Back in Lilongwe

Doreen

After the fascinating visit to Zambia at the weekend, it's back to Lilongwe to press on with work on the Business Plan.

Doreen Chanje who has been working on the supply side of the document (she's an expert in food security and quality issues) returned for a review session.  She, Richard and I went out for lunch at the Sanctuary Lodge.  Doreen's section is just about completed now, so that's great.

Towards the end of the week, other members of the Business Plan team had to disappear off to a variety of parts of the world, so I'm more or less left in Lilongwe to get the draft into shape.  To help focus the mind, I've decided to go to the lake over the weekend for some peace and quiet, and settled on the Livingstonia Beach hotel, which I'd visited on my second day in Malawi.

Room at the Livingstonia Beach

Lawrence the driver took me over to Senga Bay, and I checked in to my very nice room, on 3 levels, with a door and patio situated right on the lake shore.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to fully enjoy the experience, partly because I was there to work (and spent the vast majority of my time on the computer), but also because being the middle of winter, it was just my luck that the weather took a turn for the worse - the wind got up and the lake got rough, to the extent that the noise of the waves breaking on the beach gave me something of a broken night's sleep.  I suspect that there aren't too many people reading this that feel too much sympathy, though.

View from my patio!

So I couldn't swim in the lake, and just kept my head down and worked.  But at least I managed to get the job done so I could send out the next draft Plan document on Monday.

The Big Project Is Starting...

After quite a few days of discussions with the client and with Eoghan Mackie, the Challenges Worldwide MD in Edinburgh, the big one is going ahead.  This is great news, because it's a significant and extremely worthwhile project with the potential to make a positive difference to the lives of a large number of Malawians in rural areas.

I've got to spend much of this weekend on some preparatory work, finalising the detailed project plan, before it kicks off for real in the coming week when the clients are visiting Blantyre, and I'll be meeting up with some of the project team in Lilongwe at the end of the week.  The current intention is that I'll relocate to Lilongwe from Monday 12 July, possibly for up to four weeks.

I'm going to be project managing the entire process, which involves multi-disciplinary and multinational teams including people from the client's operations, suppliers, my colleagues in Blantyre, and others, so I'll be relying heavily on my PRINCE2 project management skills.

I'm likely to be staying in the house that has been leased by Challenges Worldwide to accommodate volunteer lawyers who will be coming out to Malawi to work on a new justice programme, but there's space there at the moment, so it makes sense to use it.  I don't know at this stage whether I'll return to Blantyre each weekend - it's  4+ hours each way on the bus, and it will also depend on what I can do about having access to transport - I'm not particularly keen on being trapped in an albeit comfortable house for entire weekends.

We'll see what happens.

It must be the routine...

... as there hasn't been too much to report over the last few days.

I've met with a couple more potential clients, and today's prospect in particular looks promising.  I'm still waiting to find out if I'll be doing the sizeable project in Lilongwe during July - I really hope it comes off, but we're hanging on news from the bid team in Edinburgh.  I should know in the next couple of days.

I'm taking advantage of my time here to try and adjust my diet and weight, by eating breakfast (required for the malaria tablets), eating smaller meals, and ramping up my fruit intake.  So far all is well, with none of the negative side effects that one might expect from such a radical new regimen.  If I can return home a leaner Pryde, that will be a good thing.  Wish me luck.

I will be posting in due course about the food in Malawi, but my early impressions are that it can be very nice, but not overly healthy.  There's a tendency towards meat with rice or chips (quite often rice AND chips), and they don't go a bundle on veg.  But with a bit of careful dish selection, one can lean towards meals that at least nod in the direction of the healthier option.

I got a very nice Fathers' Day email from David, which perked me up enormously.  This week he's started his training programme at the new bar where he's going to be working over the summer, and I'm looking forward to hearing how he gets on.

The other good news is that the weather is looking good for the rest of the week, even though I took my umbrella in to work today, having been assured by Abraham that it would definitely rain.  I forgive him, though!