So I've lucked out big time, turns out my placement package contained with name of the most recent Junior Fellow to work with my organization, A2N (Africa 2000 Network), Ben Best. I was able to dig up his email address through myewb.....
Okay, brief interlude, EWB stands for Engineers Without Borders(which is kinda a misnomer cause you don't have to be an engineer!) the organization that I belong to and is facilitating my work placement in Africa. For more info on the organization I strongly recommend you check out their website, plus theirs lots of great stories of volunteers, pictures, and information.
.....and he was quite enthusiatic about my working with the A2N. Of all the things he's passed on to me so far, we're setting up a phone call which should be a great chance to pick his brain, the best, no pun intended!, has been a copy of his final report on his placement. It contained his recommendations on everything from clothing, to development, to the organization, to profiles of his co-workers. All of which has been great at giving we some much needed realism as to where I'm going and what I'll be getting up to, all of which still seems like some fantastical pipe dream to me alot of the time.
One great point Ben made that got me thinging was that you shouldn't just walk into a community and ask them what's wrong with it, cause to them their might not be anything to fix and to make people think in a negative way about where they live can only be destructive. Ben's answer to this was that development projects should be requested and evaluated by the communities with NGO's acting almost as consults presenting proposals for the community to review. This way if any mistakes are made at least they are of their own making, providing ownership of the situation. I can't find a way refuke his logic, in fact I couldn't agree with him more, I've just never though about the issue from that perspective before, but I can't help but think there's more to it than that.....
Anyway that's all I got

-Oh if anyone has any ideas as to a cool "handle" to use to sign off with pass them my way, we'll vote and the winner gets something...maybe a thumbs up?