Time's Growing Short

Tuesday – August 17, 2004

My disengagement from the work at WHO grows. Casey had a few questions today, and she wasn’t happy when she discovered we sent money to Ethiopia for routine immunization activities. However, on her handover notes to me, nothing was mentioned about not giving another dime to Ethiopia. It appears the country is hording its money and not submitting receipts. That increases suspicion that the money is being used for other purposes, but I had no idea, and apparently neither did Robert. It’s most likely that Robert forgot though.

Otherwise, it was kind of a slow day of email and a long lunch. We all went to Sitar, the Indian restaurant near here, and had a good lunch. Even though we were the only ones in the place, the service was still incredibly slow. Still, the food was excellent, especially the mince meat with peas concoction. I tried to find some Amarula at the TM grocery at the shopping center, but they didn’t have any. I think I may have to go to that fancy Spar in the Fife Ave Shops downtown to get it. Their liquor collection was pretty large, so they should have Amarula. I simply must bring a bottle home because that stuff is good!

Tonight was the dinner with Paola. It wasn’t nearly as big of a deal as I had feared, especially when I knew it was just me. Apparently, she just wanted to cook me dinner because she thinks that I’m a cool guy. She made a steak dinner with some great sauce and broccoli. We then watched the Olympics for a while, cheering on Zimbabwe’s female swimmer who won her 2nd medal last night, a bronze, in the 200m medley. The paper here is all ga-ga over this girl, despite the fact she’s a blond haired, blue eyed white girl. I suppose going 24 years without a single Zimbabwean medal has made them not so picky. Still, it’s surprising to see Mugabe’s press hail a white girl as a national hero for winning in the Olympics. The 2nd exciting race we was the 4x200m medley relay race which the USA won by a fingertip. It was quite thrilling up to the end. Ian Thorpe (aka “The Thorpedo”) almost pulled out an Australian victory. That guy is an amazing swimmer, and I wish he was one of our guys!

After Eddie brought me home, I mostly relaxed. I could have packed more, but I didn’t need to rush things. I did transfer my Victoria Falls pictures from my laptop to the USB memory port that Casey has loaned me. That thing is awesome. It gives you all kinds of storage while being small and easy to use and transport. I must ask Leo to buy me one when I return. I think we have them in supply with the IT team. I can now use that USB storage device to transfer the pictures to the web tomorrow. I watched the women’s gymnastic competition where the US women won silver, being edged out by the Romanian team. I thought the judges were a little biased against the Americans with some of the scores, but overall, I think the Romanian team is deserving of its gold. I then read a little and went to sleep.