Kayaking to Rwanda

This weekend I was back in Bukavu. We took some time to enjoy Lake Kivu - sitting on the pier, swimming, and kayaking. One of the FH staff members brought an inflatable 2 person kayak back from the States and I got to go out in it. Lake Kivu is on the border between the DRC and Rwanda (knew that) and the FH residence is really close to the border (hadn't fully captured that fact). So we went out about a half hour towards a point that was sticking out into the lake, and Michael told me that now we were in Rwandan water space. You could almost see the bridge that's the border. Pretty cool!
So...I've now paddled to Rwanda!

Happy News

Today Buck (our consultant) and I are finalizing the baseline data for the report we need to write up over the next few days before starting the trek back to the States next Tuesday. We're running our corrected and cleaned data through the statistical software programs, and I've seen Buck do a "happy dance" twice so far as programs that previously had bugs are now running smoothly and giving us the data we need. I got my one program that was giving me headaches debugged this morning too.

Yesterday we flew from Kalamie up to Bukavu. This was a feat in itself as you don't always get to get on the plane on your first try (i.e. you might get bumped if the flight's too full, or the trip is canceled or postponed, etc.). This enabled us to fortuitously cross paths with Adolfo (a colleague of mine based in Bolivia) and brief him on the agricultural marketing results from the baseline survey before he headed down to Kalamie this morning to do a week of training.

After monotonous fare down in Kalamie, everything here tastes AMAZING!

Sad News

This morning I got a skype message that the USAID representative here in DRC had passed away yesterday. Now the freaky thing is that Jim was just out here last week where I'm working doing a site evaluation visit in Kalamie and Moba. I had lunch and dinner with him and his assistant several times over the course of this past week. I heard his stories and opinions and held my tongue at the things he said that were inappropriate or annoyed me. (Can you tell I didn't like the guy?) Jim flew back to Kinshasa, where he and his wife live, on Friday and then had a fatal heart attack while playing tennis on Sunday. I feel really sad for his widow, and I'm so glad she probably got to spend time with him before Sunday. So a crazy bit in this whole thing is that we'll get a feedback report from his evaluation visit, but we can't contest any of it, because it's our word against a dead guy's. This is all too weird. Life is unpredictable - you never know when your time is up.

Going to the market

This morning one of our DRC staff, Marceline, kindly accompanied me to the main market in Kalamie. We were in search of fabric ("keyquembay" in swahili) for a dress that her mother is making for me. I noticed on my last trip here that Marceline was always "smartly" dressed and it turns out it's because her mom is a seamstress/tailor. We found some cool fabric, but in the midst of our search, we stopped so that Marceline could buy some chickens. Now some of you know I have a thing about birds. Too many pigeons too close to me freak me out. So I'm standing next to Marceline and about 10 ladies come up to us waving their upside down live chickens, wings outstretched and flapping, hoping to strike a deal with Marceline. It was too much for me...I had to step out of the sellers' circle, away from all the birds. After buying the chickens, Marceline tossed them in the back of the LandCruiser. I'd been riding in back on the way to the market (since Marceline was in a dress) but I was afraid the chickens would get a little rambunctious on the journey back so I was too nervous to sit in back with them! Marceline and the driver laughed and laughed. When I told the story to Buck (our consultant I'm working with) he laughed too. So I have a thing about large flapping birds in close proximity to my head, so what?! (Yes, I agree, it's quite absurd!)

So what do you eat in the Congo?

At the moment I'm in the throes of recovering from a sketchy chicken sandwich that I ate Monday night. So at the moment I'm not eating much. I had the typical bread and margarine and tea for breakfast and a little trail mix (brought from the US) for lunch. The first week here I think I OD'd on meat. The typical meal offered at the UN base restaurant (called "Welfare" <-- a misnomer really, because at the moment I don't think they're looking out my welfare, food safety-wise!) is beef or chicken with rice usually, or french fries, and on the rare occasion spaghetti. That's it. Oh, except on Sundays when there's fruit salad too (bananas, mango, and pineapple - YUM!) So when a chicken or egg sandwich can be wrangled up, we get excited. But I'm done with chicken and egg sandwiches now too. Twice hamburgers have been available. However, at the UN base they have had "Stoneys", a ginger soda from Tanzania. It's really good. Last week at our training workshop, breakfast and lunch were included. We had, you guessed it, bread and margarine for breakfast, with hot milk that you could add tea to. For lunch I had greens and rice everyday, sometimes spinach and sometimes okra. It was actually really good. And it felt good to be eating veggies (a rarity around here...and they wonder why people get sick and the children are malnourished???).

Making Progress

Last week we facilitated the training workshop for all the Baseline Study interviewers, supervisors, and assistants. This week they are in the field (i.e. rural villages) using the questionnaires to collect data. Buck (our Baseline consultant) and I are now working on the next stage - figuring out how to use the data they're collecting to determine the % accomplished for each indicator, and then writing computer programs to calculate these percentages. For example, I need to figure out the "Percentage of beneficiary children 0-5.9m who were exclusively breastfed in the last 24h". So I look at the survey tool - if the caregiver says "yes" that the child is currently being breastfed, and "yes" that the child received breastmilk in the last 24h and "no" to any other foods or liquids in the past 24h, then I can count that child as being "exclusively breastfed". I also need to calculate my denominator - number of total children <= 5 months. And then I get to write the computer program to calculate this using a bunch of IF, THEN, ELSE statements. It's enough to make one's head spin!

Me and God hanging at the beach

An unexpected benefit of this time in the DRC is the time I’m getting to hang out with God. Due to the nature of this project, I really only have one other person to talk to on a daily basis (Buck, our consultant), and he’s a guy. It’s been at least a week since I’ve had a conversation with another woman. So I’m finding that I’m spending a lot of time writing in my journal and just talking with God. On Sunday morning Buck and I went to the lakeside beach and hung out all morning. Buck sat under a tree reading a book, and I positioned myself up close to the lake on the sand and spent the morning with God. I read my Bible, spent time in reflection, wrote in my journal, read, prayed, and just enjoyed being in God’s presence as I took in His creation – the millions of sparkles created by the sun glinting off the waves, the warm breeze, the changing clouds, etc. It was an awesome morning. Many of my weekends during my last year in Bolivia were spent in similar solitude. I had forgotten how great it is – and how much I MISS spending extended time like this hanging out with God. Thank you Jesus for this unexpected blessing!