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.
No comments:
Post a Comment