Extinction Level Event by Jose Pino Johansson Read Free Book Online

two months, it would actually take
eight months to complete without proper supervision. Once Trip
arrived on the scene, it would take a mere four months to get the
work done. That was the nature of the job, and one had to accept
inevitability’s silent yet powerful hand in the work. No matter
what scenario the FAO got into, no matter how bright the outcome,
during his tenure Manjak noted that Murphy’s Law would always creep
in and deploy some twisted derivative that would determine the
nature and course of the project.
     
    Life isn’t always as cynical as Edward Murphy may
have been when he invented “his” law. Manjak also met his wife
during his tenure at the USDA, during a personnel exchange program
with Colombia. Even though Sofia was a Colombian from Medellin,
Manjak secretly loved that she didn’t insist on Spanish food too
often and that her Colombian accent wasn’t very noticeable when she
spoke English. However, ever since the couple had moved to Italy
such trivial matters and “Americanisms”, didn’t actually matter.
They also brought their two twins Isabel and Max over. The twins
are both currently enrolled in the American Overseas School of
Rome. Both are 17, in their final high school year. Sofia retired
for a while, as she did not want to continue to be in a similar
agency as Trip, and take care of the kids in the meantime. The
circumstances would sometimes lend themselves as funny, other times
they would be only tenuously comical. All the better, for then she
had all the time in the world to walk and shop in Rome, take care
of the kids, and try to have a break. With the kids reaching adult
age soon, she had recently rededicated herself to international
work.
     
    Trip looked at the report again. The report was from
Jean-Marie Dupont, Emergency Coordinator of relief efforts in
Zimbabwe. In 2009 FAO started a major operation in Zimbabwe to
provide vulnerable Zimbabwean farmers with seeds and fertilizers.
The program ensures that each farmer will receive enough maize or
sorghum seed and fertilizer to plant a 0.5 hectare crop. The plan
also aimed to provide extensive services and training to the
farmers. After the first year of the project, Dupont reported that
results were as good as anticipated and that farmer’s production
rose 96%, almost double the output of the previous year. The second
year of the project the output increased by 54%, but by the third
year output increased only 3%. Manjak believed that they were
hitting a glass ceiling, and that the project had sufficiently
increased the original output for the time being. The increase
from three years ago has been nearly 200%!! You cannot go on
increasing output indefinitely without some sort of backlash
eventually. The Zimbabwean situation is complicated by the fact
that the President of Zimbabwe, Bobby Ebagum, has been reluctant to
have UN operations in the country within the first place. For the
past several years there have been tensions in the country as the
UN increased operations to help out the poor, and some suspected,
neglected population of the country. While the country has had
elections every four years, Ebagum has been the victor in every
single election for over 5 terms now, leading some to speculate
that elections are fraud. The Ebagum administration first struck
down the two-term rule after his first term in office and has
expanded their direct control over every aspect of the country
since then. Now, airports, cargo ports, foreign business, and city
streets are under tighter restrictions and surveillance than ever
before, as well as under heavier guard.
     
    However, at the moment there was nothing that could
be done. The United Nations has much more pressing concerns than
the tirades and irrational maneuvers of yet another third-world
leader. Although once again, the country’s administration is
getting in the way of United Nations aid programs to the people of
his country. This particular program is funded by the