On to the next stop

My stay in Tana has come to an end. It has been a very productive time but also somewhat boring with no outside excursions. The workshop finished up on Thursday afternoon with some very intense discussions around the information that has been entered for Madagascar. It really is fantastic to see people so passionate about getting things correct. They are very enthusiastic about WIOFish and even asked if it was not possible to have these workshops twice a year! Even I think that I could not manage doing this whole roadshow twice a year and I suspect there would be mutiny at home LOL.

Yesterday I had the first of my "normal" work days on this trip. Due to financial reasons the workshops were all made one day shorter than previously but because of flight availability and an unwillingness (quite rightly) to work on weekends, I have these spare days that I have to use for work too. So I spent the day doing the analyses on the freshly entered Malagasy data. It is really amazing how much I got done but it does help not having any interruptions at all ... or rather not so many interruptions. First it was room cleaning, then replacement of complimentary tea, coffee, shampoo (which I had not used) and then checking of the minibar (also not used).

After spending the day working I treated myself to a pizza for dinner and then spent the evening watching movies. It was a good evening rounded off with some Kindle time. I fell into a deep sleep but was rudely woken up by the room phone ringing at 23:30. I was so fast asleep that I could not work out what the sound was or where it was coming from! When I did finally figure it out and picked up the phone it stopped ringing. I tried to understand the French instructions on how to retrieve the message but all I could make out was that it was Reception that had phoned. I decided to hell with them and tried to go back to sleep but that proved to be rather difficult. Once I was out of that deep sleep it was over. I heard the people out in the street, I heard people talking in the passage and I even heard people walking across the wooden floors outside my door. Needless to say it was not a good night.

Anyway today I will be moving on. I fly back to Johannesburg this afternoon and am very happy to be spending the night with my friends, Jo and Diets. Then tomorrow at lunch time I fly on to the Seychelles. This is the part of the trip that I am looking forward to the most. I know the workshop will go well and also who can complain about being in the Seychelles.

I leave you with one of the night photos I took during this week. I only tried this one evening because after I had switched off the light to go to sleep, I discovered a mosquito buzzing around. So that was the end of keeping the windows open in the evenings!


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