its wild world

It's a Wild World

In Burundi, I've been given CD-ROM program on how to deal with

insecure situations - something that, surprisingly, I never once did

while working in Congo. I suppose that detail somehow fell through the

cracks. I actually enjoyed testing my common sense and base knowledge

of radio communication, though the program itself was pretty cheesy.

Like an American after-school special on drugs.

I'm given situations like the following:

The carjackers drive you 30 minutes off the main road. Diego managed

to grab his backpack. Now you and Diego on your own in an unknown

location. What do you do next?

The scenario sounds pretty serious, until a box appears with a cartoon

of two men, in a jungle setting that looks like a children's book. I

half expected Dora the Explorer to run by with the carjackers. Simple!

We ask our talking map where to go.

However, we have a liter of water, two chocolate energy bars, a Swiss

Army knife in the backpack. Our next task is to figure out where North

is using a stick.

Crap - as though I know how to use the shadow of a stick to find

North. What, did I stumble into the Girlscout's version of

humanitarian assistance? (once we manage to get back to safety we can

plan critical assistance while calculating the global volume of income

from Thin Mints this year).

All I can say is that Diego is darn lucky to have me, because I end up

saving us. My choice to not follow the path, shown in a photograph,

was only based on the instinct that the security program was trying to

trick me. Then it congratulates me for noticing a pair of sticks

making an "X" at the beginning of the trail, indicating the presence

of a mine. Um.....right....that's precisely why I didn't go down it.

Overall, I actually enjoyed the course, which reminded me that

security is basically common sense, and that even cartoons with

vehicles exploding when they hit a mines make sure to have ethnically

diverse characters.

Ironically, my security risks have been of another kind. My shower

head, as I learned quite quickly, drops out of its holder when the

water is turned off, and the first time this happened I narrowly

missed getting whacked in the head. Also, some men came to install

internet at the hotel and ended up working on the tile roof above my

porch. As I sat underneath it. A small chunk of clay tile fell to the

concrete floor and smashed. I gingerly picked up my laptop and went

inside.

Yesterday we drove outside of Bujumbura, accompanied by armed guards.