Pre-Christmas dinner

It’s nearly Christmas and I am heading home after nearly two years in the Congo! Being in Africa is always a massive relief this time of year because I don’t have to listen to the Fairytale of New York, apart from when I play it on my IPod, and I never feel cold! I guess the nearest thing to a Christmas dinner was tonight in Masisi, in the company of Alpha Battalion of the MONUC Indian peace keeping force. The officers plied us with Indian scotch and tandoori chicken and we reminisced about the highs and lows of building peace and protecting the vulnerable people in Masisi. Conclusion: life hasn’t gotten a whole lot easier for the civilian populations trapped between the warring groups in North Kivu, but things would have been a whole lot worse had we not done what we did. In the middle of the meal the phone rang: 15 kms down the road the army has engaged in a full on shoot out with a breakaway ethnic militia group, one soldier and one rebel killed. The Christmas dinner is drawn to a premature conclusion. The Indians are deeply apologetic.
As I drive away from Congo, I learned to switch off quickly, blotting out the violence, the corruption, the endless tracts of mud roads. Its OK for me, I will spend Christmas amongst those I love, but our beneficiaries will have to confront the violence and poverty of daily life in Masisi… I am not sure they will know its Christmas time at all.