Friday, 23 July

This morning I took the delegation from Uganda to the airfield for their flight before spending the day in three different meetings about security. Last weekend a person from an Italian NGO was robbed at gunpoint in the main street. There is also the problem of the different fighting groups. One of the meetings was to encourage conflict resolution between two fighting factions - the meeting lasted from 4-8pm and will reconvene on Sunday...

Thursday, 22 July

Today I went with a delegation from the United Nations in Uganda to a town 2 hours south of Beni, called Butembo. The visit was to prepare for the disarmament, demobilisation and repatriation of Ugandan troops operating in Congo. The 50km journey took about 2 hours along one of the better roads in Congo. On the way back it began to rain quite heavily making the road very muddy and the going slow - especially high up in the mountains...
Here is a picture of us on the road:

These are some pictures of a village that we stopped in on the journey:
Brick oven & houses

Jungle bridge

Road to Butembo

Butembo

Wednesday, 21 July

I was very busy today organising visits by three different delegations to Beni. One of the delegations included a British Army colonel from my own army unit. It was really good to speak to one of my compatriots. I have not seen any Brits for a while - I am the only person from Britain here in Beni, though there are others working in Congo with the United Nations.

Tuesday, 20 July

This week is going to be busy with many meetings and projects for the coming week. I do not only deel with political issues. At the moment I am working on several projects to develop cooperation between the United Nations and other organisations, the military and the government. As part of this project I went to a meeting with the mayor of the town to discuss town security. This week we will also be hosting several delegations which all take a lot of planning.
Today I cut my own hair - another necessary task when living in Beni. The result was quite good for a first attempt!

Monday, 19 July

This morning I woke up at 5am to the sound of rain drumming on the tin roof and flashes of lightening - my plans to start the week off with a run quickly dissappeared as the rain showed no sign of relenting - this is after all the rainy season (unless you are enjoying summer in Europe - or almost anywhere else in the World). Today has been busy as plans are made for the rest of the week - innumerable reports, visits, meetings, negotiations and crises...
Actually Beni is a relatively quiet posting - I would not like to go anywhere to busy!

Sunday, 18 July

I spent an easy day making a tour of the town and saw some nice scenery - but forgot my camera! I spend most of the afternoon watching a local football match which made a change - it was a nice day to sit on the grass and rest. In the evening I did my laundry - not much fun anywhere in the world, and no better here with no washing machine...

Saturday, 17 July

No rest for me - another Saturday and another day at work writing the weekly report and having meetings with my boss! Though saying that,  things are more better here since my boss got back from holiday (never thought I'd say that)! It means I have the chance to travel around a bit more and get some direction for my work - it is good to share ideas, especially in this line of work. I did not miss much by being at work today - there was a serious storm - the biggest storm I have ever seen...