It's All Good Man!

Can you believe I lived in my apartment for eight months without realising I had a roof terrace??? And what a roof terrace! The views are some of the best in Sydney. Unbelievable. I've been enjoying it with friends since.

So January's done already. The weather has been great, the festival a real boost to the social life and I'm back swimming again. All good? Well... no. Something has definitely been missing. Frankly, I haven't had enough work to do...

My mood is often determined by how happy I am at work. And it might sound strange, but it's taken me years to realise that.
Beautiful water and sands down at Jervis Bay.

I always felt that working for the Civil Service was a bit of a compromise. The work wasn't appreciated and it wasn't especially rewarding, and the working environment was never exciting, but the payoff - I thought - was a less stressful, less demanding working life. It wasn't until I left that I realised I'm happiest when work is demanding. An undemanding job isn't a payoff, it's a lead weight. I can only feel happy when I'm working hard and adding some value.

It's that Scottish Protestant guilt that I just can't shake off. Hahaha!

Left - James enjoyed his lunch on the rooftop!

So it's with some relief that I find my workload ramping up in the last week. And I'm excited about working for Opportunity International in 2009. I'm excited because this could be the most challenging year for this organisation yet. None of us would wish for the difficulties that the credit crunch have imposed on us. We would all prefer to have more donations, more money to pay for the projects we have in the field, and more money to pay for our team in Australia, which we've unfortunately had to pare down in the last month or so.

But given the circumstances we find ourselves in, we're determined as a team to do the best we can. I've said this before, but I've never felt as encouraged by my colleagues and by the atmosphere at work as I do at Opportunity.

Since I've written this, I've had a great week. I've done some walking in the beautiful bush around Sydney. My shoulder feels almost fully recovered so I've entered the harbour swim competition on 1st March. I've caught up with friends and I have a weekend of beach, barbeque and the Australian Open with a few tinnies to look forward to.

It really is all good!

With Australia Day passing, I feel the need to comment on the rivalry between Australia and the UK, and back one of these very different horses. Hope to put this into a new update real soon...

Wow!!!!

2009

When I was at school I was a keen student, and a well-behaved one (boring! I hear you shout, and yeah, guilty as charged). My only vice was a tendency to daydream. For example, I remember on many an occasion thinking about the year 2000 and what it would be like to be around at the end of the millennium. This was quite an exotic thought, not least because I would be 25 by that time, an age that seemed impossibly grown-up, and therefore eons away.

The millennium duly came round without the notable passing of eons, and now, by heck, 2009 is here and I still don’t feel that I’ve aged notably, well not mentally at least.

This thought struck me when I was waiting on the bells at Jackie’s party in Edinburgh. And I guess I had a more thoughtful (and less drunken) new year than usual. In fact, the whole holiday season was much less about partying – and much less about ‘me’ – compared to the last couple of years, and that was a really positive thing.

I just got back from three weeks in the UK. This was a time to catch-up with friends and my family and to take a break from work and feel refreshed for the year ahead.

It was a really enjoyable three weeks, the highlight of which was spending time with my nephew and niece, Rowan and Colette, and with Kirsty, Gordon and my mum and dad. I love life in Sydney, but it’s hard being so far from family. And though I’m excited to be back in Sydney, it was upsetting to leave Scotland.

Christmas Day was very memorable, and it reminded me that Christmas is really about the kids. Rowan’s radio-controlled helicopters, flying saucers and insects caused mayhem, while Colette played happily with Peppa Pig DVDs, books and miniature dolls. Brilliant! (And as soon as my internet connection starts behaving itself, I’ll upload a few photos).

Otherwise, my memories of the trip will be of doing plenty of travelling, spending quality time with friends (too often in the pub, which has given me a beer belly to work off in January!), and how inhospitable the UK is in winter. The cold was just as disturbing as I’d feared and what’s with nightfall at 4pm? Some days it was so dull and gloomy that we never switched the lights off!

And so now I’m back in Sydney. January in Sydney is a fantastic time at least. The festival starts today, the 10th, and I’m booked up to see some great acts, including Mr Scruff and Cinematic Orchestra. Otherwise, the main focus will be work. Hope to hit the ground running with some interesting projects in January. More news soon.

dollar a week

In Australia, $120 buys you a designer t-shirt. In Laos, it can help you train as a carpenter, allowing you to provide for your family. In Australia, $21 gets you a ticket to the movies and a tub of popcorn. In Sudan, it can put a mosquito net around your bed to protect you from malaria – a disease that is likely to kill you. In Australia, $1 is spare change. But in Uganda, it can change your life.

Just wanted to stick on a link to another great poverty relief website. I think this site does a fantastic job in expressing one of the most stunning facts about poverty - solving poverty isn't about making big sacrifices, if each of us gave just a small amount, we could end poverty, now.

Rebekah Nolan is a colleague of mine at Opportunity International and I’m so impressed with the work she’d done writing this site.

And a site written by young people for young people is a great idea - just a shame it makes me feel like an old-timer. (Thanks Rebekah!)

Click on the link below to find out how a dollar a week can make a difference.

Counting Down

I leave for the UK in just 5 days. This will be the first annual leave I've taken all year. That I've survived this long without a holiday must be a reflection of how much I enjoy the job. However, I'm definitely hitting the wall now.

Like an under-prepared marathon runner hitting the 24 mile mark, I'm now struggling towards the finishing line with wobbly legs and a nodding head.

And in the holiday spirit, I spent all weekend in 'Maximum Socialite' mode on the premise that i am going to miss out on the xmas party calendar in Sydney. Ping-pong at 5am, an ex-girlfriend of (a very young) Russell Crowe, a half-hawaiian Bjork lookalike and a French molecular biologist may all have been part of the weekend. Or perhaps it was all just a weird dream.

In any event, I'm once again packing bags, catching up with washing and dreading the jetlag.

And what's this about 16cms of snow...???

A Great Week in India, and an Unsettling Week Back Home

I meet clients for the first time! This group of women in Chennai, Tamil Nadu (on India's SE coast) meet to make a repayment on their loan and find out about the benefits of co-operation.

I’ve gotten quite a few messages asking if I’m safely back from India. Thanks for that. I am in Sydney, and quite safe. From here the attacks on Mumbai seem almost surreal, but they will have a very real impact over there. This is a tragedy for India as a nation. I feel this will change things a lot, and in ways we can't yet predict. I worry that India could become a new focus for terrorism.

India can be proud to be the largest democracy in the world, and proud that, generally, religious tolerance is extremely high. There are over 150m Muslims in India. But ironically democratic freedoms will make it all the harder to contain terrorism.

For myself, and Opportunity, this development is upsetting and could - potentially - have real implications for what we do and how we work in India, though I wouldn’t want to make swift judgements. We don’t tend to travel to Mumbai much – I’ve only been once – whereas we travel a lot to the other big cities.

On my day off I went back to my favourite tourist site in Delhi, the Qutb Minar. It's sad to think that I will have a niggling doubt in my mind the next time I visit a tourist site in India.

It’s been a strange week indeed. As I finally feel completely settled and happy at work, the organisation suddenly (post credit-crunch) seems set for upheaval and ‘paradigm change’. I won’t say any more about that now. Though it’s no more than coincidence, I have to mention that, on the brink of summer, the weather in Sydney has gone wintry. Everything has suddenly gone a bit odd… I think it’s time for a break. I’m looking forward to my trip back to the UK.

I promised a review of the Bond film.

It’s great.

There we go.

I have to mention a couple of things that tickled me about the screening though. Not that it was in Hindi – thankfully I managed to book the English version – but that there was an interval in the middle, as Indian tradition dictates.

Asking women clients some questions (through an interpreter).

This threw me! Bond films are the ultimate in movie escapism. But switching the movie off half way through, turning on thumping Bollywood music and sending out a bloke selling chai in paper cups from a large canteen did a good job of destroying that sense of escapism! And all this coming after a tense chase scene across Italian rooftops. I had to laugh – it was the ultimate in surrealism.

Sorry, this picture is very blurry. The woman on the left is a member of a tribal community in rural Andhra Pradesh. These people have a very traditional way of life and it would be very unusual for her to come to even the smallest of towns. It would be even more unusual for her to meet a foreigner. I felt a little embarrassed about taking her photo. Not a typical tourist event.

I’ve now seen the last two bond movies at the cinema in Belize and India. Does this qualify me in the same jet-set league as bond himself…?

No?

I can do the accent…

These photos are from the second week of the India trip. After 9 days in Delhi, I had a pretty hairy travel plan for the rest of the second week. With the help of our Indian team, I somehow managed to stick to the plan and covered another 4 cities in the last 4 days. Exhausting doesn’t begin to describe it. But it was a great experience. I met clients for the first time – a group of women who have borrowed money from one of Opportunity’s partners in Chennai, and another group of women who have taken health insurance from an amazing NGO working near Hyderabad.

Meeting another group of clients. These women are members of a health insurance scheme for the poor, which allows them access to health care. When I talked to the women it was clear that their priority is their family. They want insurance to protect their children.

It was great to be truly ‘out in the field’. And it was a real privilege to have the opportunity to ask these women questions – through a translator – about how their lives have been changed by the loans and insurance that they have received, to be able to ask them about their hopes and plans for what they might do in the next weeks, months, years to improve their lives and more importantly (for them at least) improve the lives of their children.

I also saw some people in far less optimistic circumstances. In fact I saw people living in some of the worst conditions I’ve ever seen, even worse than on my last trip. I saw the utter destitution of slums in Delhi where the poor are forced into prostitution because there is no alternative but starvation.

I found this extremely hard to take.

I didn’t feel as frustrated as I have in the past. And I don’t feel any need to point fingers now. There’s no point in people beating each other up over this. But it is very sad. And there’s something wrong with a global society in which these things are allowed to persist. But some people are trying to do things about this. I hope Opportunity can support these people.

This lovely couple run a 35-bed hospital in a small town south of Hyderabad. Poor clients can access quality healthcare there.

There was so much packed into that week. I could write a lot more. I might save that for some day in the future, and some other forum, when there’s been more time, much more time, for all these things to sink in.

I was exhausted by the Friday night when I got on the plane at Cochin for the long flight home. But it was a ‘good’ exhausted. I’ve got plenty of work to do yet to make the most of the trip. If I can get this done in the next two weeks before I leave for the UK it would be the best end to the year possible, whatever might be coming up in 2009…

This little guy is just a few days old. This light treatment will protect him from jaundice.

Amid all the turmoil, it's possible to forget that amazing work is going on in India, work that we need to support, even as things get 'tough' at home.