First Impression

Finally, after three hectic days full of new impressions, I have time for my blog!

After squeezing myself into a Ryanair equivalent Air Asia plane, I arrived in Banda Aceh's very humble airport. There must have been some VIP (not me!) on board as we were welcomed by a woman singing in a microphone and 8 girls with drums dancing and smiling and pretending not to melt in the bright sun and high humidity.

I was picked up by one of the UN drivers (we have quite a lot of them and they drive us around every time we want to go somewhere, including the supermarket!). After receiving a short briefing, I was shown to my office which I share with 2 of my 4 housemates, Susan (from the USA) and Snow (from Myanmar).
5 minutes later I was shown into a meetingroom where I had a chat with Marcus (the Swedish intern coordinator) and Jonathan (the Canadian Greek very funny 'boss'). Jonathan explained all about the ARF, a large document describing and categorizing all the different organisations in the area and their main objectives and activities.
You can read more about them on the website http://www.unorc.or.id/
Following the meeting we had the driver take us to the most fancy restaurant in town, where we had swordfish and gin & tonic on their rooftop terrace for the staggering price of 10 USD per person...
Finally I was dropped off at my new home where we all (including the other 2 interns Jimmy and Dan -also USA) enjoy the luxury of our own room with AC and even running water in the shower :-)
The following day I had my practicalities fixed and was already instructed to take minutes of a meeting about gender issues followed by attending a meeting about women participation in local governmental bodies so that I could write an article about it for the UNORC newsletter. I managed 2 hours of sitting cross legged on the floor next to the translater, impressive!
During the coming days we will agree on my future tasks, most likely women and children issues as well as writing articles (that means going 'out there' to attend meeting and interview NGO's and locals) for the newsletter. I am excited!
That's all for this time, after a 6 day work week, the girls and I will get a 2 hour massage tomorrow (for 8 USD) - I think we deserve it!