A quick summary of what’s going on. I’m off to Cambodia for 3 months, on an Australian Business Volunteers (ABV, http://www.abv.org.au/) assignment, placed with CARE (the charity) in Cambodia. Stated aim is to improve the financial reporting abilities of their Management Information System (MIS), as well as generally make the HR data talk to the finance data, etc.
ABV pays for travel, accommodation, living allowance and pre-trip shots etc, funded originally by the Australian Government and also in part the “client” (CARE). I give my time and alleged expertise. My usual employer Jacobs gets their leave liability reduced to the tune of 3 months. Eva the cat gets to meow outside someone else’s door at 5:30am for feeding, and the Mercedeses get a little rustier.
Cambodia in particular came about as the CARE assignment here was the best match for what I do back in the mother country. Another close contender was an assignment with a local council in the Phillipines, which would also have been 3 months.
Leadup has involved trips to the travel doc (I got to pee in a cup for the first time – apparently there are multiple techniques for doing this) and shots, running around getting US$ and passport photos, and on the suggestion of existing ABV people in Cambodia, I have even relented and acquired a laptop to use on the trip (a well-timed Aldi special - $999!). Kurt: Vista seems to blue-screen every time it unsleeps, and Nero Home is not very good at starting. Apart from that it works well. Also seems that my old digital camera (a whopping 2 megapixel one, the bees knees in the day) won’t talk to Vista – it can see it correctly, but is only partially convinced that it’s a camera. Luckily a card reader provides a workaround.
Anyway, travel dates are 6 Sept 08 to 7 Dec 08, and we shall see what happens.
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