Aid Worker Respite Fund

Well, I have, for the 1^st time in 4 days, electricity. I’m sure would expect me to be full of joy at this, but I have to report that actually I am a little disappointed. Don’t get me wrong its not that I actually like the ‘Wee-Willy-Winky’ look (I have discovered that placing a tea light into a coffee cup is an effective way to carry light around without accidentally blowing out the flame), but, you see,  I had planned to go on holiday.

 Let me explain; While I am in one of the poorest countries in the world, there are still oasis’, and I had found a couple of rather splendid beach side hotels with swimming pools and an impressive sea food menu. So I planned to take myself off and treat myself.  As I’ve already shared with some of you, the beaches are simply exquisite!

Sadly though its not to be this weekend, but I have decided that while this is quite an extravagance (they are VERY costly), I do intend every few weeks to have a bit of respite. Care to contribute to the fund??

Not that it is completely hell for me here. The same can’t be said for the majority who go hungry each night, some sleeping close to an open sewer and who don’t expect to live past 43. I haven’t yet brought myself to take any photos of the shanties, as at the moment it feels wrong to capture peoples misery for what feels like no real purpose. But if in any doubt, just watch a back edition of comic relief to get the gist. It's a reality.

 But I accept my reality is different, and  so here are just a few things that make it bearable for me:

·         Sweet Grapefruits the size of footballs

·         Marmite, Cadbury and Pringles –imported from UK not south Africa (thank Christ, remember last years farce!)

·         Another very palatable litre of red wine for ‘deux pounds soixant neuf”

·         An abundance of chick peas and tahini to make the all-important hummus (thanks god for the huge Lebanese community here)

·         The coffee is not polluted with chicory

·         Gin!

OK yes it is all food (alcohol counts as food) – but come on, you all know me, is there any doubt about my first love in life!!! But I am proud to announce that I can now sleep quite comfortably without the Air Con on (good job really considering don’t have electricity most of the time). And I have mostly managed to tame the hair. Well other than at the moment as the mechanic has given our generator an extra bit of oomph, so I’m getting electric shocks off most things (quite pleasurable actually!!)

So living here is a challenge, but no worse than I expected it to be and in the moments I feel sorry for myself its very easy to give myself a reality check – I just need to stick my head out of the compound gates. And realistically the worse thing about 4 days without electricity is that Christiana, the cleaner, hasn’t been able to Iron my clothes and I will have to do it myself!!!

And the question of working here???……… Gee where do I start!!

It’s a completely different world. Today I was at a meeting at the Irish Embassy to give feedback on the Irish Governments White paper for Aid Effectiveness. OK!  If you say so! I just enjoyed the nice biscuits and pulled out my glittery Swarovski pen and pretended to make intelligent notes. In fact I have done that a lot this week.

For 2 days I was in an ‘Annual Partner Review’ evaluating , well I’m not too sure what we were evaluating to be honest, but after presenting one session that was a total flop, I reverted to smiling and the regimented head nod. I then realised that I was actually, in theory the most powerful and influential person in the room as in the person in control of coordinating all the projects we were discussing. So I stopped the smiling bit and wore my serious face!!!

Partner Review ("at long last" my family cry, sorry guys not that type of 'partner'!!)

It’s all a bit mind blowing to be honest!

 And this Sunday I leave to go on a weeklong field visit to the North of the country where we (err, I) run projects. It is only about 170 miles away but because of the roads will take over 8 hours to get there – joy.

I’m not hopeful for electricity, but hey at least I may get a chance to take Wizz out for a test drive!!

On that note……

xxXxx