The Birdie has flown the coop

Whew. My boss has moved onto greener pastures, or at least onto the next country. No more long boring dinners talking about work while dodging his insults. He’s a real gem. The upside is that with him gone I feel light and free. I still have lots of work to do, but now it will be fun.

I’m in Croatia to write Success Stories for an agribusiness project that is closing down. Having traveled to Macedonia, Serbia and now Croatia all in the last two months gives an interesting perspective. They were once all part of the Yugoslavia, but now they have such different levels of development. It is interesting to compare based on my first impressions, but I am also learning that my first impressions are often incorrect. I had thought that Macedonia was much worse off compared to Serbia, but Macedonia’s GDP per capita is $8,200 while Serbia’s is $4,400. There is a lot of disparity in Serbia because the war was primarily fought in the South and the north has the richest agricultural land – resulting in a 30% difference in average incomes. From what I have seen of Croatia it really does not need development assistance. Because of the relatively high standards and sophistication, I assumed that Croatia would be exporting significant quantities of agricultural products to the EU – but they are not. It just goes to show, you cannot judge a book by its cover.

Not much to write about my activities as I am mostly just sitting in an office reading documents this week and trying to figure out what to do. Next week I will be in the field so hopefully the posts will be more interesting! The plan for this weekend is shopping, museums, massages and lots of good eating.