Days 60 & 62: Seeing Noloholo Anew
One of the people I have known the longest at Fuqua is Kirsten, who is also in Tanzania for the summer. Not only is she a current COLE fellow, but she’s a fellow MEM/MBA, working on development questions, and one of the loveliest adventurers I know. Even better, she’s out here at Noloholo, visiting!
One of the first things she does, of course, is ask for work. I take her up on the offer immediately, and she gives me tons of great suggestions about the teamwork and leadership training that I’ll be helping Neo to run at APW. It’s so wonderful to bounce ideas off of her, for she has so much of the same training and principles as I do, but with an eye for detail and logistics that I often overlook. She fits right in already - running with Kelly and Andrew in the evening, birdwatching a little bit, and even building an employee time sheet for Buddy. It is so nice just sit at the kitchen table in the evening, catching up on each other’s lives. It’s a million times better than my usual activity of being holed up in my tent with my Kindle and headlamp.
Elvis got trained on the survey, and is off pretesting it now. I move on to my next project, hoping that all goes well with him.
And I track the days. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, thinking that the light is on. Only, it’s the moon. Hundreds of little Reichenow’s Serins crowd around the birdbaths, rising at the slightest disturbance in chirpy, thundering flocks. The breezes kick up dust, coating my hair and stuffing up my nose, filtering the sunshine. Every day, the whistle of a Maasai boy as he herds his cattle past Noloholo. I try to see it through Kirsten's eyes, and it all seems new again.
One of the first things she does, of course, is ask for work. I take her up on the offer immediately, and she gives me tons of great suggestions about the teamwork and leadership training that I’ll be helping Neo to run at APW. It’s so wonderful to bounce ideas off of her, for she has so much of the same training and principles as I do, but with an eye for detail and logistics that I often overlook. She fits right in already - running with Kelly and Andrew in the evening, birdwatching a little bit, and even building an employee time sheet for Buddy. It is so nice just sit at the kitchen table in the evening, catching up on each other’s lives. It’s a million times better than my usual activity of being holed up in my tent with my Kindle and headlamp.
Elvis got trained on the survey, and is off pretesting it now. I move on to my next project, hoping that all goes well with him.
And I track the days. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, thinking that the light is on. Only, it’s the moon. Hundreds of little Reichenow’s Serins crowd around the birdbaths, rising at the slightest disturbance in chirpy, thundering flocks. The breezes kick up dust, coating my hair and stuffing up my nose, filtering the sunshine. Every day, the whistle of a Maasai boy as he herds his cattle past Noloholo. I try to see it through Kirsten's eyes, and it all seems new again.