Work smart, not hard

I realized that I have not really updated you all on my work here. Granted, there isn't a ton to update you on, but there are a few small things.

Mostly work is pretty slow here. I'm always terribly excited when I am given something to do or there is a meeting that I can tag along to. I think the reason why it's been so slow is because our office is going through somewhat of a transition period. Our new director has arrived, but the old director is still here for a little while more. Perry is quite new as well and I was kinda foisted on him, but hes a very good sport about that. David, who was my primary contact before I came out here, has his office at the Embassy so I don't see much of him on a day to day basis. Plus, he is really busy and is more on the administrative side than the technical side, which is part of the reason that Perry got stuck with me. We have a very limited number of technical staff in the office and they all seem to have their own pet projects and it is proving to be a bit difficult to get a slice of any of them.

That being said, it has been discussed that I will be taking a good bit of responsibility for the CQI project (Continuous Quality Improvement). I'm not certain on all the details, but this will involve working very closely with the data management team of NCHADS (National Center for HIV/AIDS, Dermatology, and STDs) and going with them on their site visits. Basically, they go out to sites and analyze data to see how the country is doing on key indicators that have to do with Care and Treatment of HIV. The CDC has yet to get their hands on this data, so this is a way to get it. Also, NCHADS said that they lack a lot of the technical support necessary to do this and so they have discussed giving me my own team to supervise as I supposedly have the technical expertise. Not so sure about that, but it sounds good, right? There are only two problems with this: 1) NCHADS uses STATA (a statistical software package) which I don't know how to use and CDC doesn't have it (and is having some issues getting it) and 2) The project does not currently have any activity so I haven't really been working on it. I'm waiting for NCHADS to determine when they are going out to Pursat but it could be awhile.

While I'm waiting, I try to make it a point to ask people for work, but usually that means that I get to review a paper/presentation/training/cooperative agreement for proper English grammar. Now, while this does keep me busy for approximately 15-20 minutes, it wasn't really what I meant. However, last week, I asked Prateek (our USAID strategic information guy) if he had any work and he finally gave me something useful that I can sink my teeth into. He is working on compiling the Annual Progress Report (APR) which is a document that we send to PEPFAR headquarters detailing our previous year's achievements on our country's indicators. He asked me to compile the CDC portion and he has been on leave since last week. I have spent the last couple of days going through spreadsheets of data trying to figure out which numbers should be included for which indicators. It is challenging because the spreadsheets are not usually formatted in any particular way and some of them are mostly in Khmer. But I'm having fun doing it because its finally something that has just been given to me and its a bit of a number challenge. I like those.

So in completely unrelated, but interesting, news- I'm trying to decide which moto I want to buy. I'm pretty sure I want a Honda and the Wave series is looking pretty good. Will update more when I actually buy a bike. Perry just bought a Dream and he is going to show me how to ride them. I know the basic concept...I just need to practice. :)