Arrival in Lokichoggio

Arrival in Lokichoggio
Originally uploaded by joodmc.

Well, back in Lokichogio for a couple of days. I have to say it’s nice to have a real shower, especially one that doesn’t double as the men’s urinal! And to eat something other than meat… Murle love their meat – breakfast, lunch and supper, and some meals that is all there was. If I never see a goats’ intestine again I’ll be happy (not much chance, I head back to Sudan tomorrow).

But Loki feels a bit lonelier than the field for some reason. I miss having little Jeai come and dig though my belongings and ask me incomprehensible questions about what everything is. I don’t miss the scorpions.

But I have lots to get done in the next couple days; I am trying to finalize the report for Upper Nile before diving into the Eastern Equatoria stuff.

I leave tomorrow for Kapoeta. I’ll be doing a three-day workshop on Monitoring and Evaluation with the Pact staff, plus staff from the community based organizations they partner with on the ground. Most of my background in M&E is in the development side of things, so it’s a challenge to adapt my training materials, and wrap my head around, conflict resolution interventions. Having had the 10 days in Upper Nile helps a lot… but I think we are going to be learning together.

After the training workshop then I’m going to be evaluating their conflict resolution activities in Eastern Equatoria with their staff. There are two different programs I’ll be looking at, the Lauro Peace Process and the Buya-Toposa Peace Process.

Once that is done, then they’ve asked me to work with the teams to help set up the Early Warning System for monitoring conflict in the area. They have provided radios and thurayas (satellite phones) to the peace committees and peace monitors, but need to help set up the system of what exactly are the indicators that they should be monitoring.

All in all, its really interesting stuff, but pushing the boundaries of my previous experience for sure.