Return to Zimbabwe II

Thursday - November 17, 2005

Today went pretty well. Julie Jenks called me at 6:30am to see if I wanted to go get breakfast, so that served as my wake-up call. I passed on breakfast, as I've taken to just having coffee in my room while I dress, watch CNN International, and read through the "newspaper". The van came to pick us up on time, and we got into work. I fixed Julie's computer she could immediately get on the internet. I then pretty much spent the day catching up on my email,uploading my journals, etc. That's what happens when you spend half a week without any connectivity at all! Luckily, I think I'm mostly done with what I needed to do here. I probably could have worked on this from Atlanta, truth to be told. I am also pretty sure that I'm not doing these allotment reports right, but oh well. I leave on Wednesday! Julie will just have to figure it out.

Just as the day started coming to a close, storm clouds rolled in. As we waited for the vans to take us back to the hotel, it rained a bit, and thundered. Starting around 6pm, though, the storms commenced. Pretty powerful storms too. The lightning was ferocious, but awesome to see. Yinka arranged to pick me up at 7:15pm for the Korean dinner night. I napped a bit until then.

The dinner was pretty good! No dog was served, which I actually had been a bit concerned about. There was a couple from the Japanese embassy, Kim the Canadian and her Zim boyfriend, Thomas the Norweigan and his wife, and Matthew the American and his wife Diana. Matthew had an interesting accent, and I couldn't place it until I asked where he grew up. He hails from Milwaukee, WI it turns out, which is where I'd heard that accent before. He didn't know Uncle Marc from UW, but it was neat to meet someone from a place I know pretty well. He was also kinda cute in a bookish way. He and Diana have been together 11 yrs, but only recently married, b/c when he joined the foreign service, it was easier to get her here if they were married. But Diana keeps her own name and they don't wear wedding rings. And they say gays are a threat to "traditional marriage" :)

We had some excellent dishes, and my favorite was the honey garlic chicken! Very yummy. We also had wine with dinner. By the time we finished, and I got back to the hotel, it was just after 10pm. I took a bath, and then watched TV. Unfortunatley for me, I got hooked into this movie about managed care and a KY woman who fought against it. I didn't get to sleep until after 1:30am. Good thing that WHO closes early on Fridays :)