Paris in the Springtime

Well – I’m back in Paris, for the fourth time in two years! Staying this time on the Left Bank, which is an area I’m less familiar with, so it’s fun to explore new turf. Bettina and I have been torturing ourselves for the past couple of weeks, thinking of all the great food I would be eating here, and I’m certainly indulging now. I adored that I received an email from my mother before arriving, detailing all the coffee options in and around our apartment!! It truly is genetic.

Thus far we have just been wandering, enjoying the beauty that is Paris, doing some shopping (bit of damage to the credit card!) some museums etc. The weather is pretty cool and a bit rainy but I love it – a great change from Uganda and no chance of getting burned! I’m going to be catching up with some friends over the next few days and might try to get into the French Open as well.

I was pondering yesterday, whilst in a public bathroom in the Tuileries, that really, living in developing countries just prepares you for the bathrooms in France!! Excellent practice. Much of Paris has changed since I lived here in 1995 (my mind is still reeling from discovering a Starbucks on the Champs Elysees) but much abides – I still find it very easy to get around and it still feels like home here. I guess a city that has been here since 500B.C. won’t have changed much in 14 years.

Next week, we are taking a three-day trip up to the north of France (and Belgium) to see a series of sites where Australian soldiers fought in WWI – should be excellent and very moving. We don’t think we have any ancestors who fought in France (my family seems to specialise in the Middle Eastern countries) but are trying to confirm this. I am really looking forward to this…the history geek in me lives on!

So – until I have more news, I bid you adieu…

Snap Back to Reality

Well, it's a hot Sunday in Kampala and I am ploughing through emails, trying to clear up a fraction of the hanging work before heading north again tomorrow. This is my least favourite time of year here - in the middle of the dry season the weather is hot and the air is dusty, in the north they are burning the grass and it is brown. This usually lush and green country is far less attractive, although just one or two rainstorms also makes an amazing difference.

I am well into the year again - Christmas seems like a distant memory. I think I will subtitle my trip home over Christmas the "you have to join facebook" promotional tour, as I was extolled the facebook virtues by just about everyone (John even giving me a demonstration of their excellent facilities, which I think was an excuse for "look at all my holiday pictures from America"!) The only dissenting voice is Mum who read an article about it being co-owned by a senior CIA official and thinks it is being used for information gathering purposes (she is probably right, although I do pity the poor person who has to wade through all of that to try to ascertain any useful intelligence!!) I think the masses have prevailed and it is jut a matter of time (and me being willing to allocate a few hours to this) and then I will really join the noughties (is that what they're called?)

Apart from that, Christmas holiday was awesome, but unremarkable. There was home. It rocked. End of story really!! Lots of Mum-cooking, dog-walking, sleeping, catching up, adoring the wonderful Melbourne roads (and my zoomy little car!) and the ease of life in Melbourne. Spending time with friends reminded me how lucky I am to have so many great ones, and made me feel guilty that work has superceded contact with them so much in the last year...but no more! I will do better...

Travelling back delivered a nice surprise - I was upgraded to First Class (I feel that deserves capital letters) for the Melbourne-Dubai leg, which rocked the house fairly sublimely. My own little bed (that they made up with sheets and pillows and a doona!) and pyjamas, a full wine list, with Moet & Chandon Dom Perignon Champagne (!), a la carte dining, a massaging chair, the list goes on and on. I was totally in love with First Class, and then had to shuttle back to economy (undeserving of capital letters) for the Dubai-Entebbe leg, which just about killed me. Also, I ran out of time at the airport and all my planned Duty Free shopping wound up producing one tall latte with an extra shot :( Not quite what I was looking for (and then we sat at the gate for an hour and a half...I was tempted to ask if I could just duck back into the terminal to finish my shopping, while they sorted out whatever problem they had - after all, they could page me, right?!?!) Anyway...

So - back to work, back to real life. We have a new Department Director (finally - after a year of waiting) so are all waiting to see what life is like under the new regime. Apart from that, I am vaguely attempting to get a life, instead of working 24/7 - I'll keep you posted on the progress...

I have been trying to upload more pictures but the internet here is not so interested in cooperating - I will keep trying. Seems to be unable to even load one picture lately... Guess them's the breaks...

The Hard Road

I’m just full of the sadness right now…

There’s a BBC News Documentary about the current election violence in Zimbabwe, which just makes me crazy – how can anyone in the world think that this could possibly be okay – how can other African leaders not be screaming and jumping up and down? How can Mugabe look at himself in the mirror? Such evil. And to stop all the NGO work – my NGO was supposed to distribute food to 400,000 people this month – what are those 400,000 people eating right now? Aurgh – shouldn’t dwell on it – I’ll just become more furious.

I went to the burial of a nine-month old girl last week. Shalom was adorable – with chubby, chubby cheeks and curly hair. She would grab my little finger and hang on so tightly – I last saw her a week before she died and had to prise her little fingers off mine – I now wish I had just kept hanging on forever. She was the daughter of a colleague – a wonderful man who was shot by the LRA rebels in 2002 (I met him the first time I came here, just after he was released from hospital) whilst driving for us, and yet still does his work. Richard has a gentle heart, a fabulous work ethic and a wicked sense of humour. He and his wife also have a four year old boy – a rambunctious little fellow called Solomon. Since Shalom was born, every time I would ask after her, Richard’s eyes would light up and he would tell me her latest development – she was smiling, rolling over, sitting up – all those wonderful things babies do as they grow. But then, when I was in Gulu last December (for the burial of another colleague’s 29 year old wife), Richard was at the hospital with Shalom. She was having problems with her liver. For the next six months, Shalom was in and out of doctors and hospitals – she eventually came down to Kampala for treatment, and then we managed to get her to Nairobi to try to help. So many people fought to save this little girl, but eventually, she died in her mothers arms last Tuesday…"waiting for the doctor”. I wonder how many people in Africa die while waiting for the doctor?

I drove to Gulu (the biggest town in northern Uganda – the base of northern operations for most NGOs, as well as the army’s base for its war against the rebels – about six hours drive north of Kampala) for the burial with Peter, another driver who used to be based in Gulu. He has children of similar ages to Richards’, and was telling me that there have been times when he and Richard have both been in hospital with their children near death. I was thinking about this during the burial service and realising what a tremendous accomplishment it is for all the adults in this country – just to have made it to adulthood. It is something we would never even think about at home, but to even just stay alive is a great accomplishment.

Of course, once you hit adulthood, you aren’t necessarily going to have smooth sailing. The ravage of AIDS here, let alone other diseases, is staggering – what we read about as abstract facts in newspapers, is real flesh and blood. I have a friend who has already buried three siblings from AIDS and is caring for their children now (all but one is completely orphaned – one boy still has his mother). He was telling me that he went back his village a few weeks ago for the burial of another brother, only to arrive and find him still breathing. He packed him in the car, brought him to Kampala and got him treatment, back on the anti-retrovirals and the brother is now walking again.

The constant presence of death overshadows life in Africa. Staff are constantly going to burials – most staff would bury a relative (taking into consideration the much larger size of the families here) every month or two, and then when you consider friends and colleagues, much of one’s time is spent at burials. I have only been to two in my time in Uganda (although that is two more than the number of weddings I have made it to) and have been harshly reminded of how less sanitised death is here – the services are conducted under trees in the village (in both cases, next to the burned-out remnants of houses destroyed by the rebels) right next to the coffins. When we buried Joyce, her mother started screaming and throwing herself onto the coffin – she had to be carried away and passed out. And then after the service, everyone gives speeches, and the local dignitaries decided this would be a good opportunity to do some campaigning!! Blew my mind a little.

I apologise for the excessive absence – I have just been working and working – almost all I do nowadays is work and sleep, with the occasional self-indulgent window for eating and personal hygiene. Okay – I exaggerate a little – I did make time to see the Sex and the City Movie twice (I have my priorities in order) which was lots of fun. All this is about to change however – I’m about to embark on a fair bit of travel, in Africa and then in Europe.

1000 Miles Away

I’m thinking of trying this new thing whereby I label all of my posts with the title of a song. Not for any profound reason – mostly for my own amusement. So for this one – I offer you the Hoodoo Gurus…


Although actually, as I landed at Entebbe Airport on Thursday, INXS’ ‘Never Tear Us Apart’ was playing on my ipod which may be slightly true as well. Arriving here is an indication to me that dreams really do come true, sometimes.


As some of you know, since visiting Uganda in 2002, I have wanted to come back and work here. Specifically in the north, where a pretty savage rebel group called the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has waged war against the government for 20 years. Their MO is to kidnap children as soldiers, labourers and sex slaves, to kill indiscriminately and often to cut off tongues, ears and even limbs as they terrorise the north of the country. We spent most of our visit in 2002 up in the north, in Kitgum and Gulu, looking at the work we were doing there, and I was moved and motivated by the people, the staff and the tiny rays of hope that we were imparting through the small good acts we were able to achieve amidst such hopelessness. Since that time, I have wanted to work in northern Uganda and I now have my chance – I have started as a Program Officer in the Emergency Relief team here, working entirely in the north of Uganda.


Since returning, I have rediscovered the love I developed for the country four and a half years ago. Ugandans are warm and friendly, full of optimism and joy. I am based in Kampala and am currently learning my way around and trying to settle in (hampered significantly by lingering jetlag – although I was proud to survive until after midnight last night, as I was invited out to dinner – that beats my previous record by four hours!!) I have yet to meet anyone from my last trip – I suspect I will when I arrive up north (hopefully soon). However, I was taken around the office in Kampala and introduced to about 100 people – I think I can remember the names of maybe three! (although with the blokes, I suspect the strategy might be, ‘if in doubt, try Sam’ – there are so many Sams!!)


After the disappointment of leaving Afghanistan so abruptly, and the continuing heartbreak of watching a country I have come to care for so deeply spiral down into a mire of violence, fear and hopelessness, it is wonderful to be given a chance to come here and hopefully achieve some real change – a shaky peace process is holding in the north and people are cautiously optimistic, if justifiably wary. I am looking forward to getting to work up there and to sharing my stories along the way.


Our dear friend, and virtual surrogate family member Su, wrote to me a couple of days before I came here. As a South African she understood very well the ties that Africa bind you with. I hope she won’t mind me quoting her here as a thought to finish with:

“I am sure part of this is bias but since I have heard it from non-Africans too - once you've lived in Africa a part of you always hankers to go back - and when you've done 'good work' in Africa (for want of a better expression this early in the morning) NOWHERE else is quite as satisfying.”