I'm never quite sure what will happen when I walk into the office on any given day. Tuesday there was a very... enlivening... earthquake. Earthquakes, I learned, are a more effective stimulant than caffeine! 

Yesterday I spent a big chunk of time planning for a trip to Kenya and Tanzania in October. This, unfortunately, falls two weeks after my fiancee moves from Papua New Guinea to LA. We thought it would be nice to spend more than the six weeks we have so far logged in the same city getting to know each other face to face before we get married next January. The same city thing will also help with pre-marital counseling, although if we make more than half of the 10 classes together I'll be impressed. As it stands I'm going to have to attend the first two alone in September before he arrives, he'll have to cover for me for two weeks in October... and I haven't told him yet that it's likely that I will have to go to Washington DC and South Africa in November. 

Today we got a call from a Canadian Broadcasting Company wanting to interview one of our staff members about the impact on other passengers of witnessing a rather horrible crime (that I will not detail here, given it's one of the few articles on CNN recently that's been able to turn my stomach) on a Greyhound bus overnight. 

After that I settled down to think about our annual report for Headington. Yes, I realize that sounds boring... but it wasn't. It's always a bit of a challenge for us here at the Headington Institute to describe what we do, and why it's needed. 

One of the best ways I can think of it to do that is to help educate people about what's going on around the world - especially when it comes to disasters and conflict. Because where there are disasters and conflict, there are humanitarian workers helping those most in need. And those humanitarian workers - they're the one's we're trying to help. Help them stay sane so they can do their jobs now. Help them do their jobs now in ways that mean they can still be doing them in five years (a lifetime in an aid workers career) if they want to. 

So this morning I was researching how to describe what has been happening in the world in the last year and a half. I won't reproduce the text of the entire introduction of our annual report here yet, but I will share two paragraphs from early on, just because I found the statistics fascinating. Fascinating, and sobering.

"A German insurance company, Munich Re, which maintains one of the world’s three largest databases on disaster, reported 960 natural disasters in 2007 – the highest number ever recorded in a single year. Asia was hardest hit. Eight of the worst 10 disasters in 2007 struck Asia. After the earthquake in China and Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, that trend looks set to continue in 2008. 

While Asia weathered more than its share of natural disasters, Africa has been fighting a different foe. ReliefWeb reports that the spread of conflict makes Africa’s people the most threatened in the world. Minority Rights Group International’s 2008 annual report identifies peoples or groups that are most under threat of genocide, mass killing, or other systematic violent repression. More than half of the top twenty countries on the list are in Africa – Somalia, Sudan, DRC, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Chad, Central African Republic, Cote D’Ivoire, Uganda, Angola, and Burundi. Zimbabwe just misses the top twenty and Kenya, a state widely considered to be stable, rose precipitously in the rankings this year after violence followed disputed elections in December 2007..."

So there you go - a brief snapshot. Asia's getting the short end of the stick when it comes to natural disasters. And Africa, well, in Africa that proverbial stick is often being put to brutal use - especially against those least able to defend themselves.I've been listening to hymns at work today, as I often do at the moment. More and more in recent years I've come to appreciate hymns. In a mere couple of stanza's I feel like so many of them manage to look, unflinching, at the mess we are all in and yet, at the same time, hold out hope. That sort of balance is... well, tricky. I admire anyone who can pull that off. Especially if you can then write about it compellingly. And not only that, come to think of it, but capture it in three brief verses (as a novelist I'm a bit in awe of that brevity!). So I'll let a hymn writer finish for me today. Many of you will recognize this line... "In Christ alone, my hope is found. He is my light, my strength, my song."Amen.