Things have stating moving forward now on setting up the volunteer centre. The project has finally realised why I have been sent here. My issue now is not waiting for something to happen but to slow things down a pace and persuade them that this will take time.

We have a management team who will do this in addition to their day job and who desperately need the skills to develop thier roles. We started that process with a volunteer management workshop for the team (about 15 in total) plus the other 65 that turned up! Some other NGOs who had heard about it; some peole who had a general intrest- and the local press!. Nothing like thinking on your feet! It has been a long while since I have had to rewrite training in tea breaks!

It did go really well though - well at least I think it did. Hard to tell sometimes. You are really on the edge of what is happening here, mainly because of the language barriers, so it is not unusual to find that there have been meetings held and decisions made about you without any involvement. Very disconcerting at times!

The next step is to do some more intense training with the team ( I wonder how many will turn up next time!) and start developing some resources and procedures for them to try out. Still back in my comfort zone now!

New apartment is making a huge difference to me and I get more confident about daily stuff all the time. Going to try Xmas shopping soon! Tonight I will be attempting to make dumplings and guo zi ( a kind of soup)