6 months have flown by

The first six months of my assignment have flown by and I must admit that they have been a hell of a lot of fun. Doing things that I wouldn't ordinarily do. One of the things about getting out and living a bit more is that you end up putting yourself in situations that potentially could be risky. While diving in South Choiseul I was chomping through the oxygen so fast that I quickly ran out and on my way to the surface I had to buddy breath with my dive buddy, jumping of the riverbank and into the river at MBoe Boe just upstream of where the crocs live and while playing with kids in the sea close to home, the kids threw me backwards into the water which resulted in me landing on my head and which had me worried for a while that I may have been some spinal damage. All in all though, in this situation you just have to get out there and enjoy the experience and the accept that there are going to be risks associated with really living.

In regards to the work I am doing here, the end of the 6 month period has seen an end to the honeymoon period of the assignment. The real barriers to progress have now become extremely apparent and I can see that I am going to need to be careful to ensure that those potential barriers dont impede what can be achieved in an assignment such as mine. Even with the barriers taken into consideration, they are minor compared to other work environments that I have worked in and there is a lot of scope to do some really great work. There is a lot of support from the community at large for developing a protected area network throughout the province and thats something that I really want to focus my energy on.

So after six months the real assignment begins, I have been starting to look at this assignment in 6 month blocks and not thinking of it in terms of a two year assignment. Its more important to stay focused on the short term goals as things can be very fluid here and a short term focus with just an eye on the longer term allows flexibility but ensures a focus on the here and now.