Bleary eyed I grope around in the medicine box for Cinidazole, the cure.  An hour later, I feel like someone has shoved their fist into me and ripped out my stomach. 
I sleep a couple of hours until my alarm goes off at seven, get up and turn on BBC World.  I sit on the terrace watching the birds snacking on grubs and bugs and listen to the news.  Mike Thompson is doing a special report on the troubles in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, one of the countries I cover.  He has been to Pansi hospital in Bukavu where 70% of cases are of sexual violence.  A woman, a mother of four is retelling her story.  ‘I come from Ninzi village where I was captured by Rwandan Hutu interhamwe, I am the only one of fifty people who escaped.  Twenty members of my family were killed before my eyes.  Nineteen soldiers raped me, they killed my two children in front of me, took the baby from by back and tied a rope around its neck and forced me to strangle my child.  They tried to force my brother to rape me, but when he refused they chopped off his head.  I escaped while fetching water, and managed to find a boy who helped me, he was very scared, as I was completely naked and nearly dead.’  The reporter starts to talk, ‘there were many things I could not report, cases of forced cannibalism which were so graphic they would upset the listeners.’  100,000 people have fled to camps outside Goma, into Rwanda and Uganda with many similar tales.   Coming  just months after the elections,  we all hoped would bring peace to the region.  Such a wealthy country, brimming with capable resilient people, again in disarray.  Meanwhile our work must continue for those brave enough to stay at home.  I think about my partners there and wonder how many of their friends and families are experiencing the same stories, just  200 miles away from where I am sitting.
I dress and go into Kigali to pick up our new generator shed.  It’s more like a cage with a roof.  It is funny, the whole house has bars on it, the first time I saw it I thought how can I live in a prison where I have a key, now I don’t see them anymore, they have become part of the view.  Finally the shed is to the specification.  It has taken much tooing and froing and negotiations, with the ‘fundi’ trying to maximize his profits by reducing the number and length of bars. 
By 12.30 I am sitting in the World Bank meeting room in Kigali, watching the other participants tucking into a delicious lunch, served by chefs in whites and tall paper hats. I chat with UNICEF, World Bank, the Nile Basin project leader, Ministry of Water, SNV, DFID, the Ambassador of Belgium, Kigali Institute of Science and Technology, before we settle down for the conference.  This is a consultative meeting hosted by the World Bank for Central and East Africa, to review watsan work to date and to give comments and feedback on the current strategic direction, improving impact and management.  We are video linked with Benin, Burkina Faso, DRC, Niger, Tunisia, Kenya, Senegal, France and Spain.  We are watching a TV screen of a live link up with all these other engineers across the continent and world.  In turn, each country presents their work and their priorities.  The World Bank presents the business plan which includes monitoring, strengthening of domestic private sector market based finance, applying service delivery models, providing stronger support and special support for certain countries like DRC.  They are empathic to the situation in DRC, and understand the challenges of working in unstable environments.  At the same time, there is a need, as with all emergency work to try to keep to the plan, in the face of all adversity.  Through follow up meetings with our partners in the coming months we will look again at designing indicators and measuring impact in order to support this programme. So there will also be more focus on Water and Sanitation and the Millennium Development Goals, and achieving sustainability in fragile states. 
Feeling like a fragile state myself, I head back to the office to revise our EU 3 year proposal on Integrated Water Resource Management. On this subject, PROTOS will be the pioneering NGO in Rwanda and a specialist worldwide.  Our largest programme in Benin has been working for some years on this subject.  Using the PHAST methodology of community participation, with newly designed related pictures, we have developed a tool to train communities to protect their environment and water resources, in conjunction with SNV (a Netherlands-based, international development organization).  We are hoping, with two new partners to develop capacity and awareness on this subject in Rwanda, where, due to climate changes and poor management of the water catchment areas, the discharge at springs has reduced. 
When I was young, I remember going to the flicks with my sister to see Flash Gordan’s 21st century, and now here we are, Gardia, video conferences, human cannibalism and integrated water resource management.  Every day like living on an emotional bunji jump. Flung between, horror, hope, fear and optimism.