I've had a pretty good week this week. Work-wise, it could have been better -- my main counterpart (Abelson) was in Vila for work and both he and Sylveste (the Red Cross Officer) haven't gotten their work schedules finalized. We did do a pretty good presentation in Port Tintir on Tuesday with some pretty horrible technical difficulties, but it all ended well. I counted about 45 people there, which is really pretty great. We opened with disaster (flood, cyclone, earthquake), then Sylveste did climate change, and I gave a WASH-related health tok. That's when things started to go downhill ... the generator died and it took a really long time to start it back up again. And my laptop can't connect to the projector so we were using Abelson's, but his laptop really needs to go into the shop. NDMO says they're going to send a laptop and some other supplies soon, and I really hope they mean it, because what we've currently got is not adequate to do our work. My estimate of what we need as a bare minimum: one laptop, an internet connection of some kind that they pay for, and phone credit. All of these are supplies that have been available in the past and disappeared when the office went through a really rough patch last year. But fingers crossed they'll give the necessary work supplies soon.
Socially, pretty good week, too. Very expat-heavy, though--didn't make it out to Tautu this week or anything. I had kava with Mollie (from Oz) and Sam (a PCV) on Monday at this really nice nakamal just on the water in Norsup. They don't have good wasemaot but you're facing Norsup Island and sitting right over the ocean -- gorgeous. Tuesday was in Port Tintir. Wednesday, had kava with Sam and it was Kazu (man Japan)'s good-bye dinner. Thursday, felt bored in my house so went to go drink kava by myself for the first time ever. It was great--I'd been worried it would be weird and awkward, but I had a nice conversation with a couple of bus drivers and two young guys from Litzlitz. I think the secret is that if I want to go by myself, 5-6 or 6:30 PM is cool, but must be home before dark, whereas in a group you can go whenever. Especially since I just want to drink kava and get to know some more people but don't want to make a big deal out of anything. Yesterday I came out to Rensarie to visit Michael and get my report done. We went to go drink kava in Taremb, but there wasn't really much, so we tried another one, no kat, then jumped in a truck to Unua II and got some there. Came back, cooked sweet potato, tried to watch Cloud Atlas (great book, nice movie, LONG AS HELL) and fell asleep. This is pretty much the story of my life.
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