A Whole New World

So – during my fleeting visit home last month, my cousin gently nagged me that I could make the weekends up in Aileu pass more quickly by reviving my blog! I thought it was worth a try. The weekends do drag somewhat here…I live by myself, in a town with only a couple of other foreigners and no electricity between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., which limits what you can do. In addition, it rains most afternoons and gets so dark that you can’t even read a book… So I’m going to give this one more renewed effort – the latest in Kate’s “I’m going to be better at blogging” vows (I think they’ve been going for about four years now!)

I’ve actually been in Timor for six months, which totally blows my mind. I have signed up for two years – I’m a quarter of the way through that. I can’t believe it…I still feel like I’m new here. But I’m not any more. I speak a little of the local language – not nearly enough…my staff are great about trying to practice with me, but of course, it’s easier, for work, to talk in English – my senior staff are all fairly competent.

It’s interesting living in a country that is so new, that is still finding its feet and finding its way in the world. I have mixed feelings about it – on the one hand, as I move around, I look at the Timorese moving freely around their own country, and I think of everything this country has gone through to get to this stage, and I feel such joy for them, and such pride for them. On the other hand…it’s amazing how much of a mess has been made in ten years – this was a country born with such hope and such optimism, that encountered so many problems, but had the whole world rooting for its success. And when I look at what it has descended to – the corruption and the mismanagement, and the same old story in every developing country…the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. And it makes me want to cry – because everyone suffered to get to this stage, but so many of them aren’t benefiting from it. They still live in squalor and the child malnutrition rates are at the kind of levels that usually prompt telethons in the West…but because these are chronic, nobody notices. Still – in the end, it’s THEIR mess – no matter what happens to Timor now, it’s in the hands of the Timorese and that is something to be celebrated.

Working here is challenging in many ways – the local capacity is very low and I often comment that I feel like a kindergarten teacher, herding my staff around through the most ridiculously low-level decisions. Much of my day is spent dealing with a high level of absurdity, situations that I cannot imagine even entering the head of people back home. I arrive at the office at 8 a.m., but usually it takes half an hour to an hour to be able to sit down at my desk, because I’m sorting out people to head to the field for the day – cars and motorbikes and supplies and cooperation etc. Yet I also laugh more here than I have in any office since I left Australia. Timorese have a GREAT sense of humour, and they laugh a LOT – most of the men laugh like four year old boys (and have the sense of humour of four-year-old boys as well…one of my colleagues talks about the mental maturation process stopping around age 12). But we laugh a lot together – they crack me up, even as they drive me nuts. And they are a wonderful team…they care about each other and are very protective of me. I think, for all of them, it would be their first time working for a woman, but they really look out for me in a way that makes me feel safe and loved. My 2IC, who is really the least intimidating person you can imagine, tried to give a tough guy speech to the security guards at my house…”we will be watching as well and making sure she is safe…and don’t play your music loud because Mana Kate doesn’t like that”!!! Bless his heart…he’s just not very scary but I was very moved by the effort.

As we’re into the home stretch to Christmas (again – didn’t we just do Christmas about six weeks ago? Seriously?) I will try to write more, particularly about specifics of my life here. But for now…I’m back and I have something to say…

I’ll leave you with a photo of my team (minus three staff) taken at our planning retreat in October.

A New Phase

Despite all evidence to the contrary on this blog, I have been alive and well for the last eight months – just a little preoccupied. For the last two months, this preoccupation has taken the form of a new life in East Timor, where I started working on 1 June. I’m venturing into some uncharted waters for me – development, instead of relief (theoretically calmer and more compatible with a decent work/life balance!) and I’m moving away from programming, into more operational management. My new job is managing a regional program in a place called Aileu (47km south of Dili – up in the mountains so much cooler), with responsibility for programming across Aileu District, and running an office of 45 Timorese staff. This alone is a little daunting – I’ve never managed a team this large before, but I am loving it so far.

Aileu is a green town after you wind up a torturous mountain for a hundred minutes or so (most people are sick on this trip – the road is atrocious and when there is a road, it’s extremely narrow and a constant maze of switchbacks). It has rice paddies and surrounding farms, and is really one street, plus a few radiating spokes. My team is wonderful. I’m still earning their trust (Timorese take a long time to trust foreigners – they’ve been burned by them so many times), but we are really bonding and they are wonderful people. I’m really looking forward to working with them for the next two years.

So – it’s Sunday night and I’m heading to bed, but I wanted to jumpstart this blog and get it revving a little. Here’s hoping updates will be far more frequent from now on…

Some Photos

So - I thought I'd have another stab at showing some pictures from every day life here, the work etc. Internet seems to be cooperating a little more (nervous to say that in case it blinks out again!) so I will have a shot...

This is Denba, who used to drive for us - Driver Extraordinaire and pretty much the coolest man on the planet. He's sitting on a traditional little stool which cracks me up as he is about eight feet tall. I still see him, but no longer with work with him. I miss Denba...

This is at Landmine Awareness Day last year in Pader - I am with my landmine team and VERY dear friends, L-R Susan, Me, Monica and Walter (who appears fascinated by the happenings!!)

A day in the life - digging a car out of the mud in the East

Geoffrey (our Water Engineer) and myself distributing relief supplies during the flood response, Soroti, 2007 (no comments about stupid hats, please - it is hot and I burn too easily!)

Drop the Pressure

Well - I was supposed to be travelling to northern Uganda today for the week, but was held up with issues with the EU and another food aid project, and then suddenly we have four days to write a WFP (World Food Program) Proposal, and I think I will be lucky to go to bed this week, let alone go to the north!! The field teams will just have to survive without me for another week! That's not too bad - it is dry season here now and sooooooooo hot up north...makes it really hard to sleep at night. Although I am really excited - up in Pader, which was nothing but a refugee camp a couple of years ago, they now have RUNNING WATER!! It's still insanely cold, but it's running out of taps (sometimes) and makes hair washing soooo much easier!!


Many friends here are off on adventures soon - Sam, Kenny and Julia are going to climb Kilimanjaro on Saturday (I could have gone, but can't really afford a week away from the office at this point, plus...a week without washing? Not really me?!?!) And Charlie is heading to Antigua for a fortnight (me? jealous? Not in the slightest - what makes you ask that!!) I guess I am (hopefully) going to Sth Africa in six weeks for Level Two Security Training (the one where they practice abducting you and holding you hostage etc...should be oodles of fun) so who am I to be jealous?


As part of my attempt to "do stuff other than work" I have started doing personal training with Remmy (the husband of Bettina, my fellow Program Officer and general saving grace). He has succesfully killed me twice now (amazing revival, hey?!) but it's good. He is such a sweetie and very encouraging as he is dragging me up and down hills. I will keep plugging away at this and see if I can't regain some of my former fitness (running 8km kills me about now, and that used to be my standard morning run).


One fun thing...we are now working longer hours on Monday to Thursday, then supposed to leave the office at 2.00 p.m. on Fridays. I have not yet managed this, of course, but it is a wonderfully tantalising prospect, and am hoping to do it this Friday, as it is my birthday - Bettina and I are going to go for Devonshire Tea at the tearoom run by the British wife of the Doctor here - I cannot WAIT!!


Okay...back to it...

World Spins Madly On

Yes – there were many, many adventures following Cesky Krumlov, but not much time to write blog entries. Sad, when you are too busy having fun to write about it, hey?! I am determined that this long Europe trip will NOT join all the other adventures that are never recorded here (this year alone: France/Germany skiing in February, Zanzibar at Easter, Tanzania safari in June) – I really want to write about it all, complete with pictures – as much for my own memories as to share the experience (mite selfish, I know!) However, since returning to Uganda a month ago, I have pretty much done nothing but work – unfortunately the work situation seems to be worse than before I left, so time for blog-writing has been severely restricted. However, I will be working on this – although the posts may consist more of pictures than text. Keep watching this space…

In other news – Uganda is pretty much same old. I’ve been in Kampala exclusively since returning, working on our response to the food crisis that has gripped East Africa. We are heading into Karamoja in our new programming, where the situation is absolutely dire – it is a drought stricken area bordering Kenya, traditionally very insecure and dangerous and poverty stricken to the max – the numbers of people dying of starvation are terrifying and the stories that come out are heart-breaking. I am really glad that we are starting programming there as the need is overwhelming – I am sure I will be back with pictures and stories as well…

One wonderful little thing – our team was meeting early this morning to plan how to get through everything that needed to be done this week. And apparently they had decided to call in reinforcements for a week to help with a proposal for the north. And there is a knock on Bob’s office door, it opens….and Admir is standing there!!! A good friend from Melbourne who I haven’t seen in yonks and yonks, just standing in our office – I couldn’t believe it! He is here for a week and I intend to maximise the catching up (and persuade him to shave off his Damir Dokic beard as well – I have a task ahead of me!)

On that note – they are kicking me out of the office, so I must post and run…

Will be back with tales of Europe

Let the Countdown Begin

So – I’m starting to get very very excited about going home at Christmas – less than two months to go and I cannot WAIT. I have a mental list of things to check out – I want to look at the program for the Moonlight Cinema while I am there, Anna is checking out concerts during my stay, I will need some new clothes and most of all, I need to see how much my puppy has grown.


For those of you unfortunate never to have met her, this is Phoebe – our little schnitzel (schnauzer-shitsu cross) – a non-stop bundle of energy who can wriggle like nothing else and never seems to calm down. And I miss her so much and cannot wait to see her again…

Life out here in Soroti continues on – the Ukrainian helicopter pilots cooked dinner the other night, which gave quite a few of us unpleasant lingering after-effects! We also had a dummy spit when the restaurant at the hotel put the prices up by about 30% - Giovanni, the UN OCHA head of office here went and threatened that we’d all check out, so they caved and returned to the original prices – power to the people!


Anyway – continuing with my theme of being too tired/busy/lazy to really write much, I thought I’d give you some pictures of food being airdropped in Pader – due to the inaccessibility of the area, the food is dropped from planes and we meet it on the ground. Just try not to be underneath it when it lands!

In the Cold Light of Morning

So – I’m taking five minutes out of my day to attend to this sadly, sadly neglected little blog. I know it has been a ridiculous amount of time since I was here – my excuses include extended periods of time in the field, no internet access for weeks at a time, malaria, annual leave, travel to Nairobi and now…floods in Eastern Uganda!!

I am currently out in Soroti (you could get an atlas?) in Eastern Uganda, responding to the floods that you may or may not have seen on the news (if you live in America, I think we were bumped for OJ Simpson, if you live in Australia, apparently we were bumped for Shane Warne’s latest debacle, if you live in Germany, I think it was extensively covered, given the number of interviews my German colleague gave!!!) Anyway – point is – there are floods across the East (and a bit the north) of the country and we are doing an emergency response, which I am coordinating from the field.

It’s pretty full-on out here – I am really tired and looking forward so much to this weekend (my boss ordered me to return to Kampala and rest for the weekend, bless his cotton socks!) Plus – Thurza is coming from Australia with a care package from me, including a disc with the first three episodes of Season three of Prison Break (cue happy dance). Now that makes me happy…

I will probably be out for the flood response for a few more weeks – we are trying to bring in some staff on secondment, but until they arrive, I will still be residing in Soroti. There is a pretty massive NGO/UN presence out here now – the main hotel in town must think it’s Christmas (hasn’t made them speed up the restaurant service though – if you get your food in one hour, you are celebrating the amazing velocity of that performance – one and a half to two hours is the general wait for lunch/dinner!!) Most evenings, there is a pretty large contingent in the bar eating and drinking, so that’s pretty fun – they are good bunch (although an incredible number of both Italians and Germans – one Italian guy came with his espresso machine, which he just needs to get working, and he will become my new best friend!)

And amidst all of this, my heart has been broken by the news that Steve Hewitt, the Placebo drummer, has left the band *cry,wail,stamp foot* Steve, fyi, is the chap on the right in the picture below of the leaping lads (yes – those leaping lads are Placebo). The thought that they won’t make any more albums together, and I won’t see them together ever again is devastating. Plus – he’s a kick-ass drummer and…well…I really can’t think of words except that it sucks. And I have listening to Placebo on loop since Monday (when it was announced) L

So – a reasonably incoherent post (gives you a pretty good picture of my headspace right now – just sooo tired!) but will try to return soon with a little more info and a little less rambling…

In the meantime – stay dry…

That was then...

So I’m up in the north again, and I realise that, at some stage, I need to give a potted history of the conflict in the north so people can understand the context of what I am discussing. Sad to say – it won’t be today. I am too hot and tired!! I’ve been up here for over a week and still have a while to go, and have just discovered I have to come up again next week as a donor is visiting. *heaves big sigh*

On this trip, I have come to Pader, as on previous trips, but also to Kitgum and Gulu, for the first time since I moved to Uganda two and a half months ago. Those of you who have been reading my missives since 2002 may remember that I visited Kitgum and Gulu that trip, and it was the impression those towns left upon me that made me want to return to work here. It was certainly interesting to see the changes that five years, and more importantly, a ceasefire, have wrought. First of all – we can drive to the towns, and between them, with no problem. Five years ago we had to fly, due to the danger of ambushes. Indeed, last time we came, one of our drivers had just been shot (we saw his vehicle and met him then – and he still works for us – in my department actually) and we met others in the hospital in Gulu who’s car had been ambushed – they were covered in the most terrible burns. This morning, as we drove along the road from Kitgum to Pader, we had no military escort and wore no flak jackets (which were both mandatory a year ago) and the road was filled with children going to school, men riding bicycles and women carrying water or wood on their heads. People were tilling their fields and going about their everyday life, but a year ago that road would have been completely deserted – the only sights to see the frequent crosses marking sites of ambushes (“this is where the priest and two nuns were killed”, “this is where fifteen people from that camp were killed”). The joy of seeing children freely walking the road without the fear of abduction is pretty huge.
Similarly, in Gulu, we went one evening to visit the wife of a colleague who is seriously ill in the hospital with meningitis. This hospital is a very large complex and set in a big compound. For many years, it housed the ‘night commuters’, who were children, or whole families, who walked in to town every night to sleep in the relative safety of proximity to army barracks. They would walk up to five hours each way and needless to say, this dominated their lives. However, the fear of remaining in their villages, with a fairly high guarantee of eventually being attacked by the rebels, meant that the trip was a no-brainer. If the rebels came to your village, chances were all the children would be abducted and taken to Sudan for service in the rebel army, most women would be raped and then perhaps killed, and most men killed. This is the fear that the inhabitants of northern Uganda have lived with for twenty years, as 20,000 children have vanished into the rebel army. We visited this hospital in 2002 and met several thousand people sleeping there through the night – in the rain or the heat, battling mosquitoes and cockroaches, they made their nightly shelter there. Now, however, although the hospital was certainly filled with a large number of miserable people this visit, there were no frightened children huddled under trees or on verandahs, or even out in the open, trying to sleep.

I also went to the office of the Children Of War. This is a reception/rehabilitation center we run for children who have escaped from the rebels, or been captured by the Ugandan army during battles. These children had been brainwashed into soldiers, some of them living with the rebels for years, and received care and counselling at the center before going home to their families (who often also required counselling to understand the trauma their children had gone through and how to support them). I remember meeting children there and hearing their terrifying stories of gun-battles and lost friends – from a 12 year old! They had scars on their wrists and ankles from being bound and many of the girls had children, as they are given as concubines to army commanders. The center now stands empty – all of the rebels are either holed up in Congo or Sudan, or have gone to the reception center in Sudan, where they are meant to wait out peace negotiations under the care of the Ugandan Army. Candice – I was thinking of you so much as I wandered around there again, wondering where you had sat and worked! I remembered having the child sit on my lap and wee all over me – it was so hot I think I dried off in about 20 minutes!!

Altogether, the north is a much more hopeful place now. I become fiercely protective and hopeful as I see these children moving around freely, attending schools that have stood empty for 20 years, moving back to their villages, but perhaps missing siblings, cousins, friends who vanished one night and have never returned. I pray that not a single other child vanishes in the night, winding up with a gun in their hands and a glazed look in their eyes, returning from Sudan to wreak havoc upon their homeland. I desperately hope that the fear fades from the hearts of these children, and they become like most other children in rural Uganda – desperately poor, malnourished and trying to survive, but at least feeling secure. It will be a start – then we can begin working on the rest…

Alive and Kicking

I actually wrote this over a week ago, but have had extremely limited internet access, and this is my first chance to post it. Apologies for the delay - the family will also understand the extenuating circumstances...

No – I haven’t died. Although I have been insanely busy for the past week and have, at times, felt dead on my feet! But I am still alive and kicking and checking in…

Last weekend I finally moved into an apartment – it is fairly nice – has a kitchen and living and dining areas, so I am self sufficient. The complex also has a pool and a gym, which is great for my workout-obsession and makes it easy (except for the strange opening hours. What kind of gym closes at 3.00p.m. on a Sunday?) Also – another Program Officer lives in the complex, which has been fabulous.

Terri is an intern Program Officer from Canada who has been a godsend. During my first week here, she was up north, but the day after she returned, she gave me a call and helped me to find places to go, etc. She also took me to church with her on Sunday, has been showing me how to get from apartment to office and has taken me out to lunch. After the fairly dismal first week, where I received very few pointers about anything, it has been fantastic to have someone take an active interest in welcoming a newcomer and helping me settle in to Kampala. Plus, she’s a real sweetie!

Unfortunately, my weekend was marred somewhat by work. At 4.45p.m on Friday afternoon, I was handed a food security project that was not performing well, and essentially told to ‘fix it’!! I therefore spent half the weekend working and frantically finished the documentation by Tuesday afternoon to send to America (we are asking for an extension to finish the work in). Then Wednesday morning, I left to come up north.

This is my first trip to Pader, an area that was chronically insecure during the insurgency. Peace is holding now and people are beginning to move out of the large mother camps into smaller satellite camps – the first step towards moving home and a very positive one, as it expresses confidence in the future of the peace process and of their area.

I’m thinking at some stage, that I need to provide a full explanation of the situation and history in northern Uganda, but I am incredibly tired now, so this will probably not be the day! Suffice to say that the region is emerging from twenty years of war – battered, bruised and pretty uncertain, but determinedly striding forward. The scars are everywhere – driving north, once you cross the Nile (interesting fact: the Nile has its source in Uganda) you are officially in ‘northern Uganda’ and basically, up until six months ago, in a war zone. There are memorial sites and IDP camps everywhere. (IDP stands for Internally Displaced People, who are basically refugees who have not crossed an international border – pretty much the entire population of northern Uganda are IDPs). Some of the IDP camps are beginning to be dismantled as people move to smaller camps closer to home (but still near army barracks) so there are stretches of land with the remains of huts on them.

Today we went out to a distribution at one of the camps – we do feeding programs up here, and today we were distributing seeds and tools to people. Today’s was reasonably small – I think there were less than 1000 people receiving goods. But apparently our food aid program is massive – there will be distributions covering 40,000 people – this blows my mind and I can’t wait to see how the logistics of such a large distribution are handled. I am not sure how many people we are feeding up here – from conversation I have heard it is at least half a million each month. Pretty huge numbers for a chronic campaign…

I am literally too tired to type anything else right now (too hot to sleep up here – just like Afghanistan!) so will end now. I can’t even post this because the internet isn’t working. So I will save it and post it when I return to Kampala.

A Whole New World

Yipee – I have just been handed a piece of paper that, fingers crossed, will free me from the hotel and get me into a serviced apartment tomorrow!! I cannot wait to move from the hotel, and to particularly be able to cook for myself again. Now all I need is my stuff that is due to arrive next week, and I am set.

Even though I have been out of Afghanistan for six months now, some things are still an adjustment. Loud noises can still sound like gunshots or explosions and guns still make me incredibly nervous. What is strange, however, is adjusting to a new office where security is not the first thing you learn about (in Afghanistan, the security department was the first port of call for all newcomers – you were shown the security procedures before you were even shown your desk!) Here, nobody checks under our cars with mirrors when we enter the office or home, we don’t have call signs, nobody tracks our movements – it takes some getting used to!

I was sad in Afghanistan that, due to security restrictions, I was hampered in what I could write about. I could never tell you whereabouts in the country I was, or even at times, what I was specifically doing. Afghanistan is a world where you travel early in the morning, to blend in with the local cars, but cannot use a vehicle from your organisation. You must check in constantly with head office, but must use a code to reveal your location. Monitoring of our project work can change from week to week, depending on the security situation, and there would be days when we couldn’t leave the compound. Yet the endless sense of humour of the Afghans helped us to stay positive amidst such restrictions on our work.

I am looking forward to a different situation in Uganda, and to being able to tell you much more about my day to day life here. I am looking forward to sharing my stories and adventures as I begin to take on whole new tasks. I am currently working on a proposal for monthly food distribution to 400,000 people!!! And that is just in one district – I have never been involved in relief distributions on the scale that I will be doing here – the number of beneficiaries, the tonnage of food that we are moving is amazing. I am really excited to be getting into it – I am going to the field next week for some distributions and cannot wait to get back out to field life.

But since arriving back in another national office, I have been thinking a lot about Afghanistan again. I still miss it a lot – I thought I was past that, but obviously not completely. I have been missing my colleagues, in particular – some of those wonderful Afghans who welcomed me into their lives so warmly. I miss the amazing countryside, I miss the daily frustrations that would just make us laugh. So many small memories in my mind that pop up – seemingly from nowhere. They may find their way onto these pages (screens?) through the coming months.

An amusing trait that I picked up is the habit of saying Inshallah. I wrote about this while I was there – it translates as “God’s Will” and is the answer to just about everything in Afghanistan. We would say to someone “have a good day” and they would answer “Inshallah”. Or if we said, “we hope your new marriage is very happy” they would answer “Inshallah”. The expats took to using this expression, slightly ironically, but also as a reflection of how we heard it everywhere. And it is not one of those things that goes away – I almost said Inshallah to someone this morning. And I really don’t think it would go down very well in this fervently Christian country! Must make sure I don’t trot that out too often…

But in the meantime – I really need to get a more comfortable chair to sit in!