peacemaker gypsy

Countdown

This is it ... I am into my last week.  A few tears at the end of the training yesterday and people said nice things like they learned more in a few weeks at the course than in a year of college (actually that is probably literally true - it is very intensive and all applied learning - their colleges are certainly not intensive and apparently mostly theory).

There are some oddities about Bo in particular and perhaps SLe in general:

There seems to be some insurmountable difficulties associated with the plumbing and WC toilets.  I have had 'European toilets' sunk deep into the floor (up to the bowl) so it was like a squat toilet and last week I was in a room where the toilet was truly a throne ... my feet did not touch the floor (and you have to admit - I am pretty tall - especially in comparison to the average Salone.  I have had toilets that are supposed to be connected to the wall but that are actually free-standing and so somewhat fragile to operate and toilets that fail to operate (but there is a large bucket of water nearby) - they of course are the worst ones.

Drivers who coast on the good part of the road and drive like complete maniacs on the broken up road where everybody is driving all over the road to avoid the potholes and on the extremely narrow winding slightly-larger-than-the-car roads and thereby giving me more grey hair and more wrinkles.  I can sort of live with that but the 30 km on a newly tarred double width road just drives me bonkers and my own accelerator foot is to the floor as a result.

I would like to say it is all over but the shouting - but it isn't.  The book is not finished, the guidelines are not finished and the debriefing and "way-forward" has to be completed.  So back to the grindstone.

And the worst part of the week?  The Mumbai terror attacks - so long, so random (at least for most of the victims) and so incredibly inhuman.  My heart goes out to the families who are suffering.

Sweet Bo

(It is the name of the local newspaper).  But a sick-making road between said Bo and the reasonably civilised (aka internet possible) Freetown.  Came back last night after the first week of training: great training, predictably shattered after week 1 - cannot bear to think of those to come - but a truly awful trip home - with both of us getting carsick but M (intern) luckier than me because she actually managed to up-chuck.

Bo is the 2nd largest town in SL and is basically a hot dusty town with two reasonable roads and a bunch of pot-holed disasters and a multitude of heavily rutted dirt tracks.  Lots of native fig trees - one of the truly romantic trees of the world with a root system that look like flying buttresses in a Gothic cathedral.  The hotel (yes there is one - a point not made clear to me on my previous visit) had hot running water and 24 hour porn ... but no news.  I liked it better in the old days - no hotel but an UNHCR guesthouse and no TV but we did have BBC.

There are sheep and goats everywhere but not as many dogs as Freetown and a story about the distinct lack of cats (and it is true that I have never seen one).  It is also true that the only meat I eat when I am on mission is a clearly identifiable chicken leg.

Back to a week of emails.  Gorgeous photos of the youngest grandchild; tear-making photos on another blog close to my heart (but for some reason I cannot link to), notification from my mum that my terrace furniture will be delivered as I arrive home and thankfully no extra work (as yet).  Writing furiously about behaviour change and hoping to have enough to send off before I leave again tomorrow. 

Oh and only two weeks and 6 days to go.

The final push

Three weeks and six days to go.  The revision upgrade workshop is done and I spent the week being both exhilerated by how much they had learned and changed and in depths of despair at how much they had not.  Tomorrow we head up-country and on Monday start the next training.

The new materials arrived on Thursday and (of course) I found a typo in the first 10 minutes. 

But the little red engine is almost at the top of the hill - last draft sent off to Geneva, last training about to start, materials all written: only the book to go now (and the actual training of course).

AND my old peace ed materials are in use in Timor-Leste and have been translated into Arabic - which is excellent news at a whole range of levels.  At a personal level it is a vindication of all those people who claimed that you couldn't write this stuff across cultures: it took me 10+ years to work out how the programme did manage to be cross-cultural - now of course everybody is doing it.

So while I feel tired, flat and fat and this last training is really going to make me unravel; this is the final push and then it is home to creating a little garden, getting my life in order, Christmas , kids and grandkids and holidays.

I cannot wait.

Yippee!!

I have just woken up to the brilliant news ... congrats to the Americans (I think it was Churchill who said ... the Americans usually do the right thing ... after trying every possible wrong thing first - or words to that effect).  This is the right thing and I am ever so pleased for all of you (and the rest of us who could only watch and wait.

The Africans will be very happy (one of theirs) and the people in the workshop will be beside themselves today!!

And that was October

• Stockmarkets looking like jagged lightening strikes (all pointing down);

• Millions of Americans voting already;

• The rest of the world voting for Obama (at least on the internet);

• Halloween not looking as scary as what is possible in the American election (there really are a lot of totally mad Americans)

• And then ... for me 11 books (count 'em 11) written, finished, paginated, layout done and PDFd.

And it is 4 weeks and four days until I do the chopper and plane thing and am on my way home.

Oh and Sierra Leone is home to the tiniest geckos (like thumbnail size) and the biggest snails (on a par with the Sudanese ones) - fist size.  And then there are some of the most gorgeous finches - orange and black and they were bathing in a puddle in the middle of the road. 

Today I moved from the villa to a hotel (because they are closing the villas anyway and I will be up-country as from next weekend) and as my eleven books had already gone to the printer (or at least the UNICEF person who deals with the printer) so I had time to look at finches in puddles.  The rains are far more intermittent now because it is now November (which maybe accounts for the finches).  But it is hotter ... much, much hotter - and for the next five weeks I will be on my feet training - and watching them swell. (The feet I mean)