Back from Uganda

My break in Uganda went really well. I arrived at the Entebbe airport Tuesday around noon. Since le boat to the Ssese Islands wasn’t leaving until the next day, I visited the animal orphanage that afternoon. I also wanted to visit Entebbe’s botanical garden. While walking there I struck up a conversation with a guy, and it turns out that he works there. So he went with me and gave me a great tour. In the middle of the gardens is a rain forest, and it is in this rain forest that the original Tarzan film was made! The gardens are right on the banks of Lake Victoria. They are beautiful and very interesting.

After that, I went looking for a bookshop. I didn’t find one, but another shop owner LOANED me two great books! The people in Uganda must be the friendliest people that I have ever met. That night, I ate in a Chinese restaurant. Goma, where I am in Congo, must be the only big city in the world which doesn’t have a Chinese restaurant, so I really enjoyed that meal.

Wednesday morning I took it pretty easy, and caught the ferry in the early afternoon to go to the Ssese Islands in Lake Victoria. (Yes, I finally decided to go there rather than return to Lake Bunyonyi.) I stayed in a pleasant lakeside campgrounds on Bugala Island. The food was great! The following morning, I decided to take a long walk - it turned out to be a 6 hours. That did me a great deal of good, but I also got a pretty good sunburn. I didn’t see a lot of animals – just some vervet monkeys and some beautiful birds and butterflies. For the rest of the time, my program was reading, talking with people, eating, drinking beer and sleeping. I was rather tired, and this part of my break really restored me.

Saturday morning I took the ferry back to Entebbe and continued to Kampala (after returning the books to their owner – he then gave me another one), about an hour away. There I met up with a really great guy, Timothy, who took care of me for the rest of my trip. We decided to go directly to his town, Mbarara (I had passed through there 5 years ago when going on my first mission with MSF). We took the evening bus, but the driver was a bit too crazy. We got off at the first stop, Masaka, and went to a club. There we met two other people who decided to continue on with us to Mbarara the next day. Like I said, the Ugandans are really friendly people!

Sunday, Timothy hired a motorbike, to take me to visit his home village. It was about 70 kilometers away. I met the whole family and a lot of the villagers. They don’t get many white people out there, and they seemed pretty impressed that I had come out to see them. While we were visiting, a big rainstorm occurred. Timothy’s uncle offered to put us up for the night, but we really had to get back to Mbarara where we had left the guys from Masaka. The ride back on a motorbike on mud roads in the dark was quite an experience. But Timothy pulled it off really well. That night, we all went to a bar and had a great time.

Monday we took the bus back to Kampala (this is a 5 hour journey not including the wait in the bus for it to fill up). I left Timothy to his occupations that afternoon. That night we went out again to a club and had another good night.

Tuesday, he took me into town again, to catch a motorbike out to the airport in Entebbe. The arrangements for buses, mini-buses and motorbikes are fairly complicated, and I really appreciated his help. I got back to the office in Goma around 4h15 pm, and I was already in a coordination meeting at 4h30! I also had 450 email messages waiting for me. I just got caught up with those today, so I am relieved.

In all, it was a really good time – 3 days of relaxation and 3 days of partying. I now have 3 months left in Congo before ending my mission. It’s going to fly!

Visit to the Capital

Although MSF-France’s headquarters for the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) are in Goma, capital of North Kivu on the east side of the country, the capital of the country is Kinshasa, on the west side. We have a representation office there, to deal with whatever needs to be done at the central governmental level, such as residence visas, lobbying central ministries, importation licences, and renewal of our authorization to work here. Unfortunately, we have a huge lack of experienced expatriates at this time, due to a lack of recruitment a few years ago and several emergencies throughout the world requiring our interventions right now, so we have no one running this office. Our solution is that each of us in coordination goes there for about a week at a time on a rotating basis, to take care of business. My turn was last week.

Although I have been in Congo now for 20 months, this was my first trip to Kinshasa. It is really a capital! I was surprised – asphalt streets, big buildings, traffic jams, construction, and restaurants - everything good and bad associated with a capital. To make a comparison, in Goma, we only have 2 asphalt streets and a couple of ethnic restaurants.

I had a lot of things to do, so I didn’t much profit from the fun things. But I did go out Saturday evening with my counterpart from MSF-Holland, a beautiful Swedish woman named Ingrid, in a great Italian restaurant. And Sunday, I walked from our office/residence into the middle of town. I got robbed. A car pulled up next to me, and four big guys announced themselves as policemen and asked me to get into the car for a routine control. I was in the back seat between two of them. While the guy in front went through my backpack, the two guys behind on each side of me frisked me. When they decided all was well, they let me out of the car and took off. I quickly realised that the guy in front had stolen all of the money out of my wallet, including my $200 of “security money” which was hidden in a pocket, and also the money that I had hidden in my backpack. I lost about 600 dollars. That hurts!

On the work side, the visit was good. I met with the Director of Migration concerning expat visas, the Schengen House concerning visas to Europe for our national staff, the General Tax Direction concerning an investigation concerning out payment of income taxes for our staff, the other sections of MSF, the headquarters of our bank, our lawyer concerning several issues, and many, many others. I also interviewed a potential expatriate psychologist for our program, who turned out to be great for the job. Just before I left Goma for Kinshasa, it was decided to close this representation office – we are considering a more efficient way of representing us and the other sections of MSF in the capital – so I had the pleasure (ha!) of announcing this to the staff. This will be my 4th project closing since I have arrived in Congo, but it doesn’t make it easier. Anyway, the staff took it pretty well. They have heard rumours of this closure for more than a year, and the fact that it is now announced takes off the pressure. They have all been with MSF-France of several years, and they will get a pretty healthy layoff package.

I got back to Goma Tuesday afternoon, and things have been pretty intense since. We are recruiting a flying administrative assistant and a national staff psychologist. We are preparing for the semi-annual strategy meeting in Paris in June, and revising out budget for the year. All this, along with my other big projects keep me hopping.

And I leave this coming Tuesday for a week-long break in Uganda. We are supposed to take a break every 3 months. My last break was in January, and I really need this one. I will probably go to Lake Bunyonyi in the southwest corner of the country. I was there before in 2005 and it is great. It is a lake formed by volcanic flow, and there are 29 islands in this lake. I will do nothing but canoe, hike, read, eat, drink and sleep. And I will probably spend a day or two in Kampala before leaving.

I now have a little over 3 months before leaving the Congo. It is starting to seem very short, especially since I still have a lot to do. I know I can’t finish everything, but I would be great to finish at least 4 of my 7 big issues.