A hectic Monday morning

8:30 AM on Monday morning, March 19th: I walked into work this morning after being absent for a few days due to sickness and crossed my area's director on my way in: "Check your email Sheila, we'd like you to attend a conference this week, international ministers are coming in, and you could help us with translation." OK, sure. She had to run, so I just walked into the office (and to a warm welcome back from my colleagues), and set off figuring out what I had missed.

Not 15 minutes later, but Jaime, the director of international cooperation (and the person who accepted me to come work for the Minister of Environment) came to find me to let me know that he wanted to talk to me. Right away. I followed him into a meeting with another woman and got more information - essentially, the Organización del Tratado de Cooperación Amazónica (Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization) is having a meeting this week in Lima. The Ministers of Environment from Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela are coming together for meetings for the next two days (March 20th and 21st). And I've been recruited to help out with some of the translation - mostly helping to liaise with the representatives from Guyana and Suriname, who don't speak Spanish - and help out with some of the logistics. Bonus: I get to attend the entire conference/meeting. WOW! Another wonderful experience has landed on my lap.

So the rest of the day was so, so busy: I reviewed a document for tomorrow's meeting, was running around getting information about what I'll be doing (I am meeting all of the ministers at their hotel tomorrow and accompanying them to the venue, among other things), and also finishing up other projects that need to be completed (mostly related to the National Pollutant Release Inventory implementation). I didn't leave work until 6:30 pm (I usually finish at 5:45) - yay, 9 hour day on my first day back. Sometimes, I wish I could get overtime for the extra hours that I put in, and then... well, I remember that I'm a volunteer. Maybe next job...

A plus! When I got home, the floors had been cleaned. FINALLY. (You can read a bit about my living circumstances here.)

I'm off to bed for now, but I'll be sure to update you soon - the next two days are bound to be action-packed! On top of that, tomorrow night the Canadian International Development Agency is having a Canadian volunteer appreciation night at the Canadian Embassy, so after my 12-hour workday I will be taking a taxi straight to the embassy to catch the end of that. So much for joining the gym this week!

I hope you're all doing well! If you'd like more information about things going on or any of the projects that I've been involved in feel free to write me a message! I'd be more than happy to share more information if you're interested!

Sheila