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!