Getting down to business

This week has been a bit of a whirlwind and it's only Wednesday morning. Monday started with a 3 hour conversation with Philippa from TIE which included myself, Binka (head of the Iracambi NGO), Imran and Janet. Little did they know they'd all be put in the hot-seat by Philippa regarding my project, their projects and even the future of Iracambi. During our discussion, we formalized my objectives and my deliverables and put together a schedule for the next four weeks.

The objective of my placement is to come up with a way to communicate the Iracambi Strong program and work with the team to get it up and running for 2016. The larger objective is to figure out how to communicate the different programs and aims of the NGO in a simple, direct way for the various people these programs will touch - the local community, the students, the researcher and the donors. As I'm writing this down, this seems like a pretty pursuit. But I'm going to try to start small and then see how far I can take it in the 4 weeks I'm here.

The last two days have been spent fact finding - contacting past students who were involved in the program, talking a lot with the group about their overall goals for the project and how it fits into the larger goals for the NGO, even going through finances.

Outside of this, I've also been lending my social media skills to help with a donation campaign that's happening today. Interesting note: scheduling Facebook posts and Tweets from where we are needs to be flexible, since the Wi-Fi is not always working too well. Our 9am Facebook post had to go out yesterday around 1pm since we couldn't actually get on Facebook.  Será o que será.

Also been working on a full website audit for Iracambi and working with the web master in Zimbabwe to start making some immediate updates. Also, trying not to forget to get up from my laptop to roam around and really experience this place and all it has to offer. Yesterday, we took a quick hike to see where the water we drink comes from.

And just a little bit about my new normal:

• Bugs are everywhere and there's nothing you can do about them. This is their home, not yours.
• Cats don't care that you're allergic to them, so just get over it
• Sometimes cold showers can actually warm you up
• Stream water beats out New York tap water
• Afternoon naps are not only acceptable, they are mandatory
• Brazilian wine is not the greatest - at least what we can get locally