I arrived Goma three weeks ago. After being in the desert for 2 years, the green of North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) is beautiful. Our house is right on Lake Kivu, which is enormous. On a clear day, we can see the volcano Nyragongo, which is still active (it destroyed the town about 12 years ago).
A week after arriving, I did a tour of our 3 projects. It took 10 days. I think that I know about 1/3 of the staff already from my first stay in the region (2005-2006). It is wonderful to see them again. Since the project in which I worked has closed, they have found jobs in the other sites and here in Goma. Some are working with other organizations, and some are unemployed. It is a bit disconcerting for a few of the other expats when we are in the middle of nowhere and someone calls out my name and then hugs me!
There has been quite a turnover of administrators here the last year, and it shows. I have a lot of work to do to get things back into order. Fortunately, I have a great staff here, in Goma and in the field. And our expat coordination team is great. It is going to be good to work here.
I am already overwhelmed with work. My head of mission has already told me that I work too much. (For those of you who know me, this probably comes as no surprise.) But at the same time, she added to the list of critical things to work on! Right now, the big items are
· a complete overhaul of the payroll supplement we pay the state health system employees who work with us (around 90 people)
· a revision of the job function scale for the local staff (around 400 people)
· a study of the “fundamental needs basket” on which the salaries are based
· implementation of analytical axes in the accounting, so that we can track expenses by activity
· implementation of a more complete budget follow-up system
The day-to-day human resources problems also take up a huge amount of time, as it did also in my last 2 missions. Keeping track of all the expats coming and going and the reference visits from Paris is also a nightmare. Part of my grunt work is to assign rooms to all the expats and délocalized (I can’t remember the English word for this – yes, this is a French-language mission again) staff here in Goma, as well as the visitors. For the moment, we are 6 expats (+ the daughter of one), 5 délocalized staff, plus transit and visitors. This weekend, for example, we are 13 and next weekend we are 15. There are 9 bedrooms in the house! Fortunately, we are renting a second house starting in September.
Ahh! We don’t get paid a lot, but we sure have a lot of fun! At least there is beer and wine in Congo, which already beats Sudan!
