Flat and Twitchy.

Thank you all of you for your thoughts and support! I actually enjoyed the interview although, having prepared for ethical, political debate and searching questions about my personal experiences in the field, I felt slightly deflated by a more surface, quick fire Q and A. I don’t know if they got the key of me so to speak.
However, it was great fun and no matter what I think I now have to wait for a couple of weeks. I will let you know in October when I hear.

And so after all that hype and nervous tension, I am here- flump, bump sat back on my bum in my flat, wading without enthusiasm through Guardian-Jobs-On-Line again just in case. 'Flat and yet twitchy', is how I described myself to a pal. It’s the feeling you get after huge amounts of adrenalin have surged through your system and yet you have not fought or fled..anywhere..

I do my laundry and mow the lawn. I cook. I then watch
a brave piece of investigative journalism on Channel 4. In Ethiopia the UN food aid is going to the wrong people. Millions starve, abused by government forces and the UN has yet to take a stand. They demanded a human rights report a year ago but its not yet appeared. The film crew walked 8 hours out into the bush to interview the dispersed and desperate villagers hounded by the government soldiers and rebels alike in this incredibly moving and powerful report. I sat with my fork half way to my mouth watching a distraught starving woman begging for help. ‘Bollocks,’ I thought putting the fork, dripping with succulent steak and organic purple sprouting broccoli down and pushing the plate to the side. ‘’ll eat it later during ‘Mock the Week’.

It’s important though that we cast a careful and continuous eye over this whole AID malarkey. The Aid business is a very, very big fat cash cow and it blatantly doesn’t work (a very few emergency scenarios asides). Where is the bloody money going year in and year out? Thousands of NGO’s in my hometown of Lusaka, upteen squillion four wheel drive vehicles with radio antennae whipping around in the wind and I still don’t see the majority of people’s living standards in any way changed. Corruption is still endemic and massive amounts of the AID money ends up firmly stuffed down the back of the wrong wallets. And what do we do? Give more money to yet another NGO to do the same shit. No joined up thinking.

OK, OK… I am just cross because someone raised my conscience during my supper. But I am not going to let it lie…. grumble...etc