On the road again

And suddenly I find myself at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, waiting for the 7.44 am train to Brussels

Yesterday morning I was still in yet another meeting at the office, discussing the agonisingly slow progress as regards our budget support. HQ is calling a meeting with several donors to discuss options for the acrobatic set-up for debt relief for our host country, and didn’t even think of suggesting that our presence might be useful. We did the thinking for them. I told the boss that we should have been there, and off I was that same afternoon.

I changed planes last night in N’Djamena, Chad’s capital, which has been described to me as a living hell for expatriates, but where officials seemed relatively friendly and more efficient than in our host country. Incredibly dusty place by the way, but the dry Sahel climate is nice compared to the humidity of our host country. Business class to Paris with Air France. I enjoyed the champagne and the foie gras de canard (eh, eh, eh…), but I just can’t sleep if I am not perfectly horizontal and stretched out, so I feel like a living corpse this morning, as usual after night flights.

I’ll come back Tuesday next week, hopefully with a concrete project proposal and a sense of moving forward again. It’s good to get out for a few days, changer d’idées. I was getting somewhat bogged down the last couple of weeks in demotivating thoughts about the state of the nation we’re working for, which is really hardly a nation at all.