Working Effectively in Africa

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Working Effectively in Africa
Lome, Togo West Africa
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Andy of HoboTraveler.com

I like to solve problems, and here in Togo, West Africa I have many problems to solve if I wish. These problems are MY PROBLEMS, as a USA culture person in Togo; they are NOT PROBLEMS FOR TOGO PEOPLE.

What is effective, what is efficient in life?

Effective people produce result.
Efficient people do it faster.
Serendipitous work is both effective and efficient.

My mind keeps reliving my attempt to document the growing of Cacao or the Chocolate plants here in Kpalime, Togo. I could not find Cacao, however I found Palm Oil being processed

I failed to document Cacao, however, succeeded with Palm Oil.
Richard Trillo comment on the post,
http://www.hobotraveler.com/2007/04/failed-to-see-cacao.html

“That's just a great bit of serendipity and readers of hobotraveler benefit either way.“

Thanks Richard.
http://theroughguidetowestafrica.blogspot.com

I think this comment on the Blog has revealed serendipitously for me the only way to accomplish goals in West Africa. So a bit of serendipity helps me with a proposition of that maybe the best way to work in Africa is to work serendipitously.

I naturally work serendipitously, however to explain how I work is confusing, I have hundreds of projects; they are all in various steps of being completed. Some are on step one, others are on step three, others are going to soon be completed.

Example:

Ten Hypothetical projects rated at various levels of completion:

(Project 01) --- 01 02 03 04 05 06 07
(Project 02) --- 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09
(Project 03) --- 01 02
(Project 04) --- 01
(Project 05) --- 01 02 03 04 05 06
(Project 06) --- 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09
(Project 07) ---
(Project 08) --- 01 02 03 04 05
(Project 09) --- 01 02 03 04 05 06 07
(Project 10) --- 01 02

I work on what is fun and easy today, I avoid work on projects until the somehow it become fun and easy. Normally what makes a project fun and easy, is I think of a new solution to one of the steps and I can proceed on one of the projects.

Togo or West Africa is a challenge, as is 80 percent of the planet because directly working on a project rarely succeeds. To continually tickle the progress of a project will one day allow the project to unfold. Therefore the art here it to continuously work on many projects, avoid any direct work, just say no, and wait, the one day Serendipitously the goal is accomplished.

I need to talk with Togo people for five minutes, prompt them to move, then leave and allow serendipitous progress, to talk more than five minutes is ineffective and inefficient.

Note, I make money by creating files, the more files, the more money I make, conditional on being indexed by Google.com.

Working Effectively in Africa

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ash said on Saturday August 4th, 2007 06:50:00 AM

If memory serves, the term 'serendipity' was coined while an Englishman was travelling Europe, because of the many serendipitous events inherant in travel. The word came from an ancient story i think, and he introduced it into English Usage

Jocelyne said on Saturday August 4th, 2007 08:10:00 PM

me againi am wonderingwould it be useful to you to have someone who is fluent in french by your side . . . j'aimerais biem visiter l'Afrique pour quelque moisjocelyne