OK so it wasn't really the same meeting, but it just felt like I spent the entire week in "meeting" mode. I don't know about the rest of you, but I definitely adopt a different persona when I'm doing professional things as opposed to personal matters. I become much more focussed on what needs to be done, what I need to get done, which can mean (now I come to think about it) that I can choose to ignore personal differences if I feel they're not relevant or justified. The main thing though is that this professional persona requires a heightened level of attention and so greater energy than just being "me". I need that time at the end of the day to unwind and recharge my batteries, so if I'm always on-duty I do feel tired after a while.

So what were all these meetings then? Well, Monday I had a meeting with Clive about a session we were facilitating together as part of the induction course for the new volunteers. This was just a short 30 minutes chat, but we decided to change a few things so it generated another hour or 2 of work for me that afternoon. In the afternoon I was due to officially neet my mentee in the new volunteer group. After several months of inactivity, VSO decided to resurrect the mentoring system that used to match new volunteers with experienced ones to help them through their first few months. I'd already met my chap on his first day in-country and even been out for a drink with him and a few others a week or so later. He's called Will, comes from St. Albans which is very close to where I grew up in Hertfordshire, and may even be related to a guy I went to school with as they both have the rather unusual surname of Niblett. Away, he used to work for the Home Office as, and this is quite a title I reckon, "Anti-social Behavior White Paper Manager". I've yet to get into what this really meant or involved, but it is one of Tony Blair's pet policy areas I understand so I want to know more.

The previous evening Sarah and I had the flat to ourselves so cooked some chicken in one of our packet mixes. That wasn't all relaxation either as we worked on the presentation she was due to give the Monday at the 3 month review of her placement. The initial idea was to put some photos on transparencies and use them as props. In the end however we stuck it all in PowerPoint, added in some animation and text, and basically had quite a nice looking presentation. I find that most volunteers don't really know much about using PowerPoint and Excel, and that's just because they're like almost everyone else really. At times then it felt like I was running a Powerpoint training evening, but it was worth it as she wow-ed them with her all-singing all-dancing presentation.

Tuesday I co-facilitated an induction session called "Work Strategies" which is designed to help the new volunteers to think about their jobs and what it's really going to be like working in a Bangladeshi NGO. To say working here is different is an understatement, so this is usually what most new volunteers consider to be the most useful part of their induction course. I really enjoyed it, but then I do enjoy standing up in front of a group and presenting my ideas or experiences. While we did do some specific exercises and group work to highlight issues around working as an adviser rather than a doer, the most valuable part of the day is really hearing from other volunteers about what they've experienced and how they coped. Towards the end of the day Clive said that one participant was feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the difficulties we had highlighted so he needed to give them a little pep talk! It's not that things always go wrong here, but it's better to be made aware of what could possibly happen so the volunteer is better equipped to deal with it.

That evening Sarah had arranged for the volunteer liason committee VOICE to have dinner at her flat to discuss some of the issues we just never seem to have time to finish. These included our terms of reference, which led us into a discussion of the election process and the proposal of a new method. Muggins here offered to prepare a document to summarise the idea so I've only got myself to blame for that one.

Wednesday was theoretically a day with nothing planned, but by this time I was feeling so in need of some peace and quiet that I just wanted everyone to leave the flat and let me have a lie in. I should perhaps mention that there were 6 people staying at Sarah's flat all week, so after it became clear that I wasn't going to get the space I desired I took myself off to VSO to e-mail then had a nice lunch on my own. Come 2pm I was feeling much better, and Sarah and I took ourselves off to the nice part of town for a little bit of shopping before hitting the BAGHA for a swim and a doze in the sun. This was great, and things got even better when we spent the evening on our own at the Nordic club sipping cold drinks on sun loungers and eating nice food in an otherwise empty dining room. At the BAGHA we met some other volunteers who said that their plans were to go to the same club for dinner. When Sarah burst out laughing and I explained our own romantic plans they quickly changed theirs, thank God!

The rest of the week from Thursday onwards was all about setting up and running a weekend away for the volunteers around professional issues. We had a similar team-building event last year at the same venue, and it had been so successful that VSO agreed to fund another one this year. Sarah had offered to organise it with another volunteer, but in the end, for reasons I won't bore you with, she did everything herself. Personally I'd agreed to run a session about doing needs assessments which are pretty much essential before defining a project to bring about change. I was also helping Gill run the Ice-breaker Olympics which was huge fun. Basically, when you're running a workshop or training session it's best to keep people's energy levels up and help the group to bond throughout the day, and one good way of doing this is having them do fun and slightly physical little games after breaks and lunch. So, we put everyone into 5 teams and had them running around a tree in lungis, carrying water from one bucket to a jug using only a piece of paper, and my personal favourite, a sheep-dog trial where 2 people are blind-folded and a "shepherd" has to guide them around a course using only noises and no words. Seeing grown adults stumbling around a field as others told them to go left or right by saying Woof! or Ribbit! was just too funny.

The only glitch in the whole weekend, and this is not at all surprising, was also the only thing that Sarah hadn't managed herself. VSO were supposed to organise a bus to take us there and back, and the guy in charge of it (who shall remain Saifula) failed at both ends. Sarah had checked with him everyday for 10 days that all was well but despite that he still managed to completely bollocks it up. In the end, to get home we had to ask the venue manager to send a guy on a motorbike to hire a bus from the nearest town! Not only were we able to sort this out quite quickly, but it actually cost considerably less than the bus we were supposed to use. Granted it was a tad cramped, and I personally didn't have a seat so sat on a step in the aisle near the front, but it was fine. It's probably just as well that Sarah and I are going to Thailand in a few weeks time as I suspect if Saifula doesn't have a damn good reason for why the return bus didn't show she will be wanted in connection with his untimely but entirely justified death.