The semester finished in a blur of papers and exams, leading straight into several weeks of recuperation and preparation. As I sorted out my summer, I worked on rehabilitating my ankle and planning for the next year of academic fun. I finished my vacation in New York with a series of visits and chats with friends, which served to remind me that I have done a very poor job of making good on my new year’s resolution to be more social. Next semester, I promise.

Transit to the Central African Republic got off to an auspicious start. Air India called to tell me my flight to Paris had been canceled. The word hung for a moment and I echoed it back to the customer service representative. Canceled? Yes. Pause. But I was re-booked on another airline and please don’t hesitate to call us if you have any problems.

The trip involved a flight to Paris, a change to a Libyan airline called Afriqiyah, a layover in Tripoli, and a final flight down to Bangui, the capital of CAR. In Paris, I was relieved to have successfully made the connection to Afriqiyah, whom I had had so much trouble booking a ticket with. They operate four separate web sites, only one of which works. The Dutch travel agency that operates the site does not inform you that your purchase requires the wire transfer of funds, as they have been on the wrong end of far too many fake credit card purchases. So I wasn’t completely confident that my e-ticket would work, but lo they were quite professional and my jet-lagged relief at boarding the creaking Airbus 320 was not dimmed in the least by a broken seat-back tray or a in-flight meal that consisted of three apparently regurgitated courses.

My expectations, as written en route (lets see how these are or are not met): I’ve skimmed the briefing documents, absorbed the facts and figures. 4.3 million people, near continuous low-level conflict since independence in the 60s, internal displacement affecting several hundred thousand people, with many others drifting in from conflicts in nearby Chad, Sudan, and DR Congo… it seems a mess, with only 2.9 million USD in aid money to stem the tide. A friend’s rightly critical objection about aid and the dependence it creates aside, this makes for a very grim development situation, especially as it does not have the easily digestible headline-news glitz of child soldiers, atrocities, fierce ethnic conflict, or any of the hooks that get other African conflicts their prime time due. I’ve fallen into this as an intern with the UNDP (United Nations Development Program), so any not sure what kind of window of perspective into the situation I’ll be granted. My initial perception is that this is the kind of humanitarian crisis that numbs the Western nightly television viewer, aggravated by weak governance, low human capacity, and unceasing conflict. Things are in motion to hold back this apparently dismal tide, and I’ll be working on one small, supportive element which might possibly involve gauging the impact of aid dollars.

A few facts (for more, see the previous post and please explore the aid coordination website here):
Average age – 18
Life expectancy – ~40
Percent without access to safe drinking water – 36
Percent living on less than a dollar per day – 67
Maternal mortality rate – 1,355 per 100,000 (one of the highest in the world)

What I expect: a quiet capital, located in the south of the country away from two separate conflicts in the northeast and northwest, forest nearby, and a river along the southern edge town. I know I’ve got this mostly right, thanks to the extensive Google Earth file that my future work team has put together. Wikipedia and other internet sources have filled in the gaps. The team I’ll be working with runs an excellent website, which I’ll list below. I expect French, which has supplanted Sango as the lingua franca, and constant malarial precautions. Also rain, and a deluge of bureaucracy to adapt to in a very short time. New friends and definitely linguistic challenges. I’m eager to roll with whatever comes my way, which is one reason I’m doing this. Another is to see if this is really an area and a type of organization I can apply my rudimentary knowledge of development economics, statistics, theory towards. I want to see how the UN behemoth faces all these challenges I’ve mentioned. I want to know more about coordination between aid organizations, and see how the local perspective is included, how sustainability is approached. The new conventional wisdom in aid is that mistakes have been made, and more can be done to improve how aid money is spent. I want to see if and how that is happening. Too many times I hear or feel defeat when I speak with people about development, and Africa in particular. I already know, from my wanderings last year, that no simple brushstroke can illustrate the deeply complex issues the continent is built on; now I want to dig into the structure of those organizations who are doing something about it, for better or worse. The learning curve, separating the better from the worse, is something I’m keen to learn more about.

What you can expect: not anything very detailed or specific, as I will respect the integrity of the organization. I’ll reflect on daily life and perhaps something of the situation, as it develops. Maybe a weekly missive, if I can manage.