Dec 2005 - Work? Too many public holidays for that..
Work? Too many holidays for that…
I presented my paper at the National Environment Forum and it seemed to go ok. I was so nervous and a bit concerned about whether I would inadvertently be culturally inappropriate, but those who were there told me it was good, including the head of the Environment Ministry, so I guess they can’t all be lying. The PeaceCorp manager even wants me to come and speak to the new recruits about village meetings. Not sure I’ll be rushing to do that sort of thing again though! I needed a day off to recover. And just to keep up the random public holiday tradition – we had a day off for Arbour Day the next day as part of Environment Week. A day off to go and plant trees! We also have the entire week off between Christmas and New Year plus some extra days off after New Years to celebrate the Head of State’s Bday! So far these holidays have entailed visiting uninhabited islands, mountain getaways with spectacular views of Apia, a cave pool underneath a church and swimming in waterfalls.
Otherwise work has been cruising along. There was another lot of village meeting consultations, this time on the south side of the island at the popular tourist beach area of Aleipata (incl Lolumanu). This meant several very early starts to get to that side of the island by 8am. But well worth it as the meetings went well and the food was great! The main frustration was having debrief meetings at one of the resorts and staring out at the sand and sea not being able to go and jump in. In other work, we are now finalising the advertising signage policy and going out to consult on that soon, the housing guidelines are being translated into Samoan, the parking policy is currently out for consultation and we will soon be starting work on the UNDP funded project to prepare a Sustainable Management Plan for an industrial area of town –kinda like a planning scheme. But December is a time to wind down and not a whole lot of work is going to get done… when in Rome.
posted by N-Lo @ 3:53 pm
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