First Days in the Office

I've been waking up consistently between 5:00am and 6:30am since arriving in Laos. I'm not complaining though since I'm usually a late riser, and this lengthens my days considerably.

This week I've been getting oriented with the projects born of the partnership between US-CDC and CARE Lao. On Monday I received a CARE security brief and overviews of CARE Lao's work and specifically, the avian influenza portfolio. And on Tuesday I went over to the U.S. Embassy to meet folks and learn about the services available to me.

All of the CARE Lao provincial coordinators and staff are in Vientiane for program meetings this week, so it's the perfect opportunity to meet the field staff and learn about CARE Lao's projects and strategic programming. Andy has in effect instructed CARE to "use and abuse" me, so I may be getting into other data collection projects for which they need more manpower. I hope they take Andy's note to the superlative (figuratively, of course)!