Meetings, meetings, meetings ……..

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 worried at all! There was a big event going on to recognize World Heart Day and one of their activities was a fun run/walk along the route I was walking. I had started before them so when I turned to go back to the hotel it felt like I was swimming upstream! The potato bushes along the roadside are in flower and producing my absolutely most favourite smell in the world – cooking potatoes.

At the meeting it was quite obvious that quite a few participants had had a big night on Saturday and while some were sitting in the meeting obviously hung-over, others were missing completely! Even though I was not hung over, the day was endless and I really couldn’t wait for the day to end.

The good news is that my project has so far been given all the requested funding for next year. There is just one more stage that the budget has to be passed through but considering that the funding project manager used part of my presentation in his report back on the status of the bigger project, I don’t think I have much to worry about.

Monday started off with the news that Prof Wangari Maathai had succumbed to cancer. It is a sad day for Kenya, women’s rights activists and environmentalists. She was a truly inspirational person who was more concerned with the rights of others than her own ambitions and she laid her life on the line to achieve these goals.

The meeting was a bit like pulling teeth! We spent a large part of the day going through the wording of a Memorandum of Understanding paragraph by paragraph and once again I was more than happy to escape at the end of the day.

Today we have had a bit of a change of focus. We have had a joint meeting between the South West Indian Ocean Fisheries Project and the Agulhas Somali Large Marine Ecosystem Project. This morning everyone was in the venue but the lunch break saw some erosion in the numbers and there are quite a few gaps around the tables. I’m sure everyone will be at the cocktail reception tonight though! Nothing like free drinks to get people to attend something J

Tomorrow I have a free morning. I am planning on going to the Maputo Natural History Museum. I have wanted to go there for a very long time but have not had the opportunity so tomorrow will be perfect for that. Maybe I will be able to take some photos around the city.

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