The Adventure Continues
Well, the adventure continues. Yesterday I finally signed my contract and I should be heading out next week. Next stop, Liberia. Now, some of you knew that I had accepted a conditional offer, but now it's formal. After several weeks of getting poked, tested, filling out forms and organizing all of my stuff, it's official. All I have left to do is make one final trip to Costco to buy consumables (I'll talk about that sometime later), schedule the movers to come in and pack me out, then get on the plane for Monrovia.
This time I'm working with the United States Agency for International Development, USAID, under a personal services contract. I'm officially a business now (this person is not a corporation, but this business is a person). I even have my own Dunn and Bradstreet Number and I'm registered with the government as a business. Still, it's me doing the work and the work will be similar to what I was doing in Baghdad, and then some. Technically I'm a Senior Rule of Law and Land Conflict Resolution Advisor. I'll post more details later about what the job is supposed to be, and then comment as time goes on about what the job actually is.
After 4 months of being unemployed (37 separate detailed job applications [Ann kept telling me to only apply for jobs I really wanted and that would move my career forward], this one was number 17) I'm anxious to get back to work. I had two goals when I left Iraq. Number 1 was to find a job back in Iraq; Number 2 was to avoid taking a job in Afghanistan. At least I succeeded with Number 2.
All joking aside, this was the most interesting and challenging of the positions I applied for. I consider myself very fortunate to have been considered and more so for being offered the job. And it's in a country where no one has blowing me up as their religious mission. Then again, I recently received a yellow fever vaccination, I start taking my malarial medication 5 days from now, and Ann continuously reminds me of the many different deadly snakes there are in Liberia.
I just hope that where the US Embassy is located isn't named Mamba point for obvious reasons. For those who aren't too familiar with Liberia, their 14-year civil war ended in 2003, and they just re-elected their President, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, one of three women to win this year's Nobel Peace Prize (another was also Liberian, the other from Yemen). The "country" was founded by freed US slaves just before the Civil War (Sierra Leone [freed English slaves] and Gabon [freed French slaves] have a similar history), which explains their flag shown above. Consequently they have a slightly different history and different political issues than much of the rest of Africa that suffered through colonialism. I have much to learn about the country, it's people, it's politics and how to help them in their quest for democracy.
Once again, I'll have a steep learning curve. It's been an incredible 2011, with many ups and many downs. I'm fortunate for the love and support Ann has given to me and I'm very thankful that I end the year with a position that allows me to continue the "adventure." So for now, I wish everyone a Happy New Year!