Myles Away From Home

Dave and I bought road bikes this spring and after a few months decided that we would like to take part in the Rona MS Bike Tour. The tour is a fundraiser for the MS Society of Canada, and offers riders various options from a 1day 65km ride to Kemptville, to a 2day 185km ride. We opted for the longest route, which consisted of 120km on day 1 and 65km on day 2, for a total of 185 km over 2 days.

My trip to Mozambique is nearly over. It has gone by very quickly, but that could be because I haven’t been here very long. I must say, there is not a whole lot to write about this trip. I have been buried in project administration and management issues the whole time and although I have learned a lot, it doesn’t make for very interesting stories! And I’ve only taken two pictures so far from my hotel room balcony.

I am back in Mozambique, almost exactly one year after I was here last year. Then, my visit was to help with the start-up phase of our project. I was here for 6 weeks working with the team on a daily basis, basically non-stop. This time, the trip is shorter – only 2 weeks, but my purpose is more or less them same – this time I will be working with our project manager to get a few procedures in place and update a few things like work plans and budgets.

I think this was officially the fastest two-week trip on record. I can’t believe I am leaving tomorrow already. Maybe it is because my last two trips have been significantly longer, maybe it is because I was sick for a day, maybe it was because I had company on this trip, I don’t know. But the time has flown by! It has been a whirlwind trip, or at least that’s how it feels.

My lovely sister-in-law, Jenn, asked me to bring her back a wrap that she can use to carry her daughter, Morgan, around in. I started looking around the streets to see if I could figure out how women here carry their babies, and in the process made a few observations about women in Dhaka.

My trip to Dhaka coincided, once again, with the Bengali New Year, which occurs on April 14. My very first trip to Dhaka also coincided with the New Year. This time, although my colleagues here offered to take me to see the major celebrations again, I decided to go to a smaller venue with my coworker from Ottawa who is also here, and one of here Bangladeshi colleagues.

Hello again everyone! It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog post, because I have actually not traveled anywhere since November! Four full months in Ottawa – it’s been a while since that has happened. Well, to end the non-travel spell, I have come to Dhaka to work on our environmental institutional strengthening project. This is the project the keeps bringing me back to Dhaka – this is my fourth trip here. Previously I was coming about once every six months, but this time it’s been just over a year since my last trip to Bangladesh.

Well, it’s been a month already. I am packed and ready to go, although it’s not quite time to check out and I still have some work to get done. Of course, I am looking forward to going home and can’t wait to get there, although I’m not really looking forward to cold November weather or the 33hr trip to get there. Summer is just beginning here and today is a lovely warm and sunny day. I hope to take a few more photos before

Well, it’s been nearly two weeks since I posted anything, and now I’m down to one week left in Lesotho. Things have, as usual, been very busy for the last two weeks. But we are getting things going and generally getting things off to a good start. In fact, we had our Kick Off meeting this morning and it went quite well.

As usual on these trips I take for work, time is flying, mostly due to the amount of work that needs to get done. This week was no exception – in fact the week is a complete blur of activity! I won’t bore you with all the details, but most of what I have been doing so far is meeting with our client and trying to get the project to move forward and also to set up our field office here in town. There are a million little things that need to get done, and my list doesn’t seem to be getting any shorter, just longer!