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it’s been a long time since my last confession and a lot has transpired since. The past month and half has been roller coaster of utter relaxation or hair pulling stress as Amanda and I were not only trying to finish up a $1.3 million proposal to USAID but also entertain friends and family.

Fortunately for us, Amanda’s mother and sister came to visit for the holidays to provide a much needed reprieve from the daily stresses we found ourselves in. Prior to their arrival, Amanda and I had begun compiling all the information we could find about ASPI’s malaria program while making sure we had all the necessary information required by USAID.

Let me set the scenario up first for those who don’t know what we’re doing here, a little background about ASPI –

Aidez Small Project International is locally run NGO focusing on integrated financial and health services. They currently have contracts with the local government to finance their heath initiatives (malaria and TB education/resource distribution) although the time and amount of money delivered tends to change based on the fluctuation of government spending/attitude. Meaning if they want to delay the release of money or change the amount, there is nothing you can really do about it, which if I may add seems a little ridiculous but this coming from a relatively stable and secure African economy.

Their Micro Finance services are funded by small personal/business loans taken out at incredibly high interest rates with half expected as collateral and still…more delays. Clearly ASPI is struggling to secure a consistent and reliable source of funding, which is where we hope to fill the gap.

Additionally, ASPI has still not yet reached the digital world. Everything is still manually inputted into your “classic third grade black and white composition books”. Computers are here and they use them, heck they even have MS Office 2007 but they just choose to do things they way they’ve always done them. So, trying to gather concise and accurate information is difficult. On top of that, because ASPI and so many other local NGO’s struggle to secure money, they lie and make things up in their financial reports and proposals to try and portray an organization doing better than they really are. At one point, Moses (ASPI founder) looked at Amanda and I and said “you always expect the numbers to be consistent”. Amanda and I looked at him and said “YES, that’s how it works”; at least have an idea of where you stand even if want to lie to every potential investor. Unfortunately, because of the lack of resources, it’s difficult for a small time African not-for-profit organization to run efficiently and effectively.

Now don’t get me wrong here. Deep down, based on what I’ve seen so far, Moses has a big heart and big dreams and as an organization ASPI is doing a lot of positive things; the problem really comes down to “can you maintain corporate/organizational integrity in a broken system where everyone is cutting corners to get to the top”. Perhaps this is true wherever you go.

In any event, I kind of went off a little but I wanted to try and paint a small picture. After about two weeks of initial information gathering (which half the time we are making up as we go) and proposal writing are heads are spinning and we welcome the arrival of Amanda’s family for a little break. Amanda’s mother and sister were flying in from Kenya (a day late because the original flight they booked was canceled due to an insufficient amount of passengers – clearly, waiting for transportation to fill up is not restricted to just land) luckily just in the nick of time because of the massive riots that ensued in Nairobi following the recent election. If anyone was paying attention, Kenya is going through tremendous political unrest where hundreds of people were killed and thousands displaced….but that’s a whole other story.

We spent the next 10 days lounging at some of Ghana’s more lavish establishments; enjoying the luxury we knew we wouldn’t see again. We visited Kakum National Park, a rainforest where they’ve constructed 7 tree-top bridges about 350m long that allow you look down over the canopy of the forest. A little Indiana Jones-esque…

In addition to the national park, we visited some of the colonial slave forts in Elmina and Cape Coast that obviously have a solemn history. Cape Coast was the site of the largest slave fort in all of West Africa and possibly the continent, yet when you look at it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Coast_Castle) it’s hard to imagine the things that went on during that time. It’s a tough place to visit; especially walking through the dungeons and seeing scrape marks all over the wall and floor made by people using their nails and trying to truly grasp the conditions that slaves were forced to endure.

In spite of these harsh reality checks, which are always important to understand and experience, are time with Amanda’s family was really enjoyable and as always way too fast. The time came when we had to say goodbye to Mackenzie, so we packed her up with as many Japanese pirated movies, souvenirs and extra clothes that she could take with her so we can avoid traveling with them later and sent her off. Amanda’s mother was staying behind for a few weeks to help with the organization.

Now it’s back to reality and the proposal. To make a long story slightly shorter, we managed to finish this 100-page proposal and send it out via DHL on Thursday January 17th, with enough time, according to DHL, to meet our Wednesday January 23rd 10AM deadline in Washington DC. Of course, the package gets delayed in Heathrow because of the British Airways crash, which means we lose three days from the start. Now we begin to sweat a little, because it’s Tuesday morning and we don’t have the resources to submit it online and the package is just leaving London. Mind you, it arrived on Thursday of last week. So we track the package as it goes from London to New York to Ohio to wait wait wait…OHIO. WHY OHIO at 3:47AM? At this point, all hope is lost. There is no way that DHL can get that package into DC by 10AM Wednesday.

Come Wednesday 10AM, the package has not arrived at its destination. Just to humor ourselves we continue to track the shipment over the course of the day to see how far its come and what do we see but that the courier attempted delivery at 11:40AM only to have it refused by the recipient. 1 hour 40 minutes late and USAID won’t even touch it…or so we thought. After several days of emails and phone calls to USAID with no reply, we think all is lost, until we find out that DHL sent the package to the Securities and Exchange Commission and said it was “refused by recipient” because they were they were not allowing the package through security.

Now it’s Monday January 28th and the deadline is five days past. DHL has agreed to deliver the package to USAID today with a note stating that they messed up the delivery and the package should have arrived before the 10AM deadline last Wednesday. USAID has agreed to receive the package, although we’re still not sure if it will be considered. We’ll find out later today. In any event, it has been an up and down ride, from thinking that two months of hard work was tossed out the window for being 1hour 40 minutes late to DHL telling us that it was their fault to having the possibility to still be in the running for a grant from USAID. Anyways, I’ll keep you updated as to what happens.

In other news, and I’m almost done here, Amanda and I are going to see Ghana vs. Morocco tonight in soccer. Ghana is hosting the African Cup of Nations (soccer) tournament. 16 teams battling it out, dun dun dunnnnn…..so its soccer mania around here, which is a pretty cool vibe to be a part of.

Well, I think that’s it for now. I’m doing my best to write back to everyone so please don’t get upset if it takes me a while.

Dave