the next three weeks

I think it's a universal phenomenon, that when the clock starts winding down, things both accelerate and slow down. They slow down because everyone is fixated - that final shot heading toward the basket, and that one moment can make or break the whole thing. I guess that's the last moment, when the clock is hitting zero. But back up to the final 10%, the final two minutes, or for me, the final three weeks, and things certainly pick up. In football you have the two-minute drill - no huddles, everyone rushing to the line. The team gets 10 plays off in the same time they got 3 off in the 1st quarter. In basketball, the full court press comes on, and either team is scoring every 10 seconds. And when shipping a product the whole business is a buzz as the deadline gets closer.

That's where I am right now. Everything is buzzing as I'm tying ALL the loose ends together in my last three weeks. And it still amazes me that we're starting new things. But today I'm interviewing a fellow that will be taking over my work - first on the farm, then with the research. Between the transition, the research, and all the logistics to tie up, I'll be the busiest I've been right up to the end.

I've always told myself I just needed an opportunity or a challenge to bring out my best, and this whole experience has been something like that, but these last three weeks seem like a gauntlet for me to take up. So here's to the challenge and the next three weeks.

the next adventure

It's been a terribly long time since I've last posted. So long, my time as an expat has dwindled down to four weeks and change. These last four weeks serve to be my busiest and most fruitful yet. Certainly not the hardest - I've had my hardest weeks, I'm glad they're behind me, and I got through them with the support and encouragement of everyone reading this blog. But the busiest? Definitely. Already in the last five days, I've been downtown to Kampala for four of them, I've bought furniture and moved into a new house, I've researched the maize market, sold more pigs after re-negotiating a supply deal, and taken care of A LOT of Kyklou business. When my four weeks and change are finished, I'll have settled Kyklou into their new home, bought a car, registered as an NGO, stabilized and transferred the farm to someone else, and developed an approach to tackle a small problem in Uganda - the maize value chain.

That will be my legacy, what I've accomplished here, what will go on my resume and what my successors will thank me for (I'm certain of this, our new house will be awesome, but not finished until my last day here). But what I'll tell people back home, the stories I'll share with my friends and family, all of you reading this, are the little struggles and joys and failures and successes that make up the inch by inch terrain of my time in Uganda - not the massive valley we were in and the hill we've climbed, but the rocks and pebbles along the way, the ones that got stuck in my shoe and made my life miserable, and the ones I could climb on top of, sit and watch the sunrise.

Each and every email from one of you is one of those little moments of joy, each comment, every time I see the stats tick up with one more viewer. I'm more thankful than I can say for all the prayers I never heard about, and the ones I did.

It seems like the end, but really it's simply the beginning of the end. We're focusing on knowledge transfer and turnover, creating deliverables and tying up loose ends. Each week is so busy it flies by like a day, only when I look back have we done so much more than 24 hours would allow. I'm beginning to prepare for my life back home, more mentally and emotionally than actual plans, even though I'm doing that as well. I'll come home changed, this many new experiences guarantees that. I'm working in these last four weeks to make that change count and to make it stick.

I think, from all the support I've had on this adventure, the next won't be too hard. So here's to the next adventure.

employees #2 and #3

If you ever need to kickstart your day and bring back a bucketload of lost motivation, a nap and a shower will do it. You trick your body that it's a new day, you feel great, when you eat dinner it feels like breakfast, and you can work all night. Every office needs to offer a nap/shower to sleepy employees.

The big news is that in 10 days the first of Kyklou's new employees will be here, and the second by the end of May! I'll have company and help, and it really will begin the end of my time here, as we'll be doing a lot of knowledge transfer and they'll be slowly taking over my duties.

There's a lot of change in the air - I'm looking for a house to rent, Kyklou's first HQ and the home of the team that's coming over here to replace me. We're applying to be an official NGO in Uganda, and setting up a partnership with the university here to train students.

And things are improving - we just had a pig give birth to 10 piglets - which is phenomenal. So things seem to be looking up. I have busy days, but not busy putting out fires, just busy because things are changing and we have five things going at once. In other words, a good kind of busy. And at first things will be busy but much better with my two new compatriots, then they'll wind down for me until I'm on that plane home. So here's to employees #2 and #3.