19/10/11

Yesterday I called Barclays bank to find out if the names on the REDES account had been changed yet or not. I gave the guy our bank account number and asked him to read the names on the account to me. He read me my name and the names of the other two financial directors from my group, meaning that the name-change hadn’t been processed yet. No surprise, nothing happens too quickly here. Then he read a fourth name of a girl—and I have no idea who she is! One of the joys of an organization like REDES where leadership turns over annually and there is no institutional memory!
Today was a holiday, as it marked the 25th anniversary of Samora Machel’s death (he was the first president of the Republic of Mozambique and this year is Samora Machel year). It’s the fourth consecutive week that we have had a holiday and about two weeks ago it stopped being a nice break and started being very disruptive to everyone’s schedules. We went down to the lagoon for Jasmin’s first time and took three of Ann’s REDES girls with us. We had tried to do this twice before but had gotten rained out both times. The weather today wasn’t fantastic, but we were able to spend the day at the water and the girls had a great time.