Making friends::::

So, week two in Brazzaville is coming to an end…I leave for Abuja, Nigeria on Thursday (fingers crossed)…but it has been a very busy and hectic, but interesting week to say the least! Lots of really disorganized meetings, with not a whole lot accomplished, but we have come to the conclusion in many of those meetings that “things” need to change…what “things”exactly I don’t know yet, but I am sure we will figure that out as time goes on…and we have until September to come up with THE strategy to eradicate polio from western Africa…so any suggestions would be gladly appreciated….I will say one thing that the team I am working with truly is committed to seeing an end to it…the last few years of polio eradication in western Africa has been tough for them, as there have been significant declines, to the point where there were only a dozen or so cases last year, but then this year alone (and we are only 6 months in) there has been over 400 diagnosed cases (this means that 400 of children under the age of 3 are paralyzed the rest of their lives…keeping in mind there is no social structure to support them)…there are many reasons for this, as mentioned in my last blog entry, but so many others including the quality of the drug, # of dosages received (or missed is a better way of terming it, as they need 3 to be immune, but they only on average receive 0.81% of a single vaccine), as they are oral drops we give them…anyways, enough about work, now on to the everyday stuff.

I went on a couple WHO-sponsored Safe Drinking Water education session, which traveled around the Congo this week, just to get an understanding of how we do education and information sessions for locals, mostly we visited local orphanages, and man was is it an eye opening experience…the children are absolutely beautiful, but I have never seen such living conditions. I won’t get into the specifics because it is just way too much to explain, but the kids were amazing…they know nothing else besides the orphanages, so they don’t know that things could be possibly better for them…I have started a website for pictures of my adventures, so have a look, these are just some of the pictures, and I will continue to update these photos whenever I update this blog. Listening to some of their stories is incredible, one kid in particular (who says he is 14 but he has to be at least 20) literally walked from Rwanda to the Congo (he is in one of the pictures) – find a map and you will see that it is basically like walking from Mexico to Greenland, but through fully armed, machete-wielding zones, as the civil war had completely devastated his family and village, and somehow he ended up in Brazzaville…if you haven’t read “What is the What” I highly recommend it, as it is basically similar to his story and so many others. They don’t allow international adoption here, as there is just too much illness and lineage issues (no real clue where the kids came from as they are just dropped off in the middle of the night, or found in fields), but they are just so happy and sweet natured…I have gone back a few times over the week to visit the kids, and even teaching them a bit about Ultimate Frisbee…I wish I brought more discs, but will have to get more on my next trip home!

It is awesome to be back in a French speaking country….nice to put my 17-20 years of studying it to use, but do I ever get laughed at for my quebecois accent!! Very similar to how Canadians are said to say “eh”, and “aboot” instead of about a lot, but it is all in good fun! I actually met one other Canadian and we ‘celebrated’ Canada Day together…we drank Coca-Cola (no Pepsi) and ate the Congo version of a Joe Louis! The other nice thing I really like about being back in the UN system again, is the people….last night we were all at a friend’s place celebrating her recent marriage, and among the 7 of us in the room, we had 7 different mother tongues!! We all speak various languages, few of which many of us are considered fluent…but in most cases we understand those languages, so it definitely makes for an interesting evening! At any given moment you are listening to someone speaking in one language, but responding in French, Spanish, English… and then immediately switching into another language to speak to others…so I guess it definitely helps that I know quite a few languages…even getting to practice my Mandarin again! But, I really love it, and look forward to Nigeria, where I have been getting some “Nigerian-English language lessons” from a Nigerian friend here…although English is their national language, it is very much a slang format (eg. “Lets go chop=Lets eat, or, Easy yourself=Where’s the bathroom, Take leg=Lets walk)!! So, this should be fun!!

Hotel life is definitely getting to me…but I finally had hot water on Friday morning, which made things that much better (before that it was cold, cold water showers everyday)! But I am back to the cold showers again…what can you do?! You don’t realize how much it is the little things you miss until you haven’t had it in a little while! It is surprisingly cool here in the evenings, to the point where you need a sweater (it is the dry, cool season right now), but day time is perfect, usually no more than 26 degrees (or about 80 F), but absolutely no humidity or wind, so it really is perfect…although at my office they literally crank the air conditioning as high as it will go, so the office is beyond freezing…but in Africa, air conditioning is a sign of wealth, so if you go to someone’s house (when there is actually no electricity cuts), even though it is cool outside, the air conditioning is turned to high and you sit there freezing, and you should never ask for them to turn it off! And I found some tennis friends, so really we just play tennis most evenings!

Anyways, that is it for now…Attached are some photos of the kids in the orphanage, as well as some other random Brazzaville photos…I will definitely get more on here from my other adventures…I am off to Harare, Zimbabwe Sunday evening until Tuesday…and just hanging out in Brazzaville yet again this weekend, as this trip is very last minute, as is everything here!

Hope all is well with everyone wherever this finds you!

A bientot, Andrea
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