Do You Still Work for Abt?

On Friday morning we all received a notice from Mary Harper of Abt about an IT reorganization. I’m barely part of IT any more so I knew I wouldn’t be mentioned in it. Several people did lose their jobs though. Since I’m so involved with the IT related matters in my department (CTC – Client Technology Center) a lot of people assume I’m IT. I had a few people reaching out to me during the day with some concern that I had lost my job.

Lourdes took us all (Mango, Adriano, Mauro, Chilufya and me) out to breakfast at a restaurant called Huambo. It was quite swanky. We reviewed where we were and what the challenges were. Adriano feels really strongly that about 10 of the phone users were so rough that they won’t be ready to use the phones on Tuesday. Lourdes agreed to give Adriano time for review on Monday with the remedial students and all spray operators would receive more supervision and support when they are in the field on Tuesday. We also had the opportunity to give rounds of appreciation to each other.

Mango working furiously on an Actors list

I raced to do as many final things as I could before I left. I didn’t get to give Mango and Adriano some of the final training that I had hoped to, but we can finish remotely. I also started getting a lot of requests from the other countries which have been waiting patiently for assistance with their activities while I was in Angola and they were discovering that I wasn’t fired.

Mauro gave me a great idea and I had as many people as I could find sign my project t-shirt so it will be a great souvenir for me.

We finally left the office. Raghesh, Miriam,

The tire completely broke off this car
in the middle of an intersection.

Lourdes and I drove to where we wanted to go to dinner. Traveling was difficult because many of the roads were blocked off for a road race scheduled for the following day. We finally made it and discovered that the place was closed for good. We decided the simplest thing would be to go back to Huambo even though we had been there earlier that day.

Raghesh couldn’t stay, but Miriam, Lourdes and I decided to order two plates and share them. We got an octopus and potato meal and a beef, pork, and shrimp dish. They were outstanding. We sampled a few of their mousses and Raghesh joined us for that. I treated Lourdes in return for all of the meals that she had made all week.

After that it was time for me to pack and go for my last night of sleep. I fell asleep listening to All Things Considered on my iPhone and had some pretty weird dreams. 

A few more pictures