Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Just another week

Well, it's been more than our usual 2 weeks since we updated the blog. tut-tut!

That's what happens when you get busy. -not that it's been all work -the social calendar has had a hammering too. But all in all it's been a busy month.

All in all,once you've been anywhere for over 6 months doing whatever, it's almost like --another day -work, sleep eat etc. But we do get to do this -- AND play in one of the loveliest settings, and amongst the lovliest people.


I started back at school - teaching year 13 statistics (hate that! -and a HUGE class of 35 students which makes for a LOT of marking when you set assignments etc). I also have a year 12 - that I like- because it's an easy roll, I don't have to put too much preparation, there's not so much pressure and we can have a bit of fun - AND the class is relatively small (25).

My VET project is ticking along -agonisingly slowly, but progressing nevertheless. I've scourged a few writers backs, used the cattle prod, done lots of begging and pleading and generally boosted egos to get the product coming. And still more to go.

However, on the ego-tripping side I scored a major coup recently. Using my former Royal Life Saving Society contacts I got them to fund a trainer to fly over here and set up a train the trainer network amongst schools and teachers and NGOs (that work with young people) -all at RLSSA's expense. All I have to do is organise this end and come up with a few bucks from the Ministry to fund the room hire and catering etc. Hopefully this will happen by the end of June.

As I type, it's raining -again- And while I know you would probably kill for a few inches of same, it's getting to be really tiresome over here. Haven't been able to get to the beach for weeks. My suntan has faded back to an Aussie winter hue! The rain here varies from drip drip to absolute bucketing for hours on end. Never mind the pipeline from Far North Qld to the Murray Darling -- a pipeline from here would be enough for the whole east coast!

Last fortnight (14-15th Feb) Cheryl and I celebrated my 56th Birthday -with a few friends at a French Restaurant here. A few of us had birthdays around the same time so there were about 20 of us. Great night. And it was also -to the hour - Cheryl and my 20th anniversary of meeting -at Penrith tennis club. SO many years -and still just a moment ago. We had a lovely night.

Cheryl too has been busy. They had 51 challengers come back from the islands mid February. This requires a de-briefing, full reporting and closure process over a week. Big busy time. Then at the end of this, the Program Director and Cheryl had to prepare for a major conference the PD was attending in Sydney. The whole Youth Challenge organisation was getting together in Sydney for 4 days. Reports, presentations, financial presentations, etc all required in the short space of time between finishing the closure process and the PD taking off to Sydney.

And we've begun a mission to try and set up a Youth Leadership Centre (we're calling it the Vanuatu Youth Training And Leadership Centre (VYTAL Centre) and at the same time find YCIV new premises. Their current space is about 45 sq m for a staff of 6, with up to 50 others coming in and out writing reports, getting training in IT, Life Skills, Job Seeking etc etc. SO>>>> if anyone over there knows a wealthy sponsor who would be willing to become a partner with YCIV in setting up a Youth Leadership Centre for Vanuatu, we'd love to hear about them.

You may also have heard that there was a State Of Emergency declared over here last night (Sunday 4th March). However, this is all a tiny corner of Vila -some distance from us. -And it's an inter-island faction dispute that isn't spilling over into the general community and is being well contained by the local constabulary and armed forces. We drove through the affected area this morning (on our way home from an overnight stay out of town) -and it seemed very settled. All here is quiet, peaceful and safe. And apart from that, the constant rain has a remarkable dampening effect on street gatherings - Ni-Vanuatu people just don't like getting drenched all the time and this really cuts down on the numbers willing to gather in groups! It's a bit like the Redfern riots -didn't affect many people at all outside of Redfern!

OK,
that's all for now. See you soon!
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