So my sole responsibility has been to coordinate and plan for this high profile launch which is to involve the First Lady of Malawi. Because of our guest of honor, the dates were changed many times to accommodate her schedule. Anyhow, from the last blog, the launch was scheduled to be on November 12th, 2010. About a week before the 12th, her people rescheduled to Tuesday, the 16th of November and because all the partner organizations were so desperate to have her as the guest of honor (understandably so since she is Malawi's coordinator for maternal and child survival and our campaign is just that), we again changed the launch date for about the 5th time.
I also mentioned in the last post that i was in charge of the logistics committee, which meant that the weekend before the event, i was super stressed out and busy organizing the transport, fueling, chairs, tables, tents, water, etc. I worked all day Friday (normally a half day), half of Saturday, half of Sunday, and Monday was a 13 hour day... Also, on Sunday PCVs Steve Karaga and Daniel Barton came to stay with me to assist on the campaign launch. I also had my very first couchsurfer Natalie stay with me to help.
The day of the launch finally arrived... i called Janet, my campaign coordinator, early in the morning before the Save vehicle picked us up and found out that the First Lady's people called Joby (my supervisor) at 5am telling him that she did not feel well so will NOT be attending the launch. Everyone was quite disappointed but there was nothing we could do about it except have an awesome launch day.
Besides that, the day went marvelously. Save the Children staff, partner organization staff, school children, and random village people were all decked out in EveryOne campaign branded materials: t-shirts, caps, chitenje (cloth), and stickers. All in all, it was a great success.
Malawi never ceases to amaze me... despite all the problems and last minute changes... everything just worked itself out. 1 more point for Malawi =)
