Friday, 13 August

Friday at last - a long week! At least I have finished my work for this week - I will have tomorrow off. I am going to spend the weekend in Lubero, up in the mountains - where I went two weeks ago. This time I am driving there with two Swedish colleagues. It is quite far to drive - 2.5 hours. The helicopter is better! This evening there was a really strange sunset - it turned everything yellow.

Yellow sunset
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Thursday, 12 August

Another rainy day in Beni - better that than the hot, dusty and humid heat of the dry season, though. Especially during the ongoing water supply problem. Today I went to a meeting with other organisations working in Beni - organisations like Oxfam, Solidarité, Save the Children and the European Commission hold a meeting each week to coordinate their work. The current problems in Beni were discussed - refugees, water, human rights etc...Being the UN representative at the meeting - I received a huge number of questions (in French too)! The UN is the largest organisation working in Beni - the other organisations expect us to provide a lot of assistance. However, it is not so easy - for projects we have to apply for funding through the mission headquarters in Kinshasa. We do not have local funds - unlike most of the other organisations.

Wednesday, 11 August

We have still not had a water delivery in the town for more than a week now - it is a crisis situation. There is plenty of water - it is the rainy season. There is just no fuel! The water company have approached the United Nations for help in supplying fuel for the water pump.
We had the second part of the conflict resolution meeting that started yesterday. Today it was more sucessful - a cease-fire was signed. However, who knows whether the piece of paper will be respected... I doubt it!

Tuesday, 10 August

We hosted a big conflict resolution meeting today. There has been some fighting between some rebel groups not far from here. Hozever we did not reach an agreement. The meeting will continue tomorrow.
Here I have posted some photos from around the town, which I took on Sunday...

View of Beni
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On the road
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Track up the hill
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Mosque
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Monday, 9 August

Monday again and back at work - here is a picture of the view!

Where I work
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Today we had a big meeting with some local military leaders. We are trying to encourage the different military groups in the region to integrate into the national army.
Here in Beni we continue to have lots of rain - the rainy season is here. In this part of the World there are only two seasons - rainy and dry. The European summer and winter are rainy here, and the European spring and autumn are dry - this is when the sun is over the equator. I live and work arounk 40 km from the equator - I posted a photo of the equator from the air last week....

Sunday, 8 August

Another quiet day – I went to the market and got lots of food – bananas, tomatoes, onions, passion fruit, and avocado. This afternoon I am going out to take some photos of the town some of which you can see here…

Saturday, 7 August

Overnight we had a very big storm which partly flooded my house! This morning no communications was working – the mobile phone service stopped working and the local radio station was off the air. At work, one of the electricity generators was damaged and the computer network was not working. When this happens we are unable to send reports to the head office. Some technicians were flown in; however, they were unable to fix the problem, so we are still cut off from the outside world. The good side is that I now have a good collection of rain water that should be enough to last until the next expected water delivery on Monday!
This evening I went to the Greek restaurant (which is also the Greek Honourary Consulate). There was also a gathering of local military mafia too, so lots of people with guns. This town is just like the Wild West…

Friday, 6 August

On Fridays there is usually a water delivery to my house, but not today. We have not had water since Tuesday. I have had to wash using rain water and my supply of United Nations mineral water. When I say mineral water, I mean highly chlorinated water that tastes like it came from a swimming pool!