Goodbye Julie

Julie Childs is a pretty important person here in Monrovia.  She’s important to a lot of people, particularly me considering it’s her job I’m taking over.  I’ve been extremely fortunate in that we’ve been given the opportunity to have a month overlap so she could bring me up to speed with everything I’m going to be working on - that simply isn’t the case in most international positions, with one to two month gaps the norm when transitioning personnel.

After 18 months here in Monrovia, Julie is leaving.  She would love to stay, but she has a teenage daughter that wants her home.  Initially she brought her daughter with her, but when she found out that the education facilities here for older kids is way below par (which is not the case for younger children), Julie sent her daughter back home.  Now it’s time for Julie to be with her daughter, which paved the way for me.

Julie is like me, a long practicing attorney who recently made the transition to international development work.  Her background was in telecommunications law.  When she first came here everyone was looking at expanding rule of law work and no one thought much about land issues.  That turned totally upside down after 6 months here for her and she had to pick up land issues from scratch.  Fortunately for me, it’s my forte - nothing I’ve heard here so far is totally foreign to me.  Julie, like me, knew nothing about USAID procedures, reporting, etc.  To see how well she’s picked it up has given me a lot of confidence that I too can do it.  It’s a lot, but it’s doable.

Julie is intelligent, engaging and energetic.  Everybody loves her (as if the crowd here wouldn’t tell you that - there are folks from the British and Swedish embassies, several NGOs and, of course, the US Embassy).  She has paved the way for me to succeed here, in ways I would have never imagined hoping for.   I hope I can continue her good work.  Thank you Julie.  Safe travels, I know your family misses you.