erm....fail!

Guess it didn't happen. Life of adventure contines to call....

Since my return from Tchad with ACF, I was able to meet up with Fanny and together we went off to:

• a bit of chill time in Paris (ah c'est la vie!)
• 450 km bicycle voyage of La Vallee de la Loire
• Hiking in the Pyrenees
• 800 km hiking across Spain - with my folks, yea team! - the Camino de Santiago.
• A bit of beachside fun in Biarritz, France
• Weekend in Istanbul, followed by
• A week of visiting friends in Barcelona

Sadly all this fun has to end at some time and the need to find work looms - to replentish the coffers but also to find some short term limits. Then Save the Children called out of the blue and offered me a gig in Iraq. Sounds like fun I figure so what the heck?

It was, of course not as simple as that. Fanny and I were looking for work together and had been canvassing several of the French medical NGOs and were targeting such fine and warm locations as Haiti, or RCA or Burundi but maybe even Burma. As usual, offers were slow to arrive.... in the mean time a colleague and mate with whom I worked with in Tchad found himself working in Iraq and he talked to his friend who talked to a friend...and as is the nature of this workspace it was through these contacts with whom I talked directly by satellite phone and we cinched the deal.

Me, well I figure there is no way Iraq will be as difficult as Tchad. No way. The Iraqis are educated and smart people - smarter than the average bear even - so have learned how to survive some amazingly difficult times. Things that would put even the strongest Canadian in peril. So staff capacity will be good, and well, while the living conditions will be similarly prison-like as we had in Tchad ,the house and office are super lux and well equipped. Complete with exercise equipment! Life should be slightly more comfortable from that aspect.

There will be some interesting difficulties to be sure; as corruption is a way of life for the local folks. Our job will be to find a way to support children's programming without being taken to the cleaners.

Our expat team are also well experienced with tonnes of time working in difficult situations. It seems to me a great team and this will be both a breath of fresh air and a treat. The SC Iraq mission is new (or renewed since their departure in 2006) and we are in the build-up phase of setting up offices and recruiting staff to begin to undertake the dozens of submitted proposals .

Today is my first day in Basra...

Bukran inshallah

see you tomorrow, by gods will.