An Executive Decision

You know how some people put faraway tropical islands on their desktops as, like, an uplifting image amidst the oppressive drudgery of work-a-day living?

Well, what with all the recent travel, I was feeling kind of homesick so I put "my" beach on my desktop to help ground me.



Shortly thereafter I decided to abandon my unfinished grant proposal and go back to Tongoa as scheduled tomorrow.

I mean, I waited six months for my village to do their part, surely everyone can wait six weeks until I come back into town again...right?

Twenty months into this thing and I'm only just learning the joys of island time.

Besides, this is Vanuatu, where the Holiday Season starts in November and lasts until the beginning of February. How much work would you want to do in 32 degree weather?

That being said, all proclamations of intended travel by yours truly are to be swiftly ignored by you, the wizened reader, since as I type an ominous cloud begins to threaten the last few weeks of pristinely perfect sunshine.

I very well may be rained out until 2009.

Home Sweet Home

Well...close enough, anyway.

I am allegedly returning to the island on Wednesday, for about six weeks this time around...although when I stopped by the office to check mail on the way home from the airport, I discovered that the Aid Post Committee in the village finally completed 'their end' of a major grant application, just when I had all but given up hope considering I had been waiting(semi-)patiently for the last SIX MONTHS.

So I might not get out of here as earlier as I'd like.

But being stuck in Vila because you actually have real work to do for a real project (especially one you have been working on for, say, a year and a half or so and had pretty much resigned yourself to the knowledge it would not be finished by your departure on, oh, say...June 18 or so) is way better than being stuck in Vila because ...oh, say, it's raining, for example.

At least, I think it is. I'll keep you posted.

Details of my around-the-world tour to come (after this grant is in).