Slight change in plans
Well, it looks as though I will not be traveling up to the villages next week, which isn't the end of the world, to be honest. It's a very long, very uncomfortable trip, and my presence there for this trip is not necessary - G-man essentially just wants show me off and have someone to write his trip reports for him. But since he sent me a box of mangos to the house (very nice) with a bunch of red roses (kind of creepy and inappropriate, particularly since I'm a single woman here by myself) and started inviting me to dinner and asking me to call him by his first name (not done here), I was feeling more and more uncomfortable with the idea of being out in the middle of nowhere with him, even if I did have Hamid with me.
So I spoke with Judy about this, since it all started after she left, and she put the kibosh on the trip. I'm not generally a paranoid person, but this, combined with the other guy on the project based in another city who started IMing me and asking me to post my picture online for him, and who said I should call him any time I "got lonely" (also inappropriate, particularly in this culture) made for a very awkward situation. I told the IMing guy that I would appreciate it if he would keep our correspondence to work-related matters, and he said okay, so he should back off. But G-man is going to be a little more tricky, as I need to continue to work with him.
In any case, I'm sorry to miss another trip out to places like Mataro Hingoro and Mau, because it was wonderful to meet the people there and talk to them. But I'm far more comfortable with the NGO that we have in place now, they have a lot of experience in these issues, and I think they'll do a good job of making sure that everyone is heard and that we'll get good baseline data. Now all that remains for me is to think of ways to make this trip a productive one that will serve its main purpose for me - to make me more marketable and build up my resume. But if I have to spend the next seven weeks writing reports that I could have easily written in Washington, I'm going to be more than a little disappointetd.
Sorry I'm not exactly Susie Sunshine today - it's been a rough day or two. It'll be better tomorrow.
posted by Mandy @ 12:29 AM
7 Comments:
good for you for trusting your instincts. might not be a bad idea to get yourself a wedding ring for the next trip. Urgh.
a
You should order one of these http://www.bookofjoe.com/2005/05/selfdefense_dre.html.
That hooked up to a car battery would equal fashion fun!
Darren, I really don't know who gets top prize for having the most time on his hands - you or Pete. But you both do manage to dig up some...er...unique things.
What in the world! I only wish I were as desirable as you my dear! That's creepy, and I think the comment (from amy or anice?) about the wedding ring might be a good idea. Yech. Be careful, we don't want you to become what Ron Weasley would call a "scarlett woman." hahaha
Well, when you are sitting at your desk most of the day, have four monitors in front of you, an RSS feeder that is configured quite lightly yet still pulls in several thousand feed items a day, you tend to run across stuff without even trying.
Scary to think about what I would find if I tried.
If you're ever bummed/bored about work, even if it is in Karachi, I have a story to cheer you up!
Today our event planners earned every penny of the 5 thousand bucks we're paying them to plan a breakfast, cuz they noticed that in one of our mailing lists - that we've been using for a LOT of things lately - we had somehow made a mistake with a very important board member's name. His name is Cappy, but...yep, you guessed it, our list called him CRAPPY! It's totally worth paying them all that cash since they saved us from calling him CRAPPY!
Yes, I had many a laugh over that today. Hope your days are getting better!
Stef
oh, and this had me yelping at my desk today:
www.ilovekarlrove.com
Avoid the thong at all costs!
:-) Stef
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