No Real Reason

I woke up at 5 am today on my own (and trust me, that doesn’t happen often), and I have no idea why I couldn’t go back to sleep – it’s not jetlag, I’ve been over that for a few weeks now. I have a few things to take back to the tailor (the second one was good, I’m not too happy with the third one, but I still haven’t found one that I really luuurve – too late to keep shopping around, though) because they’re not quite right. But as soon as I woke up, my head was buzzing about the things I needed to get fixed – now why on earth would something as unimportant as clothing keep me up? It makes no sense. As fun as custom-made clothes are, and as much as I joke about being shallow for getting excited about it – it really is just clothing. It’s got to be other stuff, like maybe the probability that I’ll be sent to Yemen and the possibility of southern Sudan.

In an effort to at least get one difficult conversation out of the way, I spoke to one of the guys in our DC office who is running the domestic projects I was working on to let him know that I have been told that I’ll be spending some quality time in Yemen. He thanked me for telling him and said that they’d have plenty for me to do when I knew what my schedule was going to be and/or it was more open. He’s very understanding about this kind of stuff in a fatherly sort of way, which I appreciate because he could really be a jerk about it, or just say “well, we can’t work with you because you’re not reliable”. He’d be within his rights to choose that route, so I’m glad that he’s opting not to. (And I have a feeling that’s going to be an expensive phone call. Oh well – business call = I’m not the one paying for it.)

Kudos to Dan “Don’t mess with The Family” Rolfs for digging up the following for me:

 http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30345 

On the advice of my boss, I casually mentioned to our Senior VP in Paris that I could start in Yemen after they had a project manager in place, since the old one had to be chucked for being, apparently, useless. I’ll go there to work, but I’m not going there by myself. Talk about making things harder than they need to be. From all accounts, Yemen makes Pakistan look like a bastion of liberalism, as it’s one of the more (most?) conservative countries in the Muslim world. I’m also going to insist on having a female interpreter available – which shouldn’t be considered an unreasonable request. But clearly we haven’t gotten to that part yet. I would like more specifics, or at least copies of the project documentation that they have so far, so I can get some idea of what I’ll be doing.

D has confirmed that she will, indeed, be in Paris by the time I get there in two weeks, so that’s very happy news. I’ve got a few meetings and some work to do while I’m there, but I’m happy that she and I will have the chance to hang out. And that we’ll be similarly jetlagged, since she only gets back to Paris from Saigon two days before me. R, her boss, with whom I worked here for a little while, also said that he’d take me to a good place for croissants that’s close to the office. Mmm…

We’re off to the rural areas again next week, although different rural areas from the last trip. What I know so far is that it will involve a LOT of driving, as this province is 350 km away. Itsy Bitsy and PM are coming, Teeny Weeny and Eye Patch are staying behind in Hanoi, but somehow we still have seven people going. If we have another SUV into which we have to cram eight people, I think I’m going to cry. Or laugh hysterically at the absurdity of it all – I haven’t decided yet. But hopefully we’ll have a minibus, and all will be well. (Does anyone know what a Mercedes Sprinter is? Because that’s what we’re taking, apparently.)

It’s been good to be back in Hanoi this week, but I’m also looking forward to this upcoming trip. Then, once we get back it’s workworkwork to get the Second Annual Report done. I don’t think I’m going to have the opportunity to go to Halong Bay on this trip, I just don’t think I’ll have time. But hopefully, people will like my work on this project enough so that I’ll be able to come back to work on it next fall as well. Regardless of the less fun aspects of this trip (ants in the suitcase, communist bunkers, ants in the bed, eating Vietnamese jumping snails, ants in general, etc.), it’s been a really good trip, and it’s nice to feel useful in my profession. And as I’ve mentioned, I quite like Vietnam – besides, if I come back next fall, maybe I’ll be able to save up enough time and money by then to go over to Australia to see my family. Wouldn’t *that* be fun?