This will be quick, but just to update friends, family and fellow wanderers.
It's about 8 my time and I'm about to go film General Opande in a meeting with Sekoh Conneh, LURD chairman, or maybe not--as we spent the day with wife Aisha Conneh, who is currently treated as the LURD chairman in many ways. This is important because both parties have to bless the disarmament process, still scheduled to kick off early tomorrow morning. I think that it could be exciting in more ways than one, especially as the first site is only designed to process 250 LURD fighters at a time, and the UN was swamped with far too many would-be participants in December.
But I'll fill you in on more politics later. Yesterday was a whirlwind tour helicopter tour of the country with Opande and crew--doing everything from breaking the record for the fastest bridge-opening ribbon-cutting ceremony ever to visiting a disarmament site that's a bit behind schedule but not, the Force Commander tells me, as behind as it was several days ago. I think that the reason I like Opande so much thus far is that he is extremely hands-on. He is the king of the-man-who-makes-it happen. Though the way it works is that he has a lovely aide who scribbles as fast as his doubtless cramping hands can write to take down the holy commands--to build new bridges, get hospitals missing supplies, dig wells, look into missing transport, persons, food...the list is never-ending, and if I didn't know the type of cash the UN has to back up the General's writ I would be inclined to believe that this was all part of the show. But I'm tending to think that the intent is real, though I think that the implementation of these grand plans can sometimes get lost in translation.
I have to go or miss the meeting, but today was even better. The picture I have of today is of Queen Aisha, called the Iron Lady, for the magic she is meant to wield as much as for her strength, methinks. A bit of research on her and her influence and power in this region is good stuff--black African magic. Anyway, she descended upon her subjects from our UN helicopter in the middle of one village and you should have seen the chanting, dances, great shows of tears and affection. Which nearly caused a riot when she distributed about $700 in cash. She then couldn't resist throwing a wad of cash into the air as she boarded our helicopter. It was actually a decent get-away diversion as the crowd went nuts.
But I'm safe and sound and getting stuff I hope that you will want to watch. Over and over again.
Posted by Jessie Deeter at April 14, 2004 08:17 PM