Do the transition hustle!

There comes a time when you must hand over the torch. EWB has flown in a “Professional Fellow” (PF) for the next 4 months to replace Spencer and I (who are “Junior Fellows” JFs). I should apologize for 6 days of no blog posts — life got in the way of documenting life.

Last Wednesday, twenty EWB volunteers working in Malawi arrived in Chipata, Zambia, to escape the coming turmoil from protests in Malawi. The situation looks disconcerting; Zimbabwe has dedicated troops to assist with keeping civil order in Malawi. Sadly, it looks like violence is in the cards for today’s protests across Malawi.

Since the volunteers arrived, I’ve been very busy trying to find host-families for about half of the group to stay with. Managing logistics ballooned to encapsulate most of my time last week.

At the same time, a critical period began: Mark, our Pro-Fellow, started the transition of learning all the information that Spencer and I have gained over the last four months. As well, the intricacies of both of our company’s agent systems have to be understood because Mark will be facilitating their upkeep (make changes where necessary). As well, Mark will monitor and evaluate the success of our agent networks. Sounds like a lot of work, right? Right.

Mark is a trooper. Not only was he switched from Malawi to Zambia only two weeks ago, but he is taking over the work of two placements with the same amount of time (4 months). Unlike our placements, where we had lots of time to play with and learning about how agriculture in Zambia works (for example, I only began truly “implementing” or producing deliverables in the second week of July, over 10 weeks after arrival), Mark’s monitoring and evaluating phase is already rolling.

So the torch has been passed. Mark has hit the ground running, flame in hand. You can find his blog here if you want to follow the continuing story of Mark, Spencer’s and my agent systems for the next four months.