Well, TDA officially has one reader! ok, so maybe one non-family-member-reader but her email reminded me that i haven't posted *anything* since May 2008... geeze.
Part of the reason is that i have gone from one of the most exotic/novel places I have ever been (Afghanistan) to a place that is more familiar (Azerbaijan, which is familiar in the former soviet republic respect), and of course part of it is laziness.
There are things to write about here but the mood hasn't hit me yet. I will say that i am currently Head of Country for an organization managing agribusiness initiatives (agribusiness in the sense that we are helping [very] small farmers get access to agricultural inputs). The project is a bit unique in that there is no material inputs, no hand outs etc, we are working with people to help them learn that there are things such as feed mixes that can significantly increase the growth of their animals (through nutrition, not steroids for all you hippies out there), how to find artificial insemination service providers, how to pick microfinance organizations; and then we actually work with the service providers by brining them to the communities and ensuring that they have sustainably large groups to present to. Really, we are just the lube trying to make rural agricultural markets work better... sounds simple but trust me, its not. The most difficult part is that we are not actually doing the work, we are having local partner organizations do the work to build their capacity, but damn the are inefficient I am positive I could get twice the work done for 2/3rds the cost with my small team but that is not what the donor wants, so we are the ones that push them along in the right direction etc. My favorite part of the project is that there are no "material inputs" as many development organizations like to say, so there is much less chance of creating a "gimme culture" which is what happens after many development projects finish in areas.
Ok, that is all for now.
