From the perspective of an ant

Dear readers,
I know I know, it's been a while. Somehow it's just so hard to find time to sit down to think about what I want to tell you guys.

So over the last few months I've been really busy with work, project management and dewatering impact studies, all new things as well as settling in my new position as a team leader. Great challenges, and not all good, but mostly. Difficult to have to juggle with making friends at work and having to lead/help/hire/review them and making sure our team is busy, happy and functional. It's a part of the job I never clearly asked myself about. I'm learning a lot and hopefully will end up doing a good job at it. It's a perfect way to understand the strategic thinking that underlies my company and how we make our decision as far as people are concern. I'm learning about people interaction, leadership and team dynamic.

This forces me to get out of my shell and make more friends outside of work. I've been playing beach volleyball, touch rugby and soccer, I'm also really into surfing even though I'm not so good at it (yet). All those made me meet a bunch of interesting people. I have also met a few people through friends of mine in Vancouver and I most say that having girls who know where I come from and have friends in common is the most precious thing I had. It helps when you're feeling like you don't belong anywhere and are disconnected from your past. I also really appreciate the folks I have meet that come from Quebec and/or speak French.

Lately, I went to a mine site for a few rotations on a particularly interesting project with lots of politics and dramas, but also great moments and great people. I am reviewing my geology background more than anticipated, I'm pretty rusty at it, but it reminds me of uni and those are fantastic memories. You never realise how much you learn from it until you need to use the notes you have stored in one of the drawers of your mind. I find myself looking through a lot of those forgotten drawers lately and it feels good.

Anyways, driving through open pits next to big dump trucks, I felt as little as an ant on the road. Also, after that, I must confess I love Landcruisers and driving manual with my left hand feels completely normal and easy. Now that the fieldwork is over, I can't wait to go back on site and do some more. Wanted to share some pictures of the field work with you.

Seasons, slang and patatra

Lovely spring evening in Perth. The days are getting longer and warmer. It makes me happy but nostalgic a bit. It reminds me the feeling I had back home in Quebec years ago already when the spring would finally arrive after the long and cold winter; when the snow was gone and the air was starting to smell good, the birds would sing and the patios would open for a few hours on nice days. I miss the seasons! I guess that no matter where you are and no matter how many times you have done that before there is indubitably a moment where you feel home sick. And to had to it, I found in my boxes all the episodes from 'Les hauts et les bas de Sophie Paquin" a great Quebecois TV show filmed in Montreal... Cath, it makes me think of you especially!

I love my job here, much more than I did back in Canada. I'm more challenged and I see a lot of amazing options in front of me. For the first time in my life I made a decision to move somewhere for work. I moved here to get to learn the tools I need to learn to get where I want in life, job wise. Now that I'm here, loving my work, I am missing my friends and family on the other side of the world, and the ones I made in Malawi too. I know you make a life everywhere, that it eventually happens, but finding friends, real good and close friends takes a while. So value the ones you have around for me. I am starting to get there slowly. I found activities and great people to do them with.I got back into playing soccer, rugby and volleyball. But I miss my girls (you know who you are, where ever that is you are). I miss snowboarding a lot too and with your winter coming soon, I can't help but dream of snow. Maybe I'll go to Japan or New Zealand to hit the slopes at some point, but it won't be the West Coast.

Western Australia is a nice place to live. I miss my friends, the season and snowboarding but don't get me wrong, I love my life here!

To end this post on a fun note, here are a few fun facts and expressions I have learn and came to love:

Afternoon : Arvo
Gas station : Servo
Tank top : Singlet
Toilets : Donies
Accommodation : Donger (go figure how this is spelled)
Paved road : Seal road or tarmac
Side walk : Footpath
Ute : Pickup truck

The use of the words 'mate' and 'I reckon' is overly frequent and it makes me smile. I am definitely trying to incorporate all of the above in my day to day vocabulary.

The national sport here is Footy, a mix between many violent sport like american football and rugby. It's played without protective gear on a huge cricket oval. I'm not sure I get the rules yet, but Australians are crazy about it. Ahh, I still enjoy watching it as the players are wearing tight shorts and they are quite athletic! I went to a game with Anne-Marie and a few other friends from work, a laboratory we use gave us tickets.

A pint of beer in most pubs in Perth and its suburbs is 10 Australian Dollars. A burger with no fries is about 20. A cheap plastic water bottle is 10-20. A coffee, 4 or 5. Life is much more expensive here in general, but our salaries are too, although be aware if you plan a visit! Petrol is between 1.37 and 1.50 $/L. And a hair cut is ridiculously pricey... I learnt that after I had my hair cut obviously, so I will go back to having long hair. Normal grocery stuff have similar prices though, so if you want to save and not be too offended by the prices you have to cook, invite friends home or go drink on the beach and make yourself lunches. Wine, from Australia or New Zealand is not so bad, but don't plan on buying a nice Riesling D'Alsace cause you can expect to pay 50 dollars for it... I started drinking Chardonnays from Margaret River instead! And I must say they are growing on me.

Driving on the other side of the road is starting to feel normal. I quite enjoy it actually. I had an off road/4WD training in the bush the other day cause I'm heading to site shortly and the client is requiring this, but it was quite awesome. I'm surely getting better at driving manual.
Drivers here are terrible though. They are not really looking around them or if they see you as a pedestrian or a bike, they make sure to cut your way or get in side of you as close as they can form the footpath to prevent you from passing on the road. When you are driving with them it's actually not better. They can't merge properly and they are super aggressive in their driving. Many streets don't have stop signs, so they are optional, or so it seems! Although they are really quite organised in their round-abouts.
There are so many car-pickups (remember 'ute')here, it is ridiculous...very boggan (or BS in French).


The kangaroos are effectively everywhere as soon as you get out of the city, but a lot of the ones you get to see have been hit by cars and left on the side of the road ;0(. They are very cute and kind of weird: a mix between a dear and a rabbit.

All right, enough for now.

Cheers,
Ge

Better late than never: News from Perth

After almost seven months of absence on the blog scene, here I am, back with more tales from a new world I'm discovering a little more everyday and a much better internet connection. All thanks to Denis and Anne-Marie for the inspiration to continue writing this blog.

I have left Malawi six months ago with both a smile on my lips and some tears in my eyes! I was happy to leave and go back to the world I grew up in, but sad to leave behind the friends I made, my host families, my colleagues and an amazingly conflicting culture that was Malawi. I have learnt a heaps during that year in rural villages, and hopefully all this will never be forgotten.

Ahhhh Portland Easter Weekend with the Vancouver Crew

After leaving Malawi I went back home to visit my family and friends in Quebec and Vancouver. I spent three weeks in each city. I was quite busy with all the moving stuff, preparing my new adventure in Australia. It was great to catch up with you guys. I still cannot believe I left so many wonderful friends and family member behind again. I love you and miss you everyday. And I'm sorry if I was only back for a few weeks, but you all made me feel so welcome. It was actually weird to be back home, to be back where things didn't change much. It made me feel like I had dreamt the last year and a few months of my life. After catching up with a bunch of people, I said goodbye again. I took another plane and travelled all the way to Perth, Western Australia.


I am back with Golder, although my role has changed. I am no longer working in the contaminated sites, but got hired by the hydrogeology group to work on water supply, slope stability and dewatering projects for mining and construction companies. Right now I'm working on project in Perth area and  in the Pilbara. I am expecting to go to Guinea in a few months for a little while, which I'm very excited for. I am learning so much everyday, I am ultra busy and awesomely challenged. My work team is great and on a work basis, I do not regret my decision to move here...life wise, well even if I enjoy things here, I miss the mountains, but most of all, I miss my friends a lot I can't explain.

The Pinnacles Desert 

Sand Boarding in Lancelin

Sunday Walk with Andrew and Anne-Marie

We got a great little townhouse with a nice backyard area right in Mount Lawley, just off the main and all the pubs, resto, boutiques and nice groceries. It's a few kilometers from my work and town and about 15 kilometers from the beaches. Life here is quite expensive, but we also make more money, so overall, we're doing good. I got myself a mountain bike, a surf and a car to go explore all the nice things that Western Australia has to offer. I went camping and wine tasting, I saw koalas and pet kangaroos.


So far it's a great experience. The weather is quite variable during the winter; it goes from 25 degrees with a warm sun to cold rainy nights with crazy winds. The houses are not insulated and heated so the nights in the winter are cold in the house. It's getting better though as we are slowly reaching for spring. Soon enough it will be too hot and we'll complain again! haha.

Anyways, here are a few pictures. I'll try to write from time to time to keep you updated and let you know about the fun expressions I hear down under! And there are "HEAPS" of them.



It's good to be back, hope you enjoy.

Cheers,

Ge

Water usage and other tales

Here I am in my office, trying to get work done but I can’t. It’s about 40 degrees and the power has been out all afternoon now, so no fan to help me concentrate. I’m drenched wet from the sweat and humidity. It should be raining, it’s the rainy season after all, yet it’s not. Actually the rare times it rained in Liwonde it was more like a storm, too intense to help the crops, it caused flash floods and my office’s ceiling to leak right over my desk and computer and my colleague's.

The running water is out too and we have been having tons of problems with it over the last weeks. The water in Liwonde is pumped from the Shire river. The Waterboard has three pumps normally but two of them are broken and the one that is running is not 100% functional. They asked the Ministry to buy spare parts and a new pump in July 2011, but no pumps or spare parts have been ordered yet apparently. The main reason for this is the lack of foreign exchange available in the country, possibly combined with the lack of interest/urgency to help the Waterboard before they actually have their three pumps not working. There is only water a few hours a day, sometimes only after 11 pm until 4 am, with a really bad pressure. I had a ride from someone working for the Waterboard a few days ago and he said the current pump can’t withdraw sufficient amount of water for the needs, so until they fix the other ones or get a new pump, Liwonde will keep having water shortages.

This forced me to think about the current use of water on a daily basis: drinking, flushing the toilet (I miss the latrine), showering (even a bucket shower requires a few liters), washing clothes, cooking and washing dishes. I have a few buckets to store water but when the shortage go on for too long and we only get water while I’m sleeping, it makes it really difficult to have enough for my laundry or even the dishes. I need to think about the usage of every drop and how I can recycle it. We have a friend that lives by the river, so maybe I’ll have to go there and get water from it directly but it’s complicated and it’s not really allowed.

Also, the people I work with are not being paid by their employer (the malawian consulting company). They are rarely paid in time, those people don’t make a lot of money and they need every Kwatcha of it to buy food, soap, pay their rent and their bills, send their kids to school, etc. Their employer has always had problems to pay them in time, lack of good management skills I suppose, but recently the problems have reach a different level. The client of the project, the National Water Development (the Ministry) is not paying the project right now for various, unfair reasons that I’ll explain in a later post, so there is no money in the consultant’s account to reimburse the salaries and expenses from the project. But the most amazing (or silly) thing is that those employees are still coming to work every morning and working hard, all day long. Can you imagine for a second not being paid by your employer? Can you even imagine not being paid in time? And those things happen all the time here and people cope with this. This is although very problematic. Malawians are proud and so nice but won’t stand up for unfair treatment and situations. How are things suppose to change when everyone who are upset by it won’t raise their voice to speak up?  They get upset but don’t target the right problems for their situation to change, they get impatient but at the wrong people. That is one of the many reasons why this country is both fantastic and frustrating.

So while I’m sweating, in my office, with no power and no electricity, surrounded by people who haven’t got paid for the last two months, in a country with no foreign currency and a clear lack of fuel, where the prices of goods and transportation increase every week because of the instability of the Malawian Kwatcha and fuel availability, I can’t help but think about how shocking it will be to be back in Canada in a few weeks, how shocking it will be to hear people’s concerns and complaints. I’ll have to be able to appreciate the difference and respect it. I am not saying that western countries have no problems, we also have our share of it, we also have people dying and crimes, we complain that our salaries are too low for the prices of living, and it is true, we get burnt out by working so much, we have depression and cancer; but the problems I’m surrounded by at the moment seem on a different dimension, they affect everyone, on every level. 

I am happy and excited to go back to the western world, but I’m also sad and afraid by it. I feel like I have an exit, a way out of this unstable and difficult situation Malawi’s in at the moment. I am leaving right when things get tough and might get worse, or for all I know, better. I would like to know what makes a country straighten up from going down hill. I can’t help but wish Malawi will be able to get back on a more stable path, but I won’t be around for that.

I will try to write one or two more posts about my work and life here before I leave. I have so much to say but I’m not sure where to start and how to explain things yet.

Cheers,

Ge