Work??? no way!

Up until now it probably seems like I am just on one excellent vacation. That is true, but not exclusively. I have actually been working too. My employer is NOPE, national organization of peer educators. They are one of the only organizations in the world specializing in peer education for HIV/AIDS. NOPE typically enters a workplace to implement a strategy to combat HIV/AIDS and facilitate a cultural change. One of the biggest problems with HIV/AIDS in Kenya is that no one really wants to talk about the disease or sexual matters so there are no available resources for people with questions or concerns to go to. The peers trained by NOPE are employees in the organization who are approachable to other employees. Once they are trained in HIV/AIDS issues, such as symptoms, testing, good sexual practices etc, fellow employees will have a resource that they can access to talk comfortably about these issues. The peers also will initiate discussions and workshops within the organization for sustaining the cultural change and condom use.Since 1 in 10 employees are potentially infected, investment in such programs is not only ethical, it is also economical. As such, NOPE's services are in high demand in Kenya, or at least there is a huge market for their services. The problem, i think, is being able to tap this market and handle the growth efficiently. So far they have been relatively successful in that they are always busy.
In come Matt. I am here to help them with their IT needs and overall efficiency. As of now, they don't have internet, or email, they print by saving documents to a disk and walking over to the printer, the design of their website is the actual textbook definition of what not to do (http://www.nope.or.ke/), and they are constantly loosing or forgeting their data as it is not backed up or accessible externally. Every computer is littered with viruses and everything they painfully send out or save to disk infects clients and partners machines. Hopefully I can change some of this. I am very hopefull that I will be able to make a difference at NOPE, I have definately bought into their program, I just need them to buy into mine. The problem is justifying an expense to them that could alternatively afford them another 2 employees (labour is super cheap here)On the non-technical side of work, this place is amazing. I never thought that working in an office could be so enjoyable. Their are monkeys playing in the trees outside of my window and everyone here is great to work with, always having a good time and very welcoming. They do really serious work at NOPE as they are potentially saving lives, but you wouldn't know it by hanging out in their office. It hardly feels like work because I love it. I am just on one cool vacation.