I've got to say, I'm proud to be part of this team here of our staff that are responding to this situation. At least I am at the moment--other moments I feel paralyzed with frustration, so I may as well post now.

One of our staff just came down from the border area on motorcycle with a handful of household surveys. These surveys are very short, one page only, and only a handful of households were interviewed, 25 in the case of the border. But all this still takes time, and if you knew the road conditions and the separation of the communities in that area, you would know that even this small amount is no mean feat. On top of that this technician had tire puncture on the way, and managed to get the bike here on partial pressure. On top of that, this same technician has the responsibility to price out and buy seed stock for our upcoming emergency seed distribution, so he really had zero time in which to conduct these surveys. So now I have data to enter. Much needed data which can help us make decisions about what to do and how to do it.