Two days in one

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 to all the other presentations with one ear and finished off my presentation. At about 16:30 the project manager came to me and said that depending on time availability I may have to give my presentation before the end of the day. By then though, my presentation was done so I just said it was fine. As it turned out the last scheduled speaker went over his allotted time and we wrapped the meeting for the day at about 18:15 without my presentation.

I returned to my room and settled down for the evening. I had brought a small bottle of wine along for my Friday evening sundowners and a little bit of chocolate. I spent the evening sipping on my wine and tweaking my presentation some more before finally retiring to bed to read.

This morning I got up early to go for a walk along the water's edge. The first part of the walk I had to be careful because clearly that was where the Friday night party had been held and there was broken glass everywhere. The informal alcohol vendors were still around but mostly they were asleep. These ladies bring their cooler boxes down to the water's edge with wheel barrows and then after all the revellers have gone, they sleep in the wheel barrows. There were a few party animals still around blasting out music from their cars' hi-fi systems but they were okay just chilling before going home.

A little further on I came across an older man (around 60) jogging in little circles on the pavement. I wondered about his strange behaviour but carried on walking towards him. As I got closer he jogged towards me and came really close alongside ...... then he grabbed my butt!!!!!!! He said something to me in Portuguese which of course I could not understand. I actually could not believe that he did that and I just got out of there and kept looking behind me to see if he was following but fortunately, while at one stage he looked like he was going to follow, he stayed where he was. I carried on with my walk with a sense of outrage - how dare he do that! Anyway, eventually I settled down and started enjoying being out and about and other walkers and runners were much more pleasant just saying hello or nodding. On the way back my heart dropped when I saw the fiend again! I kept a long way off from him and was shocked when he start calling "Hello, hello" to me. I just ignored him and walked briskly away. I really hope he is not around tomorrow morning but tomorrow I will be running again so hopefully it will be easier to avoid him and I now know what he is about so will give him a wide berth.

The meeting got underway and after one other presentation I was up. I think it went well and I had a few people register on the website straight after the presentation. Of greatest importance though is that the World Bank representative is impressed and has expressed a willingness to help me find some funding once the SWIOFP funding runs out. He has also expressed an interest in using the database for some other projects and thinks that we will be able to get funding through that too.

Here is the rabbit in the headlights

This afternoon will be budget bun fights/discussions. I really hope I will get the full amount I am asking for but it depends on how the money gets split.

That's it for today. I think I will be going out with my Mozambique WIOFish National Node, Paula Afonso, for drinks once the day is finished. It will be nice to get out of the hotel.

Take care everyone!