Hello all,
Just a quick blog post that I'm writing from the internet cafe (no time to prepare one in advance!)
All well, work hectic - hopefully it might calm down next week. We're having to work with a skeleton staff for the next few weeks until we get confirmation of funds. Just the impact assessment to do.
Thank you all for the birthday messages - I haven't had a chance to read all of them yet as I've just copied and pasted, but know that I'm really appreciating them!
Write more soon,
Anna
Thursday 29 April 2010
Wednesday 21 April 2010
Volcanic ash grounds Britain to a halt!!!
Watching the news, it looks as if the whole of Britain has come to a standstill because all flights have been cancelled. A few months ago, Britain came to a standstill because of a bit of snow. It makes me laugh, because it shows what an over reliance the ‘modern’ world has on intercommunication, technology etc. Here, if you weren’t able to fly over all of Congo, most people wouldn’t even realise that was the case. And those who do rely on flying (like us humanitarian relief workers) are used to flights being cancelled/delayed. Admittedly, I haven’t had much experience yet, but a couple of the others were saying that it’s a fairly regular occurrence to be hanging round in Goma/Bukavu for a few days until there are enough people to fill the plane. They just get on with some work whilst waiting. Or if they have a few extra days of holiday, great!
Maniema has the problem that it’s so remote it’s not connected to the outside community at all – there are no workable roads out, trains only come once a month, river takes 3 months, planes are expensive… Which means that goods and markets aren’t accessible. I definitely thing that more external communication would be good. But it also means that they are far more self-sufficient – the food is planted, produced and eaten locally. And I think that’s a good thing – transport costs are down, it’s better for the environment etc. Maniema and Britain need to be put together to find a happy medium. In Britain, people work an average half hour away from their home, buy food that’s produced over the world, and buy goods that are hardly every produced in the home country. We’re incredibly dependent on others – so when volcanic ash is in the skies over the UK the country comes to a halt!
Things do stop work here – there’s been flooding (692 families have lost their households) which means that the ferry can’t cross the river (but the pirogues can) so none of our vehicles can cross. Ridiculously heavy rain means that things start later – you expect Church to be 30 minutes late or for people to be late into work. But it’s normal.
Visitor to our office auditioning for Robot Wars. Looks quite impressive, but moves slower than a snail and was fine to touch and even pick up....Just avoid the pincers.
Maniema has the problem that it’s so remote it’s not connected to the outside community at all – there are no workable roads out, trains only come once a month, river takes 3 months, planes are expensive… Which means that goods and markets aren’t accessible. I definitely thing that more external communication would be good. But it also means that they are far more self-sufficient – the food is planted, produced and eaten locally. And I think that’s a good thing – transport costs are down, it’s better for the environment etc. Maniema and Britain need to be put together to find a happy medium. In Britain, people work an average half hour away from their home, buy food that’s produced over the world, and buy goods that are hardly every produced in the home country. We’re incredibly dependent on others – so when volcanic ash is in the skies over the UK the country comes to a halt!
Things do stop work here – there’s been flooding (692 families have lost their households) which means that the ferry can’t cross the river (but the pirogues can) so none of our vehicles can cross. Ridiculously heavy rain means that things start later – you expect Church to be 30 minutes late or for people to be late into work. But it’s normal.
Visitor to our office auditioning for Robot Wars. Looks quite impressive, but moves slower than a snail and was fine to touch and even pick up....Just avoid the pincers.
To the field at last
Field visit on Tuesday - stream of thought.
I went on my first field visit today. It was a somewhat surreal experience to be walking through overgrown paths of vegetation on the way to see a group of women planting cassava. It did link up all the different parts of the process I’ve seen – from giving the money ‘to charity’ in the UK, to the work that goes on at head office, creating proposals, sending out equipment, recruiting some staff, to the in-country HQ to where the financial, HR and logistics support takes place, to our office in Kindu with people in the office writing up reports in pen and paper, creating plans and trying to evaluate how things are going in the field. And then the field – or ‘the terrain’ itself, which is a lot more down-to-earth then it is when you imagine it. We saw the harvest tht people had approached – I touched the grains that they will be grinding to eat and to sell. I saw the Cassava cuttings which are divided into 5 inch sticks and then put in the ground to grow. I saw the cabbages and aubergines which mean that the number of vegetables grown has risen from 0 to enough to feed families. I’ve sat down with the Chief of the village and the village committee and discussed issues that they’re having. I kept reminding myself that I was walking through the middle of the forest in the middle of Congo, in the middle of Africa. It felt normal until I reminded myself it wasn’t.
Even getting there is quite exciting. You go down to the river where you cross by pirogue (a very long dug out tree trunk, a bit like a canoe). You can get all sorts on a pirogue, including a couple of motorbikes, bags of equipment and however man people. We have a contract with one of the pirogue ferrymen so it’s only Tearfund staff crossing – all in our bright orange life jackets that I think must make everyone else stare in amazement. Other pirogues are really loaded with people – you can get about 50 people on the slightly bigger ones but I’m not sure I’d want to join them! We were only going to fairly close by villages today – maybe about 25km, and there’s actually a really good road to get to them. It’s even tarmaced! I haven’t seen any other tarmacced roads in Kindu, but there’s one leading away into the bush. We keep a pick-up truck on the other side of the river (it’s somewhat more difficult to get the cards across the river) so then drove for 30 minutes or so until we arrived.
Benoit and myself (with Blaise and Jean-Pierre in the background) in the pirogue
We spent some time and chatted to Mama Kapinga, who looks after 9 children. She is benefitting from the fishponds that Tearfund are supporting. The fish aren’t yet big enough to eat/sell – they’ won’t be until June. At the moment she goes down each morning to feed them, and sometimes in the evening because she likes watching them play in the water. When she’s able to sell them, she’ll be able to use the money to pay for the children’s school fees.
The poverty is pretty bad. People lost everything during the war, running off into the bush and losing the few things that they had. The children (of whom there are lots) run around in the most raggedy clothes I’ve seen, which are more holes than clothes. Most either didn’t’ fit or were coming apart. The adults were dressed a lot better, had more dignity and were very much with it!
Cassava cuttings to be chopped into 5 pieces and then planted - amazing that this stick of wood can grow into a couple of metre high bush!
Susanna, chief of the hygiene committee, who has an energy saving stove. Means she only uses 1 basket of wood a week, instead of 3. And when you have to walk 25 km (5 hours) to find wood that’s quite a substantial difference.
The woman’s group of 13 members who are growing maize and cassava. The rice harvests, now they’re producing a lot but don’t have a grinder to grind it so it eother all has to be done by hand, or wheeled on the back of a bike (imagine wheeling a tonne or so of rice on the back of a bike for 5 hours or so). Mixed emotions about merrily driving by in a landrover whilst they’re struggling every day. I know that we need it to be able to do our work – which is making major differences in their lives – yet I still feel a bit guilty about the vast discrepancies in our lifestyles. But grateful for what I’ve got, the opportunities I have, the comfort I live in… If you’re even able to read this, then you’re really blessed in the variety of opportunities we have!
I went on my first field visit today. It was a somewhat surreal experience to be walking through overgrown paths of vegetation on the way to see a group of women planting cassava. It did link up all the different parts of the process I’ve seen – from giving the money ‘to charity’ in the UK, to the work that goes on at head office, creating proposals, sending out equipment, recruiting some staff, to the in-country HQ to where the financial, HR and logistics support takes place, to our office in Kindu with people in the office writing up reports in pen and paper, creating plans and trying to evaluate how things are going in the field. And then the field – or ‘the terrain’ itself, which is a lot more down-to-earth then it is when you imagine it. We saw the harvest tht people had approached – I touched the grains that they will be grinding to eat and to sell. I saw the Cassava cuttings which are divided into 5 inch sticks and then put in the ground to grow. I saw the cabbages and aubergines which mean that the number of vegetables grown has risen from 0 to enough to feed families. I’ve sat down with the Chief of the village and the village committee and discussed issues that they’re having. I kept reminding myself that I was walking through the middle of the forest in the middle of Congo, in the middle of Africa. It felt normal until I reminded myself it wasn’t.
Even getting there is quite exciting. You go down to the river where you cross by pirogue (a very long dug out tree trunk, a bit like a canoe). You can get all sorts on a pirogue, including a couple of motorbikes, bags of equipment and however man people. We have a contract with one of the pirogue ferrymen so it’s only Tearfund staff crossing – all in our bright orange life jackets that I think must make everyone else stare in amazement. Other pirogues are really loaded with people – you can get about 50 people on the slightly bigger ones but I’m not sure I’d want to join them! We were only going to fairly close by villages today – maybe about 25km, and there’s actually a really good road to get to them. It’s even tarmaced! I haven’t seen any other tarmacced roads in Kindu, but there’s one leading away into the bush. We keep a pick-up truck on the other side of the river (it’s somewhat more difficult to get the cards across the river) so then drove for 30 minutes or so until we arrived.
Benoit and myself (with Blaise and Jean-Pierre in the background) in the pirogue
We spent some time and chatted to Mama Kapinga, who looks after 9 children. She is benefitting from the fishponds that Tearfund are supporting. The fish aren’t yet big enough to eat/sell – they’ won’t be until June. At the moment she goes down each morning to feed them, and sometimes in the evening because she likes watching them play in the water. When she’s able to sell them, she’ll be able to use the money to pay for the children’s school fees.
The poverty is pretty bad. People lost everything during the war, running off into the bush and losing the few things that they had. The children (of whom there are lots) run around in the most raggedy clothes I’ve seen, which are more holes than clothes. Most either didn’t’ fit or were coming apart. The adults were dressed a lot better, had more dignity and were very much with it!
Cassava cuttings to be chopped into 5 pieces and then planted - amazing that this stick of wood can grow into a couple of metre high bush!
Susanna, chief of the hygiene committee, who has an energy saving stove. Means she only uses 1 basket of wood a week, instead of 3. And when you have to walk 25 km (5 hours) to find wood that’s quite a substantial difference.
The woman’s group of 13 members who are growing maize and cassava. The rice harvests, now they’re producing a lot but don’t have a grinder to grind it so it eother all has to be done by hand, or wheeled on the back of a bike (imagine wheeling a tonne or so of rice on the back of a bike for 5 hours or so). Mixed emotions about merrily driving by in a landrover whilst they’re struggling every day. I know that we need it to be able to do our work – which is making major differences in their lives – yet I still feel a bit guilty about the vast discrepancies in our lifestyles. But grateful for what I’ve got, the opportunities I have, the comfort I live in… If you’re even able to read this, then you’re really blessed in the variety of opportunities we have!
Monday 12 April 2010
Way of life
I was reflecting earlier on how completely different life here is for me personally.
Personal and work get mixed up… You work till 8pm at night, then have an arm wrestle with your boss at bed time.
You drink a lot of water, but none of it comes from the tap.
The internet is your only way of communicating with friends/family, but you can only use it one or two times a week.
You enjoy worship with brothers and sisters, but don’t have a clue what they’re saying
You have responsibility for the team, but can’t follow conversations.
You have your own source of electricity, but use it only at certain times.
You have someone to cook for you, but the meals are limited in taste and variety.
None of these things have troubled me particularly, I’ve just taken them in my stride. But when I stop to think about it, everything – patterns of life and people in particular – is so different from the UK that it’s quite easy to be a bit detached. My life in Leamington happened to somebody else with little bearing on here and now… It’s a bit weird to think about and compare the two lives side by side!
Actually, something that did ‘bridge the two worlds’ was when I introduced Benoit to the West Wing with the familiar strains of the opening music!!!
It’s good to know that God is constant.
Personal and work get mixed up… You work till 8pm at night, then have an arm wrestle with your boss at bed time.
You drink a lot of water, but none of it comes from the tap.
The internet is your only way of communicating with friends/family, but you can only use it one or two times a week.
You enjoy worship with brothers and sisters, but don’t have a clue what they’re saying
You have responsibility for the team, but can’t follow conversations.
You have your own source of electricity, but use it only at certain times.
You have someone to cook for you, but the meals are limited in taste and variety.
None of these things have troubled me particularly, I’ve just taken them in my stride. But when I stop to think about it, everything – patterns of life and people in particular – is so different from the UK that it’s quite easy to be a bit detached. My life in Leamington happened to somebody else with little bearing on here and now… It’s a bit weird to think about and compare the two lives side by side!
Actually, something that did ‘bridge the two worlds’ was when I introduced Benoit to the West Wing with the familiar strains of the opening music!!!
It’s good to know that God is constant.
Food Glorious Food
Food Glorious Food! 11th April
On Friday night we finished working at 10pm (we’ve got a lot of work on at the moment!) and returned back home to eat. For the first time, I was actively wishing that we had something other than our standard rice/potato/chapatti with chicken/fish/beef and dark green stringy vegetable. I lifted up the pot lids and what did I find…. Peas! Beans! Carrots! Cucumber!!!!! It was very exciting! Our food parcel had been flown in from Goma, which meant that we actually had some fresh vegetables. That was a good meal. It’s an interesting balance between getting in enough food and being able to store it – we only try to use the generator from 9am – 1pm and from 16.30 till we go to bed (though we hope the Government supply will be mended soon). Food in the fridge and freezer can therefore go off fairly quickly and we need to be careful to make sure things stay cold. There are some specially adapted foods; Blue Band margarine seems to be exactly like margarine in the UK except that you can keep it in the cupboard and it doesn’t melt in the heat.
Today (Sunday) our cook doesn’t work, which means we find our own food. Last week, on Easter Sunday we went to the Jay Hotel, which is about the only place in Kindu you can get a decent meal. You order your food, pay for it and go home. Then they go out and buy the food and cook it for you. 3 hours later you go back to eat – tis quite a different restaurant service from what we are used to! Of course, with food prices being what they are in Kindu, it cost $25 for some lamb and mashed potato (obviously no veg…!) which is possibly the most expensive meal I’ve ever eaten. Therefore, only something to do as a special occasion!
So this Sunday, we decided to cook for ourselves. I decided to do boiled potatoes, with green beans, peas and an omelette – a simple meal I can cook in about 30 minutes at home.
It took 2 hours.
First I had to find something with which to scrub the potatoes. There were no small knives, and the only brush looked like it might have been a hairbrush, and was crawling with insects, so I resorted to using my fingers (will have to find out what Mama Makubwa normally uses). Then I had to go and get the generator turned on so I could use the cooker. The cooker is slightly temperamental, which means that only a couple of hobs work at any one time, so by the time I’d puzzled over why the peas weren’t boiling they were somewhat behind schedule. And these aren’t the nice ‘freshly frozen garden peas’ you get in the UK, these are a slightly murky looking green and brown pea that take about 20 minutes to cook and don’t have anywhere near as good a flavour. The tilting pan meant that the omelette was burnt in some places and runny in others, and the only wooden spatula was about a metre long so not particularly usable. I knocked a frying pan off the wall, which deposited some sort of sooty residue on my shoulder, and almost brained Benoit when I accidentally pulled off a wooden board with pegs off the wall (that one definitely fails the health and safety test). The kitchen is officially my least favourite room in our house. However, at the end of it all we ate a fairly tasty meal that even reminded me of a meal in the UK. It also made me very glad that we don’t have to cook every day and increased my respect for Mama Makubwa. I can see why we need a full time cook now….! I think we’ll also try and get some more equipment for her…..
(Edit - I made pasta and vegetables in tomato sauce for dinner. It was much easier and even edible!)
(Edit 2 - It wasn't as bad as it sounds above - at least, it wasn't frustrating me that much, more amusing to reflect on!)
Meals here generally take quite a long time to eat – at least half an hour. Apart from the quantity, you also have to do things like remove all the bones from the fish. As there are a great many bones, and we have fish 1 in every 3 meals, it’s a fairly regular chore at which I am still definitely not expert. Apparently it’s possible to eat a lot of the smaller bones because they’ll snap easily, but I think it was dinned into me from an early age that bones = danger, and must be avoided at all costs. The first 15 minutes of every fish meal is therefore spent removing about a hundred bones from my food, before I can properly enjoy the (very tasty) fish. And trying to eat an orange takes another 15 minutes or so – at least we can use the pips to try and plant orange trees!
Verdict on food: Tedious but edible, simple things become treats, prefer not to cook it myself, looking forward to a pizza.
On Friday night we finished working at 10pm (we’ve got a lot of work on at the moment!) and returned back home to eat. For the first time, I was actively wishing that we had something other than our standard rice/potato/chapatti with chicken/fish/beef and dark green stringy vegetable. I lifted up the pot lids and what did I find…. Peas! Beans! Carrots! Cucumber!!!!! It was very exciting! Our food parcel had been flown in from Goma, which meant that we actually had some fresh vegetables. That was a good meal. It’s an interesting balance between getting in enough food and being able to store it – we only try to use the generator from 9am – 1pm and from 16.30 till we go to bed (though we hope the Government supply will be mended soon). Food in the fridge and freezer can therefore go off fairly quickly and we need to be careful to make sure things stay cold. There are some specially adapted foods; Blue Band margarine seems to be exactly like margarine in the UK except that you can keep it in the cupboard and it doesn’t melt in the heat.
Today (Sunday) our cook doesn’t work, which means we find our own food. Last week, on Easter Sunday we went to the Jay Hotel, which is about the only place in Kindu you can get a decent meal. You order your food, pay for it and go home. Then they go out and buy the food and cook it for you. 3 hours later you go back to eat – tis quite a different restaurant service from what we are used to! Of course, with food prices being what they are in Kindu, it cost $25 for some lamb and mashed potato (obviously no veg…!) which is possibly the most expensive meal I’ve ever eaten. Therefore, only something to do as a special occasion!
So this Sunday, we decided to cook for ourselves. I decided to do boiled potatoes, with green beans, peas and an omelette – a simple meal I can cook in about 30 minutes at home.
It took 2 hours.
First I had to find something with which to scrub the potatoes. There were no small knives, and the only brush looked like it might have been a hairbrush, and was crawling with insects, so I resorted to using my fingers (will have to find out what Mama Makubwa normally uses). Then I had to go and get the generator turned on so I could use the cooker. The cooker is slightly temperamental, which means that only a couple of hobs work at any one time, so by the time I’d puzzled over why the peas weren’t boiling they were somewhat behind schedule. And these aren’t the nice ‘freshly frozen garden peas’ you get in the UK, these are a slightly murky looking green and brown pea that take about 20 minutes to cook and don’t have anywhere near as good a flavour. The tilting pan meant that the omelette was burnt in some places and runny in others, and the only wooden spatula was about a metre long so not particularly usable. I knocked a frying pan off the wall, which deposited some sort of sooty residue on my shoulder, and almost brained Benoit when I accidentally pulled off a wooden board with pegs off the wall (that one definitely fails the health and safety test). The kitchen is officially my least favourite room in our house. However, at the end of it all we ate a fairly tasty meal that even reminded me of a meal in the UK. It also made me very glad that we don’t have to cook every day and increased my respect for Mama Makubwa. I can see why we need a full time cook now….! I think we’ll also try and get some more equipment for her…..
(Edit - I made pasta and vegetables in tomato sauce for dinner. It was much easier and even edible!)
(Edit 2 - It wasn't as bad as it sounds above - at least, it wasn't frustrating me that much, more amusing to reflect on!)
Meals here generally take quite a long time to eat – at least half an hour. Apart from the quantity, you also have to do things like remove all the bones from the fish. As there are a great many bones, and we have fish 1 in every 3 meals, it’s a fairly regular chore at which I am still definitely not expert. Apparently it’s possible to eat a lot of the smaller bones because they’ll snap easily, but I think it was dinned into me from an early age that bones = danger, and must be avoided at all costs. The first 15 minutes of every fish meal is therefore spent removing about a hundred bones from my food, before I can properly enjoy the (very tasty) fish. And trying to eat an orange takes another 15 minutes or so – at least we can use the pips to try and plant orange trees!
Verdict on food: Tedious but edible, simple things become treats, prefer not to cook it myself, looking forward to a pizza.
Tuesday 6 April 2010
and more...
Benoit! With his eyes closed (and not smiling, which is unusual!)
Home
Team house
My room
Luxurious living room
Bathroom
And more photos!
Over the pilot's shoulder - see the airstrip we're just about to land on
Broccoli florets
Countryside
Inside of the plane - I'm at the back
Goma
Bukavu
Kindu
I’m really liking what I’ve seen of Kindu so far – it’s got a good atmosphere. It’s a town of around 200,000 people, including MONUC (the UN mission) and a handful of NGOs. The roads are a sandy, ever so slightly red colour, and are far better than those in Bukavu – most are flattish with a type of gravel over them. The river Congo is quite big, though not much bigger than the Thames in London. Of course, it’s got a couple of thousand miles to flow yet – by the time it reaches the sea it’s about 5km wide! There’s been flooding in some areas recently, with people’s houses completely destroyed.
I’ve been surprised by the prices in Congo, and Kindu in particular. I think I expected it to be like Zambia and SE Asia where things are much cheaper than in the UK. However, prices are comparable to UK prices – except in Kindu where everything is about 3 times more expensive! Kindu is so remote that the only way you can get things here is by plane – and when cargo is USD $1.4 - $2 kg it’s gets expensive very fast. We even have to buy our water in Goma – although we do have a filter it’s only about 95% effective so it’s just used for cooking. In this heat we’re getting through a lot of water. We went to a ‘supermarket’ the other day, which was far smaller than the one in Goma. The only vegetables there were onions, the only milk in tiny tins and not a great selection of anything else. The exception being the toiletries and the soap - of which there were still about 20 varieties…. We spent $80 on just a few items – we got a packet of biscuits for a treat, and that alone cost $7. Most of the food we eat is therefore local, rolls in the morning (MONUC make bread), rice at lunchtime with some form of chicken/fish/beef and a dark green vegetable (e.g. cassava leaves), with sweet potato/chapattis/pancakes/plantain for dinner with chicken/fish/beef and beans or a dark green vegetable. Our cook also likes serving pasta for dinner, which is fine except plain pasta doesn’t really go with chapattis and beans…. The pineapple and bananas are delicious though!
It’s ok to walk about in Kindu by yourself during the day, then in the evening we can either go by car or radio one of the guards to come down and meet us. The centre’s quite small and most places are walking distance. We went to the MONUC bar last night (which was fairly empty) for a change of scenery, and met some of the UN guys today for a bbq at their house. UN employees have to find their own accommodation and food, which I think some of them find quite stressful when they arrive in a place for the first time and don’t know anyone. Am glad that I had a house and an office all sorted!
The heat is not as bad as I thought it might be – seeing as the only things that people ever said about Kindu was that a) it was hot and b) there were lots of mosquitoes, I was expecting the worse. However, you can sit in a room without a fan, and for it to be fine. You may have a fine sheen of sweat over your body at all times, but that’s liveable with. And when I’m focussing on working even that I manage to forget about. Malaysia was definitely hotter/more humid – I haven’t yet got to the stage where I can feel the sweat trickling down the backs of my legs… Nor are the as many mosquitoes as I thought. There are normally one or two hanging around, but Josephine (our cleaner) sprays the house a couple of times each week and as yet (!) I haven’t been bitten here. Nor have I seen that many other insects – there are a few lizards around and some frogs out in the garden. You can hear them though, there’s a continual buzz of animal noise throughout the night. We sleep with our windows open as it remains hot even in the dark (they have a net over them) which means that I’m serenaded by a variety of noises. Apart from the animals, there’s the occasional truck that drives heavily by on the road outside, or a long hoot from some kind of vehicle. Then there’s the noise of the rain on the roof, or the rumbles of thunder. The call to prayer at about 5am (there’s quite a few Muslims in Kindu as it used to be an Arab trading post) and a very weird tap-tap noise that sounds like a metronome but isn’t quite as regular, going on from about 10 minute then stopping. I’ve heard it a couple of times now but still haven’t managed to identify it – it wakes me up, but apart from the first night I haven’t had a problem sleeping.
Our compound is on a side road near the centre of Kindu, in quite a good location. There’s the residential part – the home of Benoit and myself – and then the office. In our house, we have 4 bedrooms, two larger ones and two smaller ones where any visitors from the head office come and stay. They’re fairly simple, with a bed, desk, chair and wardrobe but has got everything we need. There are also two bathrooms (we use one each!) with a toilet, shower and sink. Water is sometimes there, but mostly not. We therefore have a dustbin sized bucket of water which is our main supply (filled up from the government supplier when the water is on) – before using it we have to dissolve some ‘Aquapure’ in it to get rid of the grubbiness. Fortunately, the Aquapure doesn’t smell and isn’t at all noticeable! When the toilet doesn’t have the water to flush we just pour a bucketful down – even when it does flush it can suffer from reflux…The sink in my bathroom doesn’t work (the first time I poured water down it I got wet feet) but the shower base is fine as a substitute. And bucket baths really are very effective. It’s certainly more powerful than the feeble trickle of some of the showers I know in the UK! The internet connection we had in the office isn’t currently working. We check our work emails once or twice a day on the BGAN (satellite internet), which changes the whole approach to working when you send an email and know that you might get a reply in a couple of minutes. Personal emails wait until the cyber café.
We have a lovely living area, which they’ve put effort in to make really comfortable and relaxing. There are proper tiles on the floor, sofas, the dining area, the TV and a bookshelf. The colour scheme is rather interesting – the chairs are dark red with bright pink woollen covers that Mama Mkubwa knitted for us. The kitchen is just off one of the balconies – I haven’t spent much time in there. The other balcony is outside the living room where we sometimes do some exercise. Benoit has got an exercise DVD which we were attempting to copy yesterday morning. However, we didn’t even try the warm up (we had already been skipping), failed to complete the 40 minutes main section (by a good 30 minutes or so), and rested at points during the 10 min warm down, so we’ve some way to go….! I’ve discovered that people play volleyball at the MONUC headquarters once a week, and that there are also table tennis tables there, so that would be far more fun and sociable than the keep fit exercises purely to keep fit.
Travel time to the office is not a huge section of the day, being about a 10 second walk from our house. There’s one bigger room, where we meet each morning and is also where the project staff works. (Theo the project supervisor, Jean-Pierre the Hygiene Promotion officer, Madeline the HIV officer, Blaise the Monitoring & Evaluation officer and any of the agronomists when they’re back from the field). Then Logistics (Felix and Gaston) have an office, as does Deo (Finance/HR/admin) and Benoit & I share one. They all seem nice, but I haven’t had much of a chance to get to know most of them yet – with it being Good Friday yesterday most of the staff took a day of leave. I spent Thursday with Felix, learning about how the logistics team works (fortunately he has some English so we can communicate!). I’m going to take over responsibility for the project support side of things, i.e. the Logistics and the finance. Tis a bit more responsibility than I was expecting (I didn’t think I would be line managing anyone, let alone 2 senior staff members!!!) but I do think it’s the best way of working. I’ve got more experience in those areas as well, so do sort-of-know what I’m doing! Just a couple of days has shown me that there is a gap between the capacities of the national and the international staff members, which makes me feel better both that I am needed and that I already have most of the skills and knowledge that I need – but it’s things that are natural to me. With me managing the project support departments, Benoit will then have more time to oversee the project implementation side of things, though I’ll be working with him for the planning/reports etc., as well as taking part in baseline surveys/needs assessments/evaluations and going out to the field a couple of times a month. We’ve discussed together objectives for the next three months, as well as what I want to get out of the whole year (having the experience to run all aspects of the project) and we’re in agreement, which is good!
One of the key objectives is learning French. Benoit in particular is very good (and patient) in having conversations with me, and will also give me some things that need translating into French (e.g. from HQ) and then will check them. I’m finding it so much harder if there is any background noise or if people are speaking quietly – when the rain started crashing down on the tin roof at Church this morning I gave up trying to follow the sermon! When listening to French, the first thing I find myself doing is translating it from spoken French into written French – understanding the pronunciation is trickier than the actual translation into French and English! I’m not an aural person at all (memories of the aural part of music exams come to mind…) and would always prefer to read something in a book rather than hear it in a lecture. Swahili will take a back seat for now – French is definitely the priority. It’s what’s spoken by the NGOs as well as the more widely spoken language in the office.
We had quite a sociable day yesterday, which meant that I’ve met some of the other expats. A bbq with some MONUC people that Benoit knows (India/Bangladesh/Cameroon) with an African grey parrot hopping round our feet. Then in the evening Merlin had a house party, where we ate food, (others) drank and chatted, with a bit of Congolese dancing thrown in as well. Merlin have got about 10 international staff in Kindu, most from Kenya or France; there’s an Italian lady working with COOPI and an Australian couple who work for the Church and that I haven’t yet met. Company, yes – we’ll see if any friendships grow. Am very thankful that Benoit and myself get on well!
In terms of how I’m doing, I’m finding everything ok. Life’s good and I’m enjoying it! I haven’t really been ‘feeling’ much. Maybe it’s because there are lots of facts to take in, and I’ll start having more ‘emotional’ responses to them once I’ve absorbed the situation. Or maybe I won’t – I’ve discovered from previous times overseas that pretty much as soon as I arrive in a place things become normal and I just accept them. I think I tend to live in the present rather than comparing with the past or planning for the future! I know there are going to be times when I do find things more difficult, but not at the moment. So here’s to Kindu!
I’ve been surprised by the prices in Congo, and Kindu in particular. I think I expected it to be like Zambia and SE Asia where things are much cheaper than in the UK. However, prices are comparable to UK prices – except in Kindu where everything is about 3 times more expensive! Kindu is so remote that the only way you can get things here is by plane – and when cargo is USD $1.4 - $2 kg it’s gets expensive very fast. We even have to buy our water in Goma – although we do have a filter it’s only about 95% effective so it’s just used for cooking. In this heat we’re getting through a lot of water. We went to a ‘supermarket’ the other day, which was far smaller than the one in Goma. The only vegetables there were onions, the only milk in tiny tins and not a great selection of anything else. The exception being the toiletries and the soap - of which there were still about 20 varieties…. We spent $80 on just a few items – we got a packet of biscuits for a treat, and that alone cost $7. Most of the food we eat is therefore local, rolls in the morning (MONUC make bread), rice at lunchtime with some form of chicken/fish/beef and a dark green vegetable (e.g. cassava leaves), with sweet potato/chapattis/pancakes/plantain for dinner with chicken/fish/beef and beans or a dark green vegetable. Our cook also likes serving pasta for dinner, which is fine except plain pasta doesn’t really go with chapattis and beans…. The pineapple and bananas are delicious though!
It’s ok to walk about in Kindu by yourself during the day, then in the evening we can either go by car or radio one of the guards to come down and meet us. The centre’s quite small and most places are walking distance. We went to the MONUC bar last night (which was fairly empty) for a change of scenery, and met some of the UN guys today for a bbq at their house. UN employees have to find their own accommodation and food, which I think some of them find quite stressful when they arrive in a place for the first time and don’t know anyone. Am glad that I had a house and an office all sorted!
The heat is not as bad as I thought it might be – seeing as the only things that people ever said about Kindu was that a) it was hot and b) there were lots of mosquitoes, I was expecting the worse. However, you can sit in a room without a fan, and for it to be fine. You may have a fine sheen of sweat over your body at all times, but that’s liveable with. And when I’m focussing on working even that I manage to forget about. Malaysia was definitely hotter/more humid – I haven’t yet got to the stage where I can feel the sweat trickling down the backs of my legs… Nor are the as many mosquitoes as I thought. There are normally one or two hanging around, but Josephine (our cleaner) sprays the house a couple of times each week and as yet (!) I haven’t been bitten here. Nor have I seen that many other insects – there are a few lizards around and some frogs out in the garden. You can hear them though, there’s a continual buzz of animal noise throughout the night. We sleep with our windows open as it remains hot even in the dark (they have a net over them) which means that I’m serenaded by a variety of noises. Apart from the animals, there’s the occasional truck that drives heavily by on the road outside, or a long hoot from some kind of vehicle. Then there’s the noise of the rain on the roof, or the rumbles of thunder. The call to prayer at about 5am (there’s quite a few Muslims in Kindu as it used to be an Arab trading post) and a very weird tap-tap noise that sounds like a metronome but isn’t quite as regular, going on from about 10 minute then stopping. I’ve heard it a couple of times now but still haven’t managed to identify it – it wakes me up, but apart from the first night I haven’t had a problem sleeping.
Our compound is on a side road near the centre of Kindu, in quite a good location. There’s the residential part – the home of Benoit and myself – and then the office. In our house, we have 4 bedrooms, two larger ones and two smaller ones where any visitors from the head office come and stay. They’re fairly simple, with a bed, desk, chair and wardrobe but has got everything we need. There are also two bathrooms (we use one each!) with a toilet, shower and sink. Water is sometimes there, but mostly not. We therefore have a dustbin sized bucket of water which is our main supply (filled up from the government supplier when the water is on) – before using it we have to dissolve some ‘Aquapure’ in it to get rid of the grubbiness. Fortunately, the Aquapure doesn’t smell and isn’t at all noticeable! When the toilet doesn’t have the water to flush we just pour a bucketful down – even when it does flush it can suffer from reflux…The sink in my bathroom doesn’t work (the first time I poured water down it I got wet feet) but the shower base is fine as a substitute. And bucket baths really are very effective. It’s certainly more powerful than the feeble trickle of some of the showers I know in the UK! The internet connection we had in the office isn’t currently working. We check our work emails once or twice a day on the BGAN (satellite internet), which changes the whole approach to working when you send an email and know that you might get a reply in a couple of minutes. Personal emails wait until the cyber café.
We have a lovely living area, which they’ve put effort in to make really comfortable and relaxing. There are proper tiles on the floor, sofas, the dining area, the TV and a bookshelf. The colour scheme is rather interesting – the chairs are dark red with bright pink woollen covers that Mama Mkubwa knitted for us. The kitchen is just off one of the balconies – I haven’t spent much time in there. The other balcony is outside the living room where we sometimes do some exercise. Benoit has got an exercise DVD which we were attempting to copy yesterday morning. However, we didn’t even try the warm up (we had already been skipping), failed to complete the 40 minutes main section (by a good 30 minutes or so), and rested at points during the 10 min warm down, so we’ve some way to go….! I’ve discovered that people play volleyball at the MONUC headquarters once a week, and that there are also table tennis tables there, so that would be far more fun and sociable than the keep fit exercises purely to keep fit.
Travel time to the office is not a huge section of the day, being about a 10 second walk from our house. There’s one bigger room, where we meet each morning and is also where the project staff works. (Theo the project supervisor, Jean-Pierre the Hygiene Promotion officer, Madeline the HIV officer, Blaise the Monitoring & Evaluation officer and any of the agronomists when they’re back from the field). Then Logistics (Felix and Gaston) have an office, as does Deo (Finance/HR/admin) and Benoit & I share one. They all seem nice, but I haven’t had much of a chance to get to know most of them yet – with it being Good Friday yesterday most of the staff took a day of leave. I spent Thursday with Felix, learning about how the logistics team works (fortunately he has some English so we can communicate!). I’m going to take over responsibility for the project support side of things, i.e. the Logistics and the finance. Tis a bit more responsibility than I was expecting (I didn’t think I would be line managing anyone, let alone 2 senior staff members!!!) but I do think it’s the best way of working. I’ve got more experience in those areas as well, so do sort-of-know what I’m doing! Just a couple of days has shown me that there is a gap between the capacities of the national and the international staff members, which makes me feel better both that I am needed and that I already have most of the skills and knowledge that I need – but it’s things that are natural to me. With me managing the project support departments, Benoit will then have more time to oversee the project implementation side of things, though I’ll be working with him for the planning/reports etc., as well as taking part in baseline surveys/needs assessments/evaluations and going out to the field a couple of times a month. We’ve discussed together objectives for the next three months, as well as what I want to get out of the whole year (having the experience to run all aspects of the project) and we’re in agreement, which is good!
One of the key objectives is learning French. Benoit in particular is very good (and patient) in having conversations with me, and will also give me some things that need translating into French (e.g. from HQ) and then will check them. I’m finding it so much harder if there is any background noise or if people are speaking quietly – when the rain started crashing down on the tin roof at Church this morning I gave up trying to follow the sermon! When listening to French, the first thing I find myself doing is translating it from spoken French into written French – understanding the pronunciation is trickier than the actual translation into French and English! I’m not an aural person at all (memories of the aural part of music exams come to mind…) and would always prefer to read something in a book rather than hear it in a lecture. Swahili will take a back seat for now – French is definitely the priority. It’s what’s spoken by the NGOs as well as the more widely spoken language in the office.
We had quite a sociable day yesterday, which meant that I’ve met some of the other expats. A bbq with some MONUC people that Benoit knows (India/Bangladesh/Cameroon) with an African grey parrot hopping round our feet. Then in the evening Merlin had a house party, where we ate food, (others) drank and chatted, with a bit of Congolese dancing thrown in as well. Merlin have got about 10 international staff in Kindu, most from Kenya or France; there’s an Italian lady working with COOPI and an Australian couple who work for the Church and that I haven’t yet met. Company, yes – we’ll see if any friendships grow. Am very thankful that Benoit and myself get on well!
In terms of how I’m doing, I’m finding everything ok. Life’s good and I’m enjoying it! I haven’t really been ‘feeling’ much. Maybe it’s because there are lots of facts to take in, and I’ll start having more ‘emotional’ responses to them once I’ve absorbed the situation. Or maybe I won’t – I’ve discovered from previous times overseas that pretty much as soon as I arrive in a place things become normal and I just accept them. I think I tend to live in the present rather than comparing with the past or planning for the future! I know there are going to be times when I do find things more difficult, but not at the moment. So here’s to Kindu!
14 seater!
Flying to Kindu
The flight really does deserve an entry to itself. There were 14 passengers on the plane, which was a UN Humanitarian services flight. The inflight safety information consisted of the pilot turning round in his seat saying ‘Put on your seatbelts, turn off your mobiles, safety information is on the card and sick bags are at the front’. So much more personal than these videos they show on most flights…
I was sitting just behind the pilot – I could literally reach out and touch him (I didn’t, but was quite tempted to just to prove I could) so could see them working some of the controls. When we landed en route the co-pilot was showing me around the cockpit and what the various buttons did. There’s a whole section of de-icers, which apparently aren’t needed much in Congo! Take offs and landings were fine, very smooth, and when landing I was looking over the pilot’s shoulder to see our approach to the runway. So cool!
The first part of the flight was over Lake Kivu, where we’d gone by boat the day before. Then we turned over the equatorial forest – flying for an hour over dense forest which looked very like broccoli florets. From time to time there were rivers snaking back and forth, some of them red with the deposits from the mining. I could see how the FDLR and other groups and can retreat back into the forests and not be found.
Definitely looking forward to more flights!!!
The flight really does deserve an entry to itself. There were 14 passengers on the plane, which was a UN Humanitarian services flight. The inflight safety information consisted of the pilot turning round in his seat saying ‘Put on your seatbelts, turn off your mobiles, safety information is on the card and sick bags are at the front’. So much more personal than these videos they show on most flights…
I was sitting just behind the pilot – I could literally reach out and touch him (I didn’t, but was quite tempted to just to prove I could) so could see them working some of the controls. When we landed en route the co-pilot was showing me around the cockpit and what the various buttons did. There’s a whole section of de-icers, which apparently aren’t needed much in Congo! Take offs and landings were fine, very smooth, and when landing I was looking over the pilot’s shoulder to see our approach to the runway. So cool!
The first part of the flight was over Lake Kivu, where we’d gone by boat the day before. Then we turned over the equatorial forest – flying for an hour over dense forest which looked very like broccoli florets. From time to time there were rivers snaking back and forth, some of them red with the deposits from the mining. I could see how the FDLR and other groups and can retreat back into the forests and not be found.
Definitely looking forward to more flights!!!
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