At dinner at Aqua's in Kowloon while in Hong Kong, I met a friend of JoeB's that he knew from when he lived in Singapore. They had met at a Dragon Boat Rowing Club. His friend, also called Jim, works for the UN and had many interesting stories. He is based in Rome but is on the road most of the time and had just come in from Mogadishu, Somalia. His work involves supporting the distribution of aid and running training and education courses on basic health care. We all commented on how sitting on the 39th floor in a fancy restaurant, overlooking Hong Kong Harbor, must be a very stark contrast to where he was only 24 hours before. He agreed, but seemed happy to be there with us enjoying a fine meal and bottle of wine. He commented that he had lost 25 pounds in the last 90 days in Africa.

For having lost wieght, Jim had a sturdy, rugged look and was well built for the rigors of his lifestyle. He's in his late-30's and originally from Los Angeles, where he was going to return to for a much anticipated family reunion. We discovered after comparing notes, that we had lived about 3 blocks from each other in 1988 in Sydney, Australia. They say it is a small world, but sometimes it's just kind of freaky-weird! Anyway, on to the stories.

In his words, Somalia is a "basket-case". The UN staff must stay in a guarded compound, and drinking is one of the few pastimes the staff have during their free time in the evenings. Many of the UN aid conveys are hijacked by the warlords and never returned or held for ransom. People are starving and dying everywhere. Recently, the guards they hired to protect them turned the guns on them and robbed them of everything they had on them, claiming "they felt they had been underpaid". The really surreal part was the fact that they all showed up at work the next day and acted as if nothing happened and went on guarding them.

He has seen many amazing things, much of which must weigh heavy on the heart and make one very sad. One nice story he had was while he was in Kenya (also in "terrible shape"). He and a mate were going up into the jungle mountains to give a class on health care to a village. They were both on horses on a trail and started to hum the theme song to Bonanza. As they neared the village, the villagers must have heard them and they all came out of their huts and started singing. It was a lilting 5 part harmony of voices coming seemingly straight out of the jungle mist. Jim said it was the most beautiful thing and he and his friend had ever heard and tears came streaming down their faces.

I invited Jim to stay in touch and have him and his wife to come stay with us when he is next in Geneva. His wife is Chinese and also works for the UN as a financial auditor. They only see each other a couple months out of the year. A very different kind of life.