Rice

chicken and rice and beans and spinach. beef and rice an plantains. fish and rice. everything has rice - rice for lunch, rice for dinner. as it turns out, my favorite short grain brown rice is not one of the options - it is basic white rice - and it has been part of most meals - and will be a primary option on most meals for the foreseeable future. Now - to be fair - the rice is good. Often it comes with a tomato based sauce with various vegetables in it - today it was okra, yesterday it was green peas. with a little chili sauce, the rice alone is fairly tasty, and a fairly good bet for lunch. Not sure how it will go for the next 30 days, and i'm not overly thrilled about carb loading. I do know that its a sure way for a post lunch crash.......which............brings me to my next concern....coffee.

I made a poor strategic decision to leave a travel coffee maker out of my suitcase, as I simply had too much to bring. That was a real shame, since the university does not seem to have any coffee available. I find this very hard to believe - but it is our experience so far. So this is the deal. 2 cups of coffee with breakfast - instant from a powder. It is much better than you'd think and serves the purpose - but that post lunch cup is a real gap in my world - though in the scheme of things, I'd be fairly confident I am far far better off overall than most of the people in this country - so I will learn to manage the post lunch crash, and perhaps be better for it.

Today after lunch we met with the head of the university. He wanted to share the history of the decision to develop this university, ensure we understood we are an important part of helping them achieve their vision, and thank us for coming. He is a very impressive man (as have many that are part of this vision and this university) - and it was an honor to be invited to his office for an official welcome. We thanked him for the opportunity to be part of this.

We also got a tremendous amount done today in terms of scoping and planning for our projects. This is becoming a very real work project that has huge potential for high impact. V-exciting.

more later