A Day For Champions

So I figure I should back track first to share a couple of things.

Moment: Yesterday, Rachel (the Senegal team Leader), Adri & Erin (GCY staff), Ian (a fellow writing a blog post), Laura, and I (answering a survey) were all hanging out in the couch room, which is essentially a room full of three huge uber squishy brown couches. As we were talking about the hot weather, Rachel busts out in a " Oh, my... Really now". It turns out that she had been listening in on our conversation while composing an e-mail containing a sentence about her 8-year old cousin. Essentailly it came to the phrase " my hot cousin". Oh great funny.

Later on Zuleika, Ian, Laura, and I decided to look at the pictures on the GCY website of the past few days. While waiting for them to load, Zuleika pulled out her flip camera in order to 'interview me.' One sentence in Laura pokes me, causing a giggle, which in turn caused a three minute- filmed tickle attack with me writhing in a mess of helpless giggles.

There is also the thing known as GB... the Gangster Bee. Essentially the GB has flown off with chicken & cheese from our lunches outside, and drank mint tea within our conference room. Enough said.

The day we all got here was sufficiently uneventful. We went to this amazing mexican restuarant two bulidings down from the GCY office, where I enjoyed a delicious entree of enchiladas. Overall, the food at the Noetics Institute is basically amazing. Save tonight, where there was sole fish, we have had grilled chicken, fresh bread, bacon, fruit, cinnamon oatmeal cookies.... everything delicious! Something that makes it better though, is the efficiency of the kitchen. We may have grilled vegtables one night, and the next morning you will see them in your scrambled eggs. Along with that, they try to obtain all local foods.

Anyways, today we had by far the most amazing speakers! The first one was named Kevin from the Mulago Institute, and who is deeply involved in the Rainer Fellowship. He taught us the essential ways that you judge the viability of an organizations impact. I.E. is it working or not. The idea is: if you have an impact, it will make people happy. Also, happiness facilitates the process. So what makes happiness? Broken down people need: their basic needs to be met, the prospect of a better future, to keep up with the Joneses, to avoic loss (as loosing an amount is felt longer than gaining the same amount), and to provide autonomy. To then measure this impact you take four steps. 1. What is the real mission of the project? Stated in 8 words or less including in the statements: target population, verb, and an outcome. 2. Find the single best thing to measure. 3. get real numbers before AND after the fact. 4. Show that the change is undeniably attributed to what you did. Lastly, you perform the walk away test. If you walk away, will the effect still be in place? Would people care enough to do it for themselves?

Okay, well I'm off. We are going to have cupcake decorating bonding.