Security

The Referendum begins on Sunday.  No one has any idea whatsoever of what is going to happen; the UN has helpfully predicted that it will be something between someone getting a party popper in the eye and 4.3m people displaced by conflict.

The UN curfew is still at 1am, and walking after dark is forbidden, so when the pubs shut the town seethes with white landcruisers delivering humanitarians to their homes.  Our security officer is in his element, issuing terrible warnings about everything under the sun.  There is a security officer at a different programme who is notorious for having been mugged more than anybody under his care, but ours is the business, Zimbabwean, never happier than when shepherding fearful Westerners in fragile states.  On new year's eve he gleefully instructed us to be indoors at midnight to avoid falling bullets.  An anarchist militia isn't the real deal if its members don't usher in the new year by firing their AK47s as one into the sky, preferably in front of a BBC news crew.

Security in fragile states is a major headache for an NGO, and questions never have easy answers.  SC sent a security consultant to Somalia in October to assess whether it would be safe to open an office there.  He was kidnapped, which was unfortunate but on the bright side it did at least provide an easy answer to a question for once.  NGOs never pay ransoms, but he was released unharmed because one of his colleagues knew the right tribal elders.  Colleagues like this are worth their weight in high protein corn/soy mix.