Focus Group City

So today started with a text around 7:30 that said; Margaret, please meet us under the coconut tree at 9.

You might find this a strange text to receive, but when working with focus groups in the internally displaced persons (IDP) camp, this is simply an indication of a breakthrough.  The coconut tree is the meeting place for the IDP camps, and this morning I met with the chiefs of the various groups living in the IDP camps that span the graveyard and an area called St. Mary's that is just beyond the graveyard.  This meant that when I arrived at 9 I was slowly greeted by a slow stream of older men who came bearing plastic chairs of all varieties and various states of brokeness.

When they come it is essential to meet them with a handshake and a "Kwais?" It means, good, but it's asked with the intonation of a question, so as to mean, "Are you good?" To which one respondes "Kwais, elhamdulah" or "Good, thank god."  Followed by more enthusiastic shaking of hands and sometimes a word or two of broken English if the speaker knows any.  Often in a show of respect they would grab my hand with both of their hands, or as they were shaking my hand take their other arm and place it on their forearm, which is often done to indicate respect as well.

As I waited for the chiefs to assemble a gaggle of children found me, and apparently I'm fascinating.  Whenever I walk into the camps I immediately gain a following of children who don't get to close, they keep their distance, but they also can't stay away.  Today it was a group of girls with long vines tied together into jump ropes, who spent quiet some time showing off their jump roping skills for me.  It was pretty adorable until their parents chased them off so we could talk.

I was a little worried the focus group wouldn't happen. My guide, a member of the camp who works with an organization my organization works with, had taken me around yesterday to present letters officially inviting the chiefs and their communities to be involved in my focus groups.  Letters are very important around here, they must be stamped, preferably on official letter head, and to seem most official, require a brown envelop.  Upon delivering my letter yesterday to the chief who seems to be the leader of the other chiefs, or at least, the most outspoken, he spoke (through my guide translating) about how many people had come to do focus groups, and how they often promised things that never appeared.

I had nothing to promise him.  A big sticking point is we aren't promising an increase in services, or that services will get better, it's only an assessment, and I told him that as clearly as I could, and explained that I was only writing a report, but we would like to include the input of their communities if we could.  I was worried he would say no, but he seemed to understand, and the fact that the chiefs focus group happened this morning was incredibly encouraging.

We sat under the coconut tree and talked, and it quickly became clear that they would have very little to tell me about GBV services because they don't access them.  They solve all their problems internally because they simply don't have the resources to go anywhere else.  Everything is dealt with through the internal structure of the camp, through the social networks and fabric of people who are deeply connected to one another.  They mediate their own problems, and when all else fails, resort to a tribal court not too far away where judges following traditional customary law decide cases.

It was an interesting morning, and the men were lovely for putting up with what must have seemed incredibly silly questions to them.  I go back tomorrow to the coconut tree for focus groups with women, men, and young girls, to see if there are any other perspectives in the camps.

Still no new government yet, things are calm, and as long as Salva Kiir keeps it together and appoints a new government that doesn't veer to hard along tribal lines it should stay that way.  Nothing to do now but wait and see who gets appointed, hopefully sooner rather then later.  As of tomorrow I have only 25 days left in country and a ton of work to get done.  Friday I head off for Terekeka, the next county over, and next week I'll spend in Lanya, Yei, and Morobo, three other counties, on a three day trip.  Yei is supposed to be lovely, clean, and uncharacteristically organized, so I'm excited to see if it lives up to the hype.  I'll be busy traveling so probably no post until later next week, hopefully with some interesting stories and pictures to tell.

Time for a New Government!

As some of you may have heard, South Sudan's president saw best to sack his vice-president and all the government ministers on Tuesday.  So effectively the government was dissolved on Tuesday afternoon, which led to some high tensions over the possibile effect that would have on security, and the chance of ethnic clashes arising.  I can happily report that as of today (Friday afternoon) none of that has taken place and life, which was for a few days involved a little more caution and lots of people staying home in case of problems, has now returned to normal.  The one exception being that a new government still hasn't been put in place, but that doesn't seem to be stopping people from going about their normal lives for now.

In South Sudan the government is set up as a one-party system made out of the old rebel group that helped secure the country's independence.  Now formalized as a party (with as far as I can tell no competing parties) they were elected to power and the head of the party made president.  The president then appointed his vice-president and ministers of the 29 or so national ministries.  On Monday he fired them all, while he remains in place he's also decided to reduce the number of ministries to 18 or 11 depending on who you ask. It's unclear what will happen to responsibilities of the ministries that suddenly don't exist anymore.

Anyways, in terms of life here in Juba people were very nervous that it was going to lead to violence.  So much so that when there was fight at the market between two guys (from all accounts a fight of the ordinary variety and not the political kind) a police officer fired his gun into the air to break it up and ended up causing panic.  People heard the gun, assumed the violence had started and ran, the market closed up and people went home and then people in other markets heard that there was violence in one so they closed up and went home.  It wasn't until the next day that is became clear that it was just two guys in a fight, and there hadn't been any actual clashes.  So Thursday was calm, and people were out more and the streets looked normal, today things were running as normal all over town (since I spent the day in a car driving around to various meetings I got a pretty good look around).

As one of the drivers here pointed out to me, the locals are even more scared of violence breaking out then the expats are, because unlike the internationals here most of the locals remember first hand what civil war looks like, and they are terrified to return to it. Short of President Salva Kiir doing something stupid like only appointing Dinka to the new positions, there seem to be high hopes that any sort of violent response will be avoided completely.  We'll have to see what the president does in the coming days, as appointments are expected sometime early next week, but I'm hopeful things will keep rolling right along.  The military has been deployed around Juba to provide extra protection for government buildings, but short of that things seem to be pretty much back to normal after a tense couple of days.

I'm trying to get as much done in the next week as I can. As my boss pointed out I have one week left for meetings and focus groups, then I'll be spending a week traveling to the other countries in Central Equatoria to gather information about their GBV services there, and once I get back I'll have less then two weeks to write up my report before I have to present it.  Times is speeding up, I'm over halfway done with my time here and I still have a lot to get done, so please forgive me if my blogpost are somewhat sparser then usual in my last four weeks here.  All is well, just busy!

An Ode to My Mosquito Net

My mosquito net is perhaps the thing I value most here after my air conditioning (you have no idea how much more bearable life is here with one, or maybe you do after the east coast/Midwest heat wave of last week).  The netting serves the obvious purpose of keeping bugs out of my immediate sleeping area at night, or whenever I have it pulled down.  This is excellent because despite my crazy bug stalking (see previous post on that for details) it's very rare that I get to the point where I think my room is actually bug free. For some reason no matter how much I spray or check every surface in my room there are always more bugs to kill.  The mosquitos are particularly fond of hiding in my rack of hanging clothes for reasons I can't understand.  Maybe the human smell on the clothes makes them think there's something worth checking out there? I can always kill a couple by shaking my hanging rack, but I never get all of them.  So hence my love of my mosquito net, which creates a much smaller space for me to verify as bug free before I go to sleep, and the white color of the netting makes it easy to spot just about any bug on.

But my mosquito net also serves other very important purposes.  Namely, it keeps everything else out.  For instance, since I've decided I need as much help as I can get in my bug war I've enlisted the spiders that live in the spaces of the roof.  Now, if I didn't have a net I would be too paranoid about them potentially dropping on me in my sleep (even though they seem very content to stay in their roof webs).  But because of the net I let the spiders do their things with the bugs, hopefully reducing my own bug exposure, and I don't worry about them falling on me.

Ditto goes for the lizards, I like my lizard friends, but I think I would be slightly more terrified to sleep at night knowing one might fall on to me as I slept.  Fortunately, my mosquito net also keeps me free of any other nightly visitors.

Finally, there are the unknown things that go bump in the night.  Here, there are an unusual number of things that go bump in the night.  Whether its the cats on the roof, or the toad I found inhabiting my trash can the other night (no idea how it got there), or the things I can't identify that move around my room at night, I sleep a lot better knowing that whatever is banging around my roof or room at night, I have a barrier between me and it/them.

Now, not all mosquito nets are created equally.  You need to make sure it can either be tucked into your mattress, or that it meets the bedframe pretty solidly, and doesn't have any obvious holes, and is tied properly so it doesn't create hiding places for bugs.  Fortunately my net meets all these requirements, and I sleep very soundly knowing that nothing is going to buzz in my ear or bite me while I sleep.

Don't ever underestimate the value of a good mosquito net.

Life in Juba

I'm going to try and be a bit more expressive about what Juba is like on a daily basis since I unfortunately can't take pictures the way I might in other places.  Juba is the capital city of South Sudan, but has only been so for the past two years.  The south suffered under the joint country of Sudan from favoritism of the north by its colonial rulers in the past, and then favoritism for its Muslim areas in the north by it's Muslim government. As a result while places like Khartoum were developed over time the south was not, nor were its cities.  While I haven't seen Khartoum first hand, I've heard that the level of development is much higher there.  Juba still very much feels like a city figuring out how to be a capital city.

While it has no lack of government buildings, it does lack paved roads on all but the most central of its roads, and I've been told none of the roads connecting Juba to the other six counties in the state of Central Equatoria are paved.  Most people in Juba fill jerry cans out of water tanks that are filled directly from the Nile with very little sanitation or filtering as far as I can tell.  There are some programs that filter the water, but most of the time I see water being pumped directly from the Nile into water tanks that are then drive to various locals where people fill jerry cans.  I guess maybe its possible that some of these water tanks have some sort of internal filtration system, but that seems unlikely.  These are not fancy tanks, just large metal buckets essentially.  I drink exclusively bottled water here, a luxury few can afford here.  A bottle of water cost just under $1 US and the average daily income here is just under $3 US, when it comes to feeding and housing a family I imagine bottled water moves further down the list. Everywhere you go there are water tanks with piles of jerry cans that people fill and then peddle away on their bikes with.  I feel very lucky for the filtered water I shower in everyday, as well as the bottled water I drink.

Juba is very different then Cairo or Ramallah in that while they lack certain services, they are very much constructed cities, capable of providing basic services to many of their citizens, as you would expect of capitals, and they are capable of providing some entertainment for those who live there or are passing through.  Not so with Juba.  There is nothing to do in Juba in terms of entertainment, there are no movie theaters, shopping centers (only the open air markets for the most basic of goods), parks, concert venues, or other forms of entertainment that might be considered normal for a capital city.  There are government offices, NGO offices, churches, mosques, hotels, some nice restaurants, and the rest of the buildings/homes/shops/bars are pretty much constructed out of corrugated metal or mud walls with straw roofs. This means that in the evenings expats pretty much hang out in their hotels or some of the nicer restaurants or bars to eat and drink beer.  Occasionally there are events like karaoke hosted by an embassy, but these are directed at the expat community, and not at locals.

There are lots of internationals that live in Juba, and I don't mean just Western internationals.  There are huge numbers of Kenyans, Ugandans, Ethiopians, etc., living and working in Juba.  They are generally resented by the local population because they are viewed as taking jobs that locals could otherwise have, and they face a certain amount of harassment/racism/resentment here from the South Sudanese.

I feel like Juba is hard to describe because it often doesn't feel like a city so much as a random collection of buildings, huts, and IDP camps built out of tarps and twine and other found materials.  The roads turn to rivers of mud in the rain and make transport incredibly difficult.  Even though most people might consider me to be roughing it in my prefabricated room and the shared showers and bathrooms that remind me of summer camps as a kid, I know I'm living a luxurious life compared to most locals.  My room is always dry, has air conditioning (a real rarity with the exception of hotels and NGO/UN offices), and internet (almost impossible to find outside of hotels or the rare internet cafe).  I can afford food at places that are hygienic, bottled water, and  medical care when I need it.  These are not things that the local populace has access to on a regular basis.

Many people in Juba work for the national or state government, or the police/military.  Regular pay checks for these jobs are rare.  Even though they are regularly and fully employed there is often no security around a pay check.  The police have been out in force lately with check points stopping cars to check that they have all their paperwork in order, and extract bribes to let them go when it is not, my driver say "They are hungry." They mean for money, but really the police may just actually be hungry because they haven't been paid in a number of months, and still need to feed their families.  My boss discovered that the social workers we work with had not been paid in three months, yet they still showed up to every meeting she had, and were running the programs they had been setting up.  Most people diversify here in terms of work to keep earning money, a social worker may run a small laundry business on the side, or raise chickens so her children can sell the eggs in the market, and her husband is sure to have a job in a different sector so that hopefully both paychecks aren't cut off for too long at one given time.

I'm worried the situation will only grow worse soon since Sudan has decided to stop accepting oil from South Sudan for export out of Sudan since Sudan accuses South Sudan of supporting rebels on it's boarder and in Darfur.  South Sudan will shut down the last of its oil production in the next week or so, and then 99% of South Sudan's state revenue will be gone until oil production gets turned back on.  South Sudan is land locked and its ability to export its oil is entirely dependent on Sudan's willingness to do so, the two countries had just come out of a long disagreement over oil profit sharing agreement when I arrived.  I hope the two countries can come to some sort of resolution quickly, because while the oil is stopped people in both countries will suffer as government revenues fall. (I believe Sudan received $3/barrel for each barrel it exported for South Sudan under the previous agreement, which was a major boon to the Sudanese economy as well).  

Anyways, I guess that's enough on life in Juba for today.  In more mundane goings on I'm feeling much better, pretty much back to normal aside from the last vestiges of my cough, which is always the last part of a cold to go anyways.  Joining my grey lizard friend last night was a tiny brown lizard that fell off the roof when I walked into my room. Much to my annoyance this one seems to enjoy inhabiting the floor, which is somewhat frustrating since I've already stepped on its tail once.  I hope it moves to the walls soon, or finds its way out.  I'm excited to start the week off healthy and hit the ground running to make up for the lost time at the end of last week. Hope everyone had a good weekend!

An Introduction to the South Sudanese Medical System

So I'll start of by saying that I'm doing pretty well and I'm mostly on the mend now from a cold I got the other day.  This blog post is going to be about my experience with the medical facilities and doctors here, but I just want you all to know at the beginning that I'm doing well now and I'm feeling a lot better then I was the other day.

So Thursday morning I woke up with a deep chest cold, after having no symptoms of a cold the night before when I went to bed.  This concerned me because I've never had a cold develop that fast, or one quiet so intense.  It hurt to cough and to take deep breaths.  By the afternoon I was starting to not feel well in general and my wise friends told me to go to the hospital and get a malaria test and see what they said.  I didn't have any malaria symptoms but it's always people's first assumptions here, and as one of my friends pointed out if I did have a case it might be compromising my immune symptom.  I've got some smart friends.

My boss took me to the clinic she trust and upon hearing my cough the doctor decided I was going to get an immediate injection of two antibiotics because she thought it was some sort of chest infection based on the rapid way it had set in and the awful sound of my cough.  I don't want people to be alarmed by her response because there are three ways to handle medication situations here, and none of them actually involve trying to find out what is wrong with you aside from a malaria or typhoid test because they simply don't have the capabilities to actually diagnose people, and most people don't have the money to pay for expensive test to find out what illness they actually have.  So the courses of action for illness of just about anything are as such:  1) be given oral medication based on your symptoms and hope that fixes the problem 2) throw everything they have at it including immediate injections of antibiotics paired with an oral set of antibiotics to follow up and hope that works 3) check you into a hospital or evac you to Nairobi where they have high level medical facilities capable of diagnosing you and treating you according to what you have.

They didn't listen to my chest or do any x-rays to determine what was going on, they just heard my cough, knew there was something wrong and that I was past stage one of attempting to deal with a regular cold, and moved to step two.  I got an immediate injection of two different antibiotics followed up with a section injection of another antibiotic today and tonight I start a regimen of antibiotics paired with a couple other medications.  I've spent the last day and a half in bed mostly resting at the insistance of my boss who says that people who work when they're sick take twice as long to get better.  She wouldn't even let me talk about work today, so I've been reading and laying in bed, but watching some TV on my laptop.  My body wasn't so interested in sleep today, which I think is a good sign since I napped a good amount yesterday, and I also didn't want to nap all day and then not be able to sleep tonight, but it was a very restful day.

I can say that not long after the first injection of antibiotics I started to feel better and today after my second injection I feel pretty good and the cough has moved out of my chest into more of a slight head cold, which while not pleasant, doesn't worry me nearly as much now that my chest isn't hurting and coughing isn't painful anymore.  I can handle a head cold, and hopefully the continued antibiotics I'm taking will take care of that in the next couple of days.  My cough sounds like the end of a cold now, so I'm thankful the doctors acted quickly and nipped whatever it was I had.  I lost a day and a half of work, which was really unfortunate, I had to cancel a meeting and I'm behind on my focus group work now but I'm hoping to make up some of that work over this weekend now that I'm feeling better. (I'm actually feeling a lot better now as I write this on Friday night, aside from a slight cough).

Anyways, it was an interesting view of the medical system here.  It's nothing like at home, they don't ask you the basic questions that we assume are coming at a doctor's office visit.  For instance no one asked me what medications I was on before prescribing things (I assume because most people aren't on medication here, or alternatively, it doesn't really matter since they only have a few courses of action they can take).  When I became concerned about the cost of the medication (I carried a certain amount of money into the country and that's all I have since there isn't any banking system here to speak of) she took that into consideration and when additional medication was added to my prescription my bill didn't go up.  I'm extremely fortunate in that I'm able to afford things like malaria test and medication.  Most people here don't have the money for the testing, much less the medication for malaria or other illnesses and so suffer through it without the help of medication.  I'm extremely lucky to have access to a clinic with the resources the one I went to has, and to be able to afford its services.

Hopefully my next blog post is a bit more interesting, but being out of commission for the last day and a half I don't have much to write about.  My week before that was mostly just meetings and writing up reports of my meetings.  My weeks have a fairly distinct work pattern to them now that doesn't make for much to write home about, but I'll try and write a bit more about daily life here in the future.

Independence Day!

July 9th, Tuesday, was South Sudan's second anniversary of independence, and let me tell you they celebrate as only people who still vividly remember the struggle for independence can.  Nobody works, everybody celebrates, and a general sense of exuberant joy covers the entire city.  Since I got here three weeks ago they've been building up to the celebrations with billboards congratulating the government and people on their progress.  Abruptly yesterday all the radio commercials almost exclusively turned to companies offering their own congratulation messages to the country.  Slogans here often revolve around the country's new found status, for instance White Bull a common beer here has the tagline 'the taste of progress' and Vivacell's (a cell phone company) motto is 'we believe' and there were people in shirts everywhere on independence day sporting the slogan on patriotic themed shirts.  Here's me in the back of the truck that took us part of the way:

As for the actual celebrations we had to walk most of the way since the roads were shut down by the hundreds of police men and women on the streets, whether for actual protection or simply as a show of force remains unclear.  But the walk was a part of the party as we approached an area that is just a giant field built with grandstands for this purpose is my understanding, although perhaps it is used for other events, but most of the time guards stand watch and don't allow anyone to stop on the road that runs by.  I think part of it serves as a war memorial as well, but I could be misunderstanding exactly what it is.  On the road people were waving flags, dressed in flags, and the mood was one of general celebration.  I was with my boss, a British friend, and our South Sudanese driver/logistician/friend, meaning that everywhere we went cries of 'gowaja!' followed us.

Gowaja (a poor transliteration of the Juba Arabic word for foreigner) is how small children greet us here, and Tuesday cries of it followed us everywhere.  People saw us and pointed, and then wanted their picture taken with us.  I took so many pictures with random South Sudanese people who were just thrilled to see foreigners at their celebration.  Usually it would be a group of twenty something guys, who would hand us flags and then crowd in around us and force their other friends to take pictures of them with us.  It was fun, and maybe I should have felt more awkward, but if taking a picture with some foreigner who came to celebrate made their independence day better, or more amusing, or for a good story later, then who was I to argue? It was their independence day after all, and I was just lucky to be present.  Here are some shots of me with random people celebrating:

The actual celebrations occurred in a giant field where the many tribes of South Sudan had amassed to put on their best traditional dances, sing, play music, and generally have a good time.  We'd walk up to a giant crowd of people and inevitably in the center would be a circle of men or women or both dancing in colorful traditional dress, usually to drums, and there was often singing.  Each tribe had their own dress, music and dances, and when we walked up we were often whisked (or slightly manhandled) to the front of the crowd to ensure the gowaja had a first row view of whatever celebration was going on.  We were also pretty short compared to most of the people we were standing around, the Dinkas (one of the area tribes) are notoriously tall, and for some perspective I was the tallest person in our group of four, so we needed whatever assistance we could get in terms of seeing what was going on.

It was a wonderful time walking the field, seeing all the people celebrating and just generally enjoying their day off.  As we walked back people zipped by on boda bodas (the local term for motorcycles) with giant flags held by the passengers streaming behind them, cars with flags tied to their hoods or tied to polls on the back hitch were ubiquitous, and I would wave a little South Sudan flag I'd acquired as they went by, which led to much cheering from the occupants.

Here's one last picture of the gowajas I was hanging out with that day:

By the time we made it back from our expedition I was exhausted from the heat and the walking.  I spent the rest of the day relaxing with some American TV and avoiding the somewhat rowdy bar crowd that was sure to make an appearance in the evening hours.  It was an excellent day and the city seems to be recovering from it's celebration hang over slowly today, military personnel and police are still everywhere, but slowly the dignitaries that had arrived are leaving the city and traffic is returning to normal.  I managed two meetings on Wednesday and to get a decent amount of work done so I'm hoping the entire week won't be a loss in terms of work as my boss feared it might.

Combatting Expectations and Traffic

Today was a depressing day in terms of work.  I spent the day going to each of the five district police offices in Juba.  At each office there is a Gender Officer and an Office of Gender and Children that should deal with GBV cases and juveniles.  It's a hypothetically promising model, with a Head Gender Officer also located at the Police Headquarters in Juba to coordinate the five district offices.  I went with the Head Gender Officer, as well as the lead for the social work program at the Ministry of Gender and Social Development to check out the individual district offices and hopefully get some numbers on actual cases being reported.  I was hoping to see how many of these cases progressed beyond complaints to the next step of following through with an arrest, and then being referred to courts.  From there I hoped to learn how many of those resulted in convictions and if any did how long those prison sentences might be (or how large the fines were alternatively).

It turned out all my expectations of getting any data on case numbers was completely unreasonable.  I'd figured the data would be circumspect, but what I wasn't prepared for was there to be no data.  Only one of the five districts had kept any sort of records and I was only able to see one week of records, and there was no data on what happened once the complaints were filed. At most places the police officers I spoke to were not the actual Gender Officer, or even if they were, they did not distinguish between GBV cases and other criminal cases that involved women, meaning their numbers involved cases like thefts in which women had been complainants as well. That or they lumped any fighting of any type into GBV, so male-on-male fights were also included in this number.  I also learned that unless the cases they saw were "high profile" such as rape, they did not refer the cases to court.  Domestic violence cases for instance are handled and dismissed at the precinct, as one Gender Officer told me, they tell the husbands to bring the wives to the police station the next time they misbehave instead of beating her themselves.  I'm not sure what they do with the women if the husbands do decide to being them to the police instead of taking care of it at home, but I imagine based on other reports I've read that it involves either a serious talking to about their wifely duties, or jail time.

The whole day ended up being exhausting, we hit five different district offices, including one where the police chief politely ignored us for more then a half an hour before the social worker marched us out of there.  She was indignant about the wait, especially given we were ministry officials (or at least they are) and guests.  We left without speaking to anyone, but I was proud of her for taking the initiative to walk out when she wasn't treated properly, especially because I wasn't going to say anything since it wasn't my place to decide what was acceptable or not.  I'm not sure if we'll be going back out to that district to try again, or if our leaving was even noticed at all, but I'm glad they at least made a stand for themselves.  It was also incredibly humid here today, it was only around 80 degrees, but my hair took a full three hours to dry in the humidity, and we spend a lot of it in ridiculous traffic (without an air conditioner) because of the Independence Day celebrations tomorrow.  It's the second anniversary of South Sudan's independence, and I think every police officer in the city was directing traffic today or checking cars as they went by.  It made for a couple of very long drives between police stations.

Anyways, despite the days frustrations it was helpful to determine what kind of shape the individual police stations were in, and it will make for some interesting writing in the final report I generate.  I'm off to watch some television and relax a bit before bed, tomorrow should be crazy with all the Independence Day things going on.  We're going in the morning to see the celebrations so hopefully I'll have some interesting goings-on to report back on after that.

The Grind

There is not much to report from that last couple of days.  Mostly I've settled into a grind here of around two to three meetings a day with local NGOs or INGOs or government agencies.  The people I meet are all lovely but I'm working on getting more out of people who are usually dealing with a second language and often don't have the technical language to know what I mean when I ask about things like case management, following up on trainings, etc.  Being patient with people and recognizing that things will not run on the time table I've set are also daily challenges I'm working on.  I'm trying to let go of my idea of Western time, but it's easier said then done.

The meetings I have with the social workers/Ministry often require my boss to give me the "chill out" sign about half way through when I try starting to get people back on topic.  I'm recognizing that letting groups of people move at their own speed, however glacial it may seem to me, is an important part of the "local ownership" that she keeps teaching me about.  This may require several tangent conversations, but ultimately leaves them with a sense of accomplishment and hopefully feeling like they've actually engaged in the process in a meaningful way rather then me rushing them through the meeting agenda.  I'm learning to schedule meetings further apart.

Other then that it was a mostly uneventful week.  It's Saturday afternoon as I write this now, there's apparently some sort of America party happening in delayed-4th of July style tonight at one of the places Americans live or frequent so I'm excited about that, and then apparently a birthday party for someone I've never met, but that doesn't seem to matter so much.  My friends have all moved up to a hotel on the far side of town due to some sort of vague threats towards Western targets in the area.  This is bad news for me since now all my friends live about a half hour taxi cab ride away, good news for them since they now live in a much nicer place with a pool.  I will be consoling myself with as many visits up to swim and hang out with them as I can finagle.

I've recently been waking to minor infestations of flying ants hanging out on the outside of my mosquito netting each morning.  I'm not sure why they've started to appear, and they seem to be mostly dead by the time I wake up in the morning to clean them up, so I'm a little confused as to what's going on.  But given that they are easy to kill and not getting through my mosquito netting I'm not going to worry about it too much.

Anyways, that's about all to report for now. I've got reports on my meetings from the week to type up this afternoon before the America celebrations start so I'd better get started on those.  Hope everyone had a good fourth!

Expert Bug Stalking

I've become something of a master bug killer with my bottle of Pif Paf (a spray can of the local mosquito and fly killer) in one hand and a sandle in the other.  I'm crazy about making sure all the bugs in my room are dead before I go to sleep, even with my mosquito net in place over my bed, I just don't want them around.  The Pif Paf is kind of scary stuff, shortly after being sprayed flies fall to the floor obviously suffering some sort of neurological failure.  I try not to use it to much when I'm actually in the room, or if I do I leave the room for a while because I can't imagine whatever is disabling flies is good for humans either.  I do a good spray of the room in the morning though after the lady who cleans my room comes through, inevitably letting in a couple of flies and dozens of mosquitos as she leaves the door opens when she cleans.  I've though of asking her not to leave the door open, but I have the feeling it might be in part for her protection that she does, so I'll just let it be.

I have a few more pictures of life around the office.  To answer a question posted, the fear of pictures was heavily instilled in the people by the government during the war.  It was very much a security risk and the people became very actively involved in making sure people weren't taking pictures of infrastructure/buildings/other things that could become targets. Picture taking is still viewed very suspiciously and actually illegal in many places, such as near any government buildings, any bridges, etc.  So hence, my picture taking while pretending to use my phone, and therefore a lot of sideways/not centered pictures out of car windows.

Below is the center for girls, all of whom were vulnerable to or victims of GBV.  On the board that holds their daily schedule is included half an hour of time for 'wound care'.  I'm not exactly sure of the nature of their wounds, but the fact that they have scheduled daily time for it probably says enough.  I'm standing at the door of my office taking this picture.

Here are some of the girls playing with Habibi the monkey

 Upon discovering I had a camera it was quickly spirited out of my hands for each girl to take some pictures with, this is just one example of their photography.  To say they like cameras is a massive understatement, every single one of them wanted to be taking pictures and be in the pictures at the same time.

 Some of our lovely helpers in the office, after school the girls are always in and out of the offices to say hi, or chase the monkey when he comes to hide, or just see what we are up to.

Below is something I've been trying to take a picture of since I got here, this is the best I've got so far.  You can only just see it, but over in the upper right hand corner is a pool table under a large tree where the goat herders hang out and play pool.  I love going by and seeing them engaged in careful games of pool while the goats hang out.  The idea of a pool table outside may seem a bit strange, but all the material for roofing goes to people's homes, so the tree serves as pretty decent shelter in all but the worst of the rains.  

 Finally, here is my boss and our office monkey hanging out. He's getting quiet adventurous jumping between our desk and trying to break into our office supplies, so we have to make sure not to leave anything important unattended when the office door is open lest he either try to eat the paper clips, or just spill them all over the place.

Happy Fourth everyone! I don't think we'll be doing any celebrating here, but I'll be missing the food, friends, and fireworks at home!

Wildlife adventures

We had a proper rainstorm here today (well that was Saturday now), thunder and the whole bit.  Shook the little prefab building like crazy, and made me appreciate the fact that I've lived in a house with solid walls my whole life even more.  I've become very local about rainstorms.  When I wake up hear them I don't bother getting out of bed.  Nothing happens when it rains, meetings are inevitably delayed, sometimes by hours.  Very little seems to move when it's wet, or if it does move it does so slowly.  I think I will have to adjust to the idea that there will be an assumption my early meeting mornings won't happen if its raining if they are with a local NGO.  It usually tapers out by mid-morning so hopefully it won't slow me down too much, but I'm trying to embrace it and get some extra sleep when I wake up to the sound of it drumming against the metal sheets of my little building.

I was woken up again on Sunday by dueling cats on my roof.  It's pretty common for the wild/feral cats that wander around to walk across the roof every so often, which given that it's metal is loud enough.  But every once and a while two cats really decide to go at it right on my little shed and it sounds like they're going to bring the place down.  There is yowling and hissing and just a terrible commotion.  Fortunately so far the roof has held.  In other wildlife news, while the chicken has disappeared (probably into someone's dinner pot) the rain brings out hundreds to tiny toads.  They are so little they look more like flies or tiny black bugs, but they hop across the gravel pathways in droves after the rains.  They're so cute but I spend a lot of time trying not to step on them.

I had my fist real meeting with an active CBO (community base organization) yesterday, it was fabulous.  I got all kinds of interesting information out of them, and now I'm working on typing it up and developing a method for recording what I learn in the interviews so that all the information I learn is transferable to others so that nothing is lost after I leave.  Creating local information is so important, and part of what I need to make sure happens is that all the information I acquire is preserved so that it can be used after I'm gone.  Hopefully no one will ever have to track me down in order to find out some piece of information that can be useful to them, I'm trying to be as detailed as possible with my individual reports for each survey that gets filled out. It's going to be time consuming, but I think ultimately the information database it creates will be worth it.

I'm going to spend today setting up appointments with other CBOs and trying to get ready for tomorrow's meeting with the social work team to discuss setting up the focus groups which the social workers will be facilitating since they can conduct them in the local languages and get the flow of the conversation going instead of me trying to to run them with a translator.

Anyways, kind of mundane stuff around here.  Sorry there's not more to report on.  Hope all is well at home!