Blogging

Sorry to all, I haven't written in a long time. I guess much of my reason for blogging in the first place has kind of moved on. I mean originally the blog was to answer the constant stream of questions that I got from people - that were usually the same questions - on how one prepares for this kind of adventure, why I was going etc. Then it became a tool for connecting and telling about what was going on, the different, the scary, the fun, how Ben and I were doing, and how things were going with Loren (which out of respect for his privacy, I haven't really been forthcoming). With so many things going on it was ranting, and talking out my thinking, and therapy for some of the other stuff. Since then, well I've seen a lot of people when I went home, and things are more complicated now that I've decided to stay longer. And I realized there are a lot of people reading this and it is a public blog so I don't really get into some things. I was surprised and felt very humbled to find out exactly how many people were reading my blog, even if occasionally. Thanks to all who do. I feel blessed to know there are so many who care about my goings on, no matter how insane or rant-y they are.

Also I've found there is stuff that some people can't handle – even as I tell "white" people here about some things that have gone on, they kind of freak out. So I feel kind of responsible if I have a whole bunch of people I care about who can hardly imagine being here, freaking out over something I've said.

I had a good trip home and saw a whole lot of people. It was of course, too short and too long all at the same time. I gained a lot of weight going from one meal to the next seeing people. From morning coffee to lunch to afternoon coffee to dinner to after dinner drinks, I saw over 150 people in 24 days. Not including going to church and spending 10 min with about 30 people. I felt I did okay at spreading my time out and spending more of it with the people who matter the most (if I didn't get to see you much please don't think you are less important!!). Of course it's never enough, especially of those who you are accustomed to spending all your time with.

Another good thing is I got my crowns (teeth) and they look nice. In fact my teeth never looked nicer, they are straight, not cracked or chipped and they're all the same colour. I'm not 100% sure they are glued well. They are thicker than my natural teeth so they take a little getting used to and I have a thlighthe lithp but they are way better than the temporary ones. So I'm happy with that. I was surprised how a small change as to the shape of the inside of your mouth can affect you. My teeth don't sit quite right so I'm forever clacking my bottom front teeth against the backs of the top ones. The first day that made my jaw so tight, it gave me a blinding headache so literally Loren had to drive me home and walk me to bed with my eyes covered. A little rest and a muscle relaxant cured that but it was quite excruciating at the time.

An odd item was we got cat food in the grocery store which makes life a whole lot easier for me in terms of trying to figure out what to feed my cat every day. He didn't like dog food at all (which I can understand, it's disgusting) even the canned stuff so he was getting spoiled, literally and figuratively, as he would get rice or pasta, whatever we happened to be eating that meal, and he got whatever meat was rotting in the fridge. Usually ham or liver pate. Now I just give him that, but it was $4 for a little box and $12 for a medium size bag. Still cheaper than ham.

On other stuff I've had my boss Steve here a lot of the last month so did not really getting a lot of work done as he likes to come into town and stand me on my head running about to different clients, going out etc. He also came with my friend Patrick. Patrick was my reference for this job and one of the perks is he comes to visit me twice a year. Pat and I were friends in University for several years and spent a lot of time together, and he hasn't changed much other than there is the occasional night where he'd rather go to bed early than go out drinking again (old age, what can I say). I think our instant closeness made Loren somewhat jealous. I would catch him staring evenly at Pat as if weighing carefully. Even Steve seemed jealous oddly - not sure though if it was for me or for Pat as he and Pat are good friends – and probably he was annoyed because Pat and I kept teasing him about how much he talks. Literally one time, a client said to Steve, "OK OK, I'll buy it! Just shut the f* up and get the hell out of my office!" 

Steve has offered Loren a contract and more if that job goes well. In fact he offered Loren to open his own branch of HGS called HGS Projects - to do big set ups and stuff, sort of general contracting. Loren already does a lot of that and more but not jobs of this size, level of technical and complexity. The fuel farm set up he offered Loren to manage costs over $300M USD. Loren will be in Ivory Coast for at least 2 months, maybe more, with breaks to come home God willing. It pays him well, but will have him gone for a long time and potentially with follow up work so he'll be gone maybe another 3 months again after that to Mali. He's also going to areas that aren't unsafe but not what I would call safe either. This still isn't 100% and Loren and I are both very wary of Steve and his projects as he is very visionary with not much in the way of solid grounding and he likes to cut corners. I'm sure Loren can handle it but we've had some long discussions about his concerns. For example, I sent Steve my work plan for the next 3 months and he said but what about all the work we're going to win? My reply was, you win it and I will make space for it. He's so in the clouds sometimes! There are probably many (especially my family) who are laughing at that. It's highly ironic that I am responsible for organizing anyone – they must be wondering what kind of state these people are in if they want ME to organize. I may not be able to clean my room or organize my house. However, I do think I'm relatively good at planning on a management level so I think that's where I'm providing value.

I also finally got some feedback from Steve. I suspect that was because I asked Patrick if Steve had said anything to him about how I was doing. Patrick said, and Steve confirmed that he was very happy how things were going here (even though we are not quite there yet in terms of getting everything in place). It takes so much longer to do things here that even though it's been 9 months I've been here, it takes time. More so because even when you get someone who's good at their job, they usually aren't the quality you are accustomed to at home. They don't think terribly far ahead so you spend a great deal more time teaching than usual. For example, Pauline is very good. But she's not accustomed to the kind of pace Steve and I set. I spent 2 hours explaining prioritizing and how to use a day timer to write down tasks that she's given each day, how to determine what comes first if she's overloaded – and she is overloaded already – but as she gets accustomed to doing it, it won't take her so long. She also doesn't know how to delegate so even though we have an intern, she doesn't give her anything to do and doesn't explain it well when she does so it comes back full of errors. All of these things take time and experience that can't be learned overnight. Sometimes when you've been working a long time you forget how much you learned over time about the administrative. So I'm pretty proud of my work, even if I do say so myself! J

More fun here. I am just getting over having malaria and dysentery at the same time. I wasn't feeling well when we went up to one of the mine sites on Thursday, I thought it was all the travel over crappy roads but then Sat night it grew into a fever with chills and aches and diarrhoea. Loren gets mad when I don't take medication as soon as I get symptoms but I prefer to wait a day or 2 as I rarely get sick and hate taking anything. He said something like " didn't your internet research tell you that malaria kills people?!".  He is forever teasing me about looking everything up on the internet and that I take medication made by western doctors who've never been to Africa. I took the medication early Sunday morning and spend most of Sunday in bed. I even answered the phone and talked to someone but had no recollection of it later.

 I feel like all I ever talk about is the bad stuff that goes on here and am giving people the wrong impression. Certainly life isn't easy and there are dangerous elements to it but then there are anywhere you go. Here we don't have gang shoot outs and execution style killings. Date rape occurs here for sure but not the Paul Bernardo/serial rapist type. There are no pedophiles to worry about, but there are more drunk/bad drivers, more physicality, more obvious bad influences of sexuality and drinking, but less drugs. Really I don't know what it is but I love being here. There are so many problems but then Burkina isn't like Nigeria or Sudan or Congo or Ivory Coast. It really isn't so violent or political though it definitely has the potential for it. The problems are just different.

For example, I was sitting at the bar with a bunch of guys - which I hate mostly because they are always at the bar, neglecting their wives and families, spending money they don't have, getting drunk, looking at women, and talking garbage. Some old man was teasing Loren that if he didn't marry me soon, he was going to steal me. We got into a conversation about how can you steal a wife and I said, you maybe can't steal her like a radio or a wallet, but in the same way if you leave your house and a robber can come to steal your radio, if you don't spend time with her, someone will come steal your wife's heart. These men were actually surprised and a conversation ensued about what I meant. These guys honestly had no idea that their wife was a person who needed affection and time with them. A couple of men actually got up and went home.

We've had discussions about drinking and driving, smoking/second hand smoke and children's health, cheating on your spouse, and the effects of cell phones on the breakdown of African traditions. People here seem in general more connected to the politics (though not necessarily better at making choices) and goings on. They talk less about television shows and more about real life. It's varied and stimulating and if you can make one person think twice, well that's good enough for me... for now. I don't know how long that will carry me. But then I had the same problem in Canada, where I don't mind going out now and again to a restaurant or to a bar, and having some activities but at the end of the day, what's the point of it? I always get to a point where I feel like there's got to be more than this. And so I feel that here too, it's just hard to get it off the ground because I don't know where to start, whereas in Canada it was difficult from the aspect of availability of time to do things.

I realized why I was saving so much money here. Apart from things being a little cheaper, even though I'm earning about a third of my salary, everything else is paid for. I was given a car, HGS pays for the gas, insurance, maintenance (I don't even have to remember to do the maintenance! Bonus!). They pay my cell phone units, my lunch if I eat at the office, my internet, and a couple flights home per year. Loren pays the rent and I pay my water and electricity, food and whatever, and someone else is paying my mortgage. Probably also the lack of decent shopping is helpful and the fact that I can't get Chapters, Amazon or any other online store to send anything to me here. Gotta love the golden handcuffs!