Rapid Response?

Super busy working on an emergency response for people who have been displaced from the moyenne plateau above Lake Tanganyika. The hoops that have to be jumped through are astounding. The layers of hierarchy from sub-chief to chef du secteur and cooperation with the appropriate chief for the group of villages is a long and painful bureaucratic nightmare. Let's just say it hasn't been the rapid action we hoped to deliver to people who fled their homes, fields and livestock with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Of course, the right signatures and stamps are necesary but have more to do with power, control and ego than any tangible service which belies their titles. In a country where there is very little infrastructure or useful governance this situation would be a joke if it weren't for the common citoyens who are suffering. So, to bed and rest before another day trying help those in need. Oh yeah, officials are only half of it. Identifying legitimate IDPs is also very difficult because everyone wants a slice of whatever pie the NGOs are serving. Humanitarian objectives are so easily lost in translation.