Vanuatu 14

It's very quiet in the house at the moment. The two teammates that are with me in Vila have already gone to bed. It is after 9 o'clock I suppose  :-)

And in fairness it's been a long day. We spent a lot of it trundling around to various suppliers trying to source the right quantities of the right materials for different projects. The day finished with part one of our next distribution in Tagabe, where we are helping people with vouchers that can be redeemed at a local hardware store with the intention of promoting the self-repair of their homes.

In addition to that we have until tomorrow to hand in our submissions to the joint Humanitarian Action Plan. That's what I'm doing now, as you can tell. This 'HAP' combines all of the planned projects from the different agencies within their sector (shelter, water, health, education etc) and then puts them as a package to governments and donors for support. It's important that we are part of the plan as a) donors generally won't consider supporting projects that aren't part of the coordinated solutions package, and b) agencies won't be supported if they don't work within the system. That aside, it's also a good opportunity to find additional support for the work we are doing.

Speaking of coordination, it's been a real blessing to work with other agencies in such a cooperative environment. So far, in one way or another, we have partnered with the Red Cross, Samaritan's Purse, Caritas and, as of today, UNICEF. I will sign an agreement with them in the morning to provide us with further materials for some of our projects.

Another blessing, as always, is the people that we work with. Today as I went out to see the team at the distribution, I was amazed, again, at how patient, peaceful, happy, supportive and thankful the people of Vanuatu are. They truly are the friendliest people in the world. We can't walk from our house to the 'downtown' without every person along the street wishing us a good evening.

Now I think I might join my teammates and head to bed. I can always get the HAP submissions finished in the morning.