WOOHOO! A productive day at last!

So for starters a Jerry update: My furry friend appeared last night but I had pre-empted him by putting all of my food out in the corridor, so thank God he stayed out there. I just hate the idea of things running around under my bed at night.

It's now Tuesday morning, and I still have no water although I had a seriously good wash this morning, so feel a bit refreshed. There's nothing like throwing a bucket of cold water over yourself to wake you up in the morning!!! It's very annoying though, especially since it buckets down with rain about four times a day. Methinks someone up there mocks me!

So yesterday finally I had a bit of a productive day. In the morning, we were giving out things to the children in the sponsorship programme, rice, palm oil, and blankets for everyone and then mattresses or raincoats for some, or bags of beans, and for one family wool and material so that the mother can make clothes because there are four young children in the family and the father died two years ago and this way the mother can work from home most of the time. We took lots of photos for sending on to the sponsors and I found out that there's not really a detailed filing system for the Child Sponsorship project so I have found something for me to do which is quite a big undertaking, but I can be quite independent doing that which is good.

A new volunteer called Colby arrived over the weekend, so yesterday we both had to present ourselves to the District Officer, and the Gendarmes. The DO is an extremely imposing and intimidating man, but you have to go with all of your documents and then he can approve for you to stay and work in the area. I also found out that getting my visa extended is a total nightmare so that should be lots of fun for the next while. Have to get started on it now, as it can take three months to get sorted, and that's even when you do pay the necessary bribes to get it sorted. The we went to the police and presented ourselves so they know that you're here and they keep an eye to make sure you're safe. Reading between the lines it seems that means that if anything happens to us someone gets the living daylight kicked out of them. The police chief seems to be quite pleasant though. And then we had orientation which was given by a volunteer with another organisation, which means I found another job, as there are no orientation documents of any kind here at GMM.

I got a clearer picture of what the main focus of my work will be here at least for the next while until school starts, and that's organisation. It's just a matter of someone coming in and setting up systems so that everything runs much more efficiently and there are records of everything. And then training in some of the locals so that they can run all of the arms of the project in a co-ordinated way, and some of the orphans here are bright as buttons so they'll be well able to handle the responsibility and it'll be good experience for them for the future. I know I'm probably not the most organised person in the world, but over here, I am positively Monica-esque, so I'm working at night making lists so that I can get a plan in place for my time here.

I am currently eating banana crisps for breakfast-how very Partridge's!!! They're well good but a little odd for breakfast! But they're my sweet after the fish rolls I've already had. (It's almost nine in the morning and I've already eaten fish! I cannot describe how much I am going to mill though a box of special k when I get home! It's less than a week in and I'm dying for some cereal. There's no dairy in the diet here either so I'd say that'll be a craving that will start soon too!) Right, I'm off to start doing some of the work that I have ear-marked for myself!