All Play and No Work

I’ve received some feedback from my faithful readers that it sounds like all Johannes and I do is go on fun weekend trips, stay in extravagant lodges, and chase exotic animals. While this is partially true, I swear to all of you that we are also working hard during the week to pay for our adventures. Therefore, this post is dedicated to describing what we’re doing for a living while in Rwanda. For those of you who think this sounds a bit boring, tune in again next week when we’ll be back to our regularly-scheduled programming and monkey pics! ; )

Let’s start with Johannes, because of course, his job is the reason we are here in Rwanda! A coordination group exists for bilateral and multilateral donors who give direct budget support to the Rwandan government. The organizations take turns co-chairing the group (together with the government), and currently, for these six months, the World Bank is the co-chair. Thus, Johannes’ job at the moment revolves around leading this donor coordination group, including managing a large event with the Ministry of Finance a couple weeks ago. He is also currently evaluating the progress on the World Bank's country program in Rwanda and works with a couple of his colleagues on managing their projects. Let's just say he is pretty busy!

Johannes and Peace, one of his favorite Rwandan colleagues

For my part, I’ve been keeping busy with a few different consulting assignments. During my first two weeks in Rwanda, I wrote a mid-term review for a World Bank project – the Rural Sector Support Project (RSSP) – at the Ministry of Agriculture (MINAGRI). The most shocking realization for me was that the government employees here work very long hours – often from 7 am ‘til 7 pm. As most of you know, I’m not a morning person, so arriving at 8:30 am was usually the best I could do! ; )  Often I had the opportunity to join the team for a carb-heavy lunch, and I really enjoyed seeing everyone joke around and laugh together. The research was also fascinating to me, and I learned a lot about rehabilitating marshlands for rice production and developing hillsides to increase crop production and prevent soil erosion.

Ginger outside of the RSSP office

Since then, I’ve been a fixture around the USAID-funded Rwanda Justice Strengthening Project (JSP), which is part of the MCC Threshold Program. The project is implemented by Chemonics– my former employer from 2004-2008. I’m enjoying doing project management work again and feel especially lucky to have landed with such a great team. I work most closely with Sam, our finance and accounting director, who has a great sense of humor and faithfully teaches me new words in Kinyarwanda. I’ve also had the opportunity to bond with the staff at regular group exercise activities, including aerobics classes and power walks through hilly Kigali.

Ginger and Sam in front of the JSP office

In addition, I’m contributing to some of Chemonics’ new business efforts within Rwanda by performing research, conducting meetings, and recruiting local staff. This work is top-secret, so you’ll have to ask me about it offline sometime! ; )  And finally, I’m doing some volunteer work with Nest, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization that gives microloans to women artisan cooperatives and helps them identify markets for their handicrafts. Our local facilitator, Specioza, coordinates the artisans to make beautiful products – everything from jewelry to baskets – using traditional techniques and patterns.