As a MRDF Programme Officer, I am fortunate enough to travel to many countries  to visit our partner organisations and see the work that they are doing. However, until now I have never had the opportunity to meet all of our African partners in one place and see how they interact with one another. It is truly an enriching experience to see people from 11 different countries (13, if you include the MRDF staff!), sharing their wealth of experience with  each another. Of course they are here for the workshops, but some of the most interesting conversations also take place over lunch and during free moments. I have seen a Zambian trying to learn French in order to communicate with the West African partners, Kenyan Samburus selling traditional jewellery made by  a women's group to raise income for their project and many more. Today over lunch we had a discussion about how many uses there are for cows horns, which include using them to store and drink milk.  This evening we wiill all be visiting a traditional Ethiopian restaurant and everyone has brought along their traditional clothes from their countries to wear. All of the MRDF staff will also be dressing up so it should be an interesting night. I myself will be wearing an Ethiopian dress, since this is one of the countries that I cover as part of my work.  We will definitely take some photos and post them on the website as soon as we can.  I am off to see our Ugandan partner running a forum on water and sanitation now, so as they say in the Ethiopian language of Amharic - Chow (Goodbye)...for now.