Where I’ve been
March 20th, 2010 § 1 Comment
A random sample of a different sort
There is a very strong correlation between my returning to Africa and my completely neglecting this blog – which says less about African internet than about how busy I always find myself when I’m here! I came into my current position with IPA at the beginning of a two-month household survey examining underinvestment in agriculture in northern Ghana, and since then our whole team has been working non-stop. Our surveyors leave for the field between 7 and 8 am every day, so I’m usually at the office by 6.30 to make sure that everything’s prepared. Then it’s a long day of tracking survey documents, sorting soil samples, assigning survey teams to new communities, preparing per diem payments, troubleshooting the netbooks & survey software used in the field, selecting respondents for field audits, taking calls from surveyors, and making frequent three-hour round trips up to our satellite office in Walewale, among any number of other things. An early day might end at 7 pm, and a late one at 10 pm. The sheer amount of work has forced me to grow more as a manager than I have in any other position I’ve yet had, which has been fantastic. It simply doesn’t leave much space at the edges of my days for anything else.
[...] a comment » Continued from my earlier post, the things I’ve found most amusingly frustrating, and most enjoyable, about working in [...]