Anchors away

As I write this post, I'm sitting in the Moscow Domoyedovo airport. I've got a little bit of extra time, because the flight to Yerevan from Moscow that we booked turned out to be full. The little travel agent in Dushanbe was only able to reserve our seats, which lasted for 24 hours. I was not informed of this, and the reservations were made last Thursday. Hopefully I won't be in Moscow for very long, but I might not be able to fly out until tomorrow. If that turns out to be the case, I'll get to go hang out in the downtown, and maybe even get to go see Uncle Lenin, again. That would be fun. It's kind of neat how travelling outside the USA is never quite as simple as I've grown accustomed to at home. I'm sure things will work out.

I left Dushanbe early this morning, and feel a little sad that I was unable to spend more time with the local staff, there. They definitely have a special group of people, and I feel confident that they will be more than moderately successful, as they get the new program off the ground, there. My presentation to the office staff went pretty well, I think, although I had not thought through it as much as I would have liked. It seems to me that the most important part of the country staff presentation is to provide some information that will prove practical in their service of their clients. In addition, I want to begin to enlist their support for future similar analyses that will hopefully be carried out without the aid of a Washington researcher. The country director is much more supportive than I imagined he would be, so I could find myself heading out to Tajikistan again, sometime in the not-so-distant future.

Well, that's about it. The roubles are flowing by the minute at this computer, here.