Warriorbern on the Move

The tuna presentation yesterday afternoon was well presented and very interesting. I was really glad that I attended. It was interesting that, according to the study on which the presentation was based, the countries in the western Indian Ocean are benefiting from the fishery to the same degree as the global standards. That is quite encouraging. Today's meeting was sort of the main event where all the budgets and work plans for the year ahead were passed. The meeting chair, from Mauritius, is such a character and he had us all laughing at his crazy jokes and statements. It definitely made the day go quicker. The important bit in this paragraph though is that the budget was passed - that means I got the money for my project! That means more travel next year :-) The last event for me on this trip is the official signing of an agreement between the two big western Indian Ocean projects. I'm just going for the free drinks LOL! My transfer to the airport in the morning

Today was a mostly free day for all the participants who did not need training on the procurement procedures for SWIOFP. We do have a presentation on tuna fisheries at 16:30 but other than that the day has been our own. After my morning run and breakfast I set off up the hill to the Maputo Natural History Museum. This is a very old museum established in 1911 making it 100 years old. I think that most of the exhibits were, however, also set up in 1911. The stuffed animals were quite moth-eaten and many had lost most of their colouration but they were also quite amusing. Some of the animals had the most bizarre expressions on their faces. The entrance fee was only around R15 so I wasn't complaining at all. There were two things in the museum that I would definitely have paid more that R15 to see. The first was the coelacanth and the second was the progressive development of an elephant embryo from the1st month to the 22nd month of gestation. It was in all a good way to spend some of

Not too much of interest has been happening lately. These meetings just seem to go on and on and on …. On Saturday evening Paula picked me up from the hotel to go out for dinner. We went to the Costa del Sol restaurant and I had a good meal of Portuguese steak and chips. She said that its standard had dropped but since I hadn’t been there before I wasn’t concerned. After dinner we rode around the city looking for a place to have a drink and listen to some music. We didn’t have any luck though because all the places were closed. This past weekend was a long weekend and it seemed that the city had been deserted! Eventually we went to a place called Dolce Vita Café and had a cocktail and a beer there. We were joined by one of Paula’s colleagues and the three of us had a good time together. I returned to the hotel just after midnight and fell into bed. The next morning I went for a walk with a little trepidation hoping that the pervert from Saturday morning wasn’t around. I needn’t have

I don't think I will be blogging every day because not much is happening, just meeting, meeting, meeting :-) but I will share from time to time. Yesterday morning I got up early and went for a really good run along the waterfront. I had been concerned that it might be too quiet and hence a little unsafe but the reality was that there were plenty of other runners and walkers out and plenty of traffic passing by so I didn't feel uncomfortable at all. At breakfast, I discovered that my wonderful friend Kizzie was here and he said to me: "I didn't know you were going to be here until I saw that you were giving a presentation." Well that was news to me! My boss had requested a presentation spot for me but we had heard nothing from the meeting coordinators about whether a slot had been allocated or not. I had sort of put together a presentation just in case but it needed some tweaking before being given. Fortunately my slot was for today and not yesterday so I listened

It is quite ironic that I find myself in Mozambique since this year's WIOFish workshop for Mozambique was actually held in Durban and I didn't expect to come here. Not that I mind though, I like Maputo. Sure it is a bit grubby and a bit dilapidated but it still feels like a vibrant place. The journey here was uneventful and even on the pleasant side. I managed to get on a direct flight from Durban to Maputo so cut out about 4 hours travelling time by not going via Johannesburg. It also meant flying on a small plane with only 14 other passengers. These propeller driven planes are my favourite: take-offs and landings don't feel quite so hectic although the weather made for a bumpy descent into Maputo but it wasn't too bad. It was raining when we arrived in Maputo and only 20 degrees. Pick-ups from the airport to the hotel had not been arranged but I just shared a taxi with two other meeting attendees so it didn't cost too much. On Friday last week I had checked with

I have to admit that, in the end, I did absolutely nothing last night except have dinner and pack off to bed. It was 10pm by the time I turned in but I don't know where the time went while I was pottering around the room watching the BBC World news over and over again :-). BBC World is the only English channel available on the tv and I am well and truely sick of it now! This morning I got up, had breakfast and then went for a long walk in and around the part of Tana where my hotel is. It was good to be outside for a change and I did enjoy looking at the buildings and what the street vendors where selling. What I didn't enjoy was stepping over homeless/passed out people on the side-walks and the constant "Madame" "Madame" of vendors and beggars trying to get my attention. First I walked down to the Presidential Palace which is not far from my hotel. From there I wandered along to a lookout point where I could look down into the area below the Presidential P

Last night I had an early night and finally had a good night's sleep. I was also pleasantly surprised when I arrived at the meeting room at 9am and almost everyone was already there! We had a really good productive day and I am very happy with the work that was done. It was incredible that for the first two days everyone just seemed to be loafing and then they got down and did the work. Amazingly the one thing that changed between those first two days and the last three days was that the most senior person was no longer there. Coincidence or not? Today was our longest work day because not because of trying to finish in time but because we had to wait for the Secretary General to come and close the meeting and he only arrived at 05:40 due to traffic problems. At least he kept it brief and the workshop was closed in 5 minutes. Tonight there is a jazz evening going on downstairs here in the hotel and I might pop my head in there to see what it is all about but right now I am leaning

When I woke up this morning I remembered precisely why I am no longer a party animal. Last night was Llewellyn's last night before returning home to Jo'burg so we went out for dinner and then drinks. We took a dinky taxi to the restaurant called Ku Da Ta which wasn’t too far from the hotel. Llewellyn had been there before but could not remember the name of the place. Initially he told the taxi driver that we wanted to go to Zanzibar restaurant and the driver was so desperate to have the fare that he said he knew it and off we went. At least we headed in the right direction but there is no restaurant called Zanzibar. After driving around the back streets for a little while we just happened to pass the restaurant and Llewellyn recognized it. So despite having the wrong name completely, we did end up where we wanted to be. Ku Da Ta is a small French style restaurant and seems to be quite popular with the tourists. It was full when we arrived so we sat at the bar and had a couple

Last night, as I was about the send the blog, Llewellyn came past my squat in the passage and invited me to join him for dinner in the restaurant downstairs. I started to refuse but then thought "to hell with it" these trips get very lonely for me and it would be nice to chat to someone. He travels a lot and has been to the same places as me and more. At one stage I was hard pressed not to cry with laughter. I asked him what he did to amuse himself when he was away and he replied in a very deadpan voice "Well, I drink really heavily". I could not help myself, it was the last thing I expected to hear and I just burst out laughing. He was actually being serious and has been trying to give up drinking but fortunately he did see how I could find that funny and we had a good laugh about it together. It was an enjoyable evening and I was back in my room by 9:30pm. After being so tired earlier, for some strange reason, I was suddenly wide awake and stayed that way until 01

I have been so exhausted today and had to drag myself through the day kicking and screaming. I only went to sleep at 1am this morning and, before any of you jump to your own conclusions, it was not as a result of having a late dinner with the very buff Llewellyn! After I wrote the blog last night I decided to tackle a bit of work that had been requested of me. I was tasked to develop a step-by-step illustrated user guide for the installation process of the software package that is used for data collection on the Research Vessel Dr Fridtjof Nansen. It is a very tricky programme to install and has on a few occasions driven me almost to insanity. Last week, after two days of trying, I finally got it installed on a colleague’s computer and casually remarked that the installation guide given out with the programme was not very helpful. Anyway the IT manager at ORI requested that I do the guide for them so that in future they know how to do the job and then Jens from IMR (the person respons

Where to start! Okay first of all I did not sleep very well last night because the toilet kept on spilling out water into the bowl so it was constantly filling up. This was not my fault to those of you who would think so! I was nowhere near it when it started doing this and its cistern is hidden behind a panel in the wall to I couldn't even go in there and jiggle things about. I closed the bathroom door but that really didn't help much. This morning it also stopped wasting water all on its own so I expect the problem had to be linked to water pressure or something. It hasn't started up yet tonight so fingers crossed it behaves. Today was the day for finding out where everything is in the hotel. First task – seek and destroy breakfast! I make it sound as if I had an enormous breakfast when in reality it was just a bowl of muesli, some pineapple juice and a cup of the worst tasting tea I have ever had! The tea was so bad that I did contemplate throwing all good sense to the

As I will tell you over and over again, I really do prefer flying early in the morning. With flights later in the day I seem to waste an entire day waiting for the time to pass and generally being a bit ratty because I’m not looking forward to the flight. The downside of flying early though is that I have to get up so early and also I spend half the night worrying that I won’t wake up in time. Last night was no different. I slept well until midnight and then clock-watched until 03:30 when it was time to get up. When I switched on the light my little Rose girl looked at me as if I was mental! Anyway I did get up on time and got to the airport early enough that the check-in counters were only just opening. The flight up to Jo’burg was fine and I discovered that ORI’s Deputy Director was also on the flight on his way to Reunion. He told me that I will enjoy Antananarivo so hopefully he is correct. Jo’burg was freezing cold and the two hour wait between flights felt endless mainly becau