Preparations

My latest assignment will begin this Sunday when I leave for Addis Ababa again. Apparently the work I managed to accomplish in between blog posts was valued enough that I was asked to return.

Despite the short notice, I've pretty much gotten everything in order for my trip. I even made time to go for an annual health check-up, which I went to this morning. I'll get the full results back later, but so far everything says "healthy".

Over the past month we had a training seminar at our office and I received a lot of helpful information for work. Using the manual we were given, I have prepared much more this time than before. Plus, it helps that this will be my second trip to Ethiopia and I know what to expect. For example, I plan to bring ear plugs to foil the stray dogs' attempts to wake up the neighborhood at 4am. I'm also bringing a floppy disk drive, since we are forbidden by our company to use USB flash memory drives due to the risk of computer viruses. It was a real challenge to exchange information with our Ethiopian counterparts without having Internet at the center and not being able to use USB memory (plus some people didn't have CD-RW drives).

In any case, I'll take tomorrow off work to get some extra things done and pack early so I can send my luggage ahead of me to Haneda airport. My flight leaves Sunday evening so I'll get to Addis around noon on Monday, April 27th. Wish me luck.