Goats, chickens and turkeys

We’re about halfway through our time here, and it’s flown by so fast I’m sure we won’t want to leave when our 6 months is up! At the moment we’re doing an EFC (emergencies foundation course) with the programme staff here. I was on the UK version in February so am now in the driving seat – helping to facilitate the course (which generally involves lots of wig wearing, bit warm out here) My fellow intern Dan missed the February course and so he’s participating this time. The participants (and us, of course) all worked really hard so we bought them a couple of goats to be BBQ’d on the last night. Luckily for the guys in the back of the landcruiser these goats appeared to be housetrained.

It’s a nice change from day to day work – although thanks to the internet I’m still doing some of that as well. It’s also good to get a chance to really see how people work from outside the situation, and how they interact with each other and outside agents.

Kudos to the cooking ladies as well – from a normal base staff of 7, they fed 40 people for a whole week – several chickens were sacrificed to the cause, as were sackfuls of rice and beans. I’d never actually seen a bucket of rice before but you live and learn.

I’ve been working with the procurement team here and now that everyone’s back from leave we’re really trying to get more of a strategic view of future procurements so that we can plan and maximise our spending power. It’s awesome finally getting into the nitty gritty of the work after so long learning about it (and so long chasing my tail putting an asset register together!) I’m really looking forward to getting some plans put together that can benefit all the teams on the ground implementing our programmes.

Of course, there’s the other side of life as well – we’ll be back from this course on Thursday and hopefully our American colleagues in Juba will have a hearty Thanksgiving dinner for us to sit down to! I’m sure we’ll return the favour when St. Patrick’s day rolls around…