Job Update - Good News

I have been volunteering at CARE for nearly two months now. The work has been quite enjoyable. I’ve got to help them organizing some engineering projects they have been doing and also helping them to manage their local engineering staff well. The projects are based in rural villages and are typically things like small diameter pipe systems to bring water to houses and/or toilets be they communal or for individual houses. I’ve really enjoyed working with the people who are there. The local staff are very nice, there are some great skilled people from other parts of Indonesia and a very interesting group of expatriots.

The expatriot people include two men from Bangladesh, two men from Nepal, an English lady, a French man, a Georgian man and a man from Palestine. A very interesting crowd indeed. Many of them have been working for CARE for many years in different parts of the world. We have interesting talks at lunch-time about the different parts of the world that people come from.

I have been doing another little thing on the side as well. I was approached through an old contact at MWH by some people who are trying to start up a business based on reverse osmosis treatment of sea water for making drinking water. They are entrepreneurs who think that they have found a man who has patents for a new revolutionary way of using RO membranes which will make the whole process much cheaper and simpler. They are looking for technical expertise to help them to understand the technology the man has while they go through the process of buying them out. My review has shown that they don’t have a great deal of evidence but there may be some possibility that they have something worth a lot. It has been interesting to review things for this complex technology at the same time as helping with the simple toilets with CARE.

Finally, the reason I’ve just been volunteering with CARE despite the fact they have offered me a three month contract was that I have been holding out to see whether I was selected by the American Red Cross for one of the two positions that they were advertising. The Red Cross were hoping to hire at the start of December but things slipped past. During the month there were a variety of plans that were considered and then abandoned. However leading into Christmas I had two interview in a row with them and I have been offered a position as project manager for their water and sanitation projects around the city of Banda Aceh. The project is worth several millions of dollars and I am very pleased with the position. I start on January the 5th and am excited to get into it. I am also excited to see what the contract with them will include, typically there is a housing allowance which we hope to use to improve conditions in and around our little house.

Probably after I start with the Red Cross there will not be much time left for playing around with the RO stuff.