Day 6: Connectivity and Chinese Food :-)

Rahul trying to get connectivity in our office.  It was quite a challenge.

I took a picture of the keyboard ... I didn't realize beforehand that it is different than what we are used to.



The team meeting in the lobby of the hotel before heading out to dinner.



The team having a great Chinese dinner at a nearby Chinese restaurant.   None of the staff spoke English so Austin was able to tranlate everything for us in his native Mandarin Chinese.

Yum.  The sizzling beef is especially good.

Boutana, Andrew, and Tracey applauding Jailan for all of her help.  This was her last team dinner since she is returning to Washington on Friday.

The team gave Jailan earrings that had been purchased in the Medina.  As you can tell, she loved them.

Wednesday was our second day 'at the office' on our assignment. We arrived at the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) and started working on connectivity again as soon as we arrived. Both of my teammates (Rahul and Andrew) are both very technical and we had quite a difficult time getting our computers set up with internet access. It also added an interesting twist because we realized that the computer keyboards are set up differently than what we are used to so it makes normal typing a rather unique experience. I won't go through all of the technical details but after several hour of trying numerous methods, we were all able to get email and internet access. We spent most of our day working to get organized for our project. We put together a four week plan that defined all of our tasks and timetables. We also had a very good meeting with Mohammed and his supervisor related to scope confirmation for our project. All and all it was a productive day and we felt good with what we accomplished.

After all of our team members got back to the hotel, we went out to dinner at a nearby Chinese restaurant. Austin was able to speak Mandarin Chinese with the lady who owned the restaurant and the food was very delicious. We got a large, round table and shared many entrees. It was one of the best meals that we have had since we arrived and overall it was a very fun night. Jailan, our CDC Advisor from Washington DC, will be leaving at the end of this week so we had a farewell celebration at dinner and gave her a gift. We all enjoyed getting to know Jailan this week ... she is truly an incredible individual and has been so helpful to us in getting successfully set up this week. We will miss her.