Friday Update!

What a long day Friday was. The representative for the Stephen Lewis foundation eventually turned up at 9.30 am and the whole office effectively just stopped working the entire day. I was asked to be in most of the meetings but in true British style I kept thinking shouldn’t someone be doing some work!! But when in Zambia!

This is a photo of Jedone, Vivian and me at the presentation.  Don't I look enthralled.  But give me a break I had help rewrite it, put it on to PowerPoint, animated it, proof read it and then went through a trial run with Gideon.  Not exactly new to me.  Although I think Gideon did a very good job of presenting.

Although Jedone, Vivian and Gideon do look a bit more animated in these ones!

It was quite late in the day before she spoke to Vivian and I about the finances and in true auditor type style when she was challenging us about the systems in place she pulled out the one large cash withdrawal that Vivian and I still haven’t matched all the payments to. We do know that some of it was used for the car hire for meeting me at the airport, some was used for customs, some for fuel, some for office bills, some for staff salary advances some for........well, who knows!! You have to pay for a lot of things in cash over here and you don’t always get given receipts which does make things a tad difficult in terms of audit trails!! Anyway had to try and flip that one around and discuss how we were going to improve our controls in that area. Think we might have got off with it!!! She seemed quite sympathetic about the difficulties and was particularly shocked to learn that they didn’t always have enough money to pay the staff their salaries! It’s a whole different world out here!


I have never been in that type of meeting so difficult to say how it went. Fingers crossed they get their funding. They need it! It was quite amusing when she went to leave as it had yet again been chucking it down and we were flooded again. So Gideon had to get the car right up to the door to try and get her out of the office, the poor girl nearly slipped while trying to step over in to the car. Not sure what her ending up soaked in mucky water would have done for the funding proposal!!

Unfortunately it also meant that as Gideon drove her back to the hotel we were all trapped in the office. Needless to say it resulted in Vivian and I having to postpone our trip to Lusaka until Saturday morning. At the time I couldn’t understand why we just didn’t get the bus down and arrive late at night. But now having experienced the bus service I do.......!!!

So it was back to Jedone’s and as they had no food for me I had to go shop for my dinner first and then cook for the family again - on the two little rings. Fortunately we actually made it through a full night with power!!  Not sure this is what I bargained for when I said I would go for homestay though. Not really the mothering sort am I!!!