Here's the thing...

I have just touched down in Boston after 48 hours of travel. I look and smell hideous. The drug dogs stopped me - probably because I smell like goat. The customs guy let me in despite bright red marks put on my papers at passport control - probably mostly out of pity. And all I can think of are the words on the Statue of Liberty which take on new meaning when you actually are the wretched refuse from a teeming shore: Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore...

The Bare Naked Ladies song, 'If I had a million dollars' has been going through my head now for almost 24 hours. Sing it with me if you know the tune... "If I had a 1,000,000 (If I had a 1,000,000) I'd but you a green dress ( but not a real green dress that's cruel) If I had a 1,000,000 (If I had a 1,000,000) I'd but you some art ( A Picasso or a Garfunkel) If I had a 1,000,000 (If I had a 1,000,000) I'd buy you a monkey (haven't you always wanted a monkey?) If I had a 1,000,000 If I had a 1,000,000 If I had a 1,000,000 If I had a 1,000,000 I'd be rich!" The song has stuck because I am trying to get a million dollars out of a donor. Well, not a million dollars exactly...it's more like 1,716,589 euros...but you get the point. The donor seems to be enjoying the cat and mouse game they're playing with us. E-mails with pedantic questions. Calling us for a meeting and then sending us away without having met with us. More pedantic...

Sometimes I think that my life can't get more bizarre...and then it does. Like this morning when the staff were all singing Christmas carols in the other room a very ugly monkey - standing about 3 foot high - strolls in through the door and takes a seat on the door right out side my office and begins watching me. I find this unacceptable so stand up and pick up a stapler to throw at it. The monkey jumped off the chair and bounded out the door. I followed still holding the stapler in a threatening manner which was meant to convey: 'Don't mess with me cause I will brain you with this cheap, Chinese office implement.' I edged toward the door to close it when the monkey...obviously not finding either me or the stapler all that threatening...rushes the door that I barely managed to slam in time and he bounced off it. He took a few steps back and stood there staring me down. I tried to make noise to scare him off but he just too a few more steps back and then took a ru...

Motot is quiet at night. Dead quiet – with the exception of the drums that some drummer out there seems to enjoy playing all night, and the occasional dog barking, or herd of cattle moving around. It is beautiful in it’s complete and utter silence. You can hear people talking across the village. The moon has been full and bright throughout my entire visit so that the night never gets fully dark and you can walk without a torch (inadviseable but possible). Thus, when the silence is broken at 4.39 in the morning by one woman, then another, then another screaming the high-pitched cry of celebration/warning that sounds like a swarm of banshees it is one of the most eerie and disturbing thing I have ever heard. Dogs began barking. The guards began running. Everyone begins shouting. I go out and stand authoritatively in my pajamas, in the middle of the compound, hands on hips realising that I haven’t a freakin’ clue what is going on. The guards are peering out through out through our reedy ...

There is a Romanian photographer who has published a book called: In the Most Beautiful life and as the plane bumped down in the field site today just like it had hundreds of times before; as the children from the village run up to see who might be disembarking; as staff stood on the airstrip waving as if their lives depended on how effusively they wave; I find myself thinking of the title of this book. How many times a day, or a week, or a month or sometimes even in your whole life do you find yourself grinning thinking, ‘I can’t believe I get to live this life!’