Consolata and I take the slow boat down to Bukavu. As usual, an organisational nightmare to gather the impetus to go and the last straw was being told there was no fast boat this morning. So here we are arriving at 2 - having set off at 7.30.

I learn rapidly about Kalehe, our second programme site, and also that Consolata knows the area backwards. Interviewing her would clearly have been a good place to start but no one, me - or her - included, thought of this: plus ça change. The news is grim. If possible it's even less enticing as a stabilisation area than Masisi - and I wasn't sure that was possible. The rise of a virulently anti-Hutu (and Tutsi for good measure) Mayi Mayi group has polarised previously peaceable groups here and ethnic massacres are almost a daily occurrence. People flee along ethnic lines, consolidating into ethnic blocks. There are large numbers of displaced at the moment and the majority of youth are aligned with one of the armed groups. What on earth are we stabilising here? The history of the area, under the control of one armed group or another since 1994, and exploited for land and minerals, is equally dull. People started trickling back from about 2006 - and now are welcoming more displaced/ leaving again.

One of the fights of the week has been about organising an armed escort to go up there. UN policy is that you can only move with an escort in insecure areas. However, the military part of the UN are not exactly popular here for some very good reasons, including not stopping local massacres - though it's not exactly clear that they could. At about 6pm Conso pipes up that last time she visited the area with an escort, people threw rocks at the car and made various internationally understood cut throat gestures . . . As this is essentially tourism, we abort.