Friday, 22 June

Finally some time to write something! I was away all of last week in Bosnia. I went there for a course organised by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The course was the UN Civil-Military Coordination course and concerned the relationship between armed forces and humanitarian organisations during humanitarian emergencies. The agenda was intense, with class from 9am until 7pm. The people on the course came from some interesting backgrounds - humanitarian organasations, military, other international organisations etc. Unfortunately there wasn't much time for sightseeing, though I did go out to Sarajevo most evenings and did some souvenir shopping and drank lots of Bosnian (like Turkish) coffee.

My course was not supported by my employer, so now I'm seriously short of annual leave days (although I'm obliged to take August off). I think I used all my holiday until the end of the year! Although in the past 12 months I have taken 11 weeks of leave, so it comes as no suprise really :-)

At the end of the course I headed back to England to see some family and friends - I was not in England since March, so there was a lot of catching up to do.

Here in Paris it does not seem much like summer - it is constantly grey and rainy.. but being a Londoner, I'm used to that! This weekend I have a busy schedule of vaccinations before my summer trip to Ghana; the Paris Air Show; a birthday party; a brunch with my French class and several random meetings with friends...