(no subject)
The rest of the week is just work, starting Sunday (late) afternoon. I seem to be working okay through most of the days, with only the occasional tiredness spell where I hit a wall (figuratively speaking, I’m not actually walking into buildings) and just can’t seem to keep my eyes open. I try to get enough sleep, but it seems I’m burning the reserves I’m regaining as I go along.
The assessment team - Hideaki, Caroline, Heba, YT, Bjarne, Kevin
And again - with SI’s Prime Minister, his Excellency Derek Sikua.
But we’ve got something to show for it. Namely, a 146 page report. How much impact on the real world this report (or, more likely, its Executive Summary) can or will have remains to be seen.
We’ve made good time, though. We can leave a day early. This means flying to Fiji on Friday, staying there for a night (because there’s no flight leaving Fiji that evening) and leaving on Saturday *evening* on the flight for LA. Which gets there, twelve hours later, Saturday at *noon* (hello, date line, nice to see you again). And then there’s a flight Saturday evening to DC, which will get me there at 6:30 in the morning on Sunday.
I could have taken an earlier flight from LA to DC, but that would have been on a different carrier and would have cost nearly 400 USD (I have a non-refundable ticket, because the World Bank insists on choosing the lowest cost airfares). Of course I’m still flying a day early, though on the same carrier, which incurs a 150 USD change fee - but that’s a little less than the hotel night I would have had to pay for in the Solomon Islands.
So the fact that there’s no flight going from the Solomon Islands to Fiji on Saturday, and no flight from Fiji to LA on Friday, means that either one can leave Honiara on Sunday, fly to Fiji and change planes to LA, or leave Honiara Friday and stay on Fiji until Saturday.
I find the latter option a lot more palatable - it’s time for a change of scenery, so I’m good to go. It gets me home a day earlier, too - yes! It throws in a day on Fiji in the bargain *and* saves the World Bank money. Sometimes the universe seems to get it right.
As though to underline this, the evening on which we manage to confirm all this (and manage to put our draft together) has a cocktail reception at a different hotel, which is quite nice. We have drinks and talk to some of the major players in the anti-corruption/anti-money-laundering drive in the Solomon Islands. They show some local dances while I talk to a few people outside. Warned by one local employee who clearly has a wide head start on the bar, I alternate between beer (SolBrew, the local product we all agree is quite nice) and lemonade.
Halfway through the evening I notice a pool table in a side room and soon enjoy a game against someone I take to be from the Ministry of Justice (though I could be wrong, I only recognize her colleague, with whom she was playing earlier). It’s a close game, but I scratch on the eight-ball while in the lead. After that, it is decided that “Justice” (that is, the Minster of) and another lady working there will play against Kevin and me. I manage a pretty clean break (even sink a ball on it) and we get off to what for my pitiful level of playing is a pretty good start. We wonder afterwards if it was politically astute to beat the Minister of Justice at pool at his own table - but everybody seems to have enjoyed it a lot. We get back to the hotel a little after ten - we still have a report to present the next day.
Which we do. And then it’s off to Fiji.
The assessment team - Hideaki, Caroline, Heba, YT, Bjarne, Kevin
And again - with SI’s Prime Minister, his Excellency Derek Sikua.
But we’ve got something to show for it. Namely, a 146 page report. How much impact on the real world this report (or, more likely, its Executive Summary) can or will have remains to be seen.
We’ve made good time, though. We can leave a day early. This means flying to Fiji on Friday, staying there for a night (because there’s no flight leaving Fiji that evening) and leaving on Saturday *evening* on the flight for LA. Which gets there, twelve hours later, Saturday at *noon* (hello, date line, nice to see you again). And then there’s a flight Saturday evening to DC, which will get me there at 6:30 in the morning on Sunday.
I could have taken an earlier flight from LA to DC, but that would have been on a different carrier and would have cost nearly 400 USD (I have a non-refundable ticket, because the World Bank insists on choosing the lowest cost airfares). Of course I’m still flying a day early, though on the same carrier, which incurs a 150 USD change fee - but that’s a little less than the hotel night I would have had to pay for in the Solomon Islands.
So the fact that there’s no flight going from the Solomon Islands to Fiji on Saturday, and no flight from Fiji to LA on Friday, means that either one can leave Honiara on Sunday, fly to Fiji and change planes to LA, or leave Honiara Friday and stay on Fiji until Saturday.
I find the latter option a lot more palatable - it’s time for a change of scenery, so I’m good to go. It gets me home a day earlier, too - yes! It throws in a day on Fiji in the bargain *and* saves the World Bank money. Sometimes the universe seems to get it right.
As though to underline this, the evening on which we manage to confirm all this (and manage to put our draft together) has a cocktail reception at a different hotel, which is quite nice. We have drinks and talk to some of the major players in the anti-corruption/anti-money-laundering drive in the Solomon Islands. They show some local dances while I talk to a few people outside. Warned by one local employee who clearly has a wide head start on the bar, I alternate between beer (SolBrew, the local product we all agree is quite nice) and lemonade.
Halfway through the evening I notice a pool table in a side room and soon enjoy a game against someone I take to be from the Ministry of Justice (though I could be wrong, I only recognize her colleague, with whom she was playing earlier). It’s a close game, but I scratch on the eight-ball while in the lead. After that, it is decided that “Justice” (that is, the Minster of) and another lady working there will play against Kevin and me. I manage a pretty clean break (even sink a ball on it) and we get off to what for my pitiful level of playing is a pretty good start. We wonder afterwards if it was politically astute to beat the Minister of Justice at pool at his own table - but everybody seems to have enjoyed it a lot. We get back to the hotel a little after ten - we still have a report to present the next day.
Which we do. And then it’s off to Fiji.