Economic Geographies

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.