Inyas Blog » Gaborone

Between work, lions and once-in-lifetime experiences

bjoern — Sun, 23 May 2010 19:08:28 +0000

Now it´s almost three months that I arrived back to Southern Africa – to this amazing continent full of extrems: amazing people and hospitality – chaotic and ineffective organisation … incredible landscapes – poverty and health problems … lots of work – but also great short-time holidays. Even if my pictures speak different languages and showcase only the holiday-part I am actually working and enjoy it a lot. At GTZ and our partner, SADC, I am responsible to further develop their “Monitoring and Evaluation” systems to report, what our projects are doing with German tax-payer money and what impact they have in the SADC region. Besides I am involved in different public relation projects (like the Southern African Water Wire), lately also one to the World Cup as you see here with SADC 2010 and I am supporting activities for donor harmonisation.

In addition I also managed to fully arrive in Gaborone – with own house, car and ‘weekend-get-aways’. As you see in the pictures I am not only driving an own car again – after ten years – with the wheel on the steering-wrong side but I also live in a small house in the suburbs of Gaborone. These are quite some changes from the small room in Singapore with its great public transport to this new adventure. But as you know I like challenges and especially if I have to adapt myselfs to new settings – that keeps fresh and was exactly what I was looking for. After these first weeks I feel also well introduced to the life of Gaborone with its braai-parties, cinemas, game drives and even theatre-performances (see article about No 1 Ladies theatre). In the end of this month the adventure is getting even more exiting, as Susi will join me here, and so I am looking forward for more great months to see and experience a piece of Africa together.

Happy to be back in Botswana

bjoern — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 14:06:58 +0000

After a very long flight taking me from Berlin to Munich – over the white Alpes, through whole African continent to Johannesburg in South Africa and I finally arrived on Tuesday after almost a day of travelling to beautiful Gaborone in Botswana. It was great flying in over a totally green Kalahari-desert, as it was raining and it´s autumn here now. It felt a bit like coming back as I was here for the research of my diploma-thesis a year ago and will now work for German Development Cooperation/GTZ in their SADC transboundary water-management program. Everything was perfect, until I found out at the tiny airport of Gaborone that one of my bags was missing and I was already afraid, that the Johannesburg-airport crews will soon have their own tennis-team playing with my stuff, but fortunately the next day also the third bag with my rackets arrived.

As I live again in a small room at a friend´s house, where I staid also last time it seems as I only left the country some weeks ago as it looks and feels all very familiar to me. But the GTZ office changed a lot, as more staff from Danemark, Canada and Germany joined the team and we are nowadays more than ten people working together with the SADC Water-Division and the fifteen water-ministries in Southern Africa. The team is amazing and on the first day I was already able meeting our SADC colleagues, second day was already project-planning and Friday I wrote the first PR concept. That is fast speed as I like it and I am quite exiting what the future brings. Besides work I am currently looking into car-buying and I hope finding one soon, as busses ar not very effective and walking produces a lot of sweet as we have over 30 degrees here. As I had my last car almost ten years ago and life in Singapore and Berlin do not needed one, that is quite funny situation but let´s see how I get ripped off by the car-shops.

Back to Botswana/SADC in March

bjoern — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 17:14:03 +0000

After some waiting I received last week the final approval for my new challenge in Africa. From March on I will move back for at least one year to Gaborone (Botswana) and start working for the GTZ in their water-programme in the SADC region. As I wrote my thesis about this topic I am familiar with that topic and will be responsible for establishing a monitoring and evaluation system in close cooperation with the SADC secretariat. Working with that great team, for GTZ and in this challenging environment with fifteen African countries is really my dream-job and I cannot wait to start.

From 1st February until 1st March I will be in Eschborn, near Frankfurt (Main) for my preparation in the GTZ headquarter. Afterwards IÂ´ll leave icy Germany (currently minus 15 degrees in Berlin) for sunny Botswana. And I am very happy that also Susi, who is currently travelling for some months in Latin America, will join this adventure in June. So I have the noble task to find something to life in for us two: Maybe we can improve ourselves from our small fourteen square-meters room in Singapore – as a lot of guest already agree to visit. :)

monkeys as neighbours

bjoern — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 20:07:30 +0000

After I heard our neighbours yesterday evening on the roof I saw them today in the purple trees infront of our house: funny, little monkeys with an amazing sound volumne and the coolness to try walking into our doors, as if they lived always there and just wanted to look, what is new in the fridge. But they still feared me and so I wait for the next meeting and their new approaches.

We managed to climb the Kgale Hill and had a great view over the city, which is an enourmous collection of houses in a huge area with around 200.000 inhabitants, great malls and skyscrapers in the financial disctricts but as well small houses and a magnificient transfer direct to the savannah.