Weekend Update

Hey Y'all,

Not a lot happened this weekend.  I went to a UN party on Saturday, was relocated to a new room, heard some gossip that my super favorite economist Jeffrey Sachs was sighted in Garissa (the last major outpost of civilization, about 2.5 hours from here on the craziest road in the in all of east Africa), landed a short consulting job with UK Save The Children for this week - as they are building emergency pre-fab structures without the guidance of an architect or engineer and consequently are having no success (I'm not getting paid to do this, but hey its a start) and tonight we had French Fries at dinner which was WONDERFUL.  The food here is so bland and mediocre that the Fries dished out each Sunday is always a big hit.

I discovered a weight room here on the compound, and look forward to using it. They don't really have "real" weights, but each dumbbell is a metal bar suspended between two buckets of concrete.  The buckets vary in size to accommodate different size weights. Its rugged, but it works.

An Italian woman from SAVE The Children UK is being very helpful as I try to get a job at the UN while I'm here. She seems to be one of the few people I have met that understands that most of the decisions made here are not made by people trained/educated about human settlements and land use, so she is incredibly supportive of my desire to work in this capacity.  I know I could make a lot more money developing suburbs and designing river fronts, but I believe that my education would certainly be put to a better use at a place like this.

Not much else to say.

I start my Youth Education Workshop tomorrow, and am curious how it will turn out. I got word today that the Youth leaders are angry that I have not consulted them regarding every decision/arrangement I have made and were threatening this morning to disallow youth to participate in my project. As much I as respect all cultures/societies/traditions, I actually told these guys to kiss my ass.  So anyway, tomorrow morning might be a disaster, but I'm cool with it - that is part of why I came here so long. If my original strategy/method doesn't work, then I can change.  I have done so much research about this place that I can easily adapt my project. Not to mention, now that I am here, there are all sorts of problems I can focus on and an array of methods.

Thats the latest update, I hope everyone is doing else.  I do not recieve many emails, so feel free to write about your own lives back home. It might not seem like it, but I honestly feel like that is much more interesting than the daily monotony of this place.

Cheers.

M