Diphaphata OR Dipapata...spelling...not too sure.

Oh man! Been a big week here!

Have two Arabic exams this week. One a few days ago on Sunday and another one tomorrow (Thurs). My class got a day behind schedule a few weeks ago so our normal Thursday exams got moved to Sundays but now my professors want to move it back to Thursdays, so we're making that happen this week. No biggie, except being someone hat works pretty much full time as well as school, it was nice having the weekend to study to the test rather than have to study even harder during the week after work for the exam...but oh well. It is what it is.

(which has apparently become my new motto as I find myself saying it all the time.) It is what is is!

Anyways, so Arabic is good, but hard and demanding...but still pretty good. Still doing one chapter a week, which is still great. Work as I mentioned before has been amped up insanely. So, Sunday I finished my test early so, got to work early at 1030am and was there til about 5pm, doing prep and last minute finishes for the Regional Director Meeting on Monday.

The volunteer Melissa was sick on Sunday so it was just me getting stuff fixed and worked out. I had a 2 hour meeting with my boss that day for him to give me feedback on what had been done and what he wanted changed for tomorrow. He initially told me he had no time that day, but he would try. We ended up sitting there for 2 hours in his office as he went through every page of the documents I had and looked over all of the electronic copies and filed I had put together. Everything was approved, but for sure some feedback and changes were mentioned. Essentially my boss had decided to change up the scheme of one of the entire sections at about 2pm on Sunday. So, good times.

Went into overdrive on Sunday and then skipped class on Monday in order to finish everything by 1230pm when we had our meeting. The meeting went great. We went into the big conference room in our building and presented what we had. The Regional Director, Nigel really loved everything. The ideas, the conception, the future plans for it and really believed it should go globally within all Mercy Corps offices and and at the very least he really wants it to be implemented within the all of the Middle Eastern country offices that he is in charge of.

More discussions happened and my boss explained the next steps of needing to implement it within our office now to get feedback from the Program Managers and project teams using it, so we can edit it, fix it and work out the details and kinks in it.
Also, we have to continue to work with MC HQ in Portland to keep them on board as well as invite them to Jordan to see it first hand and help out a bit. So, lots to do coming up. Next step is to have a meeting with all the Program Supervisors to get them on board and orientate them to the plan, so then to meet with all of the Program Managers and start to really get it going.

Nigel mentioned in the meeting as well that when the Regional Conference for Mercy Corps happens at the end of May/beginning of June, he wants my boss and I to present it at the conference to everyone to get this process going. Its a big project and a pretty amazing opportunity for me to be a part of. We'll see how it goes.

I was feeling pretty overwhelmed and even a tiny bit homesick the last few days so I decided to make Diphaphata ( a traditional bread from Botswana). I used to make this all the time in my little hut in Bots cause there wasn't much else I could eat with not electricity or running wanter and its super easy to make. Plus, took/wasted time for me to cook when I was super board. It was a nice little comfort thing to do and that in addition to giggling and loving Arabic with my Arabic tutor earlier in the day as well as a little study session with Colette, helped me feel better! :)