Out of the Office, into the Bar

Actually made it into work on time, 07h30, this Monday morning. And even though I had two long weekends in a row you would think that I might not have gotten much work done in the past 2 weeks. Well, yes and no. Ironically I think I may have done my best work yet on Friday night far from the office.
I went out to Chameleon (a bar in Lilongwe City Centre) just planning on chilling on the patio with a few drinks. The beauty about going out in a small city like Lilongwe is you never know whom you might bump into. So this night I found myself sitting across the table from the staff of Irish Aid (Ireland’s Development Agency). Irish Aid is a big development player in Malawi and funds several projects in Dedza, including various Food Security programmes and are also a significant donor of Concern Universal’s aquaculture projects. I was considering sending my proposal off to them unsolicited so this chance meeting was perfectly timed. Seeing as how they were Irish, I offered to buy a round (out of my meagre interns salary) and then moved in with my pitch. I think it was well received. Their program officer, Padraig, was receptive to my idea (and most importantly didn’t make an excuse to leave the table!). He seemed to speak bluntly and honest and advised me to submit in late Nov/early Dec to be considered for 2009 funding, as the project fit in with their priority areas. Sweet! I know I shouldn’t get too excited about this but you have to admit it’s encouraging nonetheless. I firmly believe that the best networking does not occur at the office, its best over beers. I think my faith-based NGO is missing a strategic networking avenue, one that I can easily fill – lol!!

Besides networking what else is left to do? The proposal is pretty much finished on my part, now I just need to get CADECOMs final review and approval before I can submit. The English to Chichewa translation of my training manual should be complete this week and hopefully printed and bound early next week. There’s not a lot I can do on this task, besides checking up on Spriano’s progress. Lastly, I am working on a follow up site visit for next week. This site visit will be another big event, as my current funder, WUSC, wants to do a site visit to see how I’ve been spending their money.

There are several things I want to coordinate for this site visit to impress them. The village of Luweya is planning on harvesting their fish very soon. The villages could not afford to buy a fish net so we had to find one for them. Mr Joshua, the fisheries officer (whom I strategically asked to co-facilitate my workshops in order to bring government into the play), came up big time here as he managed to borrow the fishing net from the prison to loan to the village so they could harvest their fish. Yes, apparently the government of Malawi will buy a fishnet for prisoners but not for law abiding poverty stricken citizens – go figure. I want to time Mr. Mapemba’s (the director of WUSC-Malawi) visit for the harvest in Luweya so that he can see the fruits of our labour. It will also be the perfect time for the villagers to tell him what they’ve learned in my workshops. It will take some coordinating as bringing together 4 different players (CADECOM, WUSC, govt and the village committee) on the same date will be challenging, not to mention the logistics of a harvest, but I think it can be done. Cross your fingers for me.