Saturday, November 20, 2010

Campaign Launch

The first 4 months of my time with Save the Children was spent planning for the campaign launch. For most of you at home, you may not know that every activity/event/campaign/etc. needs to have a high profile launch day, marking the official start/kickoff of the activity/event/campaign/etc.

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 =)

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Homebound!

Since the last post, the campaign launch was scheduled for November 12th and now have been changed to the 16th. I hope the First Lady doesn't change it again or I will be in trouble! My tentative trip to California is November 21st. The request was already approved but I'm still waiting for the actual ticket from Peace Corps.

I'm really excited to go home!!! Here's my plan:
Nov 21 - leave Malawi
Nov 22-26 - Sacramento, CA
Nov 27-29 - Bay Area, CA
Nov 29-Dec 1 - Sacramento, Ca
Dec 1-3 - San Diego, CA
Dec 3-5 - Las Vegas, NV
Dec 5-7 - San Diego, CA
Dec 8-12 - Sacramento, CA
Dec 12 - fly to Johannesburg, South Africa
Dec 13-15 - Johannesburg, SA
Dec 16-23 - Cape Town, SA
Dec 23-Jan 1 - Durban, SA
Jan 2 - fly back to Malawi

Where do YOU fit in this schedule? =)

Sounds like a lot of traveling and all but I'm AMPED! I haven't flown or been home in over 17 months. So many things I'm excited for!
- Family
- Friends
- Woof woof: Poppy, Kujo, Ally, Wop
- Food (sushi, In n Out, frozen yogurt, clam chowder, Jamba Juice, dim sum, papaya salad, lobster tacos, seafood, Mexican/Vietnamese/Thai/Korean/etc. You get the picture)
- Shopping
- Las Vegas
- Maybe Mexico for real street tacos
- Traveling

It's funny. I feel like I'm on an emotional roller coaster. One day I'm bummed out and the next day I'm super JAZZED. LOL Right now... I'm JAZZED! =)