Breaking Hearts in the Heart of Darkness

Four Photos from Congo

2006-12-21T19:29:00.000+02:00

It was hard to choose, but I wanted to share these four photos from Congo as my last post. The first is of children of Mai-Mai rebels in a displacement camp in Katanga. The second are a displaced man and woman who received household kits at one of our distributions. The third I took crossing the Congo river just after dawn in Kindu. Finally, my favorite, is of two boys in Elila village.

Update

2006-09-26T05:00:00.001+02:00

I have been having a nice/interesting/only occaisionally freaked-out time adjusting to being back in the states: catching up with friends, spending time with family, watching DVDs, and doing a lot of writng ("Breaking Hearts in the HoD - The Novel?" We'll see). Naturally, I have had my down moments, in particular when I see stories about Congo and Africa on the news.

I plan on posting some of my best Congo photos in the near future, so be on the look-out.

Aurevoir Congo

2006-08-09T12:51:00.000+02:00

At 11:20am yesterday I left the Congo. My blog title, as it stands, is no longer relevant. I am an ex-expat, an aidworker at large (i.e. among the unemployed). Why did I leave? Well, anyone who has been following along has seen this one coming, and not just because I announced it a couple of months ago. I was getting burnt out. Unlike the viewpoint of many an American rockstar, fading away is definitely preferable to burning out, so I am fading out of the Congo.

How do I feel? Confused, relieved. I am sitting in my friend’s house is Lesotho, drinking tea, curled up in her blankets, unwinding. This is going to take a while.

What I will miss:

The bush
The occasional helicopter ride
Riding motorcycles
Being a part of visible change
Street kids
Seeing the stars at night
Hanging with people from all over the world
My amazing friends
This blog
The beautiful tough craziness that is Congo

What I will not miss:

Wondering if I have malaria every time I get a headache
Boiling and filtering drinking water
Really bad roads
Street kids
Government authorities
Getting asked for money, jobs, clothing, and visas
Hot weather with no AC
Slllllooooooooooooowww internet
Congolese bureaucracy

I spent 16 months in the Democratic Republic of Congo – one year in Kindu and four months in various areas of the Katanga Province. Is has not always been easy, in fact, I would say that it was rarely easy. I was in a plane that ran off a runway in June 2005. In August 2005 I had to be evacuated from Kindu and hospitalized for seven days because I had a severe case of malaria. Being one of only a handful of white women in a rural town meant that I could never ever just be anonymous. But having faced these challenges, I could deal with anything, and I did. I liked that not blending in meant that kids knew my name and waved at me on the street. No running water or electricity? Bring it on. You have to make the best of it, roll with the punches, and remind yourself that everything you do is a choice (though man, that plane thing was bad luck).

In my first project I managed seed activities and household item distributions in a post-conflict area. My second one, in Katanga Province, was more intense. I led evaluations in areas recently affected by conflict and then managed the distribution of household kits for families who had fled because of army fighting and rebel attacks. In Katanga it is said that 200,000 people were displaced in 2005-2006. By the time I left we had assisted about 50,000 of them with other NGOs having helped most of the rest. This second post is paradoxically the best experience that I had in Congo and the one that led to my decision to leave. I pushed the envelope, upped the bar, and managed the delivery of assistance in very complicated circumstances. I also fully understood for a moment the destruction that conflict has caused. The wall I put between myself and the Congo came down.

And what did I see? How unnecessary the suffering is. It sounds like a given, but really, I had been protecting myself from it. Did I understand the war (or “wars” for that matter)? No. I will never understand them. I wrote my undergraduate thesis on the evolution of ethnic conflict in Eastern Congo, never expecting I would one day end up there. I have read most articles and several books on the Congo. But the more I know the less I understand, now that I have lived there. I hear of fearsome Mai-Mai rebels who have consumed human flesh and use magic to turn bullets to water – I did not anticipate that most of the Mai-Mai coming out of the bush would be malnourished women and children, families (and in some cases captives) of the fighters. Villages tell us that rebuilding their roads is a priority, and then someone steals three dollars worth of bags of sand temporarily holding up a bridge, causing it to collapse. I know that the fight for control of mineral wealth is a crucial fuel to conflict – I did not expect that the mining also provides crucial livelihood and economic diversity for small-scale exploitation in certain areas, that the mining companies are also providing hundreds of thousands of dollars for infrastructure and community projects. I know Mobutu gained one of the largest fortunes in the world while the country fell apart, and yet a nun colleague of mine tears up when she watches documentaries about him, explaining to me that he will always be the Congo’s father. We all want one supreme bad guy, the simple solution, the problem that can be solved. But that is not Congo. Congo is the product of decades of cruel plundering and colonialism by Belgium, being run into the ground by Mobutu, interventions and assassination by the CIA and Belgian armies, rivalries between groups amassing power and resources on ethnic lines, the fight for mineral riches, mercenaries, arbitrary boundaries, foreign rebel groups trying to take down the governments of neighboring countries, foreign and Congolese rebel groups trying to take down the Congolese government, secession attempts, and above all, the Rwandan genocide (which in turn is the product of hardening socio-economic and ethnic divisions through Belgian rule, land disputes, the political favoring of one ethnic group then another by Belgium, political exclusion…). It goes on. I don’t think that a government in the Congo has ever fully controlled its territory, which is one of the criteria by which a chunk of land is considered a nation-state. Yet this area the size of Western Europe manages to still be Congo.

The election is being hailed as the greatest chance for peace and warned as a catalyst for the imminent possibility of the increased conflict because certain people (namely former rebel-leaders and current Vice Presidents) are likely to lose power. These notions, while diametrically opposed, are both about change. The fact that either scenario can be expected sums up the fragility of peace and the dangers of democracy in a country that is still experiencing several different conflicts in Katanga, Kivus and Equator provinces (in the East), while the government is being run out of Kinshasa (in the West), by a current and probably future president (Kabila), whose power base in the western part of the country is fragile because he is viewed as an outsider (does not speak Lingala and grew up in Tanzania). It took most of the “developed” democratic countries decades of learning lessons the hard way, and our democratic governments have promoted slavery, segregation, apartheid, the oppression of women, have and continue to wage wars (hot and cold), violate internally accepted human rights standards, and a host of other problems that still need to be worked out. Democracy will also allow for local power struggles to play themselves out in parliamentary elections in Congo. Am I against democracy? Heck no. Let’s just keep in mind – there are no easy solutions.

I am not sure whether I will be continuing with this blog, creating another, or taking a break from the online diary world. Thanks to all who have posted comments and followed along with the adventures to date.

Best of luck to those expats who are sticking it out here in Congo – be you pilots, MONUC or your run-of-the-mill crazy humanitarians like myself.

For people who might be coming, here is some random advice for you.

The top ten most useful items for anyone coming to Congo:

Ipod or other music player
Electrical converter/universal power adapter
Anti-bacterial hand gel
Anti-malaria medication (this is not optional. Take it!)
Handwipes/moist toilettes (baby wipes work too)
Your favorite hairgel/conditioner/bath products
Flashlight (I like the headlamp kind)
Digital camera
Books
Sense of humor

Basic questions for anyone coming to Congo:

Do I need a visa?
Yes, and you must get it in advance if you are arriving in Kinshasa or Lubumbashi. I am not sure about crossing into DRC by road at Goma or Bukavu – you might be able to get buy a weeklong visa at the border. If you are visiting an organization working in the Congo you can get in with an invitation letter and acquire the visa upon arrival, but make sure that the organization knows how to get this done!

Do you need to pay entry taxes, customs taxes, airport taxes, fines to policemen, etc?
Nope. I never once did, but it’s not always easy. There are no entry taxes. Talk to your contact before coming to Congo to make sure that they have a protocol person to meet you at the airport if you are arriving in Kinshasa. If you send baggage unaccompanied you can expect customs to charge you a random overpriced amount and you’ll have to pay it. Always be friendly to soldiers, officials, police, etc. who ask you for money. Just explain that you cannot give them anything but maybe next time. If a soldier, policeman, or GSSP (special presidential guard) signals you to pull over or come to where they are, act like you don’t see them and keep moving, especially if it is a soldier or GSSP. If this is not possible, be friendly, try to avoid handing them any documents, and do not go anywhere with them. Try to avoid having your bags inspected. If an airport security or customs official insists on opening them, watch them closely to make sure they do not put anything in or take anything out.

Can I drink the water?
No. If you are not staying long buy bottled water. If you are staying for a while purchase a filter and either boil it for 10 minutes before filtering or add 1 drop of bleach per liter post filtering (my preferred method).

Is Congo safe?
Actually, most of Congo is quite safe. Kinshasa is far safer than Johannesburg and Nairobi, for example. The major cities (Kinshasa, Goma, Lubumbashi, Kisangani) have the same dangers as most African (and non-African) cities of their size. In Kinshasa do not walk at night or take public taxis (mini-buses). Keep your car doors locked. The most common danger is being mugged or having your bag snatched – violent crime is rare. Always stay away from any areas where protests are occurring and register with your embassy.

Can I “travel” in Congo?
Yes and no. Do not just go traveling through Congo without carefully mapping out where you are going and running your route by people who know these areas. Drop any notions of a cross-country trip and many notions of “exploring” Eastern Congo. I’ve heard of people taking buses out of Goma and heading north, then bragging about it. Not a good idea. There are a lot of security issues in the Kivu provinces, Katanga and Equator. When I was in Kindu the police arrested some guy who was motorcycling through Congo. That is a really dumb idea. If you want to visit Congo, make contact with people who live there. I would recommend hiking the volcano in Goma. I never did it, but apparently it’s amazing (you also have to hire armed guards and makes sure that the overall security situation is fine).

How does someone get around Congo?

By plane. Unless you are doing short trips out of Kinshasa, the roads system is pretty much non-existent in most of the country. You can take Hewa Bora and Wimbi Dira, but it will cost ya (a one-way ticket from Kinshasa to Lubumbashi can be as much as $300). CAA is a slightly cheaper option. DO NOT take any airlines outside of these three, because while their safety standards are not great, at least they have not crashed yet. If you are working with a non-profit, you can also travel on World Food Program and Airserv flights.

Is Congo cheap?

Not at all! I know, you think "middle of Africa" and you picture it to not be terribly expensive. But as anyone who's been to Central Africa knows, this isn't the case. Hotels and restaurants are quite expensive by many traveling standards. Expect to pay a mimimun of $50 a night in Kinshasa for a decent room. The prices are restaurants are on par with American and European prices, if not more expensive. Local restaurants are cheap if you'd like Congolese food, but if you haven't been in Congo for a while, be aware that your stomach might not agree with the experience.

Can I take photos?

Alright, you probably didn’t even ask yourself this one. Avoid taking photos in Kinshasa and other main towns. I am not sure if it is officially illegal, but the police will definitely give you a hard time and tell you that it is.

Elections in Congo

2006-08-01T10:53:00.000+02:00

I wrote this post from on July 30th - elections day.
____

Today is a historic day for Congo - democratic elections. After five decades of dictatorship then war then a temporary post-war government, a president will be elected rather than imposed. The logistics are astounding. Congo is the size of Western Europe, and the systems of roads can hardly be called a system of anything. The international community is using helicopters, planes and whatever else it takes to get ballots and observers to remote areas. An article I referred to in an earlier post stated that Congo elections would make the ones in Iraq look like a cakewalk

Yesterday two friends stopped by for some apple pie and lemonade (what can I say, I was feeling a bit Martha Steward ala Congo). They could not stay for long because apparently some key elections document had an error in it and they were organizing the printing of 45,000 new documents. I volunteered that we could print some out at our office - with out little boxy photocopier, I'd say we could print out about 500 before it simply overheated. Needless to say, they didn't take me up on the offer.

I would like to head around town and see if it looks like a historic day or just a normal Sunday. Perhaps check out a polling station. But for security reasons it is best to stay put. Should any one group of people be unhappy at the way things are going, there is a tendency to express anger at whoever is around, and foreigners are good targets.

Apparently there’s a protest at the headquarters of United Nations peacekeeping mission (known as MONUC). I feel a bit bad for MONUC. Here they are, doing more for Congo in terms of security and democracy than the government has ever been able to do, even if the mission has had a few serious problems along the way. But every bit of negative energy is displaced onto MONUC. If MONUC messes up, I get it. But so much of the time it has nothing to do with them. Example - A student is killed in a rally? Protest against MONUC. The Congolese Independent Electoral Commission postpones elections? Set fire to some MONUC vehicles. A soccer player in Lubumbashi is traded to a European team? March outside of MONUC headquarters to express your anger (this actually happened). The classic psychological defense mechanism of displacement seems to have been perfected, if not invented, on a collective scale in Congo. This is a place where unpaid soldiers have gone and raped women in response to not getting paid. This is a place where criminals will be protected from punishment, because in the end, no one who has managed to get power at this point has done it without blood on their hands, with the possible exception of an opposition leader who did not register for presidential candidacy. So others will be blamed that are not within the ranks. Casting the first stone has no advantages. I hope the war criminals will go the way of the International Criminal Court, because there is not much likelihood for justice within these borders.

But all of this - protests, rape, war, politics, anger, hope, etc - seems quite far away as I sit on the porch of the house where I am staying in Lubumbashi. It is a lovely day where the weather brings to mind southern California. I’m sipping a coffee mixed with vanilla soy milk. Who knew you could find vanilla soy milk in Congo? You can, but it costs $12.

I am working with two friends from work on a project proposal. I have three days left of work, and then I am no longer among the ranks of the employed.

We hear a noise that sounds like a gunshot.

“Was that a gunshot?”
“Hhmmm. Maybe. Or just a truck back-firing.”
“Who knows. Do we have any coffee left?’

We go back to our work.

So my friends are creating a pool where we bet which day elections results are going to be announced. No one to whom I’ve spoken - including people working on the elections - has been able to pin down a date. I say August 22nd. We could also add the following questions to our bets:

Who will be the first candidate to claim fraud? (I say Bemba)
When will the first protest march take place? (as if they hadn’t started already! Peaceful ones for the most part)
What province will experience the first post elections violence? (Ituri, perhaps?)

____

In the end, elections went fine. Let's watch out for the results though. When candidates have their own armies and only one can win, there's bound to be some trouble. Congo is still worth fighting for, and the fight is hardly confined to politics - the losers have more have more to gain operating outside of the political framework once they fail to hold on to power within it.

Misfits, Missionaries and Mercenaries

2006-07-26T17:42:00.000+02:00

Apparently the company that ran Bush’s campaign has also been hired by Joseph Kabila, current president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, who aspires to also be its future president. Billboards dominate the city streets, from DIY posters to smooth glossies that proclaim Kabila to be “Champion of women’s rights.” Whatever that means.

Meanwhile, at a coordination meeting today, it was brought up that a plane from Angola full former combatants from way-back-when landed in Lubumbashi and the government was requested the humanitarian community to lend a hand. At first glance, that doesn’t sound like such a bad idea, right? Former soldiers, hard on their luck, coming home. What exactly were those guys doing in Angola? Well, like many ex-soldiers from one country, they were being paid to fight a war in another. So basically, they’re mercenaries. Mercenaries who happen to be flown back to Congo by the government a few days before the first democratic elections since 1960. Perhaps I should put that in capital letters for the full effect: MERCENARIES WHO HAPPEN TO BE FLOWN BACK TO CONGO DAYS BEFORE THE FIRST DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS SINCE 1960. And by the way, could we feed them?

The best part is that the government does not see the irony in the request. No matter what humanitarian principles we have (in this case, neutrality and independence), they are pretty much the rules of our private club that nobody else seems to get. I am particularly struck by MSF (Medecins Sans Frontieres = Doctors Without Borders), who promotes their image as being the most independent NGO around (which, to their credit, they are. Also one of the few NGOs I give money too). That said, most Congolese, citizens and soldiers alike, would not really know the difference between my NGO, MSF, and even the UN peacekeeping mission, which involves soldiers. We can control what we can project, but not what others interpret.

MSF’s relationship with other NGOs parallels that of Canadians with Americans. They are determined to make sure that people do not confuse them for being anything other than MSF. Which makes me wonder, if you pitted a group of Canadian backpackers against a posse of MSF workers, who would win in a rumble? Oh, the maple leaf patches would fly.

The Fall of Sahara Sarah

2006-07-20T18:19:00.000+02:00

I would like to state that friends and family might find this post to be a bit shocking. Perhaps they’ve guessed that I censor my blog. There are just some topics I don’t talk about, such as dating or things I think might freak them out, like hearing multiple gunshots on my last field mission (I swear mom, it’s actually a hilarious story that I’ll reserve for Thanksgiving dinner). Though there are also times where I say too much. I’m fully convinced that the thought of his daughter phoning from a South African military base in the middle of rural Congo, saying “These guys are great! And I never pay for drinks!” freaks my dad out much more than the whole Congo/war thing.

So here it goes. A shocking confession, something that could only happen in the heart of darkness.

I ate crocodile.

That’s right. Sahara Sarah, vegetarian for 12 years, tried crocodile meat. I used to refuse to eat anything that touched meat or was spooned with a utensil that had a brush of fate with a steak. I became more of a “look the other way” vegetarian when I was living in Niger. When you are out in the field and you wait two hours for a dish of canned peas and rice, and it comes with bits of meat in it….well, I pushed the meat to the side and just pretended I didn’t see it. I also began eating fish in Niger to diversity my protein sources. No tofu in them there hills. Still, this is a long step from eating crocodile.

My friends and I were at an amazing restaurant called the Bush Camp that specializes in meat. Ostriches, pigs, cows, and yes, even crocodile. My friend ordered a crocodile meat curry skewer. He raved about it, and I figured there will not be many moments in life when I can try a bit of croc. So I had a bite. It wasn’t bad - a bit of a combo between what I know fish tastes like and what I remember meat tasting like. I only had one bite - it’s one thing to cross the vegetarian bridge, it’s another to jump off it.

What prompted my confession? I’ve met some guys I’m sure my dad would also not likely approve of, who are quite fun. They’ve been in Congo ages - spent most of their youth here, and quite like it, for many reasons. One of them (and I quote) is that you can get away with murder. They added for good measure that they would never kill anyone, but at least your options are open. These guys have invited me to go crocodile hunting with them on Friday night. My first reaction was, “You guys know I’m a vegetarian, right?” When they replied that they did, I followed up with “Are you aware of what ‘vegetarian’ means?” Incidentally, they eat the crocodiles that they kill, which makes it a bit okay in my eyes. I don’t judge your average Joe who grabs a burger at a restaurant, who’d probably freak out at the thought of killing something, skinning it, and slapping it on the grill, so who I am to judge these guys?

Driving to Work

2006-07-17T16:06:00.000+02:00

On my way to work I turn off the paved road onto a dirt one that leads to the building where we temporarily have set up office. To my right is a landmark that looks like a mountain, an artificial hill guarded by two factory buildings that were probably imposing in their day. Now they just look outdated, like businessmen who were once successful but have since fallen from grace.

The hill is made from dirt dug from the ground to sift the riches from everything else. It stands watch, a monument of sorts, reminding Lubumbashi that it is a city built on minerals, on Chinese businessman, on the movement of anything valuable far away from where it came. The city sold its soul to the miners a while back, and who can blame it. The government office in charge of road maintenance had traded their trucks to the mining companies for cash. The mining companies ensured electricity in the towns where they worked, which is more than the government was able, or more accurately willing, to provide.

I picture how this hill would be different if it were in a town in America. By “America,” I mean the United States of America (it is more out of habit than vanity that we assume “America” means the USA and not Canada, Mexico, or any country is South America). In this town teenagers would race up it to prove their prowess, and skip class and drink at its summit to prove nothing. First kisses would happen, people would tumble down, and sledding would be attempted on its gravel slopes. But in Lubumbashi it is barren and antisocial.

The hill slides out of view as I continue on the dirt road. I drive over a lopsided cement bridge, which crosses water that does not quite qualify as a stream. A stream would require movement and flow, but this water is stagnant. It is a body of water that wanted to be a stream or a river or simply to be something more than it was, like so many things in the Congo. Now it is a center for people to wash their cars, where drivers carry buckets up from its slippery banks and erase the city grime from their bosses’ vehicles.

Fifty meters away two men wade through the water, each with his trousers rolled over his knees. One is hunched over, hands exploring the water and silt. The other pulls a sack and a mesh tray. The morning light is behind them, making them silhouettes in my vision. They are looking for gold and copper and other shiny particles that might improve their lives. Sometimes, my driver tells me, they find a little something. He adds that the nuns who live in the building next to the not-quite-a-stream often chase them away. I laugh a small laugh, picturing nuns running in their matching outfits, chasing the men fleeing with pockets filled with gold and dirt.

The image of these men wading and sifting joins the list of beautiful things that have broken my heart in Congo.

Three photos from Zanzibar and Congo

2006-07-13T09:53:00.000+02:00

Letter to Steve Jobs

2006-07-09T15:44:00.000+02:00

Steve Jobs
CEO
Apple Corporation

RE: Customer complaint

Dear Steve,

I am writing concerning my Ipod mini, which of late has been performing in a manner that does not reflect the level of performance upon which I have come to depend, as my Ipod is on a brief list of material items that contribute to my mental well being. In the past few months I have noticed that it loses its battery charge very quickly, even when I have charged it to full.

I work in the Democratic Republic of Congo, managing an emergency project where we conduct evaluations in zones where people have been displaced do to conflict and distribute basic household items as necessary. This work involves a bit of time on the road, packed into a Landcruiser with my Congolese field staff. By “road” I mean bumping dirt paths that more closely resemble moderate-to-difficult mountain bike trails than flat stretches of pavement. My job also involves seeing the best and worst of humanity, and though this point is not quite as relevant to my current complaint regarding my Ipod, perhaps the presence of a noble cause will add a certain gravity that the obvious observation “there no Apple stores in Congo” lacks.

In Congo, people like to discuss. Anything. Simple questions like, “Is there cell phone reception in village X?” can lead to an hour-long debate on the number you dial to find out which villages have cell reception, how much a sack of coltan weighs, and the validity of using geological maps from the 1950s to determine whether certain areas have minerals. While I am constantly amazed that Congolese can turn the simplest of topics into philosophical conversations, I sometimes prefer to tune out these conversations in order to provide a mental escape, particularly when I am on the road. And therein lies the importance of my Ipod.

As we left Lubumbashi behind us last week and rumbled towards central Katanga, I reached for my faded messenger-styled bag, which is conveniently dust-colored. I sat between the driver and my colleague Laura, with my body twisted slightly so the driver could still shift gears without elbowing me in the chest. After adjusting the earphones, I scrolled through my albums and decided on Bloc Party. Peppy music makes the drive into the bush seem more like a choice than a job, and if I try hard, I can momentarily convince myself I am in a long Landcruiser commericial. I wave at the soldiers at a toll during the fourth track, and even if I can’t hear them, I know that the children yelling at the vehicle during the eight track are screaming, “muzungu!” Next I chose Franz Ferdinand. I made it to the second track when my Ipod informed me that it was low battery, seconds before the music cuts off. I stared at it, trying to coax it back to life. However, the Ipod would have none of it.

So Congo comes back, in the form of non-stop conversations in the back seat, which I can no longer drown out with my music of choice. Instead, I listen to my three field agents debate the following topics, among others, for the next five hours:

Are crazy people crazy all the time? (Sub-topic: Influence of the moon)
Does God give you money? (Example: If I buy a Coca Cola, is God responsible?)
Rarity of gynecologists in Congo (in particular Bukavu)
Curative properties of water
How many Congolese politicians have resigned in the history of Congo (one, apparently)
Whether women prefer male politicians

Nothing lasts forever, as evidenced by the decline I see around me in Congo. Some villages have been burnt to the ground as recently as a few weeks ago, others are dilapidated monuments to former mining towns, with an odd touch of 1960s art deco influence, like Manono town from where I am sending this email. I am not too sure where my ipod’s descent fits into landscape. Nobody could warn the Congolese that their cities would fall to pieces because of neglect, looting and war, whereas Apple might have given me a head’s up that my battery was not going to make it until the Congolese elections slated for the end of July.

Most sincerely,

Sarah

Give me my weekend

2006-07-01T17:06:00.000+02:00

I have this fun game I like to call "give me." When a child asks me to give them money, I ask them to give me something. It goes like this:

Child: Give me money.
Me: Give me your t-shirt.
Child: Give me money.
Me: Give me your necklace.
Child: Give me money.
Me: Give me your little sister.

And so on.

My goal is to not repeat what I ask for, and to ask for something that in theory the kid could give me. Once I almost did get a baby that a girl was holding when I asked for it. Guess I should be careful.

It was supposed to be a four-day weekend, and somehow it has become a two-day weekend where I am working both days. Sigh. I will be heading to the field tomorrow and out of contact for ten days. For fun, try to find where I am going on a map. It's called Sampwe (hint: Southeast of Mitwaba Territory, Katanga Province). Incidentally, the recent Time article on the DRC mentioned Malemba-Nkulu several times - the area where we just finished our distributions of non-food items to 5,500 households. Makes ya proud.

I have some lovely photos to post of zanzibar (indeed, this blog has been getting a wee bit text heavy) but the public computer I've been using of late has no software, other than Notepad. When I get back I'll guiltily post photos of me chilling at the beach with some photos from the field of the on-going crisis that is Congo. That's pretty much a juxtaposition that sums up my world.

Welcome Aboard the Congo Enterprise

2006-06-24T10:06:00.000+02:00

It takes several days in Zanzibar to destress, since the first few nights I dream about trucks, kits and chiefs. Except that Brad Pitt was also there, as well as my high school English teacher. I leave Zanzibar with a bit of regret - I have a taste for life on the outside.

Coming back from vacation is actually a vulnerable moment for expats living in Congo or any third world country. There is a lot of stress about living in Congo that you do not notice until you leave. Not the obvious things, like working in bush, but just a subtle shift where the world takes more energy to deal with. Yet I always forget this and come back bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, which lasts for exactly three minutes - the time to exit the plane and enter Congolese immigration.

As I head to baggage claim, it's like I am the Starship Enterprise and my forcefield is down, just as a big group of Klignons try to board. Only I can by them off for a dollar AND they'll carry my bags, and I think the real Klingons would have probably asked for more money and blwown up the bag. And they don't have wrinkly faces. People, it's a metaphor.

By the time I exit the airport two hours later (without baggage, which is somewhere between Nairobi and Zimbabwe), I pray that Congo will stay in Klingon mode and not head to Deathstar phase. I slowly turn the forcefield back on. Congo and I generally have a truce going on, which is that we know enough about each other to not expect any major changes or surprises. For example, if I see a roach so big it looks like it could carry off my couch, I do not have the right to get angry. Congo told me about them roaches a while back. But if this roach manages to get inside my coffee cup and stare at me as I try to add Nescafe, that's stepping over the line. If people try to commit fraud to be included in our distributions, I also do not judge, because they are being resourceful and this is Congo. If its people I know, then I get upset. The irony of the whole thing is that, as much as I know that I cannot keep this up, the thought of leaving freaks me out more than the thought of staying.

Congo v. Zanzibar

2006-06-19T17:14:00.000+02:00

Congo. Zanzibar. If you've never been to Congo or Zanzibar, the difference between these two places might not be apparent. Much like someone from Congo would not know the difference between Palm Springs and Detroit. However, Congo gets a pretty bad reputation from "Heart of Darkness" and that big ol' war, so perhaps I am underestimating the name recognition factor.

So right now I am in the Palm Springs of Africa - Zanzibar. Just saying the name gives me chills. One "z" is nice, but two? That's gotta be a great place. And it certainly is. I started at the Shooting Star Lodge on a beach on the eastern side. They had fresh flower petals on my bed. That nearly brought tears to my eyes. I met up with my friend Kate, who works in Darfur, and her friend who works in Ethiopia. We headed North to Nungwi, proceded to get drenched by some off-season rains, then went to Stonetown. Nothing a nice a hotel can't cure. I then met up with up with a Swedish cameraman and reporter filming special about spices. It seems like a good cover story for two guys trying to meet some ladies, but after we filmed a bit on pepper steak, I can say with 100% certainty that they are legit. And a heck of a lot of fun. We went back to Nungwi and met a nice Swedish family and ate lots of fish. I've learned that Swedish massages are not at all Swedish, that Swedes don't even know what Swedish Fish are, and that their porn star names (Name of your first pet + name of street where you grew up) are much funnier than typical american ones (the reporter's pornstar name is "Lucas Klevakilaven," though I am sure I spelled that last part wrong).

In other news, Congo is making some headlines, with a cover story on Time Magazine (click here to link to it). I suppose that's the funny thing about a world with so many problems - they can be constantly rediscovered by the media. I get a little protective when I read articles on places that I know and am quick to critique. Maybe I am envious of journalists who can pop in and out and discover the problem like Columbus did America, planting their metaphorical flags. Perhaps I am still waiting for Anderson Cooper to show up at my office in Congo and ask me for my take on things (and then ask me for a drink, of course). So it goes.

Leaving it behind, nets and all

2006-06-13T15:17:00.000+02:00

The truck with the mosquito nets does not show up. I go to the local radio opertor to use the "phonie." The guy who runs it had just walked over to let me know that our logistician was trying to get ahold of me. The phonie reminds me of when my grandfather would let me use the CB in his truck to make radio contact with truckers. I thought it was really, really cool. While cellphone networks are popping up over Congo, the phonie system is still king in the rural areas. They can radio other operators over certain channels to let them know that someone is on the line. This other operator can either track down the person being called, or ideally, that person is there waiting for the call. Because the line is quite static, yelling is a good way to make sure that you are heard. My friend lived next to a phonie operator in Kindu. Swahili was yelled left right and center next to the his kitchen wall.

I take the mouthpiece, hold down the button to the right side, and yell to my logistician. Outside, ten people look at me with what I could not tell was boredom, interest, or the accident of me being in their line of sight.

me: "WHERE ARE THE TRUCKS?"
him:"Trucks - unintelligible - garble"
me: "WHERE ARE THE TRUCKS AND NETS?"
him:"You got the trucks and nets?"
me: "WHERE ARE THE TRUCKS?!"

So it continues. I manage to figure out the the trucks had left the day before, which was good news that he was doing his job and bad news that something had happened along the way. I ponder calling my colleagues in Lubumbashi with my satellite phone to see if they know anything. But they would not, and doing so would just be doing something to make it feel like I was working towards a solution. In the end, my collegue Rebecca would have to deal with it. After eight days of working together and two weeks in the field, it was time for me to head out and take a break. I felt a bit guilty, leaving her with all the problems. But we had already dealt with broken motorcycles, stranded field agents, government authorities, fraud, a broken truck, a cranky bishop, and whiskey with no mixer. She'll be fine.

I driver through the small village in the landcruiser, waving at the kids who never get tired of waving at me. As I pull up the strip, the Cessna Grand Caravan is just shutting down. Olivier the pilot steps out, and I am happy to see him. And I am even happier when I get to sit co-pilot, watching the village turn into a landscape as we fly away from it.

The Field

2006-06-11T14:33:00.001+02:00

One of my days in the field. Similar to many:

5:45am – Wake up to Cathedral bells. Roll over. Wonder if they have a snooze button.
6:00am – Church bells go off again. Apparently they do have snooze button.
6:30am – Remove seven-foot piece of wood leaning against door as make-shift lock/alarm. Go outside to latrine.
6:45am- Brush teeth and wash face using a bucket of water outside. Children sit ten feet away and stare.
7:00am – Team returns that went to refugee camp at 4am to figure out how many people really live at camp. They recount that local chief was pretty pissed, that the camp was only 1/3 inhabited, and that people from the local village came running into the camp once word got out the check was happening.
7:30am – Eat breakfast: Small doughnut-like thing, cup of tea. Children sit at the window and stare.
7:45am – Told that the cook for my field agents stole our buckets when they refused to pay her more than they had agreed on. Ask them to figure out a solution.
8:00am – Start to sort out coupons, beneficiary lists, motorcycle problems, and radioing to figure out where truck is.
3:00pm – Meet with local chiefs regarding fraud for beneficiary registration. Use such fun phrases as “we know that massive fraud occurred in the registration process” and “we are helping you help your people, so no, are not going to pay you.”
5:30 – Get back to town where we are staying.
6:00 – Start generator without assistance of male colleagues. Point, Sarah.
6:02 – Generator starts sputtering and smoking. Point, Afica.
10:45 – During sat phone call to supervisor, generator runs out of gas.
11:30 – Crawl under mosquito net for a good nights sleep.

To be continued…..

Veronica Made Me Do It

2006-05-24T12:14:00.000+02:00

I was going to create a little list of “reasons when you know you’re working too much” but I then I let it go. Let’s just say I’ve reached that point. I checked into a hotel over the weekend in order to escape work a bit. I watched the entire season of “Veronica Mars” on DVD. I think that’s about 18 hours of T.V. It was heavenly – pure escapism. And an awesome show that I am now a bit obsessed with. Thoughts about how to get 5,000 mosquito nets here are mixed with ones about whether Veronica will get back together with her old boyfriend or his unstable tortured soul best friend. Mosquito nets be damned.

Today I announced my resignation from the organizatoin that I work for. While getting my hands on Season 2 of Lost and Veronica Mars is important, I made the decision that it’s just overall time to reconnect with friends, family and the good ol’ USA. Should I happen to throw in an excursion to India or Bali in the fall (perk of this work – frequent flyer miles!), I will chalk that up to reconnecting with my less stressed self.

I will stick around work in Congo for the next two months in order to handover to someone else. I am actually planning on heading back to Kindu to visit my friends there before leaving.

I will not be posting for the next two weeks as I will be in the field implementing non-food item distributions. I am excited but darn tired when I think about it – this is what we’ve been putting in long hours to achieve. Will be heading to Zanzibar when I get back to de-stress. I will miss this work.

Of tuna, bad men and burnout

2006-05-15T18:08:00.000+02:00

I noticed that I have been posting photos lately, so I decided to check out what photos I could find of Lubumbashi on the web. I still have not figured out the nature of the website where I downloaded these, but if its purpose is to convince people to come to Lubumbashi, I dare say they might have to step up the effort. These two photos are of two popular spots. the Brioche is a diner that has the best tuna sandwich in all of congo. It also has icecream. The photo with the pool is...well...the only public pool in town. It's at a bit of a rundown hotel that was probably once a nice hotel. It's a pretty popular weekend spot, but the water is green and the bottom is a bit fuzzy.

One chapter in the soap opera that is Katanga is coming to a close. Gedeon, the supreme bad guy who's been terrorizing the area with a small army of underfed (and many underage) congolese has now turned himself in. This is very good news and would be making headlines in many areas of the world if people were not so used to hearing about the mess that is africa. Other soap opera elements continue. this town has everything a true soap needs - a really rich man who has made millions upon millions (while he doesnt wear an eye patch, in the t.v. version i would give him one), ridiculously rich people who don't know what to spend their money on (begging the question of where a Hummer is more appropriate - suburban America or a third world country), and secret flights into the jungle (something tells me this is not a fishing expedition, as one pilot told us). Basically, an Africa mining town could be the next Days of Our Lives.

A few posts ago I talked about sticking around until December, but the tide is turning. I am planning a relief operation for 25,000 people, without a real office and pretty much living out of a dorm-styled room. I have had 4 days off in the last five weeks. This is no one's fault - opening an office is not easy and we're trying. Even so, tackling a new emergency program after one year in rural Congo (and eight months in Niger before that...) it just might be time for a break. I am displaying classic systems of burnout, except that i have not increased by alcohol consumption, which I resolve to change ASAP. Lcukily, they've got beer at the Brioche.

2006-05-11T11:56:00.000+02:00

There has been some news coming out of Congo in the last week or so. One is regarding an aircrash of a World Food Programme flight that was heading from Goma to Bunia. Three people, the pilot, his wife and the co-pilot, died. There was also a surrender of Mai-Mai (rebel movement) southeast of where we just did our evaluation. There was also a piece of how acrtivies by aid agencies are increasing in Katanga.

Quotes of the week:

"Can I bring the co-pilot and crew?"
-Pilot friend from Airserv, who got stranded in Lubumbashi, regarding dinner plans

"This is my right. If someone messes with me, I will crush them. Have you ever heard of a country with an army without guns? No."
-Best friend in Lubumbashi, on why he has armed guards at his house

The Accidental Censorist

2006-05-09T09:11:00.000+02:00

So that's what "moderate comments" means. I thought I could erase the comment that I accidentally double posted, but as my mom and her hairdresser have now informed me, it means i am actually supposed to approve comments before they are posted.

Sorry to censor my comment-posting public (all ten of ya). I've switched off the moderate comments functionm, but failed to retrieve any comments that might have been submitted (including the irony-tinged one from my mom and her hairdresser letting me know that they could not comment).

So how does one end up in the Congo, anyways?

2006-05-05T17:05:00.000+02:00

Believe it or not, it takes a lot of work to make it to the Congo. Underdeveloped conflict-torn countries are not exactly places you can stumble into. Unless your Oprah, you can't wake up one day and just decided, "heck, why don't I check out the Congo?" (and who would wake up with this thought, anyways, except for Oprah who, was supposed to come but switched at the last minute to hit Darfur since George Clooney just went. Damn you, George! What do I have to do to get a celebretity in my neck of the woods? In particular you or Bono?).

When I went to college, I chose a nice school in Los Angeles where you could major in Diplomacy and World Affairs. I had no idea what that meant (indeed, I still dont) but it sounded great at the time. International stuff. L.A. ended up being an interesting culture experience of its own, and many of my friends were hispanic. The hispanic community was a new world to me. I went to France to study (this is a key point, language becomes a deciding factor later) and moved there after college. I don't really know why...I needed a job, found one as a teacher, and leaving the country seemed like as good an idea as any in that post-college quest for a real job thats not too real. I was never truly happy in France, though living in Lille in the North was way better than Paris, which I still consider one of my most challenging living experiences (including Congo!). I worked as a chaperone and tour guide in summers in Paris, and decided it was time to get back on the track of Diplomacy and World Affairs stuff. I interned at the Carter Center in Atlanta, during which time I also sent in my application to various international affairs grad schools, since it was apparent that all cool jobs required masters degrees. I able to get a paid position with the Carters, so I packed up my backpack and went to Thailand. Five months and five countries later, I went back to Paris for one last fling of tour-guiding spoiled american teens, and then I found out I got into the grad school of my choice. During my studies in Boston I realized my interests were in development work and refugee/displacement issues. I also realized that my fellow students in general had had real jobs and that I needed to catch up in experience. In the development world, you need overseas experience to be street credible. Otherwise, how would you know what you were talking about? It seemed like everyone talked about going to "the field," but when grad school was over, there was a massive migration of my fellow grads to D.C, where they got apartments and would definitly be making use of the suits that we had all bought especially for interviews (my two Banana Republic suits, bought on sale and adored by me, are hanging in a closet at my parents house). I had accepted a fellowship in Francophone africa with an NGO, that meant a year engagement with the likelihood that I would be offered a job after. It was for Morocco. I was ecstatic, as I love Morocco, which I went to when I was 22. Six weeks later I found out that I would be in Niger instead. I won't lie, I cried. My fantasy of having friends visit, buying beautiful furntiture, and reading Camus went up in smoke. I had been clutching to that fantasy since I was about to leave an amazing grad school experience and needed to think it was the right move. I knew nothing of Niger, and the more I learned, the more desolate and poor and unfun it seemed. I had that terrible feeling that I had just made a big mistake. I took solace with a friend of mine who had made the same choice, only for india, we gave eachother pep talks. Niger was not easy, but it was interesting. I was determined that my next post, if I stayed overseas, would be in a nice place my folks could visit, ideally near the ocean. I was offered the Congo and I did not need to take it. I could have easily held out. But there was something about upping the ante, about facing a challenge, and about moving into emergency work...it just seemed right. After a few months here I had decided that the Congo would be my last overseas post for a while, that I need to ground myself a bit and spend time in the states. This was not a hard choice - Kindu would be closing down, Kinshasa is a nightmare. But then Lubumbashi came up, and while I have only signed on for three months, I plan on staying until the end of the year.

I sometimes wonder when it became normal to be in the Congo. I am becoming a bit of an expatriate, not for lack of fighting it, in that my identity is shifting further away from my own country. I wonder if it will always be a battle between Africa and starbucks, that I will long for whichever one I can't have. My friends parents are now much older, but they lived in Kenya 30 years ago and never quite got over it, like an old flame that haunts you. They moved to France because England was too stifling, and I wonder if I will end up like them, only minus their eight yappy dogs.

Points on a crisis

2006-05-01T11:36:00.000+02:00

I returned from the field yesterday (an aside- most people would consider any place in Congo “the field,” but those of us here tend to use it to mean places outside of where we live, usually involving Landcruisers, motorcycles, trees fallen and blocking roads, and broken bridges. This recent trip was no exception).

I wish I could lay it all out, this mess that is Katanga. I don’t think the space here allows for that, and the slow internet at the Catholic mission where I am shacked up in Lubumbashi makes posting links a particularly lengthy endeavor. My last post touched on it, that the plots and characters of this crisis is intrinsically linked to the two wars that rocked Congo between 1998-2003, but also to other political problems, and a troubled history for this mineral rich province that dates back decades. So the information that I give will always be incomplete.

Katanga is in the southeast corner of the Democratic Republic of Congo. It shares its borders with three countries: Tanzania, Zambia and Angola. When Rwanda invaded Congo five years ago (ironically to try to take down a leader that they themselves had installed), local resistance movements known as “Mai-Mai” formed to fight the foreign invaders. It is difficult to describe the Mai-Mai as they were not a cohesive movement – Mai-Mai in one province had pretty much nothing to do with Mai-Mai in another one. In fact, the war in Congo often involved the splintering of armed movements on both sides into smaller and smaller factions, but the Mai-Mai were not really that together to begin with. The government in Kinshasa supported the Mai-Mai in Katanga with weapons, since they were fighting the Rwandans. After the peace agreement was signed, the Mai-Mai here were still around, and they did not just give up the power that had come with their guns. Katanga has gold and mineral wealth worth fighting for, even if this means just taking control of a few mines, rather than going for the whole thing. An understood truce between the Congolese army and the Mai-Mai fell apart in March of last year, supposedly after the army did not bring drinks to a meeting between the two groups. Once they turned on each other, the Mai-Mai began escalating raids and attacks onto civilians. The areas that I visited had 40,000 displaced people living there (they are not technically “refugees” as they have not crossed the border into another country, so they are called “internally displaced persons”). Imagine driving 150 miles of dirt roads dotted with small villages, with 8,000 families setting up huts among the houses of the locals, who do not have much themselves. These families brought nothing with them and are living primarily off cassava – a starchy root vegetable like a potato, with leaves that can be cooked like spinach. They are sharing locally forged pots between several families, who use the same ones for gather water and for cooking. Malnutrition rates are very high, which are contributing to high mortality rates. This particularly hits children under five.

They have received no humanitarian assistance.

This is a school house that was burnt by the Mai-Mai in February. The village fled, and some are starting to come back to rebuild their lives. The rest of the village looks no better than this building.

To make things worse, the Congolese army is patrolling the area. In a way this is good – it has provided security for the population by preventing the Mai-Mai from attacking villages. But the army is also forcing people to act as porters and sexually exploiting women and girls. They force the local population to give them food, since they rarely receive their salaries. I also heard cases of false arrests, rape, kidnapping and murder.

I saw the infamous Mai-Mai. A group of 400 people had come out of the jungle to turn themselves in a few days before we got there. Trapped in the jungle, cut off from their raiding, they were starving. They were not just men, but entire families of women and children (many of the women had been forced to come with them over the years after raids on their villages). Most had come out of the jungle completely naked. Locals had given some clothing along the way (to this group, that had been their enemy? This group that has raped, burned, killed and supposedly cannibalized? I will never understand Congo). They seemed powerless and ragged.

Mai-Mai children, cheerful but very malnourished. Their joints are swollen from having walked miles every day - the group was always on the move. In the last few months they have been living off raw mushrooms and whatever they can find in the jungle. Now the women and children are living in a camp under military "protection," while the men are being taken to another location. The huts in the background are typical shelters in their camp.

When I got back to the town of Malemba Nkulu after six days of driving through the jungle and savannah terrain, I was exhausted and wired. To here these stories, to see bullet casings on the ground, burnt out homes and destroyed schools…cracks appeared the wall that I place between myself and the troubles here. I was excited about being a catalyst to get assistance in, but so angry too, at the needless suffering, at the fact that assistance is so late…at many things.

With the Mai-Mai attacking from the East and North and the army moving in, more than 5,000 families fled to floating islands on Lake Upemba. They built shelters on reeds, and if you stood on that shore, you would sink up to your shins. They drink from the lake and also use it as their toilette, so the sanitation needs are high. this photo was taken by a colleague from another organization, the area was just south of where we did our mission. The majority of households have received non-food item assistance (plastic sheeting, pots and pans, blankets) from Medicins Sans Frontieres, who really have their act together.

The Mai-Mai are withered in strength, the army does not harass humanitarians, and it’s not like you see people firing weapons at each other. The kids, even with bloated bellies from malnutrition, smile at me, make silly poses for the camera, and follow me around. When I talk with families who have been displaced five times in the last four years, there is a strange acceptance of their fate. Yet this is a humanitarian crises, even if the body count is hidden (people are dying from malnutrition, malaria and respitory infections). Like I said, I will never understand Congo.

Moving, working and KFC

2006-04-16T17:45:00.000+02:00

I wish I had more time to write about the interesting move to Lubumbashi. It's been a whirlind - packet up my bags, had a couple good-bye parties and left Kindu in a four-day period. The Indians, my South African friends, and my best friend Anja saw me off at the airport. After two days in Kinshasa I boarded another plane to Lubumbashi. As usual, the Congo traveling experience involves officials trying to open my bags at the airport, baggage handlers bickering over who carries by bags, chaos as planes board with no announcements to which flight it is, and grouping en masse on the runway (lines are impossible) to board the plane. It's no Delta.

Arriving in Lubumbashi, Katangaq, I feel like I am in a different country but can't put my finger on why I feel this way. The temperature is nice - in the upper 70s and lower 80s. The city has an open feel to it and lacks the grit and dirt that defines Kinshasa.

And in many ways, this is a different country. It's definitely tried to be, with successionist attempts that were actually supported by Belgium troops right after independence (later US and european troops were sent to quell a rebellion attempt). Now there is still the issue that the vast mineral wealth of Katanga province is perceived as being channeled to Kinshasa.

Katanga is known as "the forgotten crisis" in Congo. While Ituri and the Kivu provinces are well known for their problems, Katanga has been slowly going from bad to worse. Local groups that were originally supported by the Kinshasa government to fight Rwandan troops in the late 1990s got out of Kinshasa's control a while back. The "give some guys arms and money" technique of fighting your opponent tends to backfire once they realize that guns = power, so why back down? The government decided to head after the leader by staging a military operation. Congolese military are underpaid and not very disciplined, so populations have been getting the heck out of the way to avoid both the rebel movement and their own soldiers. As military operations have shifted, so has the population movement. Next week we will be going to check out some of the areas where people have gathered to get a good idea of how many are around, principle problems and possible solutions.

Last night colleagues and I spread out maps at a local restaurant and planned a field mission with another organization. We discussed which areas were secure, which roads were passable, where the military was, and what we knew about certain areas. I'd be lying if I said that I was not being drawn in to the sense of urgency that accompanies this work...it's exciting and exhilarating.

There are many steps we take to stay safe. The first is information on the ground. We find organizations that are/have been in these areas and talk with them. Second is communication - we have satellite phones and radio networks. Third is common sense - no need to be cowboys, if people say an area is not secure, we do not go. The security strategy of most humanitarian organizations is based on acceptance, and the one that I work for is no exception.

The best part - Lubumbashi has two KFC restaurants (Katanga Fried Chiken). No lie.

2006-04-10T19:19:00.000+02:00

I don't know why, but once you try to take pictures of kids they start going for kung-fu poses. This photo is from a village 20km from Kindu.

Lumbubashi/Lubumbashi/Lumbumbashi

2006-04-07T16:39:00.000+02:00

Working in Africa has had some unexpected benefits. For starters, I have incredible night vision. If there's a guy on the road wearing all black fifty feet in front of the car in a town with no lights, I can spot him. This skill was quite essential in Niger, where bicycling at night with no reflectors wearing dark clothing was pretty much a national hobby. I can also manouever a vehicle out of mud or sand, while being watched by children, adults and couple goats. And I can spell the names of hard-to-spell places, like Lubumbashi.

I had a talk with a pilot two days ago in Goma, one that echoed a conversation I had had with my friend Emmet a day earlier in Kigali. The theme was basically, "Are we crazy for doing what we do, or are the people who think we're crazy actually the crazy ones?" Every move we make gives us another experience that most people from our home towns would never understand, though I do find people are usually very nice about saying they think I am doing good work. It's quite strange. If people start talking to me about "those poor Africans," I reply about their resourcefulness and strength. If people claim that we should stop wasting our money on lost causes and focus on problems at home, my response emphasizes the huge challenges that come from the horrible colonial history, even though I know that you can't blame the past forever. I play a bit of a devil's advocate because I know most people have a composite image based on photos, news stories, movies and national geographic. And i know that I can never explain Congo, much less "Africa," but I try to add a new dimension to the concept.

I am about to add a new hard-to-spell place to my life: I will be moving to Lubumbashi next week to help start up our emergency operations in Katanga. In Katanga, Congolese military has been heading after some rebels, with civilians losing on all accounts. Tens of thousands are currently displaced with very little assistance.

Like an impressionist painting, the Congo looks so lovely from a distance. These rolling hills are near Bukavu in the East. I took the photo this morning on my flight back to Kindu.

Kinshasa fearing Baghdad

2006-03-29T18:59:00.000+02:00

I am not sure the extent to which Congo makes it into the mainstream media these days. However, I do know that in the next few months a spotlight will be on it from certain news sources, as it will be holding elections in June.

Stories referring to the Congo usually include phrases like “the forgotten crisis” and add for good measure that the situation risks “destabilizing the region.” The second statement is very true, but I don’t think this region has been terribly stable for the last few decades. Perhaps the word “again” should be added in parentheses. In the history of the Congo no leader has ever been able to secure the eastern portion, or The East, is it as often labeled, with capital letters, as though Eastern Congo were a separate country (which in many ways it is). Supporting armed movements, playing groups against each other, preventing local officials from having too much power…various tactics have been used by leaders maintain (or acquire) a grip on this region.

So what happens now that people can vote? Check out this New York Times article on the elections. I love the irony of the introduction:

“One of the angry young men marching through the streets here in the Congolese capital the other day carried a handwritten sign that summed up this country's worst fears. ‘Tshisekedi,’ it said, ‘or Iraq’ ” (Tshisekedi is an opposition politician who’s so into opposing things that he’s even opposed the elections – trying unsuccessfully to get his party to boycott the earlier referendum on the constitution).

In a country that has had dozens of rebel movements, eight foreign armies fighting out their own conflicts on Congolese soil, tens of thousands of women raped, and 1,200 people dying per day in 2003 as a result of the five-year conflict that still hasn’t gone away - I really think the Iraqis have more to fear from a Congo-type situation than vice-versa.

So what does “or Iraq?” mean when the journalist says that it “sums up this country’s worst fears?” That they will have civil-war style violence? Already happened and continues in some forms. That they will be invaded by a foreign army? Precisely what happened in 1998 and 1999. That groups will dissolve into sectarian violence? Check out Katanga, Ituri and the Kivus – all provinces have violence fissuring on ethnic lines.

I am more impressed in the element of globalization that would lead a protestor in Kinshasa to put Iraq on his placard than the journalist’s assessment of the deep meaning on this statement.

This does not mean I am not concerned about the fate of the Congo following the elections. I just think that we need not look any farther than the Congo's history to express our fears.

Crazy muzungus on wheels

2006-03-28T12:12:00.000+02:00

Last night I was driving 20km/hr (12mph) on the main road. While those jeep commercials make four-wheel-driving look like soooooo much fun, when you have to bump and jump every hole and ravine, you pray for pavement after day 1. The context of this story - It was night and the road was quite slippery from the downpour that had happened that afternoon. I was scanning for the turnoff where a friend lives. A motorcycle was a behind me a bit.

I noticed a baby goat in the road and slammed on the brakes. I looked in my rearview mirror and the motorcyclist pulled up unsteadily next to me. He threw down his bike and was not very happy. In a similar situation in the U.S. I would have had three thoughts: "did I cause an accident/was it my fault/is the other person okay?" Here I thought "no/no/yes" mouthed that there was a goat in the road and gave him a "give me a break" look. Seriously, if this guy fell because of me he's not a very good driver. Plus, he didn't fall, because he pulled up next to me to express his discontentment. I'm a bit tired of having absolutely no room for error because I'm a muzungu (white person). My once friend splashed mud on a guy on a motorcycle with her truck as they were passing in the street and he demanded she buy him new clothes!

I turned onto the dirt road where my friend lived. The motorcycle followed me, not that I was too worried about this guy, as the car was locked and I had my cellphone to call in troops in the unlikely event I needed help. The road has a bit of a tricky uphill, and a young man and woman moved to the side as my truck struggled to go up. Unsuccessfully, as it turned out, since I kept sliding back. I tried a few times. I think the motorcycle tried to follow up once and then got the heck out of my why as I slid back towards it. This guy probably became convinced that I was actually trying to kill him, because he left. I popped out of the truck, smiled at the couple, asked if there was crazy guy on a bike around (I think the look they gave me was "nope, but there's a crazy white girl in a truck!"), and locked the wheels so I could engage the four-wheel drive. Two attempts later I made it up the hill to my friends house.

I know what you're thinking: "was the baby goat okay? Did the little guy make it?"

Indeed he did.

One year in Congo

2006-03-24T17:25:00.000+02:00

Monday was my one year anniversary in the Congo. I feel like avideo montage should be playing in my head to some cheesy song (like that 80s rock song with the chorus "I catch some rays down in Africa"). I picture clips of me riding in the landcruiser or in a helicopter and chatting with a local village chief. It would probably be the kind of clip that would make me want to be an aid worker if I weren't already one. Then I could have a nice sad song playing and you'd see a more realistic version - eating cold beans and rice, throwing water on my kerosene stove when I tried to use it to heat up my cold beans and rice, having my laptop battery die right as I was getting to climax of a movie, and that great look on my face when I found out the spare parts needed to repair our generator were not available in Congo. I'd like to reflect on some of the special moments and the ones that pushed me over the edge.

March 2005 - I arrive. My first impression on the road into Kinshasa is a huge church with a tin roof, shaped like a barn. Lightenly reflected off the roof as we drove by in the rain. I was listening to Arcade Fire on my ipod.

May 2005 - I breakdown and start crying at my friend Rashid's house after finding out that I would not be on the flight manifest for the flight the next day to Kinshasa (I didn't know that I had to fax a UN office my travel approval. It had been a bad week, and this was the last straw). Rashid's a pretty strong guy and nearly flung me across the room when he patted me on the back, but he handled the situation quite well. Luckily I had the good fortune of having the breakdown in front of a guy who worked for the UN office that handled the flight manifests (he happened to be stopping by). This guy was my neighbor and a colleague and I had always wondered how to get into his good graces. Apparently appearing nice but emotional unstable does the trick - my name was on the manifest the next day.

August 2005 - I wake up at 5:30am in a village. No one else is up, the sky is just getting light, and the village is completely silent. A rare thing in Congo.

August 2005 - My friends who are colonels in the Indian army hold back my hair as I throw-up at their hospital. They take turns keeping watch in the room and make me a special rice and lentil dish that is gentle on the stomach.

October 2005 - I fly in a small cessna plane over Maniema and see dozens of separate plumes of smoke from the fires clearing bush. Lightning strikes far off. The plane shakes. My friend Emmet and I exchange "should we be worried" glances. He smiles and I am no longer tense about the plane.

December 2005 - I sit on the arm of an oversized chair in Ngili airport in Kinshasa, after paying my first and only bribe in the congo to get into the VIP room. I look around, wondering where everyone is going and how they ended up in the Congo.

March 2006 - I chat with friends at the South African base; like so many Friday nights before. Someone snaps this photo. This small group is South African, Uruguayan, Peruvian, Italian, American, Russian, Swiss, German and Dutch.

Now off to that base for another Friday night in Kindu...

"The Business of Giving"

2006-03-19T15:44:00.000+02:00

Today’s been a lazy Sunday. Sitting on my porch over-looking Kindu’s main road, wearing my straw cowboy hat and tanktop, reading the Economist. If only I had a margarita. Sounds a bit like a jungle paradise but I stay confined to my porch because I’d rather not engage with Kindu. I just want a break from the Congo today. But Congo is hard to ignore – the keyboard equivalent of karaoke is going on a few doors down and Kindu’s few motorcycles and trucks seem to be set on buzzing past my apartment at full speed.

When I saw the Economist on my friend’s couch yesterday it was like the light of heaven shining down on a holy artifact. Seriously, the sunlight was aimed straight at it and was being reflected. A little holy grail of semi-current political info. I do keep up with news on the internet but I miss newspapers and magazines. One of the disadvantages of being in the middle of the Congo is not being able to participate in discussions on the bigger picture of development and humanitarian assistance – I spend most of my time focusing on the day to day management of assistance. One article got my brain back in analysis mode.

This issue (February 25- March 3) has a large section on "The Business of Giving." It’s about the increase in philanthropy and the business-like approaches of funding organizations and projects tackling poverty and other modern-day problems. The gist of the article is that new philanthropists like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are taking some new spins on philanthropy in order to try to get the maximum impact out of their work. I was glued to the article.

What I find most interesting are numerous implications on how non-profits can learn from the for-profit enterprises (i.e. if we are so smart to make millions why not apply or skills the world’s problems?). The article discusses different approaches – pairing non-profits with for-profits in certain ventures, social entrepreneurship (applying business practices for social ends), venture philanthropists (couldn’t find an exact definition, but basically similar to venture capitalists, but targeting and supporting upstart social enterprises), corporate philanthropy (philanthropic activities by corporations) and expanding the non-profit enterprises of management consultants.

I couldn’t help but feel that the article started with the assumption that non-profits are at best inefficient. Take the following statements:

“The social sectors do not have rational capital markets to channel resources to those who delivery the best results.” (quote from Jim Collins, management guru).

“Both governments and non-profits have traditionally been run inefficiently.”

My personal favorite (regarding gearing MBA grads to non-profits):
“A bright young person can have more of an impact on any non-profit in his first five years than on Goldman Sachs, which is full of bright young people. In their first year they could make ten suggestions that would improve the non-profit operations because they have been trained in practical business ways of thinking.” (quote from Mr. Schramm of he Kauffman Foundation).

Ouch. So, in a nutshell, non-profits don’t have bright young people and we have no business sense. Why didn’t he just add that we’re also unattractive and without charm, just to take another dig? Only ten suggestions? Sounds like with all their practical business sense they could show us the light on at least a hundred things! And perhaps on our personal lives as well! Mold us in your image!

Alright, enough teasing of the stiff business types by the misguided non-profit NGO worker (who, by the way, does have a masters degree, speaks French fluently, and can name the capitals of all fifty states). I believe that the desire of the newly superrich to increase their actions in working against poverty is exciting, though I am more skeptical of the corporate action (more on this in a bit). Action and debate promotes innovation – and that seems like we can expect some. But I have some concerns as well.

Why do non-profits exist? Usually to address problems that are not being in their eyes properly handled by a government. Why do governments (and not the private sector) provide social welfare systems? Because the supply and demand nature of economies is not geared towards the provision of certain public goods, such as universal healthcare and roads, and poorer people would be excluded from accessing quality services and goods in an unregulated market approach. This makes one wonder about the appropriateness of the business-oriented approach, as private market generally leads to the need for non-profits! However, this debate in more about what private enterprises and like-minded foundations can add, rather than one on the privatization of social assistance.

One question I have is whether “venture social capital,” “social investing” and for-profit models for non-profit enterprises could encourage innovation by supporting activities that might be too far out for the normal donors, do these same models risk focusing more on financial sustainability than impact?

I think this question is particularly important because often the bigger then need the higher the cost – at least in terms of vulnerable populations. For instance, getting health access to families that already live in areas with some road infrastructure is much cheaper than targeting areas only accessibly by plane, but the needs in the isolated areas will be higher precisely because they are isolated (less livelihood opportunities, economic activity). A business-oriented cost-recovery scheme would therefore be more likely to succeed in the first case than the second. If the results are to be measured more in terms of social impact than financial (which ain’t easy), arguments can still be made that the overall impacts will be higher in area that have a lower cost per beneficiary as more people could be served. In both scenarios the groups with the higher needs will be less likely to be targeted. I would be interested to know if the ventures being supported in developing countries by this “new giving” are mainly geared towards the poor (but not poorest) and middle class. If it is, is this necessary a bad thing? Let’s keep in mind that the majority of development and humanitarian assistance comes from governments and international institutions. If other donors address the needs of the more vulnerable groups and tend to ignore the needs of the middle class and borderline poor, than the combination of public assistance and new philanthropy is quite in harmony.

What worries me more are the measures of success. In business, success = profit. In one of the above quotes, the concern was to put resources with those who deliver the “best” results. However, focusing narrowly on the achievement of a certain objective risks removing the problem from the context. How do you compare a program that can supply 50,000 families with access to malaria drugs but by-passes or minimizes the role of local government structures with one that uses the same money to reach 20,000 families through government sponsored centers, which builds the capacity of the local government? MBA boys, break out those spreadsheets and share your eternal wisdom.

Finally, there was also a section on corporate philanthropy. The article states that “corporate philanthropy is also becoming more important in developing countries, where firms may feel the need to support local communities by contributing through their foundations to healthcare, education and so on.” It cites the example of how Nestlé invests in “milk production systems” in developing countries to “ensure a reliable supply.” Aha. I see. Nestle just wants to help. The article failed to mention that Nestle has promoted breast milk substitutes in developing countries, which is a big no-no. In addition to being against sound health advice to promote the well-being of children in countries where living to the age of five is not a given, even Neslon Mandela has refused donations by Nestle for his charity. And they are just trying to “promote supply.” When poor families water-down powdered milk, children are malnourished. Do we really have to learn that mistake again and then give Nestle a gold star for cloaking corporate irresponsibility with philanthropy?

Let’s keep in mind that the aid industry is already often tied to business interests, and that this partnership is often to our detriment. For instance, the U.S. government provides the bulk of its assistance in food aid in order to cater to American farmers, even though this is extremely costly and minimum standards in food assistance stipulate that food should be procured locally or regionally if the market can support this effectively. Efforts to end this practice have also met significant resistance from shipping companies, who make millions in the transport.

The bottom-line: A private enterprise approach to solving the problems facing the world is not new. However, the attention given to it by the rich and powerful “new philanthropists” could have an incredible impact on world poverty and their desire to use business-like approaches could allow non-profits and other actors to expand market-oriented activities and increase their effectiveness. But rich guys, I beg you, just as everyone is in a rush to tell NGOs how to run like a business, bring NGO staff aboard at your foundations, if you haven’t already. It’s taken decades of learning the hard way to get as good as we are, even if that’s not good enough for you. Viewing global poverty through the eyes of a businessman has its limits and its only in recognizing those limits that this partnership can work. I’ll be leaving the Congo by August – have your people talk to mine.

Pass Go, Pay $200

2006-03-15T10:00:00.000+02:00

I would love to make a Congolese version of the game "Monopoly." In the U.S.A you can find Monopoly versions geared towards specific cities and sports team. Why not countries? For the Congo version, if you got into jail you could bribe yourself out. Passing go you'd probably pay $200 for a visa.

In Monopoly I used to go for the Railroads. This would be an interesting property in the Congolese version. You could buy Lubumbashi, Kindu, Ubundu and Kisangani. But would you make any money? Let's use problems currently facing the SNCC (Congolese Rail Company - owned by the state). I'll be an NGO player who lands on your space (shall I be the boot? The little dog? How about a miniature land cruiser?).

First, you charge me for the wagons I need to rent from you ($27,000 for eight wagons). Not bad for you. Then I must compete with the military (represented by the cannon), who's also landed on your space, and wants to ship rations. The military takes priority but the general then uses the wagons to ship his own building materials to his home town. Then you keep my money and tell me that the wagons aren't available. I stay on the space for a couple of weeks and I do get four wagons, three of which get stuck along the way when the engine breaks down. Six weeks later I am still on your space, you still have my money, and my personal bank is diminishing because I'm paying a hotel rent all the while. Meanwhile, your space has also been visited by many small vendors (represented by the top hat) who start protesting since their merchandise has been in your warehouses for six months and they are going out of business. You have already spent the rent that they paid without delivering their items.

So now you have several irritated players, $27,000, and a general who will probably invite you to his housewarming party (the downside is that it might be broken up by a bunch of angry soldiers that have not received their rations and have been preying on the local population in the meantime).

Who wins? Because the train delays are increasing the price of basic goods like salt, cement, and soap in Kindu, putting people out of business, and delaying humanitarian assistance, it's clear who is losing.

Driving Down and Up a Hill in Kindu

2006-03-14T18:19:00.000+02:00

My truck rumbles down the hill
An upside down wave of dirt and pebble
Three merchant stands cluster at the bottom
Like the nights before

The stands are shrines with candles
To the cigarette gods
To the candy goddesses
Watched over by women
Worshipped by children

I drive slowly by
Leaving no offering
And up the crest of the wave
To find another blessing

Pagne Princess

2006-03-10T12:17:00.000+02:00

If I weren't so white, I'd almost look Congolese (pictured with my colleague Martin, who does road rehabilitation work).

International Women's Day

2006-03-09T10:57:00.000+02:00

Yesterday was International Women’s Day. On Monday my colleagues (all of whom but one are men) asked me if I would be marching in the parade.

Me- “What parade?”

Them – “The women’s day one.”

Me – “Tomorrow's women’s day? And a parade?”

Them- “Yes. You HAVE to march. You are our (fill in the blank of my organization) woman!”

At this point they stepped into action. First, I needed to buy the pagne (brightly printed cotton material) that our partner organization was wearing. It’s essential that we all have matching outfits. So we grabbed one a guy who knew the correct pagne went to the shop where the women had bought their material. Mission 1 accomplished. Of course it’s not what I would have chosen (stripes AND polka dots, with blue, red, yellow, white and black. Oh my). We dropped this guy back at the office and I continued with a male staff who works for me as a field supervisor. We went to the tailor, who was busy with many matching pagnes, but agreed to step into action to make mine. My first rule – absolutely no puffy sleeves. Some outfits here have puffy sleeves that would even put a 1980s prom dress to shame. I just said “something simple, pointed to a sketch, and he got working.” I stopped by three hours later, still with my colleague, who insisted on seeing the mission through. I sat for thirty minutes as they finished the dress. I rarely spend time in town, since being a white person means just being stared at, and there’s really not many places to go. So I liked just sitting in this little shop, which was pretty much a shack with no glass on the windows. A little girl sat next to me and we talked a bit. I explained that I worked in town and she told me about school. I tried the dress on. The guys thought it was nice but it needed a inch or two taken in, which they promptly did. When I put it back on they were quite happy and very impressed with both my appearance and their work.

Pagne - $4.00
Tailor - $3.60
Total - $7.60
Me wearing a Congolese outfit- Priceless

So yesterday was the actual parade. I was invited by the organizers and got to march with the first group of prestigious women (wives of leaders. No matter than I have no husband). The I sat back in the pavilion as the other groups passed. After three hours, they were still going. MONUC women. Cleaning women. Business women. Women from local associations (they are MANY. Who knew?). Women from every church known to man. Basically, thousands of women who all did a little dance in their matching pagnes as they marched by. By hour 4.5, my colleague and I realized we needed to escape. This thing was going to keep on going till nightfall. So I pretended to take a phone call and snuck out of the pavilion. Five minutes later he left, and walked the motorcycle to the road, where we met up and fled. Sitting side-saddle on a motorcycle is quite a balancing act!

When I explained that this day wasn't really celebrated in the states, my colleagues were aghast. It was like saying we don't celebrate Christmas. I'm not sure how I will break the news about Parent's Day and Teacher's Day (which also have parades).

My man Congo uses me for my money

2006-03-02T20:09:00.000+02:00

My friend Emmet and I exchange care packages. He actually lives in a worse place than Kindu – he is based in the no-cell-reception and not-a-bar-in-site (as-if-they-have-beer) town of Lubutu 150 miles north of me. I sent him some New Yorkers and a Vanity Fair via their logistics department. Can you imagine that these magazines did a two-day motorcycle journey through the jungle? Perhaps I should write the editors. By plane he sent me his Six Feet Under DVDs. Bless him. So today he was on a plane that made a half-hour stopover in Kindu. I drove to the airport and sat outside until the small Cessna plane landed.

Emmet looks like he just stumbled out of the jungle, even though he’d been in Goma all week. Unshaven and ruffled hair. We hugged and I gave him his latest care package of magazines and CD I burned. I also said hello to the Airserv pilot, who I’ve flown with a few times. Congo is a very small world for a large country.

As I drove out of the airport parking lot I noticed a bar/gate that was across the road. Very new. In fact, it hadn’t been down on my way in. After waiting a few minutes for the ever so friendly guy standing next to the gate to clear some motorcycles coming from the other side, this guy lowered the bar back down so I could not drive through. Then he came up to my window and told me that I had to pay the parking fee.

A bit of history about the Congo. One way to earn money – if you have any official or unofficial amount of authority – is to create some sort of barrier and harass people for money that cross it. You can call it a “tax” or “fee” or call it nothing at all. Most give some sort of receipt, which apparently validates the action. At the airport in Kinshasa there are three barriers that are small pieces of rope, each with soldiers. This rope could be cut it’s so thin. But yet our protocol person pays them off a few hundred francs so we can pass.

So now this man stood next to my car with a ticket book and told me I owed 200 francs (50 cents) to the RVA (airline authorities). Now, if I felt that this tax were really going to be used to improve the airport and aviation safety, I would pay. Nevermind that any plane ticket I purchase for civilian airlines includes $40 of taxes. But this money will just go into their pockets. They cannot tax UN vehicles and I told him that unless he showed me a mandate from the governor saying that this tax exists and that humanitarian agencies must pay, I was not paying. When he wouldn’t lift the gate I stopped my car and told him I would be walking back to town. He said I couldn’t leave the car there, so I told him he should open the gate. He eventually did.

He had said that the governor was not the only one who could levy taxes, that the RVA could. I doubt it’s true, but it sums up the mentality here – we can find a way to get money from you. The police invent fake documents you could not have, the immigration people ask with a completely straight face for a $5 entry fee to Kindu, and the health department says you owe them $7 when you leave. And they really hate that us NGOs will fight tooth and nail to not pay – we have the money, we are here to help, they have receipts for us….what’s our problem?

In Kindu I would estimate that 85% of vehicles belong to the UN, 10% to NGOs and 5% to Congolese. If MONUC cannot be taxed, this means that this fee hits NGOs above all others, which really makes me angry. I feel like working towards development in this country is like trying to make a bad relationship work. I want it to work, but my man Congo is just using me for my money.

I am happy that people like my poems.

Mountain goats in Kindu

2006-03-01T17:39:00.000+02:00

Mountain goats in Kindu
Even with no mountains
They seek a view from above
A dirt hill will do

Eternal optimists
Jumping over trash
Nibbling on cans

Fate will not be kind to you
But I respect your instinct
To see the world differently
And believe in a better view

Eat your heart out, Conrad

2006-02-22T18:45:00.000+02:00

My friend Anja taught me how to drive a motorcycle a few weeks ago. Since then we've been around town twice. There are only a handful of white women in town so to have two of them go by on motorcycles in apparently quite a sight. Anja and I went to the Uruguayan water plant (yes, Kindu has a water plant run by Uruguaynas. Don't ask why, just accept) and practiced. Had we done it in town we'd be surrounded by Congolese kids in a heartbeat. It only took me a few tries to take off in first gear. Kindu's dirt roads are terrible so we can't get going too fast and I wear a helmut (this last information is for the benefit of my family, who thinking back to me learning how to drive a car, is likely slightly concerned by the motorbike concept). I gotta say, straddling a motorcycle and revving the engine is pretty friggin cool. And I think my reputation jumped a few notches in Kindu.

The Selfish Altruist

2006-02-21T17:13:00.000+02:00

I wish I could lay claim to the term "Selfish Altruist" but it's the title of a book I just finished regarding us humanitarians and the mess-ups that we do in the name of saving the world. The title was probably my favorite part of the book.

In December I was drinking bear and playing poker with my siser at a Mexican in Marietta, Georgia. We got to talking with our fellow players, about where we went to high school and where we lived now. When they found out that I did aid work in the Congo, it's like you could see them visualizing me with a halo above my head. They let me know just how great they thought I was for doing what I do. Even though I had a beer in one hand and was trying to bluff my way out of a bad hand. Even though this is my job, just as father is a lawyer and my mother is a teacher, and they give to charities, doing their own part to make the world a better place. But the difference is that I was perceived as making a large sacrifice. I've never seen it as that - in my mind it's more a "questionable career decision" or "temporary moment of insanity" and who doesn't have those? So I particularly like the term selfish altruist because it captures the spirit of this work. If I were a complete altruist I could sell everything I own and work here for free. Heck no. I do this work because I want to make a difference in this world and because I like the challenges and new terrain that it involves. Both of these motives are highly personal, and they come back to my own needs in the end. And in the end, compassion and altruism are much harder to hold onto in this line of work because you get quite used to poverty and you start to really understand that many factors keep people and countries pooor - and you wonder why people as individuals, communities and governments are not doing more. You see that doing good is a business with competition for resources, good and bad bosses, and late nights in the office. You wonder at what point you will stop being an optimist, because if we don't believe that things will get better, then we will be forced to see our work a failure.

Above all, I think the element of self interest is necessary. We are only as good as our work. Good intentions are the same in this work as anywhere else. To really make a difference, you need to be motivated (your own self interest, which can be competive wages, trainings, etc) and work with effective organizations (their own interests to continue to receive governent and private funding). The UN Volunteer program relies heavily on the "volunteer spirit." I can tell you right now that if someone brought up in a staff meeting that we were all going to take a significant paycut this year but that "it's not about the money, right? it's about helping people! Volunteer spirit!" we'd promptly toss that person out the window (if it didn't have bars on it). Perhaps I should just hit delete and keep on being an angel.

The Nescafe Model of Development

2006-02-16T20:46:00.000+02:00

Anyone who's ever spent time in the Africa (and many other places - feel free to chime in) has run into the "Nescafe" phenomenon. I also like to refer to it as the "who do I have to kill to get a decent cup of coffee" kunumdrum. Rather than real coffee, most establishments, office coffee areas (if you are lucky enough to have one), etc. have Nescafe - instant coffee. It's just not that great. And rather than just recognize it's inadequacies and replacing it, it's just modified and jazzed up to appear better than it is. This is a nice metaphor for governments and development in many third world countries. Say you have a bad road maintenance system (or a "Nescafe" road system): roads are deteriorating more and more, newly rehabilitated ones are not maintained, repair work is temporary and shoddy, and the government agency in charge of it has neither the funding nore inclination to make things better. Logically you should replace it with a system that works - alter government agencies' roles, responsbilities, methods of finance, etc - and turn it into a "Pressed coffee" road maintenance system. No need to aim for "Cappuncino" road maintenance system - let's be realistic. Instead, however, we try to make the old thing seem better when it's not - we effectively turn it into a Nespresso. The same old government agency that hasn't been able to do anything puts a spin on its role, makes bold statements it can't live up to, and just keeps being the same ineffective actor it was before, just packaged differently. I, for one, am tired of Nespressos, Nescappuncinos, and Nescafe Lattes. It's time for change; it's time for the reign of Nescafe to end. Join me in the revolution.

2006-02-10T17:47:00.000+02:00

The boy on the right is my Tunda buddy.

Tunda: The Return

2006-02-10T15:45:00.000+02:00

Tunda is a town that is no more than a small dot on the map in central/Eastern Congo. There is a coral church, built in the 1920s, at the end of a dirt road lined with palm trees. Sound familiar?

Tunda was a big part of my June blog, when I spent a week there with an evaluation team. I biked through the jungle, causing women to cheer and make a high pithed noise that reminds me of Xena Warrior Princess. After saying my good-byes and boarding a plane, I thought that would be the end of my visit to Tunda. But then the plane ran off the runway and the pilots and I were stranded for a few days more. So needless to say, I was recognized when I got off of the UN Helicopter in Tunda last week.

I am happy to be bringing assistance with me this time - we will be distributing farming tools, used clothing and soap to more than 1000 households.

It was actually a bit emotional. There was this child, a boy who was probably five years old or so, who took to holding my hand when I walked through the village. It felt so nice. Many places is the Congo make you feel used, but Tunda makes me feel welcome.

In other news, stay tuned for my adventures learning how to drive a motorcycle - complete with photos!

The Muzungu Files

2006-02-06T19:05:00.000+02:00

While the following statement is downright obvious, I would like to point out that the Congo jungle is mighty hot. That’s why, when we do distributions of household items to families, we create nice shady spots in villages. That is, assuming your trucks with said items make it to said shady spots. If they break down 500 meters down the road, all bests are off. So instead of roping off a nice little field area and doing this thing the right way, we just made everyone walk downs to the trucks and did it on the road (more aptly described as a jungle path). I’d like to say that this was “the fun way,” but alas, it was just a bit of a headache.

I did, however, get to practice some Swahili. Having gotten tired of the guys waiting on the sidelines trying to get my attention by hissing at me (this actually isn’t necessary impolite, though hard to get used to) and saying, “muzungu. muzungu. MUZUNGU!” (muzungu = white person) I decided that it was finally time to abandon my French and pull out the big guns. My colleague helped me translate something, and I read it a few times to get the pronunciation write. Then I took our megaphone, walked up to the guys and said. “Mwengine mutu mwenye ata ni ita muzungu hata pata tena kit.” This means “the next person that calls me muzungu is not getting a kit.” I added with a smile, “Assanti sana.” (Thank you).

Ode to my red-sheeted bed at 1 a.m.

2006-01-25T17:39:00.000+02:00

My mosquito net watches over me
Tucked into the foam mattress
Catching my cell phone alarm clock
When I accidentally push it off

Sheets clinging to me
Out of love? Out of heat?

I roll to the same spot out of habit and gravity
The imprint of my body in the mattress
My bed does not want to forget me
When I leave it

How beautiful is this boy?

2006-01-17T21:13:00.000+02:00

I have a confession to make. I bought a nice new digital camera and it makes taking pictures sooooooooooooo fun. The instant gratification of the digital with the options of an SLR. So this picture was taken 26km up-river from Kindu. I had a group of children following me around like my personal army. I took a bunch of photos and this is one my faves. We had done a seed fair there (picture a market with seeds and tools and a thousand people). Underneath that hot Congo sun. Hot, that is, until about 30 minutes into our boat ride back to Kindu when it started pouring down rain. Then we ran out of gas. It was like a comedy routine (as is much of my life here). Everyone laughed as we passed the a plastic jug up to the front of the boat and siphoned off gas from the motorcycle we were transporting. 15 drenched soles huddling in shocking orange life jackets - pure comedy gold!

Three moments during the journey from New York to Kindu

2006-01-13T16:56:00.000+02:00

I looked out the window as the city lights of New York became smaller and disappeared. An hour before I had smiled at the Air France agent who told me I was likely to miss my connection in Paris. Such things really aren’t so important when I think of all the flights I had made and missed in Congo, and the crucial one that got me to Tanzania to be with my family. I also recalled the time I spent at JFK exactly one year before when my flight to Morocco was canceled. It took me a personal record of eight days to journey from NY to Niger. Or maybe the smile was because she had just said that I might have to take a Sunday flight and I had the break the news that the next flight to Congo from Paris would be three days later. She glanced back at her computer, gave me a voucher that could buy food at JFK airport, and told me she would put me at the top of the stand-by list for a flight leaving an hour from then. I pondered getting a glass of wine with the voucher, the decided on a Tuna fish sandwich. My logic was that if I missed the flight I would definitely be needing a glass of wine and would willingly pay for it, and if I did not, I could enjoy one on the plane. Eating a tuna fish sandwich next to the check-in counter seemed like a logical choice. I made the flight.

I stared at Kinshasa from a rooftop Indian restaurant. All cities look better from higher up, but especially cities in third world countries. It’s like standing back from a piece of imperfect art: you can’t see the flaws. The restaurant had a gold glitter toilet seat that seemed especially funny after I had drunk a beer. The elevator operator was Congolese man wearing an ill-fitting bellhop styled uniform. Congolese have a way of being regal amid the grime of cities or the poverty of villages, and the juxtaposition of this man and the dank claustrophobic elevator made for a perfect example. The elevator always stopped on the second floor on its way up and down. “It’s a like a car shifting gears,” said my friend, and we all laughed.

I opened the door of my Kindu apartment. One of our guards, Pappa Donation, stood outside wearing a thinning yellow t-shirt and smiling mischievously. “Bonne fete,” he said and handed me a small plastic sack. Inside were three eggplants - a perfect present.

New Years Resolutions

2006-01-06T05:14:00.000+02:00

My new years resolutions are to:

1) Learn conversational Spanish
2) Meditate more
3) Take lots of photos

Then there are the lofty-not-gonna-happen new years resolutions that sound fun to say, as though writing them means that they will magically happen. These are:

1) Write a book
2) Become fluent in Spanish
3) Going running a lot*
4) Promote free and fair elections in Congo

*Voluntarily. Does not include being chased.

I rang in the New Year in Boston among friends and it was lovely lovely - luxury chill. I will miss them, my other friends, and my family lots as I head back to Congo. I wish I had a clear sense of where I would like to be in a few months but I'm still wide open.

Happy New Year.

Tomorrow I head back to Congo. Being in the states has been great

Reindeer + Rant

2006-01-03T06:05:00.000+02:00

There is a 5 foot tall (thats 1.6 meters or so for the rest of the world) reindeer standing in my living room. My father was going to repair the wired animal - it's part of the out-of-this-world lighted display at my parents' house that provides christmas spirit and joy to all who live on our small out-of-the-way street and severe confusion for pilots looking for runways. It reminds me of these lighted palm trees that they have at the Grand hotel in Kinshasa. These trees frame one of the outdoor areas and I really thought that they would look great in my apartment. Granted, they might fry the generator, but I think it would be worth it. They would be a great accompanyment to my inflatable Eiffel Tower, which I got on one of my stints as a tour guide in Paris, at a store called "Why?"

Changing subjects completely, here is a link to a very interesting article on international aid to the third world. Follow this link at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/15/opinion/15theroux.html?emc=eta1

While I find the Theroux's article terribly simplistic, it has an important point that if third world governments cared more about their people's quality of life then development would move forward. However, and this is a catch 22 that the article does not address, this necessitates that people who care become people with power (or likewise, people with power become people who care). Third world countries in Africa are not the United States. Candidates don't run on platforms and then prove themselves to the people. Getting power is not an easy thing - wars aren't terriblely less common than fair elections. To get power means to help others, and this usually means paying others, hiring others, feeding others, giving loans to others, contracts to others...etc. You "take care" of your those who support you. this eventually leads to crony-ism, if that's really a world. So to expect some of these governments to start voluntarily making large investments in social services and infrastructure can be a bit unrealistic. My problem with the article is that its assumptions that aid has not worked and that more aid will not work lead to the idea that governments might step up to the plate if they didn't have all this money to cover for them. Sadly, I don't think that is the case. If my organization did not build a road, would the government do it? If we stopped funding medical supplies to health centers, would the Congolese parliament take notice and demand that funds be released to help the people of that town? The answer is no. The power base of these political entities is eons away from the rural, decentralised villages. Non-governmental organizations and international organizations might be seen as letting governments off the hook by taking up their slack, but leaving people without healthcare, without roads, with poor education, and with questional water sources helps no one. I cannot refute the argument that sustainable development requires a government accountable to its people, but I can say that in many areas of the world this might take a wee bit of time, and working to ensure a dignified life for people in the meantine is not only not a waste of money, but a worthy cause that should continue to be supported to the fullest extent possible.

2005-12-22T05:25:00.000+02:00

I have tried to sum up how being home can be nice but it's also a little strange. While I don't expect the world to stand still while I am away the main thing I have to base it on when I am in the Congo is how things were when I left. Home becomes an idea: pictures and thoughts of people and places that don't necessarily update themselves based on reality. So coming home is like arriving at your house and finding the furniture rearranged - it's the same but different.

Haiku of the day:

Pink hats and snowflakes
One is fuzzy, one is brave
I missed you both

The American Jungle

2005-12-16T15:41:00.000+02:00

As I settled into my seat on an air france flight exactly one week ago, I marveled at how I had already entered a more orderly world. Assigned seating. Nice rule-enforcing stewaerdesses. Background music. It was a lovely feeling.

Arriving in NY my linen jacket was no match for the December chill, but I only had to run from the cab to my friend Courtney's apartment, where I raided her closet. It's been a while since I wore winter clothes and it felt nice to bundle up. That weekend Court, her boyfriend and I ate good thai food, attended a fun cocktail party in Brooklyn, and played botchi ball at what has to be the world's only bar with a botchi ball court inside. Court? Pitch? Not sure of the name of the place-where-one-plays-botchi, but I was amazingly lucky and kept winning.

After the weekend I went home to Georgia and cluttered my room at my folk's house with my two suitcases and a box I shipped from Niger that I still haven't opened and have forgotten what's inside. Clothing and a moroccan rug I think (I got stranded in Casablanca on my way to Niger last year. It took me EIGHT DAYS to get from NY to Niamey. I think it's some kind of record). My mom, dad, grandpa and I went to our fave restaurant Pastis, where my grandfather regularly updates people about my life and pulls up my blog.

Now I am in DC. Last night I went to a holiday party with people in the development and humanitarian assistance industry and marveled that they are our (people in the field) counterpart. The yin to our yang. People thinking about the same issues that me and my colleagues think about but don't have the time to deal with them in depth because we are caught up in our day to day management activities. Neato. That said I definitely enjoyed talking about DC dating as much as saving the world (time and place for everything, right?). I even ran into someone that I had taken a flight with in Maniema.

I have a big question mark for what I am going to do when the project I work on closes at the end of April. More field? DC? Become an astronaut? Marry for money? Yes, the possibilities are endless, but it's good to get a feel for the DC thing.

Earthquakes and other unheard of events

2005-12-07T10:26:00.001+02:00

There was an earthquake to hit eastern congo two days ago, though not much has been reported on it (check out this link for an article: http://irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50508&SelectRegion=Great_Lakes&SelectCountry=DRC). A few people have died but there was remarkably not too much damage. Buildings in that area (Kalemie) are not structuraly sound but they are rarely above one story. More interesting perhaps is another tragedy that killed 20 or so people (I've heard different numbers) a couple of weeks ago. People often ride on the tops of train for transport, and dozens were swept off a train heading from Lubumbashi to Kindu by support beams on a bridge. Again, there was little reported on this, though the BBC had a mention.

Not to have a downer of a post, but on this theme of routineness by which people in third world countries face death and loss, I'd like to mention the saddest thing I've seen since my arrival in Africa 16 months ago. Incidentally, this incident was never reported in any press. I was in Niger, driving in between some very rural villages that had no roads connecting them. We got a little lost and ended up in a village not on our list to visit. There we asked a few men for directions. They gave them to us, but wanted to show us something. We got out of the car and walked towards a large whole in the ground where the earth have caved in on itself. It was about 8 meters in diameter. It used to be a well and it had collapsed five days before. Seven women, several with babies on their backs, had been gathering water when it caved in. They all perished. Some of these wells were dug more than 50 years ago and don't have proper support beams. Three men tried to retrieve the bodies and were killed when it collapsed farther. I imagine them with the ropes tide to their waists that were held by there brothers and friends, and how these same men had no choice but to flee as the ground gave way. In addition to the deaths they also lost their principal water source. But what surpised me was the way in which the event was recounted. The even tone of the voices of the men. I saw in their eyes that they wondered why this had happened to them in particular, but that they did not queston why such things happen. I saw acceptance. Death is very much a part of their lives. In America - in most any western country - such an event would have been front page news. But there we were the only outsiders to see what had happened, to hear their recount, and to have the scene imprinted on our minds. The men never asked us for help - not for a new well, not to help them retrieve the bodies, not to help the families of the deceased. They just wanted to tell the story.

Kiss my Kinshasa

2005-12-06T18:15:00.000+02:00

Today is Tuesday. I think I was born on a Tuesday, but that’s neither here nor there. I arrived in Kinshasa on Saturday. The UN flight was remarkably hassle-free. It arrived on time, and we even sat in the first class section. Joy! Once in Kinshasa I met up with a few new friends and enjoyed the city life. I think always manage to take a hot bath and eat pizza within a couple hours of my arrival, and this time was no exception.

I’m always surprised at the small adjustments that I make when from Kindu to Kinshasa. Maybe for an outsider might picture all these African towns as being the same, but basically Kinshasa is a bustling capital city with lots of traffic, people and movement, and Kindu is a one-street kinda town where 95% of the 70 or so vehicles belong the UN. I eat the same thing every day in Kindu and my life is pretty simple. I only have about eight places that I hang out at: friends’ houses, the three UN bases, UN headquarters, and one bar that I hardly visit. Everyone knows everyone. Kinshasa has so many choices in comparison: who to chill with, where to go, what to eat, what to buy. When I get to America on Friday there will be much more. I’ve realized that you don’t really need much to get by. In Kindu we rally because we don’t have too much to work with.

Looking forward to coming home.

2005-12-02T18:16:00.000+02:00

Haiku of the day: School children marching, Raising new desks above them, Like happy coffins;

Adjustments

2005-11-30T09:07:00.000+02:00

It’s probably a good thing that the internet is slow here. This means that at 99 cents a song I can’t do too much damage with i-tunes and my AmEx card. Though I certainly try. It’s also interrupted many an Old Navy browsing. I do love that I can have yahoo messenger. I have only one friend that I regularly chat with, so it’s basically my Dave-messenger system. And of course this blog serves as a nice outlet too. I’ve always had trouble keeping journals because I can’t pinpoint my audience: future self? Grandchildren? Eh?? But with a blog it is quite clear: friends, family, and a few perfect strangers who stumble across the site. I can always just print it out, laminate it, and save it for the grandkids.

Kindu is, by all standard definitions, quite lonely these days. But I am taking it in stride. This is just how it is here: friends travel a lot. I must learn Spanish since so many of UN peacekeeping buddies I can’t communicate with. Perhaps that’s why they think so highly of me. I just smile and nod. Of course I had to take five minutes to explain to the Bolivian commander that I was coming back after my vacation in December (he was about to plan a party for me). This involved a lot of hand signals (plane leaving, plane returning).

I’ve decided that listing the things that might cause “adjustment” issues when I go back to American might help me make this a fun and safe vacation:

- Driving: In Kinshasa you have to be aggressive to get to your location alive. In Kindu you can just do whatever you want so long as you don’t go too fast. But for America I will keep in mind that driving on the opposite side of the road when cars aren’t there isn’t acceptable, that curbs are not supposed to be jumped, and that it’s okay to keep more than five feet between you and the car in front of you.
- Planes: Apparently in America they will give me a time for the flight and it will take off without too many problems, maybe a few hours delay. You also won’t get stranded in random cities that weren’t even on your routing. However, in America, friends won’t be at the airport to hold the plane for me if I am running late.
- Money: In Congo I get used to carrying mad-cash. But in the good-ol-USA I can use this thing called a Credit Card.
- Work: I might as well accept that at the first mention of living in the Congo people will assume that I am in the middle of an African tribal-war zone. The real question is, how many free drinks will this get me?
- Conversation: Topics such as intestinal parasites, military movements, and malaria medication aren’t going to be the dinner party norm that they are in Kindu. Ha! As if we have dinner parties!

I’m sure that it will all work out just fine…

2005-11-28T08:20:00.000+02:00

Aren't these kids great? I really like the one in the black shirt trying to look tough. Dragon pose! When the adults didnt keep them at bay, these guys followed me around like my own army in Shoko (17 km from Kindu), shrieking and laughing.

2005-11-26T10:09:00.000+02:00

A house in Kasese tucked away in the jungle.

2005-11-26T09:21:00.000+02:00

It's Saturday morning and I'm at the office. My hair is a little frizzy from having been thrown in the pool at the South Africans last night. I didn't have the time to boil water for a warm bucket-bath, so I just put it in two braids and threw a hat over it. The South Africans have three small above-ground pools. The water was actually quite nice and had I not had my clothes on I probably would have enjoyed it even more.

The ministry people are still in town and today we are going to take them out to meet our beneficiaries. I think they were quite impressed with our powerpoint presentation, but considering since I've gotten to Africa I've seen some of the worse powerpoint presentations of my life (yellow font? small type?), it's not too hard to impress. I've made peace with the fact that their perdiems are more per day that the average Congolese makes in three months. It's just how it is here.

I have one week left in Kindu before I head to Kinshasa, from where I will head to the states for a month. I've finally allowed my less to fully realize that I will be getting out of the Congo and heading home. I haven't left Africa in 11 months. My last trip home left me a bit shell-shocked upon arrival. The jump from third to first world wasn't the smooth transition I had anticipated. I think that this time will be much better in that regard because I know what to expect.

2005-11-24T11:52:00.000+02:00

The water main broke outside of my friends house. People were bathing, gathering water in buckets and pans, and playing in it all day. We sat inside watching English soccer and could hear the kids laughing.

2005-11-24T11:46:00.000+02:00

A boy in Kasese.

Kasese

2005-11-22T20:26:00.000+02:00

Today I took a helicopter to a village called Kasese. It's in a mining zone, which means that a lot of people turn to individual extraction of minerals rather than farming. As my colleague and I spoke with locals regarding the humanitarian situation, we heard what we always hear: things are bad, help us. And of course things are bad. But the thing that got me was not the list of greivances, but meeting in passing someone who worked with the only NGO that had operations in Kasese. The sun was beating down on us, and he was holding his daughter, who looked to be about 8 months old. Her head was resting on his chest and her botton stuck out of her pants, which had shifted as he held her. The man apologized for not being able to meet us at the NGO as his daughter was sick. Probably meningitis. Were any local meds around? my colleague asked. The man shrugged and said there weren't any right now, and he was just hoping some would come. The NGO he worked for distributes health supplies, and he might now have any to save his daughter. He didn't seem angry. It was just how things were.

That was hard to see.

It's amazing how desensitized you can become to suffering when a large portion of the kids you see are malnourished, the men ex-combattants, and the women working dawn to dusk in the fields to keep food on the table.

However, if for me this is a coping strategy, I would love to know what the excuse of the Congolese government is. Bottom line - they feel no responsbility to the people, only to themselves.

2005-11-19T12:04:00.000+02:00

Took this picture from a pirogue (canoe-like boat) on the Congo River.

2005-11-19T12:03:00.000+02:00

VIVA BOLIVIA! Yes, this picture is taken in Congo. The red dress the woman is wearing is really really short and is paired with knee-high platform boots and thigh-high stocking. Traditional dress?!

I just got married to a Congolese man

2005-11-17T18:38:00.000+02:00

I'm only kidding. That's just a fun title to get my mom's heart beating a little faster. Once when I got a speeding ticket my sister broke it to her by first stating "Mom, I dropped out of school because I'm pregnant. Just kidding! Sarah got a speeding ticket." There are some honestly good Congolese guys but I'm happily single. I think my best friend (a guy) is convinced I'm dating one of the bolivian doctors, meanwhile my other guy friend thinks I'm with a local Brit, and I have no idea what the Bolivians think other than "what's this 18 year old doing in the Congo?" Alas, I am 28, but being 5'1 is a serious constraint to being taken seriously.

In other news, the my luggage (and my cheese) is still missing. My nice facial soap is touring the congo, along with my bikini, razor, H&M jacket, two bottles of wine, and other items that you wouldnt think you need in congo but you really really do. C'est la vie, c'est le Congo.

Cheese-Burundi-Plane

2005-11-11T15:15:00.000+02:00

I had written a nice long post last week and the ol' internet quit out on me as I sent it. So it goes.

In it I talked about the at-the-time hot gossip in Kindu. We had had a pretty bad rain storm that afternoon (incidentally I was on a boat on a the Congo river with no raincoat and arrived so what that I could squeeze water out of my underwear, but this is a different story). A cargo/passenger plane, after circling the airport three times, decided that he could land. And he did, only instead of touching down at the end of the runway, he hit towards the middle and just kept on going. This wasnt one of those little cessna planes. It was a jet. The landing gear was destroyed and the wings were quite damaged (apparently it wobbled and the wings scraped the ground). Luckily no one was hurt, but the plane raced by the bolivian and indian camps. Can you imagine being in the shower and seeing a plane out the window? Now the darn thing is just stuck in the field, like a boat in a sea of yellowed grass, and no one is moving it.

I had a week in Kinshasa and have just gotten back to Kindu. My luggage is in Burundi, a tiny little country east of the Congo, which I somehow transited through. Now, among other things, I am without my toothbrush, ipod charger, and cheddar cheese. Yes, cheddar. I was so happy to find it in Kinshasa so I bought it with the intention that it would only spend a few hours outside a frigde. That was two days ago, and now it is sight-seeing in Burundi with it's buddy Goat Cheese. Next time I will wisely put it in my carry on.

Adventures of an Aid Worker

2005-10-27T11:14:00.000+02:00

It's probably surprising to some people how non-adventurous the aid worker lifestyle tends to be. Sure, there are moments in the field that are pretty cool - zipping through the jungle on a motorbike, being trailed by kids who rarely see white people, chopping down trees that have fallen across the road. But really, most of us just have office jobs like anyone else. There's water-cooler chat, even if we don't have a water-cooler. If anything, we have more office politics because we tend to hang out with our colleagues outside of work. I spend most of my time following up on budgets, reports, and managing a staff. I guess what makes my job unique is that I don't go home to running water. This is pretty rare too. Most any post, outside of rural ones, will have all the amenities that americans are used to. I think that my experiences - plane accident, medically evacuated for malaria, stupid intestinal parasites...well, this isn't the norm. Will be great material for my memoirs though.

For someone glancing at this blog it might appear that my animal photos are from Congo. Unfortunately, not the case. Africa isn't generally about spotting zebras and giraffes...you usually have to go to special parks for that. There's a famous animal in the Congo called an Okapi. Like most everything else, they've basically been hunted to the point of near extinction.

Another stereotype is that just because we are here to help means that people will like and appreciate us. Indeed, not the case. It is in many areas, but the Congo isnt one of them. What people see is not that I am working for their country but that I drive a car and they don't. They know I have money and wonder why I don't give it to them when they ask. They think that since I am here I should share my stuff with them. They think we should be doing more, and above all, helping them personally. I get at least a couple of nasty looks from guys every time I drive. Women never do. Kids and women tend to smile at me. I guess in general have not run into this direct hostility before I focus on it, even though it's very much in the minority. But I never had this problem in Niger. I think a lot of it has to do with the war...on the one hand, it's caused a lot of wounds in communities. On the other, people think they are owed something to compensate for their suffering. I don't blame them for that, but I wish they would see that they need to work among themselves to move forward.

2005-10-18T17:45:00.000+02:00

Cheetah. How effin cool is that?

2005-10-18T17:43:00.000+02:00

Me and Leah feeding the fake buffalo.

2005-10-18T17:42:00.000+02:00

A small island off Zanzibar. Beautiful.

Home sweet....Kindu

2005-10-18T16:18:00.000+02:00

Despite my temptations to stay in Zanzibar, I did return to Congo. I probably could have claimed mental health issues and my agency might have gone along with it...between planes and malaria and parasites, I've had my fair share of stressors. But responsibility got the better of me and here I am back in Kindu. I almost got stuck in Goma (my point of entry into Congo, it's a town on the border with Rwanda where I catch flights for Kindu, which can not be reached except by plane). My logistics person there told me the next flight was in four days! Luckily I called a friend in Kindu who happened to have progammed a flight for the next day, so I did get out. Ran into my lovely friend Emmet as I drove to the airport. He apparently isnt heading back to Kindu just yet, which is too bad, because he has the West Wing and Six Feet Under on DVD. We watch it on his laptop and try to set it really close to us so it looks bigger than it is.

Meanwhile, back in Kindu, my crew is struggling. My UN guys have been trying to switch posts for ages and once again have been screwed over. My German friend is trying to move her office to a nicer, more convenient town and is not getting very far. The line between work and friends has been blurred and a few pals are at odds. My dear friends the Indians have gone back to India and have been replaced with a whole new group. And (horror of all horrors) the South Africans have not gotten and will not be getting any more beer, so our main source of alcohol has been removed, as well as our Friday night hang out spot. Ouch. These are dark times.

Zanzibar

2005-10-13T09:05:00.000+02:00

Ironicly, the drug i took for malaria that didnt work (fanzidar) rhymes with m y current vacation paradise. i guess there isnt too much irony there and it's more like an observation, but that's okay. the internet cafe has a crazy keyboard that keeps inserting oodles of spaces to bear with me.

vacation has been great. i have it half in mind to get on the plane with my mom and sis and leave the congo behind. but that would be rash, and really, i do like my work when it isnt stressing me out. my new attitude is that i just cant let it stress me out- just deal with the constraints and make t he best. we'll see.

it's amazing how the congo is like being in a relationship. not the tom cruise-katie hol mes thing. congo and i arent really that luvvy. more like the jude law - sienna miller thing, if jude law were less good looking and had a rocky past. the long and short of it is that it's a bit rocky and won't last forever, but there's defin itely a spark.

but back topic at hand - my escape to ocean paradise. zanzibar is lovely. honeymoon material all the way. i want to come back and just sit on the beack for a week. we did nothing but read books and play scrabble...though we did go snorkeling once. i highly recommend everyone come here if you can afford the shots, plane ticket, visa and all the other things that make people realize that europe or mexico is a heck of a lot easier to visit. however, for those of you reading this in africa, open up a new webpage and head to matemwebeach.com. then find a way to get there.

Aahhhh....Vacation

2005-10-06T14:29:00.000+02:00

In the flurry of activity that led up to my departure from Kindu (for only a couple of weeks) I didnt have time to post the good news that I was taking a vacation. That, and I honestly was worried that I would jinx it if I posted. Seeing as how I had to fly from Kindu to Goma, take a taxi from Goma to Kigali (Rwanda), fly to Nairobi (Kenya) and then to Dar es Salaam (Tanzania)...there was a lot of chances for missing flights! But it all worked out. On the plane out of Kindu I was with two friends also breaking free of Kindu for holiday. We sat in the small plane and looked at the plumes of smoke climbing from fires set in the jungle to clear lands. We cheered when we finally landed in Goma. We had escaped.

The taxi ride to Kigali was breath-taking. Beautiful hills that my driver sped through. The hills were striped with farmland, even on steep sides. Rwanda is one of the most densely populated countries in Africa...if not the most dense. Not an acre looked untoiled. The airport in Kigali was very hassle-free. In Nairobi I ran into a French woman I had met in Ethiopia! She was still traveling. We arranged to sit next to eachother on our plane and exchanged stories about what had happened in the last three months. I arrived in Dar and hoped my mom and sis werent far behind. They had a flight from the states through Amsterdam. I got to our hotel and couldnt believe how great it was! With mom along, we're staying at nicer places than I would alone, and the change is lovely. Mom and Leah arrived with no troubles. They were also quite impressed with our hotel.

In Dar we did the "walking tour" outlined in the Lonely Planet. Gotta say, it was more "funny" than "fun." Not too much to see but we had made the effort.

We flew to the North and did an amazing safari for three days. Lions, zebras, giraffes, elephants...we saw it all. Now we are chilling for a day before heading down to Zanzibar for the next week. I am having such a nice time that it might actually be hard to head back to the Congo! Can't wait to post some photos soon.

Baking Cake in the Heart of Darkness

2005-09-23T17:14:00.000+02:00

I recently got the great news that I have giardia, an intestinal parasite that prevents some food stuff from being absorded by the body. I was actually quite happy because I was flipping out at the thought that the malaria was back. I don't think I could have handled that. I got a fever and a really bad headache. This time I went to the Bolivian base's doctors, who are complete sweethearts. They ran just about every test they could and figured out that it was giardia, which is treatable and not very serious. My German friend Anja has it too, so we are thinking of forming a Giardia Kindu Support Group. The downside is that I can't drink on the medication and I could really use a beer. Last night Anja and I sat with our friends, who brought two bottles of rum, and needless to say, drank without us.

Today I went through our warehouse where we keep our tools and other things we distribute. The South African base had donated to another agency a bunch of food that they brought, because they had too much. This is a perfect example of dumping inappropriate goods and expecting people to receive them with open arms. Really, buckets of cherry jam aren't the solution. They were like, "we can do a food for work project." God help them if they are going to make people work for cherry jam. There is also pudding mix and cake. Not just a few packets. I'd say about 500 lbs. So now I'm thinking about organizing the Congo's largest bakesale, cause really, what else can one do with 500 lbs of cake and pudding mix? Thank goodness this stuff isn't ours.

Close Encounters with Bats

2005-09-22T09:32:00.000+02:00

I had a mouse or rat problem for a couple months in my apartment. No matter what poisoned goodies we left for them, each morning I would fine little droppings and puddles of pee in my guest room and a few other places. I was amazed at how they always went to the bathroom in the same exact spots. Also, I figured these must be the most acrobatic rats around, because they even left poo on top of the bed's mosquito net and in my coffee cup (ick).

Turns out I had bats, not rats. There are small windows close to my ceiling that are for ventilation. Several lack screens, so bats would zip in and out of the apartment. My friend surprised one that was hanging on the string holding up the mosquito net in the guest room. Yesterday I finally had the windows covered, but one snuck in a door that was cracked open. I pictured the bats bouncing off the screens in surprise and shock, thinking that they could take their normal paths. I wonder why they like my place so much. Must be the closest thing to a cave that they can find.

I have another bat story from the field that involved a baby bat in the shower walking towards me by using its wings as legs. It's probably one of the freakiest things I've ever seen, and I honestly hope no guards were around when I fled from it wearing only a towel.

2005-09-16T17:23:00.000+02:00

This is the rocking Landcruiser that I drive. Very few women drive in Kindu, so people are pretty impressed. That and they run like hell to get out of my way.

Back in Kindu

2005-09-16T09:18:00.000+02:00

How many posts have I written with that title? With the constant travelling that seems to be linked to this job, it's a common theme. But I am back, and it feels good. Most of my friends are around right now. Last night we had drinks at Rashid's and watched MTV. I rarely watch MTV at home but here it's a delicacy.

Turned out the flight I took yesterday also had a government minister on it. There were crowds lined up on the tarmac to meet him. Inside the plane he added some nice touches to his outfit, one involving a cape/sash of some sort of animal. It reminded me of photos of Mobutu, who used to wear something similar made of leopard skin. I guess it's Congo's version of the power suit.

At immigration they asked me for five dollars, an entry "tax." Unfortunately my new supervisor paid them at one point and now they are hitting up all us NGOs. However, I was ready. I politely explained that no tax existed, that only the governor could levy one and had not, and then handed them a letter that I had printed out. The letter was an official statement by one of the vice presidents telling state services (mainly the police) to stop harassing foreign NGO workers. I added for good measure that it was illegal for them to hold my passport hostage. They stood their ground but handed me my passport and I walked off without paying.

Turns out the apartment right next time mine (and our whole building) is owned by that minister. So there was a really loud band playing underneath my balcony for several hours to celebrate his arrival.

Wish you could see this

2005-09-12T19:08:00.000+02:00

Naturally, I wish everyone could see night skies in Kindu with the thousands of stars...but even for so, I wish I could show you guys this hilarious video that 007 and I did. We have many. Digital cameras + bored girls in Kindu = silly videos. One of the best is where we show this moth that was so big we thought it was a bat. Much shrieking involved. As soon as we figure out video-blogging...

Have been getting text messages from friends in Kindu eager for me to come back. Living in a small boring town with few expats-and even fewer women-is enough to boost any girls self-esteem.

Just booked a safari for Tanzania in three weeks. My mom and twin are coming out, there first time in Africa. Tres exciting.

Of it all

2005-09-09T23:26:00.000+02:00

I've been moving slowly through my Kinshasa days. While I seem to be almost entirely over the Malaria I caught quite a cold. Sigh.

Life in Kindu is naturally moving on without me (I will head back in six days). Two of my Indian friends are coming to Kinshasa tomorrow to hang out with me and 007. There is a cholera outbreak in Kindu that has killed 20 people and there were a few hundred new cases reported over the weekend. Cholera is transmitted through contaminated water, meaning that so long as I drink bottled water, I will be fine, which is a luxury that locals dont have. NGOs are moving into action to create treatment camps and also treat water that people are drawing for the river.

It's strange and sad to watch tragedy unfolding at home with the hurricane. Feels pretty helpless to be so far away, and quite ironic that i work in the field of emergency assistance. Most emergency situations in the world are caused by conflict and not by natural disasters, and I know more about responding to the former than the latter.

Finally, i would like to note the random fact that my 81 year old grandfather has apparently broken many landspeed records when he made it to L.A. from Atlanta in 2.5 days by car. Congratulations (though a bit tardy) are in order for this feat. he only got two speeding tickets on the way home.

Feeling Better

2005-09-07T17:17:00.000+02:00

While i'm not 100%, things are definitely looking up. Yesterday 007 and I went to the hair salon and got my hair done. The hairdresser blew it dry straight (I have not seen myself with straight hair in 12 years, though i do fondly recall my twin sister's attempt to iron it once). I look like teeny weeny Angelina Jolie. Then we went to the best hotel in the city, the Memling, where we had drinks. Alright, mine was OJ, but it was fresh-squeezed and packed quite a punch. Today I went to work but kept things pretty light. I am eager to be back to my complete, normal self, but i think that will still take some time.

Alive and kicking

2005-09-06T10:10:00.000+02:00

I wont get into the whole thing, but I got taken out by a pretty serious case of malaria and had to be evacuated the kinshasa where I received very intense treatment. They used Quinine. Got out of the hospital yesterday and am feeling almost like myself again. Still a bit weak - likely explained by the fact i only started eating again a couple days ago - but on the whole i am just happy to not be sick anymore. At one point I had a fever of 105. It wasnt pretty.

Malaria is a blood parasite that is transmitted by mosquitos. It causes the amount of platelets in your blood to be drastically reduced, among other things. It is the #1 cause of death in the world, despite the fact that it is curable. Most people who die of it cant afford the two dollars in medicine that would save them. Most are children.

Originally I tested negative and then the military doctors in Kindu were throwing the wrong things at it. There is actually a relatively new drug on the market that has been used in China for ages and is now considered the best cure, at least here in Africa. I will now carry a treatment dose with me at all times, take it at the first sign of a fever, and that will prevent me from reaching the point where I need to seek treatment elsewhere. Live and learn. For now I will stay in Kinshasa and recover (i.e. go to nice restaurants).

Congo keeps trying to take me out, but I come back swinging.

2005-08-25T18:02:00.000+02:00

I felt mildly surprised when I got back to Kindu after 12 days in the field...it just didnt seem terribly like home. In Niger, after field missions, I would have a certain comfort of walking back into my house. I would take a shower, light some candles (if it wasnt, say, 100 degrees inside my house), then invetibly head out to my local drinking hole and announce my return. Here I basically slunked into my house and felt slightly depressed as I heated water on a gas stove for my bucket bath. I wrote some text messages to let friends know I was back in town. Only two of them are here right now.

Right now I am a bit frustrated....by supervisor and I get on fine but sometimes we have misunderstandings, and it turns out that this happened in a talk we had about when I was going to do budget projects. I had assumed that I would wait until I was in Kinshasa, where I could work with colleagues. Also, I've been working late nights just to get out seed fair things done, it's not like I have the hours that should be spent on such a task. Any rate, he thought I knew it needed to be done for today. That's a big miscommunication.

Right now i'm just tired of this stuff. Well, had best go put together this budget....

2005-08-22T18:11:00.000+02:00

This is the best vantage point in Kindu, so 007 and I went with some friends for our photo ops when she was here. I have no idea what we were looking at, but all in all a cute photo.

Back in Kindu!

2005-08-21T13:32:00.000+02:00

Sorry for disappearing from my own diary. I have not started my own rebel movement or been kidnapped by some elses, but rather I had to head to the field for nearly two weeks and didn't even have the time to post a warning that I would be gone.

It's hard to know where to begin how to describe this trip. With the birth of a pair of twins, one of whom was named after me? With nearly having to spend the night in the middle of the jungle when our vehicle got stuck? With my motorcycle getting a flat tire as I was on my way to one of our activities carrying essential material?

I will start with the location. I went about 175 miles south and southeast of Kindu to implement seed fairs, an activity that my team and I have been putting together for the last two months. Basically, people around here need seeds, particularly in isolated villages. Agricultural production is way short of the pre-conflict levels, and a lot of people have not been able to harvest enough to save much seed for the next planting seasons. Instead of buying seeds from major distributors and handing them out in villages, we invite local sellers to come and "sell" their seeds to beneficiaries, who can decide what they want to buy and from whom, like in any normal market setting. To these beneficiaries (who are chosen my their village) we give fake money, which they give to the sellers instead of cash, and at the end of the day the sellers give it to us and we give them real money (everyone still following?). The upside is that cash goes into the local economy (which is almost entirely a barter system), beneficiaries can chose what they like rather than just receiving a set quantity of seeds, and we don't have to move a lot of a seed around, which is quite pricey. We bring out own improved varieties and act as a vendor. This way we can try to help introduce varieties that yield higher quanties.

We chartered a plane to head down to Kasongo, 150 miles to the south. We brought $35,000 cash with us. It might sounds dangerous to travel with these amounts, but we are pretty discreet, and banditry is actually not much of a problem in the province. However, this cash was in Congolese francs. Why does this matter? Well, the largest denomination of a Congolese Franc is $1. In total, our cash, which was placed in three large suitcases, weighed 500 lbs. As we were loading the suitcases onto the plane, the pilot (Steven again from Airserv) offhandedly asked me what was inside. I said we had a couple of bodies.

The first fair was 50 miles from Kasongo, in a village called Kibenga. I spent the night before the fair there, so that I could be up bright and early to make sure things were going smoothly. I stayed in a nice little mud brick home, the occupants had built a new outhouse just for me and another colleague. Children peaked through the window at us as we sorted out papers by the light of a gaslamp. We were a bit stressed - we needed at least 7 tons of seed to come in locally in order for there to be enough for everybody, and when the night before we only had 1.5 tons. We were hoping that people were traveling through the night to bring their seeds to the fair.

At 6am we were at the site of the fair, eyeing the vendors waiting in line to have their seeds weighed. By 10am we were up to 6 tons, but the rest of the team with the cash were no where to be seen (they were coming from Kasongo that morning). They showed up just as we reached 7 tons and were starting the fair - rains the night before had fallen several trees on the road, which they had to hack away with machettes. The fair started.

800 beneficiairies poured through our entrance, some started bee-lining to our machette stand, which was soon overrun. We had put up ropes and had our security team keep everyone in line as we exchanged coupons for machettes. The fair went smoothly, vendors made a killing as they were able to set higher prices than normal, and beneficiaires were happy with the tools and seeds they were able to acquire. All in all, a success.

Fair number two was four days later and 40 miles down the road. The road was terrible. Imagine driving on a moderately difficult jungle mountain bike trail and that's basically travelling by car in the congo. These arent roads. The morning of the fair I was up before dawn so that a priest (who works sometimes with our project) and I could take a motorbike to the sight and bring the fake money. On the way we got a flat tire. We walked the bike to the next village and found a guy who was transporting seeds to the fair. We convinced him to the ditch the seeds and bike to the fair site and let our team know where we were. The priest, named Abbe Fulgence, and I then sat down and chatted about life, religion, Congo, and our work. An our later two of our field staff sped down the path towards us. We grabbed out helmuts and were off to the fair, leaving the other motorcycle in the village. Our driver would fix the tire later.

The second fair had more seeds but more problems. There were a few cases of fake beneficiaires that we had to sort out, our delay on the road meant a delay in the fair start time. We had the problem of a tool vendor trying to trying to get more money than he was owed and other complications, but all in all things went fine. The road back was terrible and we were exhausted after the three hours it took us to travel 18 miles back to the village where we were staying.

The final fair had so much seed we eventually had to stop registering vendors. During the fair a beneficiairy went into labor and gave birth to set of twins, who were promptly named "Sarah" and "Abbe Fulgence." Luckily it was a boy and a girl. This incident reminded me an Irish girl I had met named Muireann, who freely admits that her name is almost impossible to pronounce. She takes a bit of pity on the Congolese girl who was named after her in Goma. We finished the fair, packed up the car, and drove back to Kasongo.

It took us 15 hours over two days to drive back to Kindu. This included crossing the Congo river(by barge), chopping up and removing five trees that blocked our path, repairing two bridges, and having the truck get stuck many times in the mud. All while squished into the cab of the truck between our nun finance officer and our driver. The night of the first day I really thought we were going to spend the night in the jungle, but after 30 minutes and much manuevering, we were able to get our truck out of small ditch it had slid into. It would have been uncomfortable but not dangerous to have spent the night out there, but luckily it didnt come to that.

Now I am back in Kindu, and in my absence many of my friends who had been on vacation have returned. Last night I sipped a gin and tonic with a German friend, who is set to spend three years in Kindu. She told me that she's decided that she will only spend a year, regardless of her contract. It's not that Kindu is that bad, but it's a transient place as far as work is concerned, a revolving door of UN troops, UN workers, and us NGO people. It's a lifestyle that's constantly changing, which takes a lot of energy, a bit of resignation, and much creativity.

2005-08-07T13:49:00.000+02:00

This is a photo from Niger of a Djerma girl in Doutchi region. Nigeriens are beautiful proud people, something that might not be obvious from the photos and images currently circulating in the media.

Death of a Digital Camera and other fun stories

2005-08-04T19:16:00.000+02:00

I killed my camera. Not on purpose of course. The little Nikon was my way of quickly showing images of the congo and my travels. But all the planets came into a line. I had thrown it in my purse to bring it to work to load the Goma photos. Later I added my water bottle. The lid wasnt on perfectly and before I knew it I had a pool in my bag. Luckily the cellphone survived, and my ipod was far from the scene of the crime. I might pin the murder of the camera on my ipod mini, who was no doubt jealous of my affection for the camera. The card appears to be okay, so one day i will download the Goma photos. Like when I go home for christmas.

Luckily my family will be meeting me in Africa in October and can transport a new one. Actually, way way way more lucky, is the fact that I am rich enough to replace my nice toys when they break. It's hard to break the consumerist instincts, and also, i don't necessarily want to. I like ordering a cute top or two from Old Navy and having my parents send them to me. I met a beautiful girl about my age in Goma last week and she was doing the South Beach Diet. In Congo. She was by no means overweight, but oddly enough, I understood where she was coming from. Our Western body images can't be erased by living in places where thin people are thin because they don't have enough money for food. Just as in the states it's a compliment if someone asks you, "have you lost weight?" here it's the reverse. My friend will ask me if I gained weight and he means it as a compliment. He told me that if he married me, and we went back to Sierra Leone (note: mom, this is hypothetical. don't panic), it would be expected for me to gain at least 10 or 15 pounds within a year. Otherwise people would accuse him of not taking care of me.

In other news, my friend and fellow blogger 007 is back in Kinshasa. We were sitting at work in Kindu when our dear friends the Indians called from the airport to let us know that her flight was there and check-in had started. We didnt even have her document saying she could travel. I jumped in the truck and high-tailed it to UN headquarters, where the weasely guards didnt even want to let me in the outside gate. These guys are proof that while absolute power corrupts absolutely, a teeny bit of power is far more annoying. They were not going to let me in the building at all, but I made them call everyone I knew in the office until one of them picked up. Long story short, got in, got the document, sped home, and got 007 to the airport just in the nick of time. On the way back got pulled over by the police right in front of our office for no good reason. I was pretty irritated because our office had really messed up regarding 007's ticket, and I really wasnt in the mood to be pulled over just so they could try to fish out a bribe. Normally I am supernice to cops in any country but they caught me at the wrong time. I told them I wasnt going to hand over my license until they gave me a reason for stopping me, and in the meantime I called our local NGO liaison person to see whether I had to legally show them anything. Eventually I drove into our office parking lot and showed them my license...they didn't even try for a bribe. I think they were happy to get rid of me. They can't pull over the UN people, and there are only a handful of non-UN cars, so we are targets. So that was that.

[Note to mom: speaking of old navy stuff, I just ordered two silk tops from there (perfect for my "post-congo" wardrobe) so those can stay at home. But there are two cotton Delia's tops coming too, so please stuff them in envelopes and send them my way.] It's the little things.

2005-08-04T19:10:00.000+02:00

Captain Sahara Sarah

2005-08-01T18:27:00.000+02:00

The plane saga continued. I pulled up to the Airserv hangar in Goma, loving that I could just walk up to the plane and didnt even have to go through security. The pilot was the one I had flown with to Goma, who let me sit co-pilot. He was suprised to see me, and I explained how I'd failed to arrive with the WFP flight. We chatted and checked in on Kasongo and Kindu weather. The news wasnt good. We waited an hour until things had cleared up in Kasongo, our first stop, bu the sitch in Kindu was clouds and low weather. I decided I had nothing to lose, if anything else, I would end up back in Goma.

I climbed into the copilot seat and put on the headset and seatbelt. We took off and I said good-bye to Goma, my new favorite bordertown. Steven (pilot) and I had a lovely chat. He teaches aviation science and has started a class on humanitarian interventions. It was cool that he is making the bridge between aviation and humanitarian work...i never would have thought of it. He says he likes flying but also wants to be more involved in the humanitarian side. We breezed through the clouds and discussed his lesson plans. The flight was incredible, being in the front of the plane makes a huge difference. We circled the Kasongo strip, verified it was dry and unobstructed, and landed. The landings still make me nervous but I am almost over it.

We called kindu and found out it was RAINING. It's dry season, how is this possible? Rain?! We decided to give it a half hour but I was not optimistic. Ten minutes later I called my friend in Kindu (Miss 007) and she told me it was drizzling. We were both bummed I probably wouldnt make it back for the weekend. Low and behold, our prayers were answered. One half hour later the sun was out. Steven and I practically ran to the plane and headed to Kindu. The sky was white and cloudy up until we were to Kindu itself. Steven said that it was like the clouds opened for us, the weather could not have been any worse and still do-able. We landed.

I said my good-byes to Steven, who I will hopefully see next week when we charter a plane to Kasongo for our seed fairs. I took off the headset and headed into the airport.

That night, one of my friends who worked at the airport told me that he had received a call that there was an non-uniformed person in the cockpit of a plane that had landed. He looked out, saw me, and told his colleage to "disregard his observations."

Only in Kindu.

Plane Goma

2005-07-29T17:17:00.000+02:00

As I was flying over the Congo yesterday, I couldnt help but think I have one of the coolest jobs around. We had just taken off from Goma in a small nine-seater plane, incidentally, the same model that I rode into the bushes in Tunda (not the same plane though!). The day before I had left Kindu from Goma and we stopped in the city of Bukavu, located on lake Kivu near the Burundi border. The only two other passengers had gotten out, so it was just me and the pilot left for the twenty minute flight up the lake to Goma. The pilot is American, working for an organization that gives subsidized rates for NGOs in order to help us with our activities. I nearly had a heart attack when we came in for our Bukavu landing, because things just seemed a little wobbly and then this beeping noise went off which sounded suspiciously like the noise I heard right before we aborted our take off from Tunda. But not only did we land fine, but he explained some of these noises to me and I sat co-pilot from Bukavu to Goma. I wore the head set, the fancy seat-belt, and got the rundown on all of the gadgets in front of me. Plus, we flew low over the lake for the whole time. This area of the country is probably the most beautiful, hills surrounding a lake that looks more like a sea. As we came in for the landing, he pointed out that there were two landing strips not that far apart. The difference is that one, to our left, was in Congo, and the one to our right was in Rwanda. I resisted the urge to pull the wheel in front of me to the right. He also asked if I noticed that there was a large black patch at the end of the runway. It was like someone had taken a big black crayon and just colored a big rectangle at the end. That, he explained, was lava.

I remember when I heard about the Goma eruption, which was around five years ago, if Goma was really really unlucky. Two wars, one million refugees, armed movements from next door....and then...volcano erupts. More people died from looting gasoline than from the eruption itself.

I wish I had some pictures to post right now of all this. The airstrip was cut in half of its former lenght, and the lava is still there. There are still stores in town where only the second story is visible, the rest covered by black rock. There is a huge patch of lava that looks like Mad Max: burnt out cars and trucks sticking out at odd angles, like modern art gone awry.

So with these descriptions, it might be a surprise that I say Goma is quite nice. It's more hardcore than Kindu, as there are some arms around and crime, but it has nice hotels (better and cheaper than Kinshasa) and is right on Lake Kivu. As I sat outside having a beer, looking at the lake over the manicured lawn of the hotel, I could have been in the Alps. (The Alps comparison only holds for the restaurant-on-the-lake theme). Other than that, it's still Congo, still get kids asking for money, calling me muzungu, and all that jazz. It's like Goma is the lovechild of Kindu and Kinshasa set on a lake.

So, after having a taste of this (came for only 18 hours), as I sat in the plane heading back to Kindu via Bukavu, taking a final look at the lake, can you blame me for thinking this job rocks? Luckily, Congo has a way of always striking back, just when things are looking up. In Bukavu, after leaving the plane and reboarding following refueling, I was told that we probably couldnt land in Kindu because of low fog. Now, if you were heading to Boston from Atlanta you might get a little annoyed and have to take a later flight, but Kindu has only one or two flights a week. And I had thirty seconds to make up my mind to get on the plane of stay in Bukavu. Following a quick chat with my colleague (who was still in Gojma) we decided best I jump on the plane...at some point, of nothing else, it would end back in Goma. We didnt land in Kindu. And to top if off, I had to go to Kasongo, Kongolo, and Kaleme before making it back to Goma 8 hours after we had taken off. I got to see dirt runways galore, and if co-piloting the day before didnt do it, the tour got me back on the horse plane-wise. However, the last thing I wanted was a tour of runways as I slowly dehydrated and got bitchy from hunger. Upside, I am sitting in Goma, having accomplished such tasks today as setting dates for our seed fairs, ordering a couple thousand machettes, and renting a private plane for a couple activities next month.

My colleague still in Goma came through in a big way and got me on a plane saturday that is heading to Kasongo...they will just make a quick detour to Kindu to drop me off. Best part...I get to co-pilot again! We are transporting fuel so the rule is no passengers in the hull. We managed to get around this safety feature because apparently the rule does not stipulate that a passenger cannot ride in the co-pilot seat. For a recap regarding my rebound into small plane travel: Wednesday - two flights, co-pilot on second. Thursday - five flights, two dirt runways. Saturday - two flights, co-pilot, flying with fuel. Up that bar!

The Troops Arrive

2005-07-22T10:13:00.000+02:00

Don't worry, not those kinda troops. More like reinforcements for my work here. One of them is my friend 007 in Africa. I was curious to how she would react to Kindu. She loves it. I can see why, there is a certain charm to it. It doesnt have the grit of Kinshasa, and there are a few colonial-esque buildings (you kinda have to squint to appreciate them). I think she was really expecting the worst for my apartment, so the fact that it wasnt some windowless shoebox made it seem lovely.

I think there is a different between staying and visiting, the difference between charm and annoyance. Luckily, this annoyance fades to resignation within a few months. Basically, there are things that will never change. It will never be quiet at night, water isnt going to magically flow from my faucets, the heat is here to stay, and the dating scene isnt going to pick up. Acceptance is key. Get over it, move on.

Our Roads manager has offered to teach me how to drive a motorcycle. I'm very excited. Might as well come home with new skills, whenever I do come. For now though, I am facing many challenges with planning activities in areas several hundred kilometers from Kindu. I've pretty much been flying solo with this up until yesterday, when our new base manager, 007 and a Kinshasa colleague arrived. I am nervous about the new base manager but things are fine. I've been working without a supervisor here for 2 months, so I'm used to just doing my own thing. It doesnt look like that's going to change, as I'm still in charge of the program management. Plus, I took a table from his adjoining apartment yesterday before he arrived because his has more furniture than mine and logistics has been slow on getting me a new table. My maid helped me, and after we took the table, she was like "should we take more stuff?" She was very into the mission. But I figured the transfer was a fair one and there was no need to move into all out raiding. The table is part is of new "kitchen" which is the table (woohoo!), two electric burners, and spices. I feel like such a bachelor...my Boston dinner parties with baked ziti, lovely salads, and chocolate cakes seem like a lifetime ago. Now I'm proud if I manage a tuna salad that doesnt poison me.

My new supervisor has already mentioned possibly getting a fridge ( I broke it to him that the last diesel fridge caught on fire and nearly burned down his apt.).

Rats and Indian Food (unrelated)

2005-07-17T20:53:00.000+02:00

I'm sitting at the office, working late on a Sunday. A couple of minutes ago I heard this rustling of paper. Our box that serves as a trashcan was literally bouncing and moving. Then this rat jumped out and just started milling around. I made some noise and he ran off. Once I even found rat poop on my desk. The nerve!

I did have a nice Sunday, up until the present moment of working and rat-watching. I played tennis and my partner and I won our second game, my first victory. After a nice cold bucket-bath I headed to the Indian base and had a lovely meal with my friends there. And last night I hung out with some Italians and an English friend who are pretty much the closest people in town to my age/cultural background. I think my English friend should start a blog because he has better Kindu stories than me, such as being accused of trying to start a war here and spying. Heehee! Plus he has three kittens and if his blog has nothing but pictures of them I'd still read it faithfully.

2005-07-17T19:34:00.000+02:00

This is a village 15km from Tunda. The two women were quite lovely and enjoyed being in the photo. We went on bicycles to the village from Tunda and it was pretty funny. My bike was way too big for me. Plus, when I said I wanted to ride and not be a passenger, the men in Tunda were like, "are you SURE you can ride a bike?" I finally broke it to them that I had been riding one since I was five.

2005-07-17T19:28:00.000+02:00

This is Methodist church in Tunda, the village where I stayed for four days on an assessment mission and then for two more following our plane problems. The villagers still speak really highly of the American missionaries who came and built the church and hospital. They left in the 1960s.

2005-07-12T21:37:00.000+02:00

One more Ethiopia photo. Looking at my recent postings you'd forget I live in the Congo (as I sometimes try to do!). This is a monastery on a lake near Baha Dar. They have very famous paintings from the 15-17th centuries, like this one. The monasteries are circular.

2005-07-12T21:33:00.000+02:00

A non-Ethiopia photo. This one is from the source of the Nile in Uganda. See that rapid? Nice, eh? One of many I went over with a group of fellow white-water rafters, who included two of the worst paddlers I have ever met and a guide whose advice was "if you fall out in a rapid, swim towards the light. Do not swim towards the dark. That the bottom."

Hammers in K-Town

2005-07-11T16:07:00.000+02:00

Now they've moved on from testing chainsaws to hammering into the cement underneath my apartment (installing security bars for our warehouse). Unfortunately yesterday I was quite sick (just think of all manners that things can leave your body and combine that with a bucket flush toilet. ick!) so my energy and love for Kindu are on the down side. However, I will prevail. The important thing is to 1) have low life-style standards, 2) at least succeed at work, 3) wear ear-plugs, and 4) start planning that October trip to Tanzania. My new motto: Zanzibar will make everything okay.

Saturday night I went to the Indian base for a going away party for the Bolivian contigent. Being one of the only ex-pat girls in town, at least ten guys had their friend's take photos with me. I don't know what's Spanish for "this was my girlfriend in the Congo," but something tells me that that's going to be the story they tell.

ETHIOPIA PHOTOS!

2005-07-08T17:57:00.000+02:00

Have posted some photos from Ethiopia. As you can see, it's a brillaint place.

2005-07-08T17:54:00.000+02:00

Priest who is the guardian of a church tucked inside a cave 40 km outside of Lalibela.

2005-07-08T17:42:00.000+02:00

Cows in the fountain! (Gondar, Ethiopia)

2005-07-08T17:35:00.000+02:00

Me at St. Georges Church in Lalibela. It's hard to get a feel for how large it is. Absolutely beautiful. Carved completely from solid rock.

2005-07-08T17:33:00.000+02:00

Ethiopian nun outside of a church in Lalibela.

Chainsaws in K-Town

2005-07-08T16:51:00.000+02:00

Made it back to Kindu, following three attempts to get on UN flights. In case people havent figured it out there was a law passed down during the post-independence flurry of legislation that required all Congo towns to be renamed with a "K" word. I'm kidding, it's some kind of koincidence.

I'm eerily happy to be back here. In a good mood last night, I even let this massive spider chilling on my bathroom wall live. Granted, I also had this vision of him attacking me if I tried to kill him with insect spray. Even waking up to the screaming children next door didnt bother me. Turns out today is also "let's test the project's chainsaws right outside the office window" day. So I've had conversations that include the phrase, "what was that? that last part of drowned out by the noise of two chainsaws harmonizing." And still, I laughed it off.

I think there should be a pool regarding exactly how long I can deal with chainsaws and spiders with a smile on my face. I am cautiously optimistic, however, that I have already dealt with the worst of Kindu and Congo, and having been slightly beaten down by that, I can only move up.

It's all about location

2005-07-04T18:32:00.000+02:00

Yes, it's all about location. Think of the rent prices in Manhattan these days when you could buy a nice house in suburban surburbia for half of the price of a shoebox apartment in the city. Incredible. But I'm talking about our office location in Kinshasa. It's right next to the Independant Electoral Commission office.

Not only did the elections not happen (as foreseen), the electoral commission have apparently decided not to pay some of the people who worked for them (could have been foreseen). So those people are pretty irked and are forming a nice friendly mob just down the block. Maybe I should head out and take a photo! Just kidding. That would be silly. Anyways, they seem to be heading home.

I was quite dreading arriving in the Congo from Ethiopia. The airport is no JFK, that's for sure. But I just smile and act like the passport control guy is an old friend. I find it's much better to treat officials with friendliness rather than suspicion, not matter what you feel. Got through the checks just fine and crept into Dorothee's apartment around 7am, worn out. Nothing like leaving a place and coming back to it to make it feel more like home. Works every time.

Stay tuned for Ethiopia photos.

2005-07-03T01:37:00.000+02:00

I don't know how they manage it, but I swear, all flights in Africa leave at the worst possible times. How's 3:45am for ya?

Airport tired me.

From Ethiopia

2005-07-01T14:35:00.000+02:00

Been meaning to get to the internet, but half-hearted attempts for doing anything in Africa usually end in nothing getting done. So now I am paying an exhorbant rate at the Hilton because I don't feel like leaving the little luxurious exile that I have created here.

Ethiopia is a pretty amazing country. Started in Addis, then went to Ba Hadar, Gondar, Lalibela, and Aksum (all of which I am sure I mispelled). Can't wait to post some photos. Who knew that this place was full of such famous stuff. In fact, the Ark of the Covenant is supposedly here (if it in fact exists). There is a book called the Sign and the Seal that's all about whether it exists, and if it does, if its in Ethiopia. Even more importantly, an episode of the Amazing Race was filmed here. My tour guide in Lalibela worked for them and told me all about it. I still think my twin sister and I should be on that program. While we would have a good shot at winning, it's more the entertainment value that would be interesting.

I am checked into the Hilton because this trip is supposed to be relaxing, so thought i would tag some luxury on the end. I've been waking up early for flights and sight-seeing, got really sick one night (ick), and get tailed by kids asking me for money in any town where I walk. Kinda like Congo! (but without the sight-seeing). Speaking of my home away from home, June 30th came and went, with a death toll of only about seven. Not that that's good of course, but it had potential do be much worse. I imagine my friends are still holed up at the American school and at this point are probably beginning to cycle together. Best of luck, girls. Don't worry, gifts are one their way. Luckily the expat upper management are fine since they are...well...out of the country.

I think my decision to not go to America was a good one. It would have broken my Africa momentum and would have made going back to the Congo pretty hard. It would have only taken one night of good thai food with my girl friend in NY for me to think, "why the heck am i living in the Congo?" But the grass is always greener on the other side of the third world country. I know when I do go domestic I will miss riding on the backs of motorcycles and heading to remote villages by helicopter. I might even miss the uniqueness of living in that hot little dustball of Kindu. Who knows.

Heading back to Kinshasa tomorrow night, assuming that things are stable there.

Mittens in Ethiopia?

2005-06-22T09:59:00.000+02:00

Going to Ethiopia. Woohoo! As it finally dawned on me (sometime yesterday) that this trip was really happening, it occured to me to check the weather there. Turns out it's little chilly. Delight! Considering that I have been locked into an eternal summer for nearly a year, it's about friggin time I get a taste of fall or spring. Heck, I'd even take winter.

Luckily, as my friend Dorothee (007 in Africa) and I had recently compared the most useless items we had brought to Africa (mine was panty hose), I was aware that she possesses a warm winter hat. It's now tucked away in my backpack. She also brought mittens, which I find even far sillier, even too silly for Ethiopia.

I'm supposed to be at the airport already. However, in a move of shocking efficiency, both the airline and the travel agent contacted our admin department to let us know the plane was delayed for several hours. So I am packed and ready to go, wishing I were going already.

This means that I will be gone for the potentially tumultuous "June 30" period. I'd imagine it's going to be more annoying than dangerous. People will have to bunk up together and watch T.V. and stay inside for a couple days. There will probably be a few isolated incidents, but my money's definitely not on large-scale civil unrest.

Anyhoo, I will be watching it on CNN from a distance, should they follow the issue.