Today felt like a pretty long day, and unnecessarily so. It started
when MAJ Lang and I went for a run, trying to find the running route we took
from the Fleuve last time (this hotel is fairly close to the Fleuve). However,
we were on the right track, and then got stopped by a roadblock and had to turn
around. Sigh. We still managed to get three miles and change in, and then it
was time to begin our day.
We went to the
Embassy for the RSO brief, and I was “uninvited”, because I’ve been here within
the last 90 days and the room was too small. So I hung out with in the Office
of Security Cooperation, waiting for the others to finish. When they were done,
we went down to the PEPFAR section and saw Dr. Olivier (the military PEPFAR
coordinator, who went out to Kitona on both of the previous trips). Then we had
the fun task of pulling money out of the cash cage. Because this trip has two
separate missions, and thus two separate lines of accounting, they had funding
memos for much of this part of trip, including the hotel in Muanda ($700), the
rental car ($1050), the interpreters ($1050), and the interpreters’ travel
expenses ($600). That was a lot of cash to be pulling out in my name, and I
hope to get rid of as much of it as possible, as soon as possible. I think I’ll
pay for the hotel room and rental cars as soon as I get there, instead of
saving it for the end.
After that
experience, which took a couple of hours, we headed out to lunch at a Lebanese
restaurant (not bad, and not too expensive), and then went back to the Thieves’
Market (for a third time for me…) so the other people in the group could buy
some souvenirs. I was pretty much done at that point and just wanted to go back
to the hotel and take a nap. Even though I’m not fighting jet lag, I’ve
forgotten how draining just being out in this heat and humidity is. It’s going
to be a long week at Kitona, starting tomorrow…
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