back to the working world

a week and a half into working at least 10 hours a day and i am reminded of how tiring working can be.  this past thursday, i just came home and flopped on to the couch at the end of the day before peeling myself off and heading out to the pool for a beer with some compoundmates.

but in this short period of time, i have already had some rather interesting experiences, including:

• government meetings that open with prayers and close with benedictions (and who ask for volunteers to lead these things, where i ducked my head and avoided eye contact).
• people repeating the phrase 'we must spread the message to avoid the dangers of human trafficking,' which is just wrong.  and not going to be effective in achieving anything.
• my new colleagues brought in warm tarts and gave me a gift wrapped go mug on my birthday, neither of which i was expecting and was a lovely surprise.
• a meeting where someone used latin to prove their point.  then they had to translate the phrase so the rest of the people understood.  lame.
• working in an office building that sometimes has running water and sometimes does not.
• a few peanut butter and jam sandwiches for lunch and the idea that if someone started a sandwich delivery service, they would have a market completely untapped.
• there have been no less than 4 reports on the state of orphanages in liberia done in the last few years.  they all say the same thing: illegal international adoptions, majority of children in orphanages have living parents or relatives, substandard conditions, many are unlicensed and unregulated, some reports of child labour.  so don't go volunteer in one, please.
• i have lots of ideas on what could be done by the agency i am working for and i just hope that at least one of them can be implemented, we shall see