First Person:
All’s Quiet in Western Tanzania
By Admirela Balic

Photo/Admirela Balic

7:45 a.m.: “November Hotel 1-6-4, this is November Hotel 2-1. Move to channel 7.” This is the start of another busy day in the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Afriline residential compound, located on top of beautiful Ngara Ridge, surrounded by barbed wire and sometimes above the clouds. A driver responds to the radio call, and in no time he is in front of my yellow container house. “Rafiki, pipi!” (Kiswahili for “Friend, give us candy!”), yell the local children as they run near our vehicle as we make our way to the UNHCR sub-office.

8:00 a.m.: “Would you like to have a grasshopper?” devilishly asks our field assistant as he places a bag filled with grasshoppers on my desk. “Thank you. But I already had breakfast.” Grasshoppers are a delicacy for certain tribes in this area. They taste like prawns.

8:30 a.m.: Together with a national staff lawyer from the Protection Section, we are headed for Mbuba Transit Center, more than half an hour’s drive from our sub-office. Today our special interest is the “Makanaki” (recycler) problem. People are lined up in front of the Center which receives new arrivals from Burundi and Rwanda. There, they are interviewed and prepared for transfer to a refugee camp, where they stay until conditions in their countries are safe for repatriation. Once admitted as refugees, some try to return to the Center claiming to be new arrivals - these are the recyclers. If their story is accepted, they will again get a new food ration card, plastic sheeting and other non-food items. Since the 20-per cent food cut last year by the World Food Programme, the total number of people attempting to recycle has increased drastically. We are told that the cut is caused by reductions in donor funding.

9:30 a.m.: A two-year-old child runs towards me with a huge smile and embraces my legs immediately upon entering Mbuba Transit Center. She is beautiful, but her face is covered with flies and she has an open wound. She has just arrived from Burundi. I feel touched, moved and an increasing personal drive to change the existing health conditions in the Center. We are hoping to receive a consignment of blankets and clothes to shelter asylum applicants until they are admitted. It is all so frustrating! I wish I could do more!

10:30 a.m.: On the way back from the Transit Center, where we run into monkeys crossing the road from time to time, we see a human leg, detached from rest of the body, right in the middle of the road! I look at a car and underneath it is another person, disfigured. Someone’s life was literally cut into pieces as a car ran over him. The driver responsible for two deaths fled - a hit-and-run accident. We are all shocked, to say the least, and turn our heads the other way as we are forced to drive by the separated limb. Our lawyer and driver are pondering the fragility of our lives. Silence dominates the remainder of our drive from Mbuba back to the sub-office.

1:30 p.m.: Rushing to the monthly health coordination meeting at Lukole, a refugee camp. Two Lukole camps and the Kitali Hills camp accommodate about 148,000 refugees. These are big settlements containing a huge marketplace, hospitals, schools, and nutrition and community centres. UNHCR and its implementing partners exchange information on the general health conditions in the camp and discuss possible improvements. Malaria, pneumonia and malnutrition have been the leading causes of death in the camps. Children under five are the most vulnerable. Severe and moderate malnutrition have been on the rise since last year’s food-ration cut. Effects are visible: many little ones cannot hide their blown-up bellies. We need more donor support!

UNV Mission Statement “Volunteering brings benefits to both society at large and the individual volunteer. It makes important contributions, economically as well as socially. It contributes to more cohesive societies by building trust and reciprocity among citizens. The United Nations Volunteers is the United Nations organization that supports sustainable human development globally through the promotion of volunteerism and the mobilization of volunteers. It serves the causes of peace and development through enhancing opportunities for participation by all peoples. It is universal, inclusive and embraces volunteer action in all its diversity. It values free-will commitment, engagement and solidarity, which are the foundations of volunteerism.”

4:00 p.m.: The road is bumpy as we proceed through the curvy and narrow streets of the camp. We are on our way to verify sexual and gender-based violence cases and assist survivors. Most of those we interview this day end up in separation, because of polygamy, physical abuse or alleged witchcraft. One woman claims her husband left her after the tragic death of their two children and accused her of being bewitched. Some survivors have no roof over their heads, because their abusive spouses had taken almost everything with them. We need to assist them quickly.

“Muzungu Komera” (Kirundi for “White woman be strong”), shout the Burundian children as they press their hands and faces against the UNHCR car, making a friendly gesture. It is difficult to climb out of the vehicle and enter one of the mud huts covered with UNHCR plastic sheeting. I am completely surrounded by curious eyes. A field assistant explains that refugees are thrilled to see a “white face”, since they equate the “muzungu” colour of the skin with that of international donors. Painful, but true.

6:00 p.m.: Back in the office, we strategize on how we could improve our coordination and communication. Our field assistant reports that a priest has been strangled with his own priestly rope. This is one of a few murder cases in and around camps in the past week. Only two field officers and three field assistants are in charge of monitoring everything in three refugee camps and one transit center inhabited by 148,000 refugees. UNHCR is downsizing, so we must do more with less!

7:30 p.m.: Oops, I almost I forgot to buy milk on my way home! “That will be 2,000T sh” (about $2.50 per litre of milk), says the lady at the counter. But I know for a fact that this milk is no more than 1,000T sh. She would not even hear about it. I am too tired to argue so I offer her 1,300T sh, and she accepts without a word. My driver is angry that I am being charged more because I am an international staff; therefore, I end up paying twice the usual price. But the salesperson does not know that I am a United Nations Volunteer (UNV), and that neither Bill Gates nor Ted Turner is my godfather. The humanitarian UNV concept is unknown to her.

8:00 p.m.: There is a letter on my desk. It is a notification that our UNV monthly allowance has been reduced. How could that be? It is already much lower than what I received during my last assignment in Kosovo! During our recent UNV retreat in Dar, UN Volunteers in the United Republic of Tanzania discussed these issues. We initiated a UNV Declaration that we hope to share with the UN General Assembly-this is the Year of the Volunteer!

8:30 p.m.: Only “death by chocolate” could give me life. I roll up my sleeves and start making the favourite dessert of my “better half”, who will be leaving Ngara the next day. Unable to find a job in humanitarian relief, he is forced to look elsewhere. The job market in Ngara is very tight. Many sacrifices are made here in the “bush” and it is difficult to maintain a healthy balance between family life and a career. Cake should offer us some consolation. I had to bring the ingredients from Dar es Salaam - about three hours away by plane - since in Ngara there is little butter, no cooking chocolate, no walnuts. We are in a category E station - E stands for the most extreme isolation.

There is no electricity or Internet here, and water is trucked in. Every two months, UNHCR encourages us to take our VARI (Voluntary Absence for the Relief of Isolation), in order to keep a healthy spirit. For those used to the fast-track life in New York, Geneva or other “worldly” cities, Ngara would be difficult, but no one said it was impossible.

10:00 p.m.: My desk is covered with books on human rights, conventions, country reports, statistics. If only I could gather some energy to study for the UN national competitive examination in human rights, which could lead to a professional placement. Hopefully, my graduate degree will have prepared me in advance. Unfortunately, I have no access to the Internet to get the most recent human rights information, and it is impossible to get up-to-date articles. The Economist arrives three weeks late, and by then its content is already history.

Midnight: Another bedtime with the hope that my anti-malaria pill - mefloquine - will not keep me awake. But I close my eyes with a smile, thinking of tomorrow’s imminent bright orange sun, bathing in the clouds above the barbed wire of our Afriline compound. Here, we sometimes live above the clouds.

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This article reflects personal views/observations of the author and not necessarily those of UNHCR.