Going round in triangles

Today was one of those days when it's painfully clear that triangulating information and coordinating processes aren't part of the skillset. The country would benefit if the education system injected its citizens with three-dimensional thinking. A huge nationwide EU-funded project is currently supplementing all teachers' salaries with $40 each month. The currency freefall means they'd otherwise be earning around $2-3, which is pitiful. Teachers have stopped coming to classrooms other than to register their attendance, in order to keep their jobs for a time less in crisis. Students' education, already rudimentary, has reduced to barely anything. In this agricultural region, at least teachers can cultivate instead in order to feed themselves. It remains to be seen whether the salary top-up will entice them back to the classroom, which depends on being able to cultivate in their spare time or hope that the new amount, still barely more than a pittance, can supply most food needs.

We ran around from dawn til dusk dealing with urgent government requests, mainly revolving around the captive chimps, which are a massive distraction to the overall focus of the Wildlife Service and our project. The local authorities here aren't going to like the recommendations we write in a few days but we're duty bound to tell them that no solution for these chimps would be satisfactory across the entire state based on the skill level of the Wildlife Service and the needs of these complex animals. When DeeAnn arrived today I was showing her the chimps and one lobbed an empty bottle at my head with an impressive aim.

We've had meetings about community surveys, wildlife curricula in high schools, peace-building through conservation, chimp care, chimp sanctuaries, chimp behaviour and why giving chimpanzees cigarettes is patently not a wise idea. The most bizarre moment of the day was receiving a call from a Ugandan woman, Lydia, who has rocked up in Yambio, described lovingly by DeeAnn as 'an armpit', hoping to do an internship in something related to hotel management and tourism. This is a woeful error of judgement on her part, unless she wanted to write a radical thesis along the lines of why Yambio is not at all ready for tourism.

Meeting her revealed differently. She wanted to join our imminent field trip to see wildlife and be approved by us as a certified tour guide. No can do, Lyds. Security-wise she'd be a liability on the trip and has no field equipment. She was wearing a glamorous flowing blue dress and was decked out with jewellery. In these dense forests we only hear and see signs of wildlife and camp in very rough conditions. The trip that departs tomorrow is mostly going to be driving further afield than normal to visit bigwigs in distant places who need to authorise the return the project wishes to make to Bangangai Game Reserve, where security has calmed. I'm excited to see other parts of the country and launch back there, even though we are now faced with a few days of bone-shaking roads.

If only Lyd had communicated with anyone in Yambio in advance, we could have advised her. We'll follow up with some resources on regional biodiversity if she wants to learn, but she wouldn't achieve her objectives on our trip.

Dinner in the relative tranquility of the UN Mission compound. Thank you UN system for world cuisine and heavily subsidised chicken shawarma and fries.