World Food Day

Think on this:

More on malnutrition in CAR from MSF

Falling on cows, ultra-marathons and life on a bike

We Bosses have been walking up a storm lately, all to get ourselves ready for the 56km walk around Lake Cowichan. I am not all together sure why we wanted to subject our bodies to this particular form of insanity but we had fun preparing (long-walks around the city) and I dare say we had fun while doing it. Well, maybe until the 50km mark at which point my feet hurt, we were walking along the highway and I was a tad bit grumpy. We were thankful for downhills which provided the opportunity to run and the other walkers in our midst that provided me with the added motivation of beating someone to the finish line. It worked. We planned on taking, at the fastest, ten hours to complete the course, twelve hours maximum. We finished in eight hours and fifty-three minutes. Our bodies said thanks for the workout and allowed us to get out of bed this morning on two legs, instead of on all fours.

In other news, my dad fell on a cow, breaking his wrist while on the same day I got hit by a car while riding my bike home from work. I am fine, my dad had surgery and you can read more about it on my other blog "Spoiled for Normal".

This week it is back to thesis writing for me, classes and homework for Darren, and work for both of us sprinkled in between. Never a dull moment being a Boss.

Getting hacked

I am sorry to say that my Google account was hacked into last night and a promotional-type spam sent to everyone on my address list. If you received a spamish message from my account I sincerely apologize. I have changed my password and hope that this solves the issue. Darren figures that the hacker used names from my blog that appear frequently and that this is how they got my password. So I have a different password, a really, really out of the normal secret one. So don't even try to guess it....

Under the Gun-video on Northern CAR

Follow this link for a short video on the situation in Northern CAR. It is informative and accurate.

Under the Gun

IRIN Africa | Great Lakes | Central African Republic | CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Children at edge of survival, says UNICEF | Children Health & Nutrition Conflict | News Item

PLEASE read this. One of the three provinces mentioned is ours-Gamboula is within it. Now more than ever we are focussed on helping the nutrition centre with long term nutrition solutions via the nutrition garden.

IRIN Africa | Great Lakes | Central African Republic | CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Children at edge of survival, says UNICEF | Children Health & Nutrition Conflict | News Item

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More disturbing news from CAR

While living in CAR, away from the conflict zone, it is hard to know what is happening in the country. It isn't until I am back home with reliable Internet access that I find out what is happening just to the north of Gamboula. Just goes to show you how poor the infrastructure and information systems really are.

The humanitarian situation appears to be worsening. Read here for more details. A second article by the UN describes the situation as such; “It’s not like any other humanitarian situation I’ve run across,” Catherine Bragg, Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, told reporters in New York. (Click on the purple link to read the complete article). The article goes on to point out that the situation in the north has been compounded. "More recently, she added, humanitarian needs have increased due to attacks by the Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in the south-east and a rise in malnutrition in the south-western part of the country."

Once again I am reminded that hunger results from conflict and conflict results from hunger. And I press on....