Deployment diary day 7: Sunday 24th January

Being an aid worker can be SO frustrating at times. Today we geared up for the first distribution of food since my arrival here. The earlier team had completed one successful distribution and one not so successful one so we went into today with some real enthusiasm and an element of trepidation. The distribution team worked really hard to set things up carefully, making sure we and the beneficiaries would stay safe and that food would be distributed in a dignified way. This would be a UN dry ration distribution - scoops of rice, beans and oil - having to measure out rations of rice, beans and oil is messy, inaccurate and slow. So this added to our concerns.

So - we were a little on edge. Then we waited, and waited, and waited.....

Mid way through the afternoon we contacted the World Food Programme to ask where the trucks were. A simple text message came back 'the trucks aren't coming today' - that was it. What a let down!! We have no idea why they didn't come - but we heard rumours later that the trucks had been high jacked en route between the airport and our compound. We don't know for sure what happened - all we know is we had no food and lots of disappointed people.

As we were wondering what to do we had a visit from troops of the US 82nd Airborne division. You may have heard on the news that the US troops are here in substantial numbers - but they've not been allowed to support the UN Peace keeping forces in the security operation for relief goods up to now.I don't know what has changed - but we've been offered a troop of the 82nd who will help us. They have been assigned this part of town as their patch. Thank the Lord for this blessing! So, tomorrow (Monday) we plan to distribute food to 2,300 families (that's 11,500 people) living in the tent camp behind our compound. The 82nd are going to ride 'shotgun' to get the food to us from the airport and then stand protection to keep the crowd calm and in order.

The disappointment of today was huge - but we think now we have a much better and workable system and hope it will open the door to rolling food out in huge quantity.

My day has been much longer than usual. We have spent the last 3 hours down at the compound with the crew from Fox news. They have been filming our work and planned to do a short piece live on the Jeraldo Rivera 10pm show. They had a few of us lined up for interview - but as the time got nearer things got changed and I was to be the only interviewee. Fox News is BIG in the USA so it was pretty scary - especially knowing that media reporters often try to lead you into supporting their particular message. With a live piece they can throw whatever question they want at you with no thinking time to respond. When we went live I was asked 2 questions - and was quickly closed down before I could say all I wanted. The piece seemed to last just a few seconds and yet preparing for it had used up the whole night. The good thing is that the SA made air time on a huge show and the story is getting out. I hope I didn't say the wrong thing - I suppose I'll know if I still have a job in the morning. Ah well, who said life should be easy???