Wrap-Up of April, May, June

Well it was a dry period for blogging apparently Apri, May and June. The short reason for this was work getting really crazy and busy. It became a little too stressful actually and I was happy to not be going to near the internet or having extra things to do on the computer so the blog fell by the wayside.

The month of June in particular was a nightmare. It was always meant to be a busy month for our program with most of our construction projects scheduled to end that month. Then our staff of four expatriots,which was already one less than it was supposed to me, dropped to just lonely old me as one person resigned early and two others got cuaght outside Indonesia by visa laws. In short the Indonesian government took a while to issue us visas and if you left the country during that time it was difficult to get back in. Anyway I quickly had to learn about the 2/3 of the program that I hadn't had anything to do with as I was now responsible for it all. I've officially been promoted to Deputy Program manager but have been the acting program manager and am likely to continue that role for the rest of the program now.

I am now on holiday in the USA and have a chance to look back. It wasn't at all pleasant for me working during this time as there were just too many demands on me. I learnt how stress affects a person! I did get great help from the management in the organization in Aceh and of course from Rachel. Also looking back I can see that the program has got over a major hurdle with the majority of the construction finished. We still have construction but it is a manageable level and we can now focus on teaching more soft skills about how to operate, adminster and maintain what we have built. For me personally I now know intimate details of just about all of the program across its very wide geographical area. There are some great people doing good things at the American Red Cross in Aceh and I am (sitting here with a bit of space) confident we can bring the program to a nice close and achieve our objectives. Seeing as it has become such a big part of life there I'll try to put a bit more about it in the blog over the coming months but for now that is probably enough.