Visitors Coming

We are now over the half way mark.

What have we done I hear you ask?

Denise has become a Days for Girls Ambassador and has also helped train two other local Days for Girls Ambassadors and handed out the first 60 kits.  She has also helped out at some of the Primary Schools and Pre Schools as well as the Special School.  Other things she has done is the sale of Rotary calendars and helping out in many and varied roles.

Me, I have started to make improvements to the procurement and logistics processes not only where I am volunteering, but across the whole community.  The main wins have been the creation of documentation and changes to the distribution process.  The major change I proposed was to put the allocation spreadsheet I had created into a database. This has finally received approval and will use an existing database to allocate the supplies.  Before I arrived the allocation was largely guesswork, but now I have added some rigour to the process and made it fair and equitable.  Until the system is implemented I will be sceptical.  Unfortunately, the new system will not be fully functional until after I leave.

In the meantime, the locals continue to amaze me with daily surprises.  These are usually the surprises you can well do without such as we have run out of stock.  When you do a little digging it is either somebody didn't count correctly or they had decided the allocation was wrong so gave way more than stated.  This would have been great if we had surplus stock, but we were already short so were rationing.  Once again it appears that I am the only one concerned about it, although communicating this to those above me seems to have achieved some positive reactions.

Back to the road

A dogs life in Kiribati, as with that of most "domestic" animals, is not an easy one.  So far I have seen three dogs run over and nobody seems to care that much, but in the drivers defence there isn't much that can be done to assist.  Many dogs have a limp or injury, probably caused by an encounter with a car.  Usually the dogs have far more road sense than the people, so that probably goes some of the way to explain why they get hit - drivers just expect them to get out of the way.

Basketball stopped at the end of last year and hasn't restarted due to what appears to be a "communication" issue between the local federation and the governing body.  It still hasn't been sorted and nobody wants to use the time to do training, education and information sessions, oh, except me.

Fitness

A few weeks ago I offered my services to assist with the weekly fitness program that the Government, through the Sports Ministry, has instigated.  Well that came back to bite me.  With less than 24hrs notice the big boss came and told me I was running the program and it would be 1.5hrs every Friday.  So much for preparation time, I'm sure it's overrated anyway.  Now this is a session for people that haven't exercised since they were children so no high intensity cardio was possible.  The brief was to get sweaty which isn't too difficult in 31c temperatures and 90% humidity.

Well the first session was interesting, not knowing if I would have 1 or 101 participants.  The plan was warmup for 15 minutes, gentle low impact exercise for 30 minutes, then 15 minutes stretching/cool down.  Yes, I know that's only 1 hour, so they were going to get an early mark.

The session had about 20 participants of all fitness ranges so that made several intensity levels.  When we got to the cool down, some group decided they were going to put on some drama for us.  I thought we were going to hear a drummer, but after the local telling me three times, I finally worked out it was going to be drama.

The drama was something pre-recorded and the “actors” just mimed it out.  I have no idea what it was about, but it went for 20 minutes, during which I did my own stretching / cool down.  When it was finished it was time to go home, so the locals didn’t get to stretch.  I will be interested to hear if there were any aches and pains afterwards.  My guess is yes.

There might be a break in blogs for a few weeks as we have visitors then it's off to Fiji for two weeks.  Bulla.

The dogs fighting and the kids crying all the time is quite draining.  I just wish it would stop then of course they will smack the kids and there is not a damn thing we can do.  It is definitely a vicious cycle.  I have witnessed a man in the village drive his wife’s head into the ground and she did not let out a cry at all.  I felt really sick

Over the last fortnight I have kept myself busy in some form or another.  I have taken the time to say farewell to some very special people from here, who are travelling home.  All of them will be sorely missed.  Mind if it is anything like the connection we made in Africa, we are going to have a wonderful time visiting our new friends in different parts of Australia and around the world.

I was asked to help with mock interviews for the Tech here.  It was over two days and it was to help the students to get used to being interviewed by Australians.  It was an eye opener to say the least.  Asked if they knew where the island was, some would say central Australia which was close but not right.  Island should have given it away but that was just the beginning.  Asked where they lived was also memorable.  Somewhere in the sea, a speck in the Pacific which are all correct but not quite what we were looking for.  So you can imagine what skills means to the locals.  Don’t get me wrong there are some leading stars but it was a long couple of days trying to find the right ones.

I am now waiting to get more Days for Girl’s kits so that I can continue on with the project.  I have encountered problems in regard to sourcing flannelette material and the waterproof membrane for the ladies to use to make the shields and liners for the kits.  Unfortunately, it is looking expensive but I won’t get ahead of myself just yet.

As a lot of you know I am a trigger happy amateur photographer.  For all the lovely people I have in my life, I found a professional photographer who has given me some very good pointers on how to take better photos.  For two days we chased pigs, climbed sand mounds (remember they won’t be very high), found the third gunnery outpost from the second world war and basically had a ball.  So watch out I maybe more annoying that I normally am.

So for the food critic that lives with me.  He has been surprised that I have made ricotta cheese, made pasta, yoghurt and cream for scones.  So, other than an adventure of location, it is an adventure of what I can produce from scratch.  I have just bought a second hand bread maker that has been interesting to say the least.  I just need to keep baking.

So with this baking gig, I have managed to break my toe; which incidentally was the one I broke last year in February.  I had just started running in the water, well that has gone out the window.  Now I have to find something else to do.  Heaven forbid I’m even thinking of riding a bike.

I am very excited at the moment because our gorgeous oldest daughter is coming to visit with her partner on Thursday.  Then we catch up with other family members in Fiji.  Yippeeee!!!