December 2, 2004; Rio: Initial excitements are fading into efficient routine. I have settled into my apartment, my project, and even into the eating routine of food by the kilo with more types of BBQ meat than I knew existed. (I figured out the names of the two types I like best, and just ask for those over and over, who knows what they are.)

But I am also starting to realize the enormity of the task ahead and my place in it. They need an advocacy strategy to turn many months of research into policies. But to do that well means knowing what goes into making policy, which, so goes the saying, is like knowing what goes into making sausage; its messy and not many people talk about it openly.

So I have to find out how Brazilian sausage is made. It took me years to begin to understand American sausage; here I have a few months at most. This is where I think about my place in the project. It is not that I can do this better than anyone else here, it’s that they don’t have the time, because they are working on the research, going to the field, or planning other projects.

So, I am doing a job for others, that I know they can do just as well and probably faster. This realization, which I am sure many an employee has had before me, leads me to ask, why me? and what I can offer that no one else here can. And we all need to ask and answer this re: our jobs at some point or we are bound to cower in fear of a sad reality.

Luckily for my ego, I do realize what my value added is. I have made advocacy plans before, and I know the basics that apply across borders. Connecting a message with action, telling it to the people who matter. I can still ask the questions here to the permanent staff, experts on the details, to make sure they hone their message so they could explain it in an elevator ride if they needed to, because sometimes, an elevator ride or the walk from car to office door may be the only time you get with a policy maker.

I think I will make up a list ‘Alex’s basics of advocacy’ by the time this is over. That may be the best product yet.