Today I broke my own record...for the most meetings in one day. The new number to beat is 9 and each meeting was at least an hour long and I even cancelling one meeting so I could have a working lunch to talk to the project partner that was doing my translating. Some low- and high-lights (although I can’t mention many of those in case a competitor is reading this):
· A Japanese grants program that consults with farmers on their needs (supposedly), then buys machinery internationally and gives it to farmers at below market value and with no interest loans. With one program they are managing to distort the Albanian market for machinery and the finance market. At least they stopped doing the same with fertilizer when the dealers complained.
· One officially in the Ministry of Agriculture (who shall remain nameless) actually pulled up a generic power point presentation on her computer on the general state of agriculture in Albania. My repeated efforts to get her back to the topic of extension failed miserably and I eventually just started editing other notes while my poor translator had to listen to her.
· I met with a vegetable processor that is doing excellent work and is actually buying local produce for his production. A very high percentage of produce is imported into Albnia.
· I got to meet with the minister himself. Always an interesting meeting in the sense that it is highly political and not much is achieved in the meeting
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