Nairobi - DRC J'ai arrive!

Bonjour mon aimée. J'ai arrive en RDC. Mon francais est disastrous! Which is a bit of a shame seeing as that is the language in which we work.
So back to the beginning. Travel out here was surprisingly uncomplicated. I flew to Nairobi on Monday and then on to Kigali on Tuesday where there were two friendly taxi drivers to ferry me across Rwanda to the DRC boarder. The taxi drive was an experience. Only one of the drivers spoke English so they decided to teach me Swahili. Languages have never been my strong point which very quickly became obvious as I tried to say 'My name is' and got confused with 'I am going to the market'. After four hours my Swahili had marginally improved - I could now also go to the bar!
Rawanda was very beautiful and surprisingly green. Lots of banana trees and very little tarmac. The taxi driver was 29 it was strange to think that he had lived through the genocide and while I had heard about the events as a teenager at home he had been in Rwanda experiencing them first hand.
At the DRC boarder I was met by Helen (my friend from home) and more GOAL people who were able to get me through the boarder process. No one here queues, the person with the longest arm gets served first.
The base is about 10 minutes from the boarder. It is just on the edge of Goma and close to lots of other NGO buildings. Generally it is really quiet apart from when the plane's fly overhead at which point you imagine yourself on an airbase.
I've now had three days at work and it really is not like being at work back home. It is amazing what natural sunlight and a relaxed atmosphere brings. It rained on Thursday so on Friday the office was a little damp. We waited to turn on the computers until the biggest puddles had been mopped up.
It is strange working as an expat. DRC is still considered a security risk so you go everywhere by car. Can only go to certain bars at which everyone else also works for an NGO. Everything is very transient as people are coming and going all the time. So far Doga's has been the bar of choice and we have been almost every night.
Today is the weekend so Helen has shown me the tourist sights. This morning we went to the market, the supermarket and the dress makers. The main/only tourist attraction is the volcano which takes a couple of days to climb so will probably be another weekend. This weekend I have to learn French. This afternoon I will be sitting down with 3 French CD's that promise they can teach me the rudiments of the language in 13 hours - I await the results!
Tomorrow I think we are playing/loosing at tennis in the morning. I tried to find a church but services not in Swahili are in French so I might priorities learning French and download a service from home. If anyone from St James is reading this please update the website.
Looks like I may be here for longer than expected. My three weeks are likely to become 5 which may become 7 - it is all highly flexible. As such I don't have a phone number or address so it is email for me.
Off for Bacon Sandwiches.
Keep in touch. I am missing everyone loads.
Julia

Setting of - well nearly!

Welcome to my little adventure. Thanks for tagging along for the ride.

What am I upto?

• I will be working with GOAL primarily as their financial controller in Malawi.


• I start my year with a little diversion to DRC to commence three weeks project work around ECHO reporting.


• This is not just an elaborate excuse for a tan!

So who are GOAL?

• GOAL is an international humanitarian organisation dedicated to the alleviation of suffering among the poorest of the poor in the developing word. It was founded in 1977 by sports journalist John O'Shea who is the organisation's Chief Executive. It is non-denominational, non-governmental and non-politcal.


• Since its inception, GOAL has responded to almost every major natural and man-made disaster and catastrophe, spent over E400million on humanitarian programmes and employed over 1,200 GOALies. Besides implementing its own programmes GOAL works with partner organisations with similar objectives. It has achieved this on an administrative cost base of less than 5% per annum.


• GOAL is currently working in Niger, North and South Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Sierra Leonne, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, India, Honduras, and Sri Lanka.


• To find out more about GOAL visit www.goal.ie

So what will I be doing in Malawi?

• My role is to oversee the team responsible for financial reporting from Malawi. I anticipate a lot of budgets and donor reporting!

A little more interesting is what GOAL actually does in Malawi.

• GOAL has been in Malawi since April 2002 when it initially responded to the famine of that year. since then operations in the region have changed with the times to meet the beneficiaries needs.


• A deadly combination of chronic poverty, bad weather, a bad harvest and a high prevalence of HIV/AIDS left almost 5million people in Milawi in need of food aid in the early part of 2006. every month, GOAL distributed maize, oil and beans to over 34,000 households in Nsanje district. GOAL also provided technical support to Ministry of Health Supplementary Feeding Programmes in Nsanje and Blantyre districts.


• GOAL's other programmes promote winter cropping for the dry season and growing techniques designed to increase crop diversification including, community gardens; small-scale irrigation; soil and water conservation; compost-making and 40 tree nurseries producing over 500,000 saplings,


• GOAL also implements a HIV/AIDS programme in Blantyre and Balaka districts which provides support, treatmet and care to those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS.

How can you reach me?

• I finally have an email address it is julia.awty@googlemail.com, or


• You can find me on facebook, or


• You could leave a message for me here!