Barriers=Security?

With the kiddies

Corn for Cows

Am seriously fighting waking up on the wrong side of bed this morning. We all have days like this and I know it will pass. As I was lying awake last night listening to the final moments of Obama mania taking place on my street, I was considering all the barriers I have to go through to get to bed each night. First, I'm dropped off by my driver. Then I get by the outside guard. Then the locked gate to my compound. Then the courtyard houseboy/guard. Then through my front door. Into the locked wing of my home. Into my locked bedroom. Then have to crawl into the mosquito net after putting on long bed clothes and an application of Deet. That's ten barriers of security by my count. I wonder precisely how necessary it all is-and weigh the value of security versus the value of avoiding crazy making. I also wonder how many doors I should lock to keep the badness out vs. the risk that I would need to get out of my house at somepoint (the locked maze would make this tough). In many ways, I feel more secure when I'm outside my gates and aware of what is going on around me (its actually not that scary), as opposed to locking myself away thinking about the boogeyman. I often think these efforts are the same as four wheel drive-as Dad says, they provide a false sense of security. For a high-strung girl from the Kootenays, it's all a little much.

On the work front, I've been passed the Disaster Management Task Force (DMTF) portfolio. Rwanda is particularly susceptible to natural disasters-earthquakes, volcanoes, and floods, not to mention political unrest. After floods in 2007 killed 20 people and displaced hundreds, the Government of Rwanda made disaster management a priority, though it has yet to be fully implemented. Thus Henri, my colleague from Belgium, and I are to come up with UNDP's role of coordinating various stakeholders-NGOs, the Red Cross, the Civil Defense, Rwanda's Police force, and community leaders in creating a coordinated disaster response plan. This will be excellent experience if I ever work with the International Commission of the Red Cross, and the work is of particular interest to me, so I'm excited to be participating. Rwandan troops went into the Congo yesterday to try to oust hutu extremists still trying to destabilize the government. Here's hoping we don't need the DMTF too soon...

Otherwise, the field project is also coming along, and Jovin and I will take another trip there tomorrow. Am looking forward to seeing the villagers, and am particularly looking forward to going to the returnee camps. Maybe I'll get some more corn. I also have to make sure that the cocoons for food storage are going to get filled and transferred to the storage site; that an infrastructure specialist is hired to consult on the rice marshlands project; and that somehow we start getting some cows to these returnees. I think maybe I should try to get some more sleep...