04 April 2007

23.3.07 - backlog: parties

A pseudo friend had a great pre-departure party last night at Heritage Court hotel – private invitations, guards, way too many speeches, and free drinks – sweet! He’s been working in Arua for over a year and is now returning to France. It was a seriously awesome networking tool, as Philippe was the leader of a project for the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and is extraordinarily well connected. It’s great when booty shaking gets you a lunch meeting with the UNHCR head of mission!

It’s the season of departures; my friend Leanna is heading back to Canada this week. She too had a fun-tastic going away party, on a very different scale however: potluck, funny games, good banter. Friends from Rhino Camp came in and concocted a ridiculously-obvious ex-pat in rural Africa type of game. Raymond wrote about 50 “challenges” that we could opt to carry out or pass in order to claim a stack of Leanna’s belongings being left behind (everything from DVDs and books to soy milk and bug spray).

Raymond detailing our options, and seemingly absorbing max through the forehead:
raymond's head is absorbing max

Ex-Pat Party! L-R: Max, a Polish doctor working with JRS; Kristy, a Canadian social-worker doing cooperative assessments; mystery girl; Donna, and American nurse working for MSF; Per, Norwegian, Philippe’s replacement as program lead for NRC; and Hans, a German doctor at Kuluva hospital:
the posse...

Singing my national anthem jumping up and down wasn’t so bad, but some of the others were hit with some painfully funny tasks. Jungle fever afflicts William and Philippe:

expats behaving badly

And one more, for good measure:
black and white

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

that's really awesome that you are meeting so many different kinds of people. i hope you are taking care of yourself, remembering to breathe and staying aware of your body. I am interested in MSF, hopefully you can give me your thoughts on it, I'll email.
take care xo xo
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