Home sweet home...Deja vu ???

Ok, I'm back again in Ouanaminthe. It seems like and it is actually a second start. Hopefully this time I will last longer than the previous one ;-) This week I spent it in PAP (Port-au-Prince) at the Canadian House which is the logistic base for all Canadian police officers when in mission in Haiti. I had a great time there. I was able to relax and gain some energy. During the day I was assigned some light duty tasks in an office at the Delta camp. This gave me the opportunity to meet several important people involved into the mission including the Commissioner and his assistant and to learn more about the mission and the new developments we should see in a near future which should affect the way we are working with the National Police. After 7 days of rest/work (From last Friday evening to this Friday morning) I finally had a helicopter flight back "home". I received a warm greetings by the UNPOLs and even by the local people who work for us almost like a war veteran. Now I've got to put all my stuff together and get ready to seriously get to work; already 5 weeks have past and I didn't really do anything yet. The positive side of my misfortune is that now I kind of know what's is being planned for the months/years to come and being in the region, that will give me the opportunity to evaluate what's on paper and what is actually happening in the field. Too often the two don't really match and some people in a office keep on writing beautiful plans that are just not either feasible or realistic with the reality especially far away from the capital. Just the fact of monitoring the changes here (if any) is already a full project by itself which I intend to take and eventually send some reports in the coming months with my observations. Keep on developing some relationship with the members of the national police until I get enough trust on their part to discuss what is being done by the UN and how they feel about it is also on my to do list. I think it's important to involve the National police at all level and to discuss with them their needs and expectations before handing them over a plan that might not really correspond to what they actually need to do their job. This is their country, their people and I believe their opinion is critical if we want to give them something they will be able and willing to use once we are gone. In few months from now I should have a better idea...to be continued