Life goes on 9 July 2006

This week has not been good. I wanted to fill the blog with good news and optimism for the future, but life is not like that and there are difficult times to deal with as well, so I must report the truth of my work here. From the previous posts you know about the new house and what a mission it was to find it. I searched for a month and most of the places I looked at were not suitable for a number of reasons; walls not high enough, no big trees, busy road outside etc. I eventually found the place. It was used as a storage depot by a previous NGO. The garden is not exactly manicured, it has many indigenous and sturdy trees, a high wall and a quiet road. It is, as far as I could find, the perfect place. The manager of the house sent another party to pull into the depot that I am not using.... no prior negotiations.... and they want to start a juice factory. They have military roots and oodles of money and all of a sudden it is me who has been given a month's notice. This is a huge problem. A month is not enough to prepare cages and enclosures in Lwiro. I can only get there when the volunteers arrive to take my place here and then there are elections and it may be dangerous so I have to be back in Goma to prepare to evacuate the chimps across Rwanda to Uganda if things get too hairy. After that, I am attempting to take a month's leave back to SA where I need to drum up more funding and sort out AWARE on that side. I have gone through all the emotions; denial, grief, black despair, and now am at an interesting phase of resigned acceptance and allowing the universe to do with me and the chimps what she will. I have by no means given up. The universe has sent me a few interesting and influencial people. Friday, I had a radio interview for the UN radio station, Okapi (all in french!) If they understood one word of what I was saying then that will be another positive step. I will keep you posted on developments and am open to all positive energies for the future of the chimps.PS photo is of our garden. This is only the one side! Little chimp eden for now.