Catch-up

It's been a complete week since I last posted and I must apologize for my absence from the blogosphere. I actually forgot to post Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I'm sorry if anyone thought I was in trouble. I'm actually fine, although I'm concerned about my memory. So I'll try to catch up a bit here.

The newspapers noted today that Swaziland is ranked 95 out of 183 countries today in terms of corruption. We've got a 3.1 out of 10, with 10 being a society without corruption. There's also no money for December salaries for civil servants. They managed to resist pay cuts though, so at least they're not getting paid a larger amount than they would be if the government had listened to the IMF.

There's some really cool stuff going on here at AfricaWorks. The abattoir that we work with, Temashing, and AfricaWorks have partnered. So we invested money in the abattoir, which allowed them to begin some needed upgrades, and we also formed a marketing company with them. So now that AfricaWorks has some ownership in the abattoir, part of my job is going to be to evaluate it. We want to make sure it's running smoothly and efficiently. About a month ago, I noticed some discrepancies in the results we were receiving from them, so the first thing I'll be doing is to see if I can figure that out.

I'll keep you posted on that as it happens, so expect more information to follow.

On a more serious note, I was notified that Zac is having some pretty serious medical problems. This came as quite a blow to me, because only a couple weeks ago he was my favorite face to see. I would request your prayers for Zac and his family, and for the doctors.

Tomorrow is a holiday here, but I'll try to do a better job blogging the rest of this week. I should be either here or at the abattoir the rest of the week, but I'm not sure about next week because businesses here basically shut down around Christmas.

-Ben