reallocation

It's been raining here! Last night there was another thunderstorm. The lightning was very dramatic, very Fantasia-esque, flashing out of sight below the buildings to the east. It looked like some enormous person was hard at work welding the earth back together. After five (count 'em, five) attempts that turned out blurry, I took a video. Stupid camera.

Yesterday, Karim and I met with Mark the OFDA guy (I'm all about epithets today). The meeting went well, we cleared up once and for all the blanking shelter issues. He took another trip up north to see our sites last month and was very pleased. I think he likes us as a semi-local partner. Did other stuff, too, but that was the highlight.

Spent all day today with Faisal and the AKPBS guys, Nadeem the AKF finance guy and Athar the AKRSP guy. Our mission: Figure out how to reallocate the various savings and shortfalls within the flood relief project budget. Mission accomplished. Now, the next mission: Get a grant modification from OFDA allowing us to do that. The total amount of shuffling around exceeds 10% of the overall project budget, so my next month or so is gonna be taken up trying to extract a formal modification out of OFDA. Next week's meeting with Margo, my contact at OFDA, will be interesting.

So a good day in all: I really like Faisal and Nadeem and the new AKPBS guys were also friendly. Faisal and I spent most of lunch talking about Islamic and Christian history and the religions' historical attitudes toward each other, among other things. Most enlightening. I learned that ancient-Greek-style man-boy love is commonplace in some Pashto areas. Apparently, there are places in western Pakistan where, in late afternoon, men parade around the market hand-in-hand with their young boys and compete to see whose boy is the most beautiful. This is apparently set to music or drumming of some kind. Faisal said he didn't believe it until he saw it with his own eyes. Mind blown straight out the back of my head.

I also didn't know that Muslims think that Adam and Eve were Muslim, as were Abraham and all the other biblical prophets. The prophets' message was to bring the Jews back to Islam, from which they'd strayed. Jesus is included in this lineage, which I guess I knew, but hadn't processed that to Muslims, Jesus wasn't just a prophet of God, he was a Muslim prophet. Muslims believe that Jesus never died -- not that he's divine, but he was taken to heaven by Michael and Gabriel and a guard was given his appearance and executed in his place. At the end time, he'll come back, wet and clean as though he'd just gotten out of a bath, and join a congregation at prayer. The imam (in the Quran the imam of all Jews; how this will work in contemporary Islam is unclear), recognizing him, will offer for Jesus to lead the congregation in his stead, but Jesus will refuse. Once the imam dies a natural death, Jesus will take over the congregation. Fascinating.

Wrapping things up with a few emails here and then I'll mosey back on over to the Serena for my last night in five-star-land. On the menu: a workout, a meal at one of the sit-down restaurants (NOT the buffet), and Jane Jacobs. Tomorrow I'll come into the office in the morning, just for an hour or so. My flight leaves at one so I'll probably head out of the hotel around 10:30 or 11. And then, airplanes.

Oh, I've resolved to do the tour bus thing in Dubai. Decided it'd be ridiculous to spend nine hours in the airport DURING THE DAY. Can't wait to see what that's like.