If its thursday, i must be in Dar

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Today feels very long.. not only was there a party in the apartments behind my window, but sometime in the middle of the night, a couple of cats got very amorous and loud. Waking up before 4am two days running doesn’t agree with me. Good thing I bought coffee for the office (everyone else is a tea drinker.)

Had dinner last night on the shores of the Indian Ocean.. I’d have pictures, but by the time we were seated, it was dark enough so that the camera on the droid was useless shooting towards the horizon. Trust me, it was a sight.. I’ll be back there soon enough with the SLR in hand…I’ve gotten a few requests for pictures, and will post them… but the gig comes first. Good news is that according to my project plan, I’m right on schedule and maybe even slightly ahead.

Just spoke to my parents on Skype… man, I love technology. Too bad the cell companies couldn’t agree on systems. I have a Nokia from the UK with a working SIM card, but way too pricey to dial the US except in emergencies… the company here just gave me a local SIM, so I’ll have to make the switch and see how that works. More touristy stuff will have to wait until the weekend, and I’ve got a good lead on the good markets for souvenirs.

As for media monitoring and analysis… Its raw baby, it is raw. Tremendous opportunity to do business with folks back home – we’ll get this straightened out. A process here, a process there, little bit of change management, lots of people management, some team building sprinkled in… give it 30 days and see what happens. As expected, clients are either large national or multinationals, with a handful of NGOs sprinkled in. Surprisingly enough, in a city with about 4 million folks, far less population than say New York, there are at least fourteen, 14! Daily newspapers, 10 television stations and I stopped counting the radio stations. Media outlets to monitor abound!

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