"Muzungu, habari gani?" call the youths.

"White Person! White Person!" call the children.

I feel so white, so stared at as I walk along the road. I don't recall feeling quite so chagrined by this in the past. Have things changed in the intervening years? Is it just that life in the town is different from the bush?

"Yes, I'm a White Person. The White Person is well today. How are you?"

It's taken more nerve than I thought to walk out by myself. It's OK along the main roads in the commercial section of town. There are, in fact, quite a few White People around. Not that you see them much because they ride in the numerous NGO 4x4s or they can be seen on the veranda of the Greek club restaurant. And of course there are hundreds of 'white' UN soldiers - though Moroccans and Bangladeshis don't seem white like me.

But I keep going on walks around Yambi, the quartier at the south end of town where I live, or around Sukisa where the ISP is located. I'm trying to find my way around, locate the short cuts, get back into speaking Swahili and take some exercise in the late afternoon when the sun's not so hot.

Walks into town are more frequent as I go to the Internet cafÈ every few days to send and receive emails, catch up on the BBC news and access the IRIN and MONUC pages with news of the latest happenings in the Ituri region and Bunia. But 15 minutes online can take an hour all things involved.

However, one can buy bread and bananas when walking back and check out what's for sale on the 'UN stall' - Nescafe, Kellogg's Rice Krispies, Nutella - all the superfluity of UN provisions. The stores, too, are full of merchandise.

The streets are full of people:

Young women tout ‡ la mode in wigs, tresses, fishtail dresses.

Young men wearing the latest fashion in jeans with shirts tucked in revealing mobile phones attached to their belts.

Motorbike taxis at every corner and zooming along the road. "White Person, you need to ride!"

NGO personnel - OCHA, Oxfam, The Red Cross, Action Agricole Allemande, Unicef, Save the Children, COOPI, MÈdecins sans frontiËres, SolidaritÈs, PNUD, Atlas Logique, Medair - in their 4 wheel drives.

Blue-helmeted UN personnel riding in every kind of vehicle - Landcruisers, pick-ups, tanks large and small, road graders, minibuses - and keeping watch from their sandbagged towers at the intersections.

Congolese soldiers in green fatigues, military police in navy blue, traffic police in bright yellow and navy.

Then there are the poor seeking hand outs: street kids who may or may not be in genuine need; the old and infirm who arrive in town on Saturday mornings as is the tradition dating back to the Belgian days; children in general who like to practise their English: "Give me one dollar."

I like Bunia! I like the hustle and bustle, the activity, les nouveautÈs!

I find it an attractive town. At ground level, the roads are sandy and full of hazardous rocks and littered with the ubiquitous plastic bag. Many of the buildings have seen better days because of age or mortar attacks. But with its tall eucalyptus trees, palm trees, and straight papayas half covering the tiled and tin rooftops, you could - at a pinch on a late afternoon with the range of mountains blue in the distance - imagine yourself in Italy.

Psalm 16:6 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;

Blessings,

Bridget Howard