Happy DSD reunion for the Californians!
I sent off my quarterly budget review Wednesday, asking for a 7% increase to finish the year. This is always a traumatic exercise – it took me about 3 weeks to put the whole thing together, while dealing with the usual stuff (already a 12 hour a day job) plus an outbreak of cholera.
It has been pretty quiet for a couple of weeks, but fighting broke out again early this morning about 40 kilometers from here – the objective is a government military camp, which was taken by a rebel group this afternoon. It is on the road between Goma, the district capital where I am, and Rutshuru where our biggest project is. This is also the route we use to supply all our projects in terms of medical supplies, logistics supplies, money, etc. So we hope that the situation is the same as a month ago – the rebels took the camp, stole all the arms and left quickly.
If all goes well, I should go to Kabizo on Tuesday for a couple of nights. This is a site which we evacuated at the end of September. The objective of the visit is to see if we can return the expats and non-local national staff. Apparently, even 90% of the local population left the area, leaving only the refugee camp full - they have no where else to go. We have been back a couple of times for day trips, but this time we had hoped that the logistician, Anne, and I could spend a couple of nights there to evaluate the security situation, see what the needs are to put the program back into regular running order, and pay the few local staff who are still there. With the fighting, which is much closer to Kabizo (which is a rebel enclave) than here, our trip is very uncertain
Never a dull moment.
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