The vegetarian's test

I'm quite proud of one of my latest achievements, which I therefore want to share with you.

Albert and I


I was given Albert (pronounced in the French way without the t) when I visited one of the villages - apparently it's very rude not to accept. I therefore became the proud owner of my very first chicken.

Albert and I

After being woken up at 5.30am the next morning by Albert announcing that it was day time, his fate was sealed. I have to admit that I didn't actually do the knife to his throat part (our guard did), but I was there and I now know how to do it for next time. It was much quicker and easier than I thought it would be. I did then help to pluck him and to remove the insides.

Albert and I

And very tasty he was too.

I am now qualified to eat chicken.

Needs Assessment

We have been thinking about extending our programme into areas of the neighbouring territory. In May-July there was quite a lot of displacement in those villages, arising from various military groups that were looting some of the communities en route. Whilst it’s more peaceful now (i.e., the groups have moved onto a different area) the impact of that looting can still be seen.

I’ve been wanting to be involved in a Needs Assessment for a year or two. It’s always intrigued me about how you can quickly assess the situation in a new community in sufficient enough detail that you can then design (even in rough) a project.

The town that we were heading for was about 100km from our sub-base (itself 100 km from our office). Now in the UK, you can probably do 100km between major towns in about an hour. It took us 9 ½ hours. The situation with the bridges was nothing compared to other bridges that I’ve seen. There were four occasions when our cars fell down where it required significant effort to rescue them. We had two vehicles with us (really not possible with one!), two motorbikes and an 11 person team. The worse bridge required 1 jack, 1 winch, 15 people pushing and carrying and 1 ½ hours to free the vehicle - which first slipped between the logs on one side, and then on the other. I have to admit that my role (and Madelaine’s -the other female on the team) tended to be rather negligible – official photographer only. The guys seemed to quite enjoy this problem-solving team-building exercise, although it was rather stressful and tiring for the drivers.


Approaching the bridge with caution...


No good! Fallen through the logs, having to winch up and put another log in place. Some of our staff get into the river to help.


Precision driving

At another bridge, there was not physically enough space for the vehicle to pass so we had to wait whilst they dug away at an embankment on one side, before laying logs to create the bridge, before rescuing our car that then got trapped within them. It was a rather long day. Then, when we arrived at the town we had to find some accommodation – the place that we were recommended was full – before meeting with OCHA (who co-ordinates humanitarian affairs), arranging a meeting with another NGO and briefing the team.

The next day, the team divided with some visiting some of the surrounding villages, others getting info from the local health services, others doing some technical assessment of the water situation and Benoit and myself visiting various other local stakeholders. We met with the office of the Administrator (first thing to do when arriving in a new place), 2 international NGOs, 2 local NGOs, UNOPS (responsible for logistics), MONUSCO (UN peacekeeping operation), surveyed the local market, chatted to the some of the leaders of the local Church and did a debrief of information with the team. Again, quite a full day from when we were woken at 5am (who does announcements over the public tannoy at that time?!) until we stopped working and fell into bed at 10.30pm.

The next day, we had to head back to our sub-base, stopping at a few villages en route. This time, I got involved with more of the community discussions – particularly with the women. I really enjoyed it, though at times I felt quite a sense of helplessness. Madelaine and myself asked the women what their priorities were in the village (which tend to be different from the men’s!) – in one of the villages this was for NFIs (Non-Food items, such as jerry cans for collecting water, cups, plates, blankets etc) as these had recently been stolen by one of the military groups. Some of the women were sharing about how the group had arrived at about 1am in the morning (when they had no chance of escaping into the forest), forced the women to cook for them before demanding to share their rooms. Early the next morning, the community were able to flee into the forest and hide. When they returned two weeks later, it was to find their houses burned and their belongings (including their seed for planting, their cooking equipment and their livestock) stolen. They have no money, no way of making more, no access to markets, no NGO has helped them and not even any seed to plant in order to grow next years crops. They’re living on ugali and sombe (mealie meal thing and cassava leaves) which is not the most nutritious food around. We saw a few kids who were definitely malnourished, and many others with extended stomachs. Earlier in the year, between January and June, there had been one or two other military groups in the area roaming the forests. This time, they were restricted to staying in their villages, fearing to go and work in their fields (1-3 hours walk away) due to risk of attack. This meant that they haven’t been able to grow their crops. In one of the villages, Apolina was telling us how she’d ended up with physical injuries after being raped – she hasn’t stopped bleeding since. Her husband has abandoned her and married another woman, and she’s been left to care for their children with no form of support. She asked us what we would recommend for her to do in her situation…. What could I say? There are no easy answers and little that I could do. Madelaine did find out more of her story and is going to see if another agency can help her. Whilst there is another organisation who helps women in her situation, they do not have the resources to stop at all the smaller villages along the way.


Talking with the women

On our return back to the base we started collating all the information that we had gathered. This was both by sector (water needs, food needs….) and by geographical area – there were differences due to the location of some of the villages. We identified the three biggest priorities as Water, Food Security/Revenue and NFIs. Health was also a priority but not one that we as an organisation can respond to. As we had a particular donor in mind, we then compared this to what this donor is willing to fund, which is specifically emergency situations. This ruled out one geographical area where the needs are ongoing rather than emergency (rather unfair for them, but we hope we might be able to get some other donor interested). We then ruled out another geographical area where another NGO is working, and another because it’s currently not logistically feasible for us. Again, it’s unfortunate that some of the most needy communities are neglected for the very same reason that they’re needy (that they’re too inaccessible); but when there are also huge needs in more accessible villages where we can help far more people far more quickly then the decision has to be made. To get any cement into the area involves flying it from Bukavu (meaning it’s costing $80 locally rather than $18), then a few hours drive via dodgy bridges and then to the more inaccessible villages it would be a few days walk. Some aren’t even accessible on motorbike.

Anyway, in looking at the needs we decided that we needed to do an integrated project with both food security, water protection and NFIs – the needs in all of the sectors were too acute to not address. We’ve written the concept note (forerunner to a proposal) to see if the donor would be interested in funding it…. Now we just have to wait and see…..

Congo, Rwanda, Kenya....

It’s been a while since I’ve written in my blog… though time seems to pass in a strange way so it’s hard to quantify when or what. Think I haven’t been in a writing mood.

I’m writing this sitting on the banks of Lake Kivu, in Rwanda. I’m on the hotel balcony, watching as the silhouettes of the palm trees fade into the darkness of the water (see the photo for the view early morning). If you haven’t guessed, I’m on my R&R. I’d been in Kindu for 9 or 10 weeks, and was feeling ready for a break. There was a doubt/cynicism that it would actually happen though (very easy for UNHAS to break down again) which meant that it was only when I was on the plane that I realised I did actually have a few days off. Of course, everything didn’t go quite as expected – I was hoping to jump off the plane at Bukavu and go to Burundi on R&R, but the plane decided not to go to Bukavu that particular Friday so I went to Goma and Rwanda instead. That’s actually worked out really well – I enjoyed spending time with Matt (Tearfund colleague in Goma) and my friend James, who I know from uni. Having been in Kindu with limited social interactions for the last 2 months, I was wanting to be sociable rather than introverted this time!

Don’t really have much to say. Am obviously feeling very uninspired at the moment.


2 weeks later: Never got round to posting that. When I returned from Goma I went straight to our sub-base and then directly onto another town to do a Needs Assessment (see next post). Then it was spending time with our visitors from the UK (dairy milk chocolate!!!!) and designing/writing a new project. Now, I’m in Kenya (yes, I know, difficult to keep track of which country I’m in!). I’m on the DMDP (Disaster Management Development Programme) which is a week of training with other people from Tearfund from the North & South Sudan programmes, the Afghanistan programme and a couple of partners. This week is on the Quality Standards, which looks at how to integrate Accountability (giving beneficiaries influence on the programme and the resources to be able to hold us to our promises), Conflict Sensitivity (looking at whether our project is positively or negatively impacting tensions in the area), the Environment and Sustainability. Some of the stuff I know already, through either reading or previous experience – it’s good to have some space to think about how we’re doing with our projects in Maniema though… A lot of the concepts are actually quite straightforward. The difficult thing comes in finding the time/resources/staff capacity in actually implementing them. There are other aspects with are really complex and very situation dependent – they’re really difficult to gauge and it’s a case of making the most informed decision that it’s possible to make.

It’s quite a treat staying at this conference centre. The food is AMAZING – choice of a large buffet of dishes by some excellent chefs, including salads and vegetables. The desserts are slightly weirder and I sometimes avoid them, but that might be just as well considering how much main course I’m eating. Think I’m regaining weight! We went on a bush walk yesterday, where we walked out of the centre and 5-10 minutes later we were watching a large number of giraffe (14!), zebra and wildebeest. I particularly like the giraffe – they’re such graceful animals. It’s also been really good to get to know some of the people from the other programmes – swapping experiences with them and also being able to relax with people of a similar age and culture. There is quite a range of nationalities, but there are 5 or 6 other people from the UK. Wonder how many of the people on the course I’ll end up working with in the future?!

By the way, please don’t think that all this talk of Rwanda and Kenya means that I’m on holiday all the time… It’s true that these weeks came fairly close together, but I do work hard at other times. Honest!

Completely dependant

I’ve just been listening to one of the sermons from Maybridge Community Church – the Church in Worthing in which I grew up. Andy was talking about John 17 where we have a window in Jesus’ relationship with his Father as we hear his prayer. How can we live having the same intimacy with God that Jesus did? ‘Trust him more’ is one answer, but how can we actually do that? Andy points out that one aspect of that is to challenge our habits and culture of ownership.

‘For everything I have is yours’. Do I live and recognise the fact that everything I have belongs to God? If I have ownership of anything, then I am not being completely dependent on God. In today’s culture, there’s such a stigma about being dependent – people associate it with being useless, unable to take care of yourself, being a burden on others. Independence is seen as a pinnacle to reach – to have control and power of your own life, your own finances and your own decisions. It also implies that we have no need of others, and that we can live perfectly ok by ourselves. Actually, I think that devalues community, breaks at the bonds of society and misses the fun and the pleasure of sharing. We should be living in interdependence with other people – where I depend on them and they depend on me. Where my gifts and strengths can fulfil what someone else needs, and my weaknesses can be covered by what somebody else has. I think all of us do like to be able to do something for others – I’m always happy to babysit for example and give people a chance to go out. But if we are trying to be sufficient and independent it means that we then struggle to accept other people doing things for us, and our pride can get in the way of enjoying something that is willingly given. Generally, I’d say that I don’t have too much of a problem with that – during the past couple of years I have not been financially independent (and have been amazed at the provision of money that people have generously given) and relied on other people for transport, food, holidays, support or whatever else. However, I can still pinpoint times, some very recently, when I’ve found it difficult to accept gifts because they seem too valuable for me to repay. My pride and equal give-and-take mentality still insists that I can’t take anything ‘for free’. I wonder how much of that mentality is in Christianity? The whole nature of grace is that it is something freely given, something that we do not deserve and cannot be earned. Yet so many people are trying to live a ‘good life’ in order to pay back something to God because they feel indebted and do not like it. They do not want to be in the powerless position of owing anything to anybody, even God.

The truth is that we do owe everything to God. The fact that I’m alive, the food that I eat, the work that I do, the people that I know, the skills that I use, the ideas that I have. They are all gifts from God. And I want to acknowledge that, and be dependent on God. Interdependent with other people, but completely and utterly dependent on God. There’s nothing that I can do for him that makes him more complete than he already is – he does not need me – but I need him for everything. Therefore, independence in a relationship with God is a complete contradiction as I’d be trying to have a relationship with someone whilst denying one of their essential characteristics; he is my Jehovah Jirah – provider of all things. But this dependence on God is not a burden, it’s not a debt that I have to feel that I need to repay (not that I can!) and it’s not a weakness to feel ashamed of. It’s a recognition of who God is, and who I am, and how God meant for us to live in relationship with him. It’s freedom – there’s no expectations, no worry over performance and no fears over money; I am dependent on God who he is my provider.

I think that one of the areas that I probably find most difficult in knowing that it all belongs to God is in the area of work. Looking back over the past couple of weeks(/years!) I can see that I tend to take on responsibility not just for jobs, but also for the outcome. I believe that me and me alone can do this task properly and that the success or failure for the work is all down to me. Which is pretty egocentric. Yes, I believe that God wants me to take on responsibility and yes, I believe that he wants me to use the skills and intelligence that he’s given me (that’s why he gave them to me). But that does not mean that I should try and take the work out of God’s hands and do it myself! I need to recognise that the work I do is God’s work, that I can do the best I can and that is all I can do and all he wants me to do. It’s in God’s hands when things go wrong and there are problems, and when things are going well God gets the glory! And through it all we can praise and trust and worship him because he is always worth it.

So there’s a challenge. To recognise that I don’t have ownership of anything – not my money, my time, my work or my things – and that I am a dependant on the One who is the Creator of all things. Who else could I depend on?!

Liquid Gold

A question for you – what would you give to have clean water?

Think about what you use water for. For drinking water, cups of tea. For cooking your pasta and vegetables. For cleaning your teeth. For washing the dishes. For washing yourself. For cleaning the house. For flushing the toilet (even though it doesn’t matter if that’s a bit dirty). What if you didn’t have clean water? How quickly would you have it installed in your house? How much would you be willing to pay to get it?

I found out today how much money people at the UN get paid, which seemed to me to be very high. The lower positions are paid around $5,000 a month. Mid level managers might be $14,000 a month, higher level we’re talking about $20,000 or more a month. That’s so much! No wonder people want to work for the UN for the salary…. Compare that to the salaries of NGOs and it’s laughable – NGOs pay fairly (particularly when you consider we get accommodation and food provided) but not huge amounts. We’re probably talking around $4,000 a month for a mid-level manager.

In the Water and Sanitation project that we’re currently doing, it costs about $1,200 for the materials and labour for each water source that we protect. That provides improved, cleaner water for about 700 people (SPHERE quality guidelines say one source for 400 people but actually far more than that will use the source). Yet we’re limited in the work that we can do because of lack of funding. In the area where we’re working, there’s a population of about 16,000 people, sharing 24 sources of water. Of these, maybe a third have been improved during the past, but because of the war they have fallen into disrepair. With the money from Pooled Fund, we’re able to rehabilitate just 5 of them. That’ll make a difference to those people, but what about the others? In the town of Kalima, where we have our sub-base, the nearest water source is 7km away – we would love to get a gravity water system up and working there – if we can find the money. We have a vehicle which makes it easier to collect water – how would you feel about walking 14km every time you needed 20 litres of water?! Now there’s a week’s water challenge if any of your feel like taking it up!


Our Watsan Technician, Edgard, takes a sample at the source of Kambili.


The source at Kamundala. This is where families take water for drinking, cooking and everything else.


There’s also a challenge in there for any of us with money. What are we doing with it? When I was chatting to the guys about the UN salaries, my mind briefly flitted over the idea of working for the UN for a year, earning a lot of money and being able to use that to protect a lot of water sources. Then I realised that I can provide the day-to-day management of protecting the water sources which is not something that most people are in a position to be able to do. However, there are plenty of people who are earning the salaries (which isn’t something that I can currently do!) which can pay for the improvement of the water sources. So why don’t you?! Most people believe in giving a little to charity – why not give a lot?! And if money for a whole water source really is beyond you, get together with a few other people and give the money with them.
I’m not sure what the current $ - £ exchange rate is, but let’s say that one water source is £1,000 (to help cover transport, salaries and other overheads as well as the actual materials & labour). £1,000.

My question again - what would you give for clean water?

A few more statistics:
• 30% of people in this area do not make any income – they just about grow enough food to feed themselves.
• Of the 70% that do make any income, the average earning is somewhere in the region of 10,000FC-20,000FC a year (900FC to $1) which is about $10-$20 a year. Food costs about the same as the UK – a kg of meat is 8000FC ($9), rice is 1000FC per kg (just over a dollar).
• In Pangi territory (where we’re working) over 70% of children under 5 got diarrhoea within an 8 month period. Around 10% of all deaths from children under 5 are from diarrhoea - primarily caused by unsafe water.
• Only 1.2% of people in Pangi have got access to clean water.

“Look at what you’ve got. Take from it what you need. What is left is needed by others.” (St. Augustine)

Travel in Congo

Sometimes we travel by road...


The first picture is en route to our sub-base in Kalima - we did actually get stuck here, but fortunately only for a few minutes. It's amazing what angles the landcruiser can go at! The second picture is when we were travelling from Uvira to Bukavu over the escarpement route. We came across a large yellow lorry that was stuck right in the middle of the road - no way round, no way to move it. We had to turn round, drive back 30 minutes, leave one of our staff (who doesn't have their passport at the moment) and take a route through Rwanda instead.

Sometimes we travel by river...


Actually, Tearfund staff never cross the river in the same way as the photos above. We normally cross the river in lifejackets on our own pirogue, like this:


Sometimes we travel by plane...


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These pictures include the UNHAS plane that I normally take to Kindu, the airport at Kasongo (it made me laugh, it's not much of an airport. The airstrip is only a piece of grass as well) and a somewhat steep turn we did we did in said plane....

A day in the life of...

27th July 2010

NB: This may not be a typical day. I only returned to Kindu yesterday, and Benoit is away on leave which means I’m in charge of 30 people, 2 projects and investigating an emergency project…

7.30am: Alarm goes off. Walk blurrily to the door and unlock so the house staff can start work.
7.31am: Throw buckets of cold water over myself. My hair is definitely due for a wash – haven’t washed it in about 4 days. Slightly less blurry eyed.
7.40am: Start unpacking my bag which I was too tired to do yesterday. Give the cook a grater, a vegetable peeler and spatulas I bought in Uganda (the potato masher got beheaded en route). Realise I need to wash my underwear.
7.55: Force down some porridge made by our cook.
8.00: Devotions – sing in French and Swahili. I’m leading devotions today (that’s a nice welcome back!) which I do for the first time ever in French. Felix translates into Swahili giving everyone else a second chance of understanding what I said. Then prayers and announcements. My French holds up. Sort of.
8.45: Quick chat about the HIV training proposal with Madelaine.
8.50: Transfer money so Yvonne, our finance administrator can start paying the salaries. Show her how the payslips work. Sign the authorisation for the travel movements for the week.
9.20: Catch up with Jean-Pierre, our PHP (Public Hygiene Promotion officer). Discuss the site selection of our water project and the per diems for BCZ (Government health workers).
9.50: Quick catch up with Arnold (Food Security Management) about the distribution of seeds.
10.00: Notice a load of the animators hanging around in the hut outside waiting for the payroll before they’ll go to the field. Go and give them the photos I had printed in Uganda so they can start creating the presentation boards.
10.09: Bearded by 2 people wondering how to photocopy data when our photocopier is broken. Send them to logistics to arrange to get it copied by someone in the town.
10.10: Meet with Sadok, the Monitoring & Evaluation person. Run through his plan for the week and discuss the different ways he can verify that the beneficiary selection has been done well. Chat about gathering ‘stories of transformation’. Interrupted in the middle by Josephine (our cleaner) who wants to know if the clothes unpacked on my bedroom floor need to be ironed.
10.45: Go hunting for the camera charger.
10.46: Delegate the job to someone else.
10.47: Discuss an issue over payroll with someone – explain it’s pro-rata’d from when the contract starts.
11.00: Receive a letter with information pertaining to an HR issue last week. Read and discuss with Person 1.
11.50: Discuss payroll issue with someone who doesn’t appear to be on the payroll. This is problematic.
12.00: Try ringing two different people at the Bukavu support base to discuss payroll. No answer. Write email instead.
12.05: Go and check emails on the BGAN (satellite internet thingy)
12.10: Return to office. Laptop makes a loud beeping noise and starts declaring that the hard drive is broken. Wonder if it was the 3-4 minutes of sun. Run diagnostics.
12.15: Discuss payroll issue further with our missing payroll employee. Give him a cash advance on his salary instead. Hope I’ve done the right thing.
12.35: Diagnostics still showing a hard drive error. Laptop not working. Pray.
12.40: Another payroll issue with someone who has more children than the infants allowance is showing. Wish the HR Administrator was here to deal with this.
12.45: Meet some visitors who are here to talk to Jean-Pierre. Give authorisation to Jean-Pierre to use the projector at the WASH (water and sanitation) cluster meeting this afternoon.
12.50: Laptop running memory tests. No-one waiting to talk to me. Decide to go and eat lunch whilst I have the opportunity. Finish washing underwear. Rice, ugali, beef, vegetables for lunch – quite tasty but far too much.

Is it really only lunchtime?!

13h15: Return to the office. Reboot the laptop. It’s working! Hooray! Thank God.
13h18: It’s quiet in the office as most people are on lunch break. Read emails whilst I get a chance.
13h25: Continue calendarising budget (working out what month we’re likely to spend what money in) which I started yesterday whilst waiting at the airport. Interrupted by Mama Mkubwa (our cook) with the guard for translation (she only speaks Swahili and my Swahili just isn’t that good) to discuss what food is needed when visitors arrived tomorrow.
14h00: Meet with Person 2 over HR issue
14h45: Ring Betsy, the Deputy Programme Director, to discuss HR issue.
14h50: Finish calendarising the budget. Check out where we’re likely to run into difficulties.
15h25: Write various emails - budget issues, appraisal feedback, donor reports.
16.00: Meet with Person 3 over HR issue
16h40: Meet with Felix, our Logistician, on the set-up of our new sub-base. Interrupted by another person with a question over payroll. Felix leaves to pick up some papers. He’s gone for over 10 seconds and his chair in front of my desk quickly gets filled.
17h10: Arnold pops in for a quick chat on the days work.
17h13: Person 4 arrives to discuss HR issue.
17h19: Wonder if the AC’s role is always so busy.
17h20: Feedback to Madelaine on the HIV budget.
17h25: Continue conversation with Felix on procurement and requisitions. Sign off some purchase requests. Discuss the prices we need to find out for an emergency project for displaced people in Kalima.
18h00: Try ringing our Logs Manager. No answer.
18h01: Read appropriate parts of National Staff policy manual for dealing with HR issue.
18h20: Find Yvonne still working. Suggest she goes home before it gets dark. Arrange to meet tomorrow.
18h25: Write email on logistics and HR stuff.
19h15: Go to send emails. Remember one I’ve forgotten one on security and write that. Send by BGAN
19h30: Officially finish work for the day. Go and eat dinner. Pancakes, fish and vegetable stuff. Give the rest to the guards. Eat an apple. Bit bruised – it did come with me from Bukavu.
19h50: Read through the statements for HR issues with my French dictionary at hand. Wonder whether to write the report now or leave it till tomorrow. Tomorrow wins.
20h15: Start writing a blog entry about what I did today.
20h55: Watch an episode of House and enjoy a piece of (fair-trade) chocolate a very kind person from the UK sent me.
21h45: Go to sleep, perchance to dream.