Sammy

Rebels massacred 7 local people on an environmental protection project of ours in the North of the country last week, and took off with a few vehicles. I was informed of it today. It’s still far away from the capital, but some of the provinces are becoming no-go areas. Apparently people from a tribe that felt it got short-changed during the last elections and subsequent distribution of government posts, are ‘moving about’ (‘ils bougent’), whatever that may mean. Against this background we re-sent today, for the fifth time this year, a request to HQ for much needed additional radio equipment, with a rather undiplomatic accompanying note this time.

I had invited two humanitarian workers from Médécins sans Frontieres Holland to come and brief us on the situation in the North West part of the country, where the ex-president’s electorate lives and where they are involved in humanitarian actions. They spoke of emptied villages, people having fled to Chad, after rebels attacked army posts and the army responded in its usual ruthless manner. The commander in charge was afterwards sent to the North-East with the Presidential Guard, where rebels killed a much feared brother in arms of his in an ambush (see my previous post). The Presidential Guard is still in the North East, and one can only wait for the excesses that will be reported back. On the other hand one cannot argue with the fact that the state needs to take back control of its territory if it is to survive.

There was clearly little love lost between the MSF people and the boss. The former: tough young field people, committed, impressed by the misery they personally witness; the boss no less committed but somewhat on his high horse, referring several times to his 35 years of experience in Africa (and the youthfulness of his interlocutors), a theme a little too recurrent to my taste.

Next time I’d better invite these people for an informal discussion over a drink. I sympathize with them, although I would like them to understand the constraints we have to work under, with unworkable rules and procedures imposed on us by our Member States. I also envy them for the fairly straightforward nature of their humanitarian work, which is direct, fast, visible, and which sounds certainly a lot more attractive to the general public that the less visible – but, I maintain, no less necessary - reform programmes we try to implement with often half competent, unpaid, demotivated and more often than not corrupted government services. Sometimes it’s just humiliating: our ‘urgent’ actions, like that recent 4 million euros package in budgetary aid I have mentioned several times recently, take almost a year from decision point to actual action in the field. To-and-froing with HQ on details assume sometimes hallucinating proportions, not to talk about the crushing burden of reports (mid-term, final), audits (ex ante, mid-term, ex-post), evaluations (mid-term, and end of term), and monitoring (halfway, ex post). This is without the mid-term and end-of term reviews of our overall cooperation, pre-programming documents, programming documents, consultation exercises with government, Member States, non-state actors, etc. If we have one or two perfectly valid offers for a tender above a certain amount, as we did two months ago for a microprojects programme in a difficult area, we have to relaunch it in order to have three, which costs months extra, post-crisis country or not. The only thing that makes it all more palatable is that we have serious budgets to work with: 109 million euros for the 2008-2013 cycle.

A. was invited to M.’s schoolteacher for a talk. She finds that M. has never descended from the pink cloud she claims he is on since his return from the Netherlands a month ago. We have been stricter with him for some time now, make him do his homework and tell him to pay attention, but he is often dreaming his time away in class, not disturbing anyone, but simply absent minded. His teacher claims he is missing out on lots of information, but when I did his homework with him last weekend, French grammar, he seemed to have absorbed it rather well (nom, adjectif, groupe nominal, and so on; not bad at all for that age) . His handwriting is terrible indeed, especially when compared to the beautiful écriture of some of his class mates. On the other hand he did some fairly decent writing last weekend when I was with him alone, and when I showed amazement he told me with a smirk that he ‘kept it a secret’…. I also noticed during our latest stay in Holland that he was all of a sudden quite capable of more or less decent handwriting when he wrote a letter to the Tooth Fairy, who had forgotten to take his tooth from under his pillow at night…. Se fout-il de notre gueule?!

Anyway we’re just seeing this through its last two weeks, and we’ll then see if he will be more motivated at his Dutch school in Lith. Several people - among whom the boss’ wife, who has taught him on occasion when replacing his teacher and who is très critical of the French system herself - tell us they believe that he is very intelligent and simply bored at school. As much as I would like to believe this, I am not so sure anymore. And even if it were true, something has to be done about it. It would be such a waste for him to be bored for all those years and, even worse, to lose the pleasure of learning.

We did get a dog last weekend! It’s not the half-blood hyena I talked about but a cute little puppy (6 weeks only) from a Boxer mother and a German shepherd father, raised by a tough old French nun who also runs a local school and who charged me a hefty amount of money for the dog. My Italian colleague (a vet), all smiles since I generously allowed him last week to use my budget for an unforeseen training mission of his, came along with us to advise us. After a two-day dispute with the children we’ve called it Sammy, even though it’s a female (but then again, so is Sam Fox…). Mixed feelings so far. I am the most experienced among us with dogs, and I sure don’t know much about them, apart from the importance of being firm and consistent when correcting them. M. seems slightly disappointed that he can’t take the dog for walks yet, and T. is a little afraid of it. R. likes it but is way too rough with it and has to be called to order all the time. I wonder - a little late, I know - if the children aren’t perhaps too young for the dog, and whether they are really ready for the experience yet. A. has been a good sport and, in spite of her initial reserves, doesn’t even object to the dog being in the house (where it does what young dogs do about 15 times a day – just amazing how much piss such a little dog produces on a daily basis.) But it’s clear that her heart is not in it yet.

In May my brother’s wife gave birth to their second child, a beautiful, healthy boy, and we went to see them last time in Holland. The children liked being with their cousins, my sister’s children and A.’s brother’s children, and are looking forward to seeing them more often as of next month. The distance hasn’t affected at all their attachment to their relatives in Holland. M. and T. refer to Lith as if it were heaven on Earth (never went to school there…) and are definitely developing a ‘roots’ feeling about it, which is as we had hoped. In anticipation of A.’s stay with the children there, we’re having our holiday cabin spruced up, with my mother’s help for logistics. We are also getting an ADSL connection there, as we are here in Africa (amazing, but it is possible to get ADSL even here), so we will be able to talk to each other through Skype.

Time for writing this post was taken from my study time this evening. I just couldn’t bring myself to it, too tired, I’ll catch up later.