Tag Archives: work

I’m so thoroughly tired today, in so many ways. Woke up at 5 am to see the Canadian election results. Thoroughly disappointed. I’m afraid I’ll have to stop calling myself Canadian for at least another 4 years. Took taxi (matatu/public buses) to Mbale. Already late because the taxi took forever to fill up and kept stopping every 5 minutes. Got on bodaboda (motorcycle with driver for hire) to go another 45 minutes. Got caught in the rain and had to […]

I was exhausted yesterday. Field visits on Wednesday and Thursday. (I’ve finally visited all four districts!) Field visits are usually already really long days because I have to get up early to get to the field, walk around the whole day in the scorching sun or pouring rain to visit farms, and then attend one or two farm group meetings at the end of the day. Then take a really long trip back home. I still don’t have a car […]

On second thought, I’m really glad I didn’t take the other job in Tanzania. Just getting one report done in a week is killing me. (Although I’m told I’m actually good at writing reports. I’m fast and accurate? But I really don’t like writing them. Getting me to sit down and write for three hours is really hard unless it’s something non-boring) I hate reports. With a vengeance. With steam coming out of my ears. I’m so glad I have field […]

2. Farmers (and people in general) keeping problems a secret until they are on the verge of being discovered. I don’t know if it’s a trust thing. Or is it a culture thing to keep problems hidden (trust me, I know how it is. Saving face is huge in Chinese culture). But in any company, project, program, etc, it’s impossible to function when your own staff are keeping problems hidden from you. Last season, we estimate that only one-quarter of […]

Since I haven’t written anything of interest to anyone lately (those ranty, stream of consciousness posts are more for myself than anything else), I thought I would do a brief job update post. Not that I have much else in my life recently. Other than reading news and blogs and books. Plus, as much trouble as it is, I actually enjoy my work. Recap: the scheme I work with is basically trying to link small scale (minimum and mostly 1 […]

If you’ve been following my posts for the last while, you may know that I’ve taken up a new job. It has been exactly two weeks since I’ve started. I’m not going to give away specific details about which organization I work with or the partner organizations because I don’t want to censor what I write. But in general, I like to explain my work as a microfinancing scheme with a twist for small holder farmers. We’re basically a facilitator […]

I’ve arrived safe and sound, but very tired, to Tororo, Uganda. Very intense two days – one for sitting in a car for almost 12 hours and the other for long explosive meetings. I’ve jumped right into the mess of things and I hope my job will turn out well! More once I really get settled.