Hornswoggle

I learned a new word recently: hornswoggle, as in '"This is some high-risk behavior. They need to think about that," he said. "We're not trying to hornswoggle them on this." (CNN on Alabama church fires). It seems that the origin is in cattlebreeding: cows caught by a lasso trying to wriggle themselves free by shaking their head and horns. Interesting.

We've had two very full and busy weeks, socially speaking, varying from A.'s birthday the 13th of February in a restaurant with all her friends and their partners, to a dinner with two Ambassadors, a squash tournament for A. after which she had trouble walking for days, an 'grilled pig' evening, a farewell dinner for a colleague, and so on. All this socializing isn't doing my waistline any good, and I have given up all hope to look lean and trim on my 40th birthday. Time to do something about it though.

I had been feeling a bit uncomfortable with a few things at work, but one long talk with the boss last week cleared the air completely, which was a relief. It's clear though that I am more Teutonic in my habits than him: I like clarity, clear lines of communication and information, clear task descriptions, who does what etc. Hardly unreasonable demands, I should think.

A difficult moment occurred last Friday when my boss decided that we would have to exclude one of the experts whom I had been working with on the public finance project's terms of reference from participating in thjat same project. He had hoped to be working on that project in the future, and would have been a very good choice, but to avoid any conflict of interest our rules forbid that those who work on terms of reference of a project play any role in it later on. I think it is a perverse rule: experts on public finance willing to work for a long time in this kind of country are hard to come by, and you usually come across the same people time and again. He's also a very able expert, so he was quite indispensable for the ToR, which can make or break the success of a project. It was also personally difficult for me: as this is a small place, one changes roles all the time. Somebody you have to be tough with during the day may be sitting next to you at a dinner the same evening. The expert and his wife had actually become very good acquantances of ours, and I took some heat personally when I told him of the decision. He felt he had been trapped into this on purpose, which wasn't the case. Another lesson learned the hard way.

A week ago I had a meeting with the security company we hire. Mainly to be nice to our Head of Administration, who used to be in charge of security and who didn't seem to take well to his demotion in this respect, I had invited him to the meeting to 'profit from his experience'. He barged into the meeting 20 minutes late, drunk (when I say 'dysfunctional', I mean it) He kept smiling and shaking his head disapprovingly while I was explaining the new security procedures to the company, and then started interrupting the conversation, confusing the security people. When he also took issue with the instructions I had just given to the security people, I had had enough: I simply threw him out of the meeting, holding the door open for him. Time to put back some order in the house. It didn't feel great, kicking out an older colleague like that and humiliate him in front of the people he used to deal with (which is even more ironic when you realise that I had invited him to alleviate his sense of humiliation), but it was him or me. The message hit home with the security people as well: they were very meek afterwards, even though I hadn't even raised my voice during the incident. Speak softly but carry a big stick (Churchill). I can be tough if I have to.

Right now I am very excited about the adventure we'll embark on as of tomorrow afternoon. I'll drive up to a wildlife reserve in the North with my friend Jean, 2,5 days. The wives and children come by airplane. We'll stay there for 3,5 days. Then the women and children will fly back to the capital and Jean and I will descend in a 4-day drive back to the capital through territory where few Westerners, except hunting parties and aid workers, go. There is some risk involved, as there are Sudanese poachers and highway robbers in the area (an area as big as the Benelux though), but not an excessive risk we believe: we will be in contact with the French military for the latest information and will change plans if need be. There have been reports of people being made to pay, even rarer cases where they were robbed of their car (strangely enough, many bandits are said not to be particularly interested in cars as the fuel and maintenance is too expensive), and no cases of people killed, at least no Westerners. So while there is risk, it seems acceptable: if we were to avoid all risk we wouldn't ever see anything. We've also talked through the more difficult stretches of the trip with people who have been there. All in all a 2100 km trip over unpaved roads, rickety bridges etc, savannah, rainforest, dusty towns in the middle of nowhere,... We'll be travelling with almost 300 liters of fuel, lots of water, food, 2 spare wheels, machete, malaria medicine, and a satellite telephone. A big boy's dream. I'll tell you about it in two weeks or so.