Hurray for Mother Africa!!

I begin this post on a highly jubilant note of Ghana’s 2-1 victory over the USA in the World Cup Football match…. What a poignant moment this is for me as I am currently sitting in the CIP Lounge of the Benazir Bhutto International Airport in Islamabad, waiting to board my plane for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia! Although I haven’t really been following this World Cup religiously, I am nonetheless ecstatic over this game in particular. Here’s to Africa! I suppose I can say “I Left My Heart in Africa”

It has certainly been some time since my last blog update. Time has flown so quickly and it has already been 2 months since I arrived in Pakistan. Much has happened in these last 2 months and I have been absolutely swamped with work. The process of getting acquainted with my program and all the minute details has certainly been quite challenging and I still have some ways to go before I become 100% familiar. I’ve had the joy of writing, editing and finalizing several proposals on a range of projects from women’s empowerment to youth development (encompassing education, health and human rights) to projects that focus on democracy and minority issues.

I was supposed to have visited our offices and programs in Afghanistan earlier this month, but was forced to postpone this trip indefinitely. A certain television station in Kabul ran some false news on air earlier this month and implicated the organization I work for along with another international NGO. This led to security threats being leveled at both organizations and we were temporarily forced to suspend our work in Afghanistan. We have filed formal complaints to the Afghan government through the Afghan NGO consortium and are currently waiting to formal results of the investigations to be released. This incident is a classic case of irresponsible journalism as the media outlet in question manufactured false news and implicated innocent groups and subsequently placed the lives of many in grave danger. The station director himself admitted in an interview with the New York Times that they had no proof and just randomly picked our names from the phone book. As of this date, we are still in the wait-and-see mode on whether we can resume our operations.

Moving along to the present day, I am en route to Ethiopia for a training/workshop/meeting on Reproductive Health. This workshop/training/meeting is also supposed to help build our capacity to respond to European funding opportunities. Of course, this essentially means that I am going to have a lot more work on my hands when I get back to the office.  However, I am excited about this opportunity and am looking forward to learning more on issues surrounding reproductive health and having my capacity to respond to European funding opportunities, notably EU funding calls expanded.

Much as I love travelling, it would seem that travelling always comes with some sort of drama with me. If you recall my second blog post, where I was heading for a field visit in Sindh and encountered a rather nerve-wrecking experience getting onto that flight. Well this time around, the drama came in a different for. I was initially scheduled to fly out to Addis on Monday, 28 June 2010. However, on Friday evening, just as I was about to leave the office at 6:30 p.m., I receive an email from the workshop organizer saying that Ethiopian Airlines had cancelled the last leg of my outbound flight from Dubai (DXB) to Addis (ADD). Of course, the rest of that evening was spent juggling phone calls and emails reviewing alternate options for my travel. Thankfully, they were able to get me on another flight on Emirates all the way from Islamabad (ISB) to Addis via DXB. Unfortunately, I had to leave 1 ½ days earlier on early Sunday morning at 3:40 am. This of course means that I effectively needed to leave my place late Saturday evening, which was what I did and ultimately find myself here at the airport, typing my blog entry. The silver lining in this entire episode was my eventual discovery that my outbound flight was booked on Business & First Class! It’s nice to have access to the business class lounges and not having to fork out extra $$$ for it. Of course, my return flight will force me back to Sardine class (also known as Economy). Alas, I’m going to try to be grateful for little blessings and not get too demanding… I am ultimately excited to be setting foot on African soil once again and am eagerly looking forward to it. As I said in the beginning of this post, I’ve certainly left my heart in Africa and it’s wonderful to be going back again!

On that note, I bid you adieu for now and hope to write more soon. Cheers!