And finally...

We are getting to the end of our time in DR Congo, our six months sojourn here is almost finished. We have been reflecting on things and have realised that there are many things we will miss, and many things we will not miss. We thought we’d share them with you….

Things we will miss:

·         Fun thunderstorms

We enjoy thunderstorms, as long as we are inside, and we have had many thunderstorms whilst we have been here. The rain is torrential and no-one goes out but the noise of frequent overhead claps of thunder is scary but exciting.

·         Wearing sandals, not shoes

The freedom accorded to feet is wonderful!

·         Fruit

The fruit here is simply delicious. There are the small, and very sweet, bananas, which are very plentiful. But, there are also mango, pineapples and avocados. The flavour is something else compared to what we get in Britain, so much more flavour, so much fresher. We’ve not been too bothered about mangos in Britain, in comparison to here they are tasteless, as are pineapples and avocados. The latter are so much nicer, so much creamier….you get the idea!

·         Being outdoors a lot of the time

Because it is so much warmer here we have spent an awful lot of time outdoors. We are not looking forward to being cooped up in houses again.

·         Sitting on the veranda

Our home has a small veranda, with enough space for four chairs. Most of the day time we use the veranda as a sitting room. We have particularly enjoyed breakfast outdoors every day we have been here.

·         The climate

It was incredibly hot when we arrived, now it is 10 degrees cooler. Sometimes we even feel a little chilly but it’s nice to never feel cold – it is never really cold, there is frequent sunshine and it is really very pleasant altogether! – and let’s not forget the fun thunderstorms already mentioned above (though maybe just a few too many lately)!

·         French

It has been good to improve our French, and for Pete especially, to be able to converse more than a couple of words in a language that is not English

·         Not having to make many decisions

There is not a lot of choice here, so not many decisions! Breakfast is porridge or Weetabix, lunch is cooked for us, evening meal is from a restricted list, there are no leisure activities to choose from. It means there are few choices, which means less pressure.

·         Singing

Virtually anyone in a group can start singing, and they do. Often, when you walk around you hear groups of people singing, simply because they love music and singing (there has been less of this over the last few weeks).

·         The ‘dancing’ as people sing

People rarely sing standing still, they nearly always move in rhythm with the music. It is fascinating and impressive. They also do wonderful dances as they process anywhere.

·         Greeting, always having time for people

You always greet people when you meet them. Sometimes this is just a two-handed wave but, more usually, it involves handshakes and a brief discussion at least. People stop as they trundle past on their motos, just to say hello. People always have time for each other here.

·         Feeling in touch with people

People, basically, live their lives outdoors. This means you regularly see the same people as you walk past. Because you always greet them, even if there is no common language, you feel you are getting to know them in some way. It has been good to see one of the local pastors family steadily lose their shyness and now always say ‘Hello’ (or rather “Mbote”, which is Lingala for hello) as we pass. The children always give us a warm smile, and they do not feel the need to say “mundele” (see below) any more.

·         Flexibility

A blessing and a curse! People are very flexible and will make arrangements very readily to meet etc. It makes making arrangements easy. However, needless to say, there is a downside, another easily arranged meeting may take precedence over yours…

·         Pace of life

The generally relaxed atmosphere, a lack of urgency and there is never seems to be a sense of hurry, or panic or need to get somewhere ahead of everyone else here. It is really quite pleasant. OK, it brings a different set of problems(!) but it is relaxing

 
·         The slapping handshake

It has been good to get to know people better, and to have that increasing friendship acknowledged by the ‘slapping handshake’. Instead of just shaking hands the hands are brought together quickly, so they slap together, then you shake. During the peace in church you hear a lot of these slapping handshakes

·         Not much washing up or cooking

Because we do not have running water or electricity (except from a solar charged battery to give us lights and recharge our laptop) we employ people to do things for us. This means food magically appears and the washing up just gets done!

·         No traffic

There is no background sound of, traffic – something that is hard to achieve in the UK. Sometimes a lorry rumbles by (and they do rumble) but the constant noise is simply not there.

·         Walking places

It is good to use one’s legs, there isn’t an alternative really. So, as long as it is not chucking it down, you walk, and often meet people as you do so.

 
·         The hand washing ‘ritual’

If you are ever out and have something to eat people always wash hands. There is a jug of water and a bowl with a bar of soap, a girl (usually a girl, if no girl available a woman, never a man) brings the bowl round and water is poured over your hands as you wash them and the water drains into the bowl, then they move to the next person. When everyone’s hands have been washed the person who took the bowl says some form of grace (usually so quietly you cannot hear it) and then you get your tea and biscuit, or meal or whatever. The need for this ‘ritual’ is obvious but we cannot recall any time when it has not happened, even for just a biscuit.

·         Observing the behaviour of animals in our garden

Our garden is visited by various semi-domesticated animals, goats, chickens + baby chicks, a piglet and guinea fowl. It is interesting to observe their behaviour – particularly the behaviour of an increasingly muscle bound cock and a much younger male teenage cock. As the young cock matures his presence is increasingly not permitted by “beefy”.

Things we won’t miss

·         The sound of goats farting

Goats do not ‘pass wind’!

·         The cry of “Mundele” whenever you walk around

Small children seem to feel the need to call out “Mundele” (“white man”) when they see white people. They also love to run up and shake your hand. When this is a school it can involve 20 or 30 children. After several weeks it gets tiresome – particularly when some (not many) also ask for sweets.

·         Cockroaches

Self-explanatory! Frequent evening visitors

·         Insect bites

Even innocent looking little flies bite you here!

Not that flies often look that innocent…

·         Not flushing the toilet very often for fear of lack of rainwater to fill up the tank

This has not been a problem recently with thunderstorms practically daily. However, when you go a week without rain it gets a little worrying. The fact that the cistern takes 30 mins. to refill doesn’t help either. On the other hand, we should be grateful we have a flushing toilet at all…

·         Long drop toilets

We are fortunate to have a sit down toilet (see above) but we sometimes have to avail ourselves of the alternative, a hole with a very long drop – we won’t go into more detail

·         Excessive heat

At present the temperature is pleasant but when we arrived it was very, very hot. It turns out that the hottest time of year here is February / March and July / August is the coldest. We are just in the northern hemisphere so this is a little puzzling but we are getting thunderstorms most days at the moment, and it is not horribly hot leading up to them. When we arrived it was 37^o most days, and no cooler than 27^o at night.

·         Very long church services

Services take a minimum of two and a half hours. They are mostly conducted in Swahili, but with some Lingala (a language use as a ‘trade language’ in a large area of Congo, spoken by millions along, and around the huge Congo river basin). The record was a service that took four and a half hours. If there is a special event, nothing is removed, things are just added. So, the other Sunday there were 47 baptisms in one service – the baptisms alone took an hour but nothing else was taken out of the normal two hour service

·         Some of the old French hymns

At morning prayers we use a song book that has been put together locally, most of the songs are old French ones and are not our choice. It is a pity, because all the Lingala and Swahili songs we have heard are great.

·         Not being in control

We are used to managing by ourselves, and having control of our own travel etc. Here, we are dependent on others to get us to places, most particularly to Arua in Uganda, where we have to go to get money from the bank. This means arranging a lift to the frontier, a lift from the frontier and the reverse. If it is arranged too far in advance people forget (see ‘flexibility’ above), if too late then you cannot find the people you need.

·         Not really understanding what is going on

At first we didn’t know how things worked and we couldn’t fathom anything really. Now things have improved but we still find that we think we understand what is happening, understand the French etc., then you suddenly realise you have been asked a question….

·         French

Whilst it has been good to massively improve our French it will never be good enough, and it is tiring…The fact that some people don’t speak French also doesn’t help. Some of the people Pete has been working with speak better English than French, so French is not much use to them, it has to be translated into Lingala or Swahili. This sort of thing is normal here, with so many languages being used.

·         Boring food

All the food is tasty (though we don’t like ‘fu-fu’, the grey millet stodge the Congolese love with everything). But, the choice is beans and rice, beans and plantain, beans and potato. Variety comes from the different sorts of beans and ‘exciting’ possible combinations. The feasts are also the same each time, fu-fu, rice, perhaps potato and/or plaintain, beef, chicken, muchicha (a sort of spinach and peanut sauce mix, very good) and palm oil (which we have avoided as it does not suit western stomachs). A particularly exciting highlight at the last feast we attended was termites….

At least we don’t have think and plan too much

·         Tins of sardines

Evening meals have been a collection of what we can get together. A highlight we will not miss is tinned sardines and sweet crackers.

·         The risk of ‘eggs that are off

We have made quite a few omelettes whilst we’ve been here, but we were warned that the eggs are sometimes off when you open them. It is obvious an egg is off when you crack the shell open, because of the smell, but there is a distinct sense of anxiety before cracking open each shell.

·         Flying termites

After rain there are often a lot of flying termites, which come into the house in the evening. They are large and, if you don’t like catching them to eat (we don’t, locals do) not nice to have around

·         The noise of guinea fowl

We’re not sure we’d heard guinea fowl before, and we don’t wish to again There is a group of about 12 that wander round, often in our garden. They can make what can only be described as a “fearful racket”

·         Working

Gill gave up work a year before we came here so working has been a shock. However, it has also given a structure for the day.

·         Indirectness

It is rare to discuss something openly and directly. You are expected to be sophisticated in your communication and understand what is being said “in-between the lines”. So, you do not get to the bottom of something, the core issue, but are expected to work it out from what has been said. We have read that talking directly is seen as simply something children do, speaking directly is, therefore, seen as childish. This means that if you do talk directly you are treating the other person as a child. Tricky!

·         Bumpy roads

In Congo we have not found any tarmac roads, some roads are OK but usually they are pitted and are very rough. After a short while you have had enough of being bounced around

·         Dust

No tarmac, lots of dirt paths (which also turn very muddy in the rain) mean loads of dust that gets everywhere

·         Uncomfortable chairs

They start off comfortable enough but the foam (if it is there at all) is insufficient and/or old. After a while you become very uncomfortable, and cannot get comfortable whatever you do.

That's it - thanks for sticking with us!

 

Different culture, rats and bikes

Culture

Although we have been here over four months some things still bring us up short. A couple of things have come to light recently that confirm (as if such confirmation were needed) that our cultural expectations and starting points remain very different.

The first concerns an eight year old girl who, we were told, had been physically abused after she had lost some money. The girl fled but, after suitable discussion with and, admonishment of the mother, was returned home the next day. Shortly afterwards she ran away again and was not found for two months. However, it appears she may have been abused again where she had run too and so came back to Aru. She was taken in by a family who live fairly near to her family home. Then, we were told, she was found to be behaving strangely and, it was believed, this was as a result of her being possessed. Belief in the power of evil spirits, or curses and of demons is very strong here. Much mental ill health is seen as being a result of possession rather than as a health problem. From the description of the girl’s behaviour it seems that she was acting in a way that is consistent with her having being seriously assaulted and having all her stability taken away from her. The idea that she might be possessed seems to us to be unhelpful, and potentially damaging. Do we say anything? Do we intervene? Where is the point of common agreement? Is it anything to do with us?? We have let it be known that Pete has many years of professional experience in child protection work and have left it at that. The family the girl is with is a large, loving family and, we are told, she has been improving.

The second thing that brought us up short relates to a cultural expectation. Apparently, in one tribe fairly near here, if a respected man stays the night (such as a pastor or a white man etc.) he will be offered a young woman for the night. We have discussed this with a group who, like us think it is awful. However, the discussion remained academic until Pete was in discussion with a guy at the office and some coke was brought in by Susan (not her name). Susan is working temporarily at Pete’s office and, when she had left, the man Pete was with said that Susan was from the tribe which offered young women to respected men. Susan is in her early twenties so is one of the women who could be offered. May be she has been put in this position in the past. Suddenly the idea stops being academic and becomes real!

Rats

They say that in Britain you are never far away from a rat. Well, for some time now Pete has had the delightful sound of rats scrabbling above his head in the office. This wasn’t a problem until the other week when he plugged his laptop in to charge it, but there was no power, despite the generator working hard. It turned out that the rats simply could not resist the nice, shiny, exposed length of copper wire and had eaten through it. They had done the same elsewhere so it took several days for things to be sorted out (this is Africa).

When they were, the fix would not meet British safety standards. Why buy connectors when you can just twist the mains wires together?

We have seen similar safety standards here before. At a large conference, shortly after we arrived, power came from a generator and the bare wires were simply wrapped around the prongs of an an upside down British style plug. This plug then fed a four socket extension which had two or three four socket extensions (for projector, computer, sound amplifier etc) running off it. We were sitting 10ft away….

Gill is increasingly certain she hears rats in our home, in the ceiling. As long as they stay there, and don’t eat the wires, then it is OK!

Bikes

We have previously described our bike as ‘industrial’ and ridiculously heavy. You’d expect such a beast to be robust. You’d be wrong.

Since buying this brand new bike when we arrived, the saddle has started to fall apart and now needs a cover, the dynamo (which never worked) has fallen off, the red rear dynamo light has lost its cover and bulb. The rear brakes don’t work properly (Pete managed to fix the front ones), the steering is fine but the assembly moves backwards and forward in a way it shouldn’t. It's not even as if it's had heavy use! Let's hope it lasts another seven weeks!

Observations

I was sitting here (on our veranda) the other day thinking – we’re living the life of Riley really (whoever he/she was/is!).

Apart from Sundays

• all our washing up is done for us
• our main meal is cooked for us
• our washing is done for us (apart from my undies – oops, you didn’t want to know that did you?)
• the weekly shop is done for us
• some cleaning is done for us
• all our water is fetched for us
• drinking water is prepared for us
• the grass is cut for us
• electricity is generated by the sun for us

So it’s going to be a huge shock when we get home and have to do all these things for ourselves - well not the water bit, and we do have a washing machine, and a car (or two) and an electric lawn mower, and electricity comes very conveniently down a wire!

We do do some work, I hasten to add – we don’t just sit around all the time. In fact we were both in Pete’s office this morning – he was testing my database and I was translating his PowerPoint presentation – when a cat came to the door miaouing pitifully, followed by the sound of a hen clucking happily just outside – all quite normal.

We have got used to a new ‘normal’, so we don’t notice differences so much any more. For example, women have their young children with them all the time. They carry them on their backs, in slings, until they are quite old (two / three?). This includes bringing babies, in their slings, into work. Children do not seem to need to be entertained here, are quite content and seem to cry only rarely. They seem to be able to sit for hours without becoming bored. Care for children is shared between a group of women and girls (never men). It is difficult for us to establish which baby belongs to which parent or family as they are constantly handed round.

 

 

Another thing that is now ‘normal’ is the excitement children get just seeing white people. If we walk around we can often hear the chant of “Mundele” (white man). This is chanted as “Moon-de-leh” and, at first, is quite endearing. However, it often involves children (twenty or thirty at a time, if it is break time at school) running up to us to shake our hands, just so they can touch a white person (which seems to give them immense pleasure and excitement). This can certainly impede progress and one is not quite sure how clean the hands that are keen to shake ours are! Pete has taken to avoiding walking out of his office at certain times to try to avoid the onslaught.

Couples here do not, seemingly, do things together. A few weeks ago a couple we have got to know told us that we were unusual because we went to places, and did things, together. They had noticed this in white people before – it is not the practice here. Even if couples are going to the same place they seem to go independently, couples do not sit together in church or at other meetings. They talk about each other as if they were not related – “You will have to ask X about that”, never you should ask my husband. From a course for couples we have attended (with about 10 other couples) it is clear that couples lead very independent lives, only coming together at the very end of the day.

As in other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, friends hold hands as they walk, or sit together. We believe that men and women who are couples must not do this but it is OK for friends of the same gender. We remember years ago, when we came to Uganda, the sight of two soldiers on guard at Entebbe airport and fully equipped with all the kit soldiers have, including rifles, walking around hand in hand.

There is a lot of singing here. When this is done in church, or in church groups, someone always sings the first few lines as an introduction, and then lead the singing. Often someone, or more than one, taps out the rhythm. When the singing is in church there is always a conductor who leads the singing. He, or she, announces the song, sings the first few lines and then enthusiastically conducts the congregation. People we have spoken to think it strange that we do not do the same in the UK

A less happy thing, but one we have also got used to, is the high number of accidents that there are here. As mentioned in a previous blog, many people travel by moto but there also a lot of people who are limping and / or recovering from a moto accident. Many of these injuries are minor but others can be more serious. The bishop’s driver has been in hospital since before we came as result of being hit by a car whilst on his moto, another diocesan staff member has been on crutches since we got here as a result of an injury to his leg (he is now using the crutches less). It isn’t that people drive recklessly but the roads can be awful. You are meant to drive on the right but you drive where the road is smoothest, avoiding dips and holes. When it is wet the mud roads become very slippery. When people pray for a safe journey it really does mean there is risk of it not being safe!

Finally, community means many different things here. As in UK there are different communities but here ‘community’ can mean

• your tribal group (there is a real mixture in Aru),
• your clan (a subset of tribe which appears to be related to the small area/village your family originate from)
• the community of houses where you live. There are often no formal boundaries to these family groups of homes and some paths go through the group of houses. The community is those who live in a small local area. They know each other and, because so much of life is outside, spend a lot of time together.

Life for the Congolese

We have two main means of communicating with the world at large, this blog and through our prayer letters, which we email to those who have asked for them. Naturally enough there is an overlap between the two and we end up apologising to those who get the prayer letter as they may have read much of the material on the blog. This time the apology is if they have already read what is below in the prayer letter!

In the last blog we said we’d try to describe something of the realities of life for the people who live in the DRC. We are here for just six months and are well aware that we can leave before then if need be. That is not the case for the people who live here. What we might find interesting, or hard, or different, is what the people in Aru have to live with day by day, they have no choice. We’re not going to attempt to describe a typical day for the people who live here, that would be wrong and naïve of us as we do not know. However, we have seen, and read, something of the context.

For example, if you live in Aru, it is not possible to get to the capital, Kinshasa, by road (or, indeed, to a lot of the country). The route is by air. So, when the bishop here recently travelled to Kinshasa he had to get to Arua in Uganda (about an hour). From there he got the bus to Kampala (eight hours) and then flew to Nairobi (Kenya) from where he flew to Kinshasa. Apparently, it is possible to fly internally but the planes are not scheduled and there are many stopovers of indeterminate length. The journey can take weeks. 

In essence, getting around is a problem. Very few people have cars here and the roads are awful. Fuel is much the same price as in the UK but wages (when they are paid) are significantly lower. A school teacher gets about £45/month, so a full tank of fuel is more than a month’s wages. Those who can afford it travel by ‘moto’, 100cc/125cc motorbikes. If you haven’t got your own moto people will ferry you, for a fee. Alternatively, people have bikes – the design of these bikes does not appear to have changed for many, many, years. They are of Chinese origin and make no effort to be lightweight, have no gears and, we have discovered, are far from robust! Some people also ferry people (or animals) on the back of these bikes (passengers sit on a cushion on the pannier).

Getting help from the police can also be problematic. A few months ago the son of one of the diocesan staff had gone to bed with his family. Someone, or some people, came to the house and, somehow, blocked the door so no-one could get out and then set fire to the house (which had a thatched roof). It amounted to attempted murder - fortunately the family were able to smash their way out and no-one was hurt, but the home was destroyed. No-one has seen anything like this in Aru before and no-one has any idea who did it or why. Consequently, it is not possible to resolve things with whoever carried out the attack. However, the matter has not been reported to the police, “What is the point, the police will always tend to blame the victim (‘What have you done to warrant this attack? You must have done something’ etc.) and, also, would require payment – state officials often don’t get paid their salary….

Gill and I have both involved in translating funding bids from French into English (I know, makes sense for Gill, but Pete??). One related to health education and the other to peace and reconciliation work.

It was clear, from health education bid, bids that many people, particularly in rural areas (where a lot of other organisations do not work) have little concept of good hygiene. The consequence is that all the usual water borne illnesses, and their severe consequences, are prevalent. This lack of hygiene with, often coupled with unclean water supply means that there are many avoidable deaths and serious illnesses. The aim of the project is, therefore, to develop improved water provision and, also, model good hygiene practice in school toilets (which will mean, in many cases, building toilets [long drop, not like western toilets] with somewhere to wash), teaching children how to use these facilities so they pass the message through to their families at home. The project is not imposing any of this but it has been developed by, and has the full support of, local communities.

The bid Pete has been working on relates to the peace and reconciliation work that is being undertaken. As it is part of the Commission for Peace, Justice and Reconciliation (CDJPR) work to report internationally on local rebel activity they have a good picture of what is going on and the bid gives quite a lot of background.

To the north of Aru, where many people have relatives and friends:

• There are increasing numbers of “armed bandits”. So, over the last few weeks a hospital was attacked at night and a motorbike rider robbed.
• There are hunters and poachers who seem to have a ready supply of weapons (sometimes, seemingly, supplied by the army). These include escaped LRA hostages who have managed to flee with their weapons who, instead of returning to their communities, have stayed in the bush and use their weapons for poaching and extortion

The general feel of this northern area “is one of a sort of permanent insecurity in the population that was previously very affected by the LRA”.

In addition to the problems caused by the rebels, poachers and bandits, in the north, there are significant land disputes. These are the result of;

There being many displaced people in areas in the North East

• An increased birth rate
• Trading disputes
• There being little fertile land

As in much of central Africa, land is very important here. Your land is part of who you and your family are. Consequently, ‘land disputes’ are not civil affairs conducted through solicitors and courts but are often violent. These disputes, between local communities, sometimes across the border with South Sudan and Uganda, are reported as leaving three people dead, a further 1,500 refugees living in Uganda, more than 1,000 being internally displaced and extensive material damage. Many of those affected are people who have already been displaced from their homes.

In summary, further north, there is;

Insecurity caused by the presence of the (LRA) rebels, local bandits, the army (FARDC) and poachers

• An increase in cases of sexual violence (including early marriage, marriage between the military and the minors, sexual exploitation of the kidnapped) by the rebels in the bush,
• Cruel and degrading treatment being carried out by rebels in the bush  on local populations and travellers
• An increase in poaching, with the complicity of some enforcement officers, workers within humanitarian organizations, the political authorities and members of the local population. This poaching is resulting in trafficking of resources from Garamba Game park (including ivory tusks, gold, diamonds and meat).
• Widespread crises and poverty in local communities (food crisis, dilapidated roads, fewer children attending school, poor health care, lack of humanitarian aid to the victims of armed conflicts)
• A lack of support to victims of conflicts, the displaced and the survivors in their reintegration into the community.

The above description does not include the actions undertaken by the rebel group around Kumuru, referred to previously. It is also not the only area affected by rebel activity. Just to emphasise, though, that Aru is perfectly safe and we are not in any danger! We found out recently that the Congolese army has been much more active in fighting the rebels around Kumuru and, it would seem, the rebels have given up and fled into the bush – at least for now.

Life for the Congolese is not easy!

However, you would not know that to meet them. We have not heard people complain about their lot, there seems an acceptance of life as it is and, at the same time, a recognition that if changes are needed it is not for other people to find the solution but communities themselves, and a confidence that they can. So, if the government is not doing what it should (and, it would seem it frequently isn't) the church works with communities and does it instead – or alongside what government work there is. Hence the diocesan work with education, leading on peace, justice and reconciliation, working against poverty, etc.

On a different note, as we may have mentioned, when it rains here it rains! Often the storm is accompanied by strong winds, which always seems to come from the same direction. We have discovered that the door and windows on that side of the house (where our living room is), are not exactly water-tight and we have a significant mopping up job to do afterwards!

Reflections on living

We’ve been here over a third of our time now. Time to reflect a little.

When we first arrived we were incredibly aware of the differences in just about everything. Just looking around everything is different. I glanced out of the window this morning and just noticed what we now count as normal. Two young women were walking away from us with yellow jerry cans full of water on their heads, they were walking alongside what we might call ‘mud huts’ (the majority of people live in these - buildings with grass/thatch roofs and mud brick walls) and a pile of mud bricks drying in the sun. One sight that struck us when we arrived was the sight of these buildings with a wire leading a large satellite dish alongside, slightly incongruous!

 

The other big difference was, obviously, just living (sorry if we’ve said this before!):

• No running water (apart from some from a large rain water tank that fills our loo cistern – having a loo is an incredible bonus! – even if it does take 20 mins to fill),
 
• No electricity – we have a solar panel which charges a battery for lighting and which we can charge computers etc with. The original battery was not up to the job so we had to buy a new, more powerful one (in the picture the black one is the new battery, the red one, now unused, is the old one).
 
• Cooking, our main meal is prepared for us (beans and rice, beans and potatoes, beans and plantain). We cook our evening meal, and heat water for hot drinks etc., using paraffin stoves, which is not something we have done before.
• Having staff (someone has said in the UK we employ electricity, here we employ people). Having people wandering in and out of the house most of the day takes some getting used to. We don’t get to be by ourselves until the evening.

Initially, we thought we were missing the ‘luxuries’ of home but we realised that, actually, we have got used to this fairly quickly. What we have found we are missing are the things we enjoy but are not able to do, things such as going away in our motorhome, seeing our friends and relatives, having a nice coffee and cake. It isn’t that we necessarily do these things very often but knowing we can’t do them makes us miss them.

So, what is a typical day like. Monday to Friday follow a similar pattern. We get up with the sun at about 6am (our night watchman brushes the dust from the mud path outside our bedroom window at around 5:30am…) and have a leisurely breakfast (Weetabix or porridge, Gill doesn’t like porridge but it’s cheap and available!). We often do email at this time as it tends to be more reliable and faster early on, though still very slow, it does tend to work! We also pray together at this time.

There is diocesan prayer at 8am, which we are expected to attend (and do). This consists of singing some songs (usually in French, some translated British ones), someone talking for 10 mins on the Bible and then one person praying for whatever has been asked for.

Gill then returns home to meet Priscilla, the cuisiniere (cook) and sort whatever needs sorting. Monday is washing day, on Tuesday Priscilla goes to the market and shops for us, Wednesday Yakani (the ‘gardener’) does the ironing (charcoal iron). Gill usually works at home in the morning – currently she is:

• developing a database for the nursing school library
• translating a document from French to English for a bid for money for developing clean water provision, and water hygiene, in rural areas
• translating and adapting some British Bible Study material

After prayers Pete goes to the BDD office. Pete’s work is, currently:

• Developing improved financial management for the programme – there is reasonable bookkeeping but there is no effective budget monitoring or forward financial planning, particularly tricky when the funding they receive arrives at different times of the year.
• Developing a risk management workshop to help planning generally
• Translating a bid that has already been translated from French into English by someone whose command of English is not good! This bid is for money for the incredibly important work of reconciliation with ex-rebels and where there are disputes over land. These are not polite, legal, arguments between solicitors but can result if people being killed.

Lunch (main meal) happens after midday, Priscilla does not have a watch and timings are not precise! Lunch is, again, leisurely. Priscilla leaves at 14:00 and Yakani is meant to be here before she goes but cannot be relied on. Amongst other things this can cause complications with the key. Peter returns to the office after lunch and Gill continues her work, sometimes using the office as well as there is electricity from a generator there.

Two afternoons a week both of us are doing IT training for people who want to improve their skills in Office applications. This is something of a challenge as different people have different version of Word. We have:

• Word 2003 in English
• Word 2003 in French
• Word 2007 (very different to Word 2003) in French

We are delivering the training in French but finding the right technical term, and sometimes finding the correct menu etc. in French, is hard work, but their excitement when a table of contents magically appears is reward in itself!

We are also using Gill’s translated and adapted Bible study material one evening a week with an existing group and, next week, will be doing the same with a second group. The first group appear to be enjoying it and are keen to reciprocate by introducing us to their approach to Bible Study later on.

Normally, the working day finishes around 16:00. Gill sometimes has a choir practice (one of the choirs that sings in the cathedral, they sing in Swahili so she has no idea what is being sung! Gill has not yet, and probably never will, sung in the cathedral).

We have our evening meal sometime after 18:00. We have exciting things for tea, such as bread and sardines, bread and cheese (if we have got it), pasta and cheese sauce, soup (nearly run out, not available locally). It goes dark around 18:00 and there is nothing to do, no TV etc. we read or play exciting games, such as Rummikub or Boggle.

We go to bed at around 21:00 but no evening is complete without cockroach patrol. These very beautiful creatures are apparently totally harmless but cause great squeals from Gill. About once every other evening we spot a cockroach, somewhere, often in the bathroom (you imagine standing stark naked in a bowl with a cockroach scooting around!). These are dispatched and disposed of outside – once we left a dead one in the bathroom only to discover ants very busy, all over it, later in the night. Lovely.

When we arrived it was incredibly hot but, now that the rainy season is in full swing, it is really quite pleasant, a good 5 or 6 degrees cooler overall and a positively chilly 20 degrees some mornings.

 

 

For both of us, health now appears to be good. Gill has had no more fainting and Pete’s labrynthitis seems to have cleared up (since writing this Gill has developed a cold!). We have realised that the slightest twinge, that you would ignore in the UK, makes you just that bit anxious about whether it will develop into something nasty, because you are aware that health care here is very poor (“inadequate” is another word). If we needed proper treatment we would have to get ourselves to Kampala.

Pete’s birthday weekend (20^th/21^st) was spent on a very relaxing and enjoyable weekend in Arua with the couple we stayed with on our way over. We even had a little time in a swimming pool.

Enough rambling (sorry, let us know if you’re bored!). Next blog will try to describe some of the reality of life for people who live here and who are not going back to the UK in a few months. Very different.

Rebels

When it was first suggested that we might come to the DRC we were, naturally enough, concerned about whether or not it was safe. We were told, by people living and working here, that parts of the country were not OK but that Aru, where we are, is perfectly safe. That has proved to be the case, there is no hint of any difficulties, unrest or anything like that here at all. Because it is known that Aru is safe, the town is growing, people know it is a stable place and are building homes here. This brings its own problems – there is currently enough clean (“clean water still needs filtering for westerners) water from local wells but how long will it last? But instability is not an issue – we feel, and are, completely safe.

Before we came we knew that there were problems further south, particularly around Goma, a long way away. We also knew that, with such problems the country generally is less stable. Since getting here we have heard of just what such ‘instability’ means in practice. To the north of us, around a town called Kumuru (no idea if that is how it is spelt!), there is, apparently,“rebel activity”. In the news you may hear about “rebel activity”, or areas being under “rebel control” but we would have no idea what that might mean. Over the last few weeks we have been hearing some of the reality of what these things mean in practice.

Initially, a few weeks ago, we were at a meeting reviewing progress on various initiatives across the very large diocese of Aru. One item was education and we heard that the schools around Kumuru were empty because the families had fled the area, leaving their homes and their land (which, given that many are peasant farmers, is a very difficult thing to do!).

The other week, the BDD Coordinator [see previous blog], who Peter works with, went with two others to try to review progress on the ENP work in the area (you may, or may not recall, that ENP is a community initiative, to enable communities to move out of poverty). The three people from the BDD travelled, on their small motorbikes, to Kumuru – something of an achievement on Congolese roads! They found that the rebels had complete control of the area where they were, there was no sign of the Congolese police or army. They were told rebels would, when they wanted, simply demand money, or food, or animals etc. The rebels seemed well equipped with new weapons and uniforms. Not surprisingly, the community work was struggling!

Peter attended a meeting last weekend to discuss the situation in Kumuru. He found out that the problem began last October, when a group of rebels, of about 300 people, took control of an area. This group was made up of some people from South Sudan, Uganda as well as Congolese. The result was that, in October:

· some people had been killed (approx. 40)

· some people had been raped (10 known instances, probably many more)

· 15 houses had been burnt down and destroyed

· 5,000 people had been displaced

· 3,000 people had become refugees

· Approx. £10,000 had been taken (not a lot in our terms, but a lot here – worth 40 lives??)

The rebels were, apparently, unhappy with what they see as ongoing government corruption and have set up their own identity card system. Locals have to pay for these identity cards, if they don’t, they may be shot, raped or subject to some other form of assault.

That seems to be the reality of “rebel activity”. It feels very real when the people you work with are visiting the area. It also feels very real when you realise that the person who was our night watchman during our first month has gone up to that area to look after his daughter whilst she recuperates. It feels very real when many of the people living and working here come from that area.

As we said at the beginning, there is no threat to our safety here. If there were, we would leave, but we wanted to share some of the reality of some people’s lives nearby.

Sorry if it is a bit heavy!

As we write this, people from the weekend meeting, including the person Peter works with, are planning to try to have talks with the rebels to try to find a peaceful way forward. If you pray, there would be no harm in praying for the success of these talks!

Apologies that there are no photos this week – we have no photos of rebel activity (you’ll be pleased to know!).

Meetings

One aspect of living here is that you sometimes feel that you never quite know what is going on. Things seem to happen, or not happen, without you quite knowing how or why! Meetings, be they with individuals or groups illustrate this well. In fact, the way meetings happen altogether is different here, it makes forward planning tricky!

Little appears to be arranged a long time in advance. So, a couple of weeks ago there was a quarterly review meeting to which all heads of department were “invited” (the invitation said you were expected to attend). The meeting was to be on Friday but the invitations went out on the Wednesday. One consequence was that a planned two day visit to a northern area, to review progress on ENP work (see “What we are doing” blog) was cancelled so the BDD Co-ordinator could be at the meeting.

After Peter’s first working day, a Friday, the plan was that a ‘programme’ would be arranged, starting on the Monday, for him to find out what was happening. However, on the Sunday the BDD coordinator came round to say that he was going to be away for three days, from that afternoon, reviewing ENP work in the South, so no programme would be arranged until later in the week. This visit was known about on the Friday so the programme was never going to be done on Monday. When the programme did start many of the individual meetings had to be rearranged. Similarly, Gill has had various meetings she has gone to only to find they have been cancelled. Everyone else seemed to know but she didn’t, or there is a meeting you find out about an hour before it is due to start.

Quite often we need to speak to an individual. If you try to fix a date in the future they are more likely to say “shall we talk now”, and there is an expectation that we will. This means that, when you say you’d like to meet, you need to be prepared for the meeting right then, not think you’ll be ready for the later date. Also, if you don’t meet then the response might be “I’ll be around tomorrow morning”, so you go the next day and find the office locked. You ask if so-and-so is around and you may be told that they are away for a few days, or that they will be around later. Gill spent about four days visiting an office to talk to someone before she finally caught him in. She had found him in one day but he was talking to someone else. If you go in in such circumstances then they will stop what they are doing and talk to you, but Gill did not want to be rude and interrupt, so left them.

It just takes getting used to, once you begin to understand the way it works (I was going to say understand the ‘system’ but am not sure that would be the right word!) then it is OK. A great thing here is that relationships are what matters, building relationships and making time for people, however busy you are. Relationships are fundamental. It means that, whenever you walk past people you great them, say “Bonjour” (or “Mbote” in Lingala – see were learning a bit) and often shake their hand. If you know them, even if only vaguely, then you stop and chat. Increasingly we are finding that this is how you build the relationships, and build trust so that you can have useful discussion at other points.

These informal, chance, meetings can also be really useful. Earlier in the week we needed to get to Arua, in Uganda, for supplies. We had arranged a lift with some volunteers we have met who are working with the Catholic church but needed to get to the church and did not know how to get across town to it. Gill met someone and asked for directions and his response was to say he would arrange for someone to come with him and he’d collect us on his motorbike (this is the common form of transport here, many rides can be hired but the roads are very rutted, potholed and not good [no tarmac at all here]). People are incredibly helpful here! It all went well and we have now been brave enough to try being on a ‘moto’. They drove safely! If we had not had the chance meeting we are not sure what we would have done.

 

A couple of weeks ago Gill met the bishop in her meanderings. He told her that there was some IT work he’d like her to do. First question: if she hadn’t bumped into him would he have mentioned it? A meeting was arranged – the bishop is very reliable! He does plan his meetings, and is relatively strict about time, most unusual here. There’s a library in the nursing college behind our house and he wants the records computerising. He also wants the catalogue to be available to students on the internet. He’d also like all the student records for the college computerising. Mmmmmm! This presents her with something of a dilemma. How to produce a system with the technology they have, that will do the job, be maintainable by local people, and that she can write!

Work has begun….

Here's a picture of something, not Gill working!

Nothing to do with meetings (we don't have any photos of random meetings), but this is an injured local resident. Spot the missing leg!



 

 

Palm Sunday

Blog 31/3

 

Happy Easter!

Last Sunday (assuming we manage to post this before Easter Sunday) was Palm Sunday – it is a bit different here!

As well as being Palm Sunday it was also the day for people to join the Mother’s Union – and the MU is a BIG organisation in central Africa. The bishop’s wife had visited us earlier in the week, when Gill was ill (now fully recovered) with a gift of some material and Gill was measured so that this could be made into a skirt and top for her. The result is below:

All the women, it seems, were expected to wear something in this MU material, regardless of whether they were actually MU members or not.

Various times had been given to us for when festivities would start – we’d been told 9:15 (the normal Sunday service time), 8:45 for a procession and 9:00 for something (not clear what!).
We ambled over just before 9:00 and could hear a lot of singing as we walked. This is not an uncommon sound here, groups of all ages often seem to just get together and sing for the fun of it. It is part of the background sound of living here.

Getting nearer we could see a long line of people, mainly people from the Mother’s Union, dancing and singing and processing around the cathedral. We went and sat down in the cathedral and, eventually, the procession found its way into the church. It took a long time for them to dance and sing their way to their seats.

The service proper then began. Services here are always much longer than those we have experienced in the UK. The service we attend is in Lingala, though sometimes it is also in Swahili we think – we aren’t really sure! As mentioned previously there are many languages spoken here, Lingala (a trade language) is the official local language and everyone appears to speak it. Many speak Swahili but the real local language is Lugbara. The official, DRC language is French but many do not speak that at all…Anyway, someone usually comes and sits with us and interprets.
In each service we have been to there are items from choirs. Usually there is a children’s choir (1 song), a “Mother’s Union” choir (2 songs) and a young person’s choir (2 songs). The songs are always rhythmical and quite long but always involve some form of movement/dancing as they sing. People are not at all inhibited and most throw themselves into the whole thing. This Sunday, because other Mother’s Union choirs were present, there were at least 7 or 8 songs – we didn’t keep count.
After songs are notices, not a brief item as the notices are not printed (cost too much) and are given in some detail. However, we never understand them, which may be one reason we are not quite sure what is going on! There are bible readings and a sermon, which is also longer than we are used to. This is usually given in Lingala and simultaneously translated into Swahili. Following the sermon the 120 people wanting to join the MU were individually prayed for. This took a long time, and was followed by another choir…
For the collection (a time of celebration) people bring their offering to the front. Again, as they queue people sing and, again, dance and it takes a long time for everyone to be seated again. Because it was Palm Sunday there was communion. There was standing room only in the church so this also took some time. In the end the service was four and a quarter hours long. Not sure how that would go down at our local church!
Everyone was invited to an African feast after the service and we were with the select who got meat, but there was masses of food that people had been working on all morning. Some people were still dancing and singing and processing. Gill and I went home but went out to see the women’s football match we mentioned last time. We can now report that the final score was Aru 0, Aruwarra 1. However, the game was not without its controversy. Aru believe they scored a goal but the crowd was pressing so much at the goal line that the ball was blocked from crossing the line by Aruwarra supporters. Outrageous! No managers were available for comment.

As we said, things are different here – maybe apart from football controversies….

On a totally different note, we can now see what we’re doing in the kitchen in the evenings. Up until yesterday we relied on a very dim light bulb and torchlight for cooking by. Now we have a nice bright bulb and a new battery to boot! Can’t begin to tell you how much better this is!