I'm Home!

My travels have come to an end. I’ve managed to delay my trip to Afghanistan till either April or May (thank goodness!). I arrived home on Saturday afternoon, Paul had returned home from his trip to Namibia and Lesotho on Friday. It’s really nice to be home!

Here is a picture of him doing some monitoring work up country in Namibia.

Looking back over the past 6 weeks, I’ve seen and learned a lot. Watching the news now about the worsening violence in The West Bank and Gaza, I can understand the situation so much better. I definitely feel the plight of the Palestinians, but with the recent shooting at the Jewish school in Jerusalem and the complementing celebrations by the Palestinians in Gaza I feel it’s all a bit hopeless.

Jordan remains stable, but how much longer can it support the large numbers of refugees fleeing the increasing violence in Iraq? Our programs there are providing much needed health and psychosocial interventions, but they are really just a drop in the bucket compared to the needs of the refugee and host populations alike.

Nepal is beautiful as ever. The elections are scheduled for April 11, 2008. People are beginning to believe they might actually happen this time, but many people, particularly those in the rural areas are scared to vote for fear of violence and reprisals instigated by the Maoist groups. We have decided that our program we are proposing here will target the conflict affected community, those that really need it. Hopefully the donor will agree with our assessment.

Now that I’m home, I probably won’t be updating this too often. DC is just not as exciting as the rest of the world. I’ll be back on the road soon though, I’m sure. So keep checking back!