In 2009, I decided to have a change of carrier or rather work for a different humanitarian organization than Red Cross. I had an interview in Paris to go to DRC as the reporting manager for ACTED. The interview went on well and I was hired within a month. It was a very big decision of life. I have not worked for any other humanization organization than Red Cross before going to DRC. I thought I knew Red Cross very well, and I was ready for a new adventure.

It was my first time in Africa. After 2 whole days of travelling, I arrived at Kigali international airport. My pick up from Bukavu was one hour late. I was happy to get all my baggage on time and I waited for the car to come. I had one night in a small hotel in Kigali and the next day morning we drove to Bukavu.

It is a nice place.  I liked it a lot. We were about 6 expatriate staff based in Bukavu for ACTED and we all lived in one guest house. We had a superb chef, he made mouth watering dished out of the available stuff.

Work was pretty interesting; It was after few years that I got back to working in French. I enjoyed to get  back to the language I loved dearly and had wonderful team mates.

At the second week of my arrival, I had to go to the field; I pretty enclaved area, not very secured. So I traveled with the logistic manger to Bunia and Beni.  I also travelled to Shauna and Equator. All these travels were to do base line surveys in order to write proposals for ECHO and EU.

Towards the 3^rd month in to my mission, I started travelling frequently to Goma for inter agency meeting and donor meetings and to Kinsasha for the same. It was a dam lot of travelling.  First by boat, to Goma from Bukavu then by ECHO flights to Kinsasha from Goma.

We succeeded in completing around 17 concept notes in 6 months. It was a record for me.

DRC is a place I would consider going again on a mission, it has its own charms…..

Luvini

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