Am back in Cebu, about to go on holiday to visit some friends and family in Oz.
Crashed out at 9pm last night, and slept for 11 hours solid without moving, woke up in exactly the same position.
God I needed that!
Here’s what happened to my hair while I was sleeping though….
I’m not impressed with the direction my hair seems to be taking – so far it’s mostly vertical….
This gallery contains 45 photos.
Sunset over the UN Hub Some pics of community members clearing fallen coconut trees as part of a cash-for-work scheme, which will clear the land ready for crop planting, and also reclaim the good trunks that can be processed into … Continue reading
Well, so much going on around here!
I’m still pretty tired and grumpy at the moment, so not much has changed there.
Life in the UN hub is interesting….
Last weekend we got invited to a UN party, which I get VERY excited about (my first official aid worker party since I got here). Was all excited, and even borrowed some make-up from a colleague on the off-chance that there might be lots of young hot things there. Sadly I was extremely disappointed. We arrived at the “party” which was about 6 or 7 guys, plus a couple of girls, sitting around very quietly outside under a really bright fluorescent light. They were all middle-aged, mostly leathery Norweigians, plus a mildly sleazy frenchman attempting to be suave. Continue reading
This gallery contains 62 photos.
Pictures from my second trip to Guiuan, in Eastern Samar. Mostly just the bones and skeletons of the houses that are left standing. Sunset over the UN Hub Rather large and beautiful gecko… Rain… Skeletons of houses… Bit wet for … Continue reading
Monday 10th February
There are thankfully a very small number of you out there who know precisely how grumpy I can be when I’m tired. Lack of sleep does not make me a chirpy, happy bunny, and I have been known to just grunt at people when very tired, especially when I’m not yet fully awake in the morning.
So it is a great shame that since coming back to Eastern Samar, I have slept very badly every night for a wide variety of frustrating reasons, which is slowly wearing me down and making me feel grumpier and grumpier….
The last time I was here for the EMMA, there was a tropical depression passing through, so it was very wet and windy, but lovely and cool. My colleague and I both slept well, although the mosquitos were out in full force, and I had to put up my mozzie net over the bed. However this time round, when I returned for 2 and a half more weeks to support some cash programming, it’s hot as hell, and very, very humid and sticky.
Well I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t have plenty of ridiculous comedy moments while attempting to go about my business and appear somewhat professional along the way….
You can read the highlights of my comedy moments here, but since then there have been a few additional things that I thought you might all appreciate!
A couple of weeks ago I went to a meeting at the Department of Agriculture, where they were bringing in all 40 of the Municipal Agricultural Officers for a big meeting on rice seeds, fertilisers and discussing recovery plans for farmers. So there I am sitting at the table surrounded by important people, rooting around in my bag for a pen, and out flies a tampon and lands pointedly in the middle of the table. Rather awkward.
This gallery contains 58 photos.
Some photos and pics from my first trip to Eastern Samar for the EMMA. Mostly around Guiuan – a tiny peninsula poking out into the enormous pacific ocean…. Out and about at the Eastern Samar State University campus (ESSU), which … Continue reading
January 2014
FYI – those of you who are bored of me harping on about market systems should probably skip this post and go read the newspaper instead. 🙂
Towards the end of January I went to Eastern Samar for a week to help support (and get trained on) an EMMA. For those of you who are wondering, EMMA is not a woman, it is an Emergency Market Mapping and Analysis tool (you can find out more about the toolkit on the EMMA website).
With an EMMA, you select one critical commodity that you want to learn more about (could be soap, rice, wheat flour, chickens, taxis, etc) and map out the market chain, looking at supply chains, end users, and all of the other factors that influence that product getting from the manufacturer to the consumer.
Totally fascinating I know.
🙂
This gallery contains 29 photos.
January 2014 Some more photos from Tacloban – this time from my second trip back there after xmas… Not what one wants to see while sitting on the plane waiting to take off – 5 blokes looking extremely puzzled while … Continue reading
December 2013 – January 2014
Well, since the Great Rice Seed Race, (which Anneka Rice has so kindly helped me to document), I had a nice week of R n’ R over xmas and New Year. Christmas day was nice, if uneventful. I went out with a few colleagues to have a nice lunch somewhere, but most places were closed, so we ate at the mall. I found it weird how many people chose to spend Christmas day at the mall, but who am I to judge?
Then later on we went back to a friend’s apartment and gathered a few more colleagues together for wine and cheese and some party games. It all got quite drunken and raucous after I discovered most of them had never played “I have never….”
That’s when things started to go downhill rather fast! Boxing day was fairly hungover and quiet.
One photographer's journey...
Stuff I've seen, and places I've been...
Stuff I've seen, and places I've been...
Stuff I've seen, and places I've been...
Stuff I've seen, and places I've been...
Had we but world enough and time... 