1st day of work...yum food...

So Palau is hot. Like REALLY REALLY hot.

It also rains here for 5 minutes, then its beautiful again. I finally found somewhere where the weather is more spastic than Pittsburgh.

So Yixin and I woke up at a lovely 7:30...30 minutes before the alarm was supposed to go off. (Passing out at 7pm the night before could be the main factor). nothing like a jetlag. After a much needed shower and shave we headed off the work to find that our boss Edwel. Would be an hour late. So we went to a deli to get breakfast.

Now Palauns here really like food. A lot. And it is all so good too! No matter what style of food they make here, they make sure its delicious. Last night Yixin and I had Korean food and it was epic. This morning I had grilled cheese, and they found a way to make the most delicious grilled cheese I have put into my mouth.

Edwel showed up, and suggested we talk over food. Yixin and I reluctantly agreed. Edwel ordered us a fish appetizer to share as we discussed the broad ideas for the what he has in mind for us. The project details are fascinating and reinstalled my faith in technology.

See, I have always thought that technology is going to do nothing for communities but make people much lazier, but the problem here is not a desire to be lazy at all.

The ministry of education here can only afford to hire so many employees because of their budget and there is only so much work one single employee can do. One employee Debbie has many roles involving the curriculum. One of her roles is to create data sheets on how the students are preforming on standardization exams throughout the country. However all the data is currently in paper form. Whats even more time crucial, is that in order to get grants from the USA (via the no child left behind act) she must create data sheets on how well the students are preforming. Our task is to help her create a technology to ease her time spent doing this so she can also spend time on her other dozens of tasks.

Technology here is not a negative influence on this tiny island, they are trying to find ways to use it appropriately to help them in their lives.

After a revelation filled lunch-snack-thing Edwel told us that the financial guys were off at some meeting and he would call us at the apt when they were back.

Its now 5:00pm and he told us that tomorrow it would be taken care of. Hard days work!

Anyway, we are trying to meet up with Kate and Brandon!!! We haven't seen them since we landed two days ago!!!

I forgot

Those fish appetizer things were sooooooo good. I'm pretty sure they killed the fish in the kitchen and then served it to us, it was the freshest tuna I have ever had. imagine biting into a piece of fresh fish with just an explosion of succulent flavor in your mouth...(it was good)

yea, they like food here.