Job rewarding

A job rewarding – Juggling many countries – Where is the WC

No one knows what I do. I don't know what I do. How can I explain in 20 words or less, “I developed a capacity assessment tool for national level and field staff to develop skills in maternal and child health”? Ok, so I just explained it in 20 words but that was only 2 hours out of my day today.

What about the other 6ish hours in the day, 6ish days a week, and 51 months a year? I use my 20 days annual leave and if you don't use yours, your problem.

Because I can't give a run down of what I do all the time, I am going to make a list of what is in hand this week. My inbox regardless of deadlines and sorted by country:

Afghanistan – preparing my 7 day workshop on community mobilization to address health and social issues
Armenia – follow-up on their maternal and child health proposal and potential capacity building
Albania – assessment plan for a water and sanitation project, consultation on child growth monitoring
Bosnia – same as Armenia
Georgia (former Soviet Republic of, not my home town next-door neighbor) – virtual management of their health and HIV programing
Jerusalem – banging my head against the wall and my fists against the keyboard to “encourage” them to revise their proposal (see Armenia). This experience has provided further insight into the current relations in that part of the world.
Jordan – the love of my week, and a breath of fresh, dry, hot, dusty air. Reading their latest docs for a water assessment and seeing how to turn it into a proposal for AUSAID.
Lebanon – putting together their capacity building assessment and designing the health assessment for their Palestinian camps
Pakistan – keeping my head down and powder dry, but mostly providing resources on for their child survival proposal
Romania – not much this week and that is not a good thing. My comrades have gone AWOL. Apparently glasnost is dead and buried a Dell netbook.

A note – it is Tuesday night. 3 more days of possibilities. Will Kosovo call with a request? Will Uzbekistan awake from their coma? Answers to these questions and more on the next episode of...

My biggest complaint about this workload is that I am stuck in the office right now. For the past 6 months I have seen about 20 countries. Some great, some that Jesus would have told me to shake the dirt off of my sandals. It looks like I won't get back in the field for another month or so and I have to tell you, I ain't happy.