Sweet Africa always knows when to bring a gift

There's this off the wall Liberian man who goes by Sweet Africa and comes by the house every so often. He makes stuff out of cornhusks, and I recently bought a pair of his shoes that are quite cozy. They're blue and green too. Anyway, he was very excited to see me wearing the shoes today. He's been known to give presents to volunteers at various times too. Anyway, he's a very nice man and a former English teacher that makes for good breakfast company, even though I'm always the last person out of bed.

Progress on the tribal leaders front is good. We just hired a project manager today that I already know and like a whole lot. He's a builder by trade and reminds me a lot of my grandfather. We had a discussion once about how building peace is a lot like building a house, and how here at camp we're just working on the foundation. :) This man is also a peace cell leader, but was excited about the extra responsibility.

The administration front is more bleak. PCO is mired in an antiquated bureaucracy that really makes getting things done difficult and results in a lot of wasted paper. For instance, my first task yesterday was for Emmanuel to tell me to tell the secretary to tell the project managers to do something. Today I was given the organization's first quarter 2006 report to prepare for publication/distribution (second quarter is coming soon), but the report had no real accounting of goals and accomplishments and contained virtually no financial data. We need to have a serious discussion about this stuff if they want to pursue grant funding.

Lesson 1: you must have a budget.
Lesson 2: this budget should be divided by project.
Lesson 3: you must account for every dime earned and spent.
Lesson 4: your budget must be guided by your organizations goals, objectives, and maybe even a strategic plan.

Also, a staff member invited only the female volunteers to a weekend at the beach with just him. Totally not acceptable.

Anyway, I'm looking for a peaceful place to spend my weekend. I'm told about a nice botanical park not too far away. Let's see how that goes.

Peace. L2E.