days. Booo.

Anyway. The first day of sensibilisations starts tomorrow. Now that I've just finished regulating the problems of the trainings I'm sure I will have a whole new load of problems for the sensibilisations. And then on Monday (after only having one day off over the weekend. When did I decide working on Sat was a good idea?) I will have a whole new batch of problems with the actual larviciding. Good times, good times. I'm already trying to plan a vacation for as immediately after the campaign as possible, because I am definitely going to need it.

Ok, sorry this post is a bit negative, but I'm very tired and need to get up at 5:45 tomorrow, so need to go to bed now! Just wanted to write a quick update while I had a moment. Write me some comments to look forward to (Jo, I already know I can count on you :-))!