Nathaniel, On the Road and Beyond

Separate Worlds

2010-08-08T11:06:00.000-07:00

One of my colleagues is leaving Goma, taking a new job in Bangui (Central African Republic). I’m not sure if I envy her, or feel glad that I’m not going-; it’s a big promotion, but CAR sounds like a tough place, for a variety of reasons.

In any case, she can’t leave without a proper send-off, and we host a party at my boss’ house, on the shore of the lake, a lakeside villa with a gazebo and a view that would cost $20 million were it anywhere else, but instead rents for about $2000 per month. It’s hard to imagine more beautiful scenery or better weather, but it comes with trade-off of seeing the degree of inhumanity humans can inflict on each other. Add one of the most active volcanoes in the world on the outskirts of town, a lake filled with billions of cubic meters of poisonous methane and carbon dioxide, and the raw scars of a genocide that killed 800,000-plus people on the opposite shore, and there’s a reason why a popular nickname for this place is ‘hell in paradise.’

All of that aside, the party goes off without a hitch, except for a lack of ice. The electricity is off throughout the city today– no electricity, no ice. After four unsuccessful stops, we give up on trying to find ice, and settle instead for a blowup swimming pool in the gazebo, which we fill with cool water- everyone will have to enjoy their Primus, Mutzig, Sprite and Fanta semi-chilled, the best we can do. Nobody seems to mind though- everyone at the party has either lived in or is from the developing world, and warm beer is normal when electricity is iffy. There are plenty of goat kebabs, large plates of French fries, and cabbage salad- I even spring for a cake at the supermarket, a chocolate creation with ‘FELICITATIONS ET BON VOYAGE’ written in frosting across the top. My colleague has decided that the dress code for her going-away party is African pagne fabric, so the party is packed with blue flowery shirts, printed pictures of various saints on dresses, and a sport coat made from yellow and red Turbo King beer fabric-(slogan: Une Affaire d’Hommes (A Man’s Business). My colleague Jacques takes the prize, however, with a matching shirt and pant combination made of embroidered Primus Beer print-the explosive combination of red, yellow, blue, and dancing women would be enough to wake your average person…in a coma.

Something surprises me at the party though, something I’ve rarely seen in the years I’ve worked in Africa. Typically at parties like this, where both local staff (Congolese, in this case) and expats are invited, there are really two separate parties. The Congolese all hang out off to the side, drinking Fanta and joking in Swahili; the expats are in the other part of the room, drinking beers and mixed drinks, and trying to hear each other over “Tainted Love,” “Get Up, Stand Up,” and whatever the latest hit of the past three weeks happens to be. Some of this can be chalked up to the music, I assume; Bono’s humanitarianism notwithstanding, U2 doesn’t exactly have a huge following around here, and the average mzungu back home isn’t exactly up on the latest in the Papa Wemba or Koffi Olomide catalog.

This time though, the two groups mingle, a great surprise. An Irish guy from Mercy Corps indulges in Travolta-esque Saturday Night Fever antics, while Jonathan, our Congolese-born and Ugandan-educated Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, shakes it in the middle of a circle of dancing Congolese and expats. Jules, our Congolese Non-Food-Item program manager, belts three fingers worth of Bacardi and launches himself into the crowd.

On the edge of the circle, I see Bienvenu, our Logistician, joking in French with my colleague, the guest of honor.

“C’est interdit pour toi de partir. Je ne le permets pas,” he says. ‘You’re not allowed to leave. I won’t permit it.’ My colleague smiles and suggests that Bienvenu comes to Bangui instead.

And on it goes, with Americans, Italians, British, and Congolese having a good time- the beer flows, the music goes on, and my colleague gets quite a goodbye. I’m still struck by the fact that locals and internationals are mingling as much as they are- you really don’t see that frequently.

It’s part of a larger issue, I think. Although both Congolese and foreigners live in Goma, in many ways we live in completely separate worlds. Yes, we drive the same lava-rock strewn roads, breathe the same dust, and battle the same mosquitoes, but for the most part our lives split there. Most Congolese shop at the local markets, buying bread, manioc, fish, beans, and meat- it’s inexpensive, and not far away. Most expats go to Shoppers or Kivu Market, the two big grocery stores in town, where virtually everything is imported- water, milk, and candy come from Kenya and Uganda, but chocolate, cheese, spices, and AquaFresh toothpaste all come from the US, China, France or Belgium, with a price reflecting the 10,000-mile trip. There are Congolese who shop at these places too, of course, but they tend to be the relatively well-off professionals, for whom buying something imported is a stretch, but not impossible. The restaurants I go to with my foreign colleagues are far, far out of reach for the majority of people here, and usually are packed with groups of mzungu- most of the Congolese there are serving drinks and carrying plates.

I’m not saying this is fair, and it isn’t particularly nice, but it’s the reality of life in a place like this- the disparity is enormous. We live parallel lives from the people we’re ostensibly here to serve, and it requires a mental gearshift to pay laborers a decent wage of $3 per day, and go to Petit Bruxelles in the evening with friends for a $20 steak. I understand how exploitative that sounds, but it goes back to something I’d written about earlier- living at the same level as the people you’re here to serve isn’t part of the job description. Attempting to do so would be almost entirely pointless- difficult for you, and patronizing for people here.

Living life on a different plane isn’t normal, but I’m not sure if there’s any other way to do this job. NGOs and international organizations aren’t going to be able to retain people if they can’t promise them a decent quality of life– I saw that firsthand in Sudan with a previous position in a different organization. It’s a difficult shift for many of us, having served as Peace Corps volunteers, or something similar, where that’s the explicit purpose of why you’re in a community. That integration, while admirable, isn’t really the goal in the NGO life, at least not directly. Of course it’s a good thing to cultivate local friendships and relationships, but the point of coming to a place like Goma is to do what you can to help, not to become Congolese. If that means living a life apart, despite the consequences, I think that’s the price of admission.

That ticket can be a steep one though, a feeling like I’m constantly missing out. There’s an entire other side of Goma that I never see. I pass it on the street, see it from a distance, or simply have no idea about it. Some things are probably best not to see- this is ‘hell in paradise,’ after all. Other things, I’m sure I’d regret missing- if I knew about them. I started doing this work, at least in part, to see as much as possible. In that, I’ve succeeded, experiencing things I never would have imagined- New Year’s Eve in Yaoundé, playing Hacky-Sack with a Chadian toddler, and a sunset over Masisi Territory and Lake Kivu that would make the most hardened cynic gasp at the utter beauty. I’ve also smelled reeking fish in the Yaoundé Central Market, discovered that the same toddler I played hacky sack with died of Malaria before her third birthday, and know that the waters of Lake Kivu were responsible for one of the single worst Cholera outbreaks in history… Parallel tracks, indeed.

I suppose it comes to this; as I continue to move along I have mental pictures of Chad, Uganda, Niger, Sudan, Cameroon, and Congo. Living a life apart though, what I’m mostly seeing, unfortunately, are the broad outlines.

DRC #12-Lake Kivu Paradise, Apr. 10

2010-08-08T11:02:00.000-07:00

Yes, Lake Kivu really is this beautiful...

DRC #11-Ngungu, May 10

2010-08-08T10:57:00.000-07:00

I took a quick trip up to Ngungu to see how one of the WASH (WAter Sanitation and Hygiene) projects I'm managing is coming along. Things seem to be going well, and Ngungu is still gorgeous...

Death and Taxes

2010-08-02T10:55:00.000-07:00

My first field visit after coming back from a vacation in the States feels like a serious mental shift; less than a month ago, I’m browsing through specialty food stores at the Ferry Building in downtown San Francisco, trying to decide if I wanted Ciao Bella’s Bartlett Pear or Dulce de Leche flavored gelato; fast-forward 23 days, and I’m lurching along the roads in Masisi territory, the southern end of North Kivu province, making my way through thick clouds of reddish-grey dust. Moments like this, the distance between Congo and home feels every bit of the 10,000 miles it actually is. Challenging though it may be to come back, at least the scenery is beautiful- Masisi has some of the most stunning landscape I’ve seen my life; bright green hills, carved in geometric plots of potatoes and corn crops along the steepest hillsides, Eucalyptus trees, plump cows, and a cool breeze, all thrust against the shores of Lake Kivu. The view here reminds me of the shores of Lac Léman in Lausanne, Switzerland- if Switzerland went on a tropical vacation, was the size of Western Europe, and had no roads.

As beautiful as eastern DRC is, it was tough to come back from my vacation this most recent time, much harder than I remember it being in the past. I’m not really sure why though; I have a more comfortable life than I’ve ever had working in Africa, I have a good job, and for the most part work with great colleagues. I think at least part of it is the realization of time; sounds cliché, I know, but I’ll be 30 in less than a month, and maybe seeing a milestone just around the corner is a good time to stop and reassess. When I was just home, I met three friends’ new babies, two newly married couples, and others who’d just gotten engaged; all this, and I’m here. I am absolutely aware of how privileged I am, that I get to see things that most people from my world will never experience, fly around to exotic places, take vacations every 3-4 months, and have a generous salary. I have very, very little to complain about. Taking off from San Francisco on the way to Amsterdam, Nairobi, Kigali, and finally Goma was hard though, really hard. Everyone has heard the expression about the grass being greener on the other side- actually though, it’s greener here in Congo, literally.

The green grass along the side of the ‘road’ in Masisi is mostly the color of rust this time of year. I’m traveling with Made, one of the Program Managers I supervise on an education project; we’re building schools in a few communities in Masisi territory, including two in Ngungu, the place I visited a few months back for one of our Water and Sanitation programs. I’m coming along today not only to see how the construction is progressing, but also because it’s my job as the boss to deliver bad news. The news actually isn’t that bad, but it’s one of these things that will sound a lot better coming from me than from Made; whether fair or not, as the mzungu, my words tend to have more impact when explaining policies. Basically, I’m here to explain to the construction workers building our schools that with the Congolese government having changed their policy, we’re required to take 15% of the salary we owe them to pay as taxes to the state. Considering that we’re paying the masons, carpenters, and laborers anywhere from $3-5 per day, this feels absurd, but it’s the policy, and in order to remain in good standing as an organization, we have to follow it.

“If I tell them, they’re going to assume that I’m just putting the money in my pocket,” Made says, when he explains the situation to me the other day. “You should go, and tell them- they’ll believe you more than me.”

We have four school sites to visit today, and four groups of workers to whom I have to deliver the bad news, that although we’ll cover the taxes this time, next time, they’re only getting 85% of what they originally thought they would be. Not a fun message, but it has to be explained. Our first stop is in a village called Kanyabikono, a short detour off the main road that eventually will take us up to Ngungu. We bounce along past yet another incredible mountain vista, passing by the remains of a coffee roasting plant, until we arrive at the construction site. Six new classrooms and a director’s office are quickly taking shape; off to the side a group of kids, looking bored, watches as the carpenters hammer and the masons mix pyramids of cement and gravel. I walk around with the director, asking deeply probing questions like, “How many students do you have here?”

Everything looks like it’s moving along on, or even ahead of, schedule, a relief. Now it’s time to deliver the bad news. Made and I ask all of the laborers to join us, and we sit on benches in an old classroom the new school is replacing. Made speaks with them in Swahili, while Janvier, one of his assistants, sits next to me and whispers the translation into French in my ear.

“I’m very impressed by the work you’re doing here- it’s going very quickly, and you deserve a round of applause,” he says, clapping his hands for them. Oddly, the workers clap as well. Made explains the schedule we expect things to finish on, and again repeats that he’s very happy with how things have been going. He continues to speak in Swahili, but I see him turn to me, gesture, and I hear mzungu- they’re playing my song.

“Vous avez la parole,” Janvier whispers to me. You have the floor.

I quickly introduce myself- I speak in French, as my Swahili is limited mostly to ‘hello,’ ‘water,’ and ‘mzungu.’

“On behalf of our organization, I also want to thank you for all of the work you’ve been doing, we’re very impressed,” I say. “I know that this work is very difficult.”

“Très difficile,” one of the workers agrees.

“I came here today to see how the work was going, but also because we needed to talk with you about something important,” I continue. “As you know, we’re an organization registered with the Congolese government, and because of that, we have certain obligations. One of those obligations is to pay taxes to the state. What this means is that today, we’re going to give you the whole amount of the money we originally agreed on.” I stop and look at the contract we prepared- $800.

“Today, we’re going to give you $800. The next time though, Congolese law requires us to take 15 percent of this back as taxes for the state.”

The workers don’t look happy about this; I can’t blame them. Even though we pay them a decent wage by rural Congolese standards, their take home pay suddenly going from $88 to $75 is a hard pill to swallow. Many of these guys are likely the only ones with any sort of job, even a temporary one, and too many of them support too many people on too little money. Not only this, but paying taxes here is about as useful as putting a pile of Francs in a barrel, adding kerosene, and setting the whole thing on fire.

In the States and in the West at large, we have issues with corruption, of course, but at least in theory when we pay taxes they have some useful purpose, like roads, schools, and police. In Congo though, the road are a volcanic-rock-strewn, potholed and muddy mess, NGOs like ours are responsible for building schools and paying teachers, and the sole job of the police seems to be to stop people for meaningless violations to demand money and/or cigarettes. Given this, I can understand why these guys aren’t enthusiastic about giving up a portion of their pay for nothing.

Suddenly, an idea hits. People around here are big on expressions and proverbs, and one pops into my head. Maybe this is a good way to get the message across.

“Here is an American proverb,” I say. “Dans la vie, il n’y a que deux choses qui sont certaines. La mort, et les impots,” I tell them. In life, there are only two things that are certain; death, and taxes.

At first, I’m not sure if the message makes it through. Made looks at me for a second, pauses, and translates what I just said into Swahili. It works. The workers laugh, and I hear at least a few of them repeat the saying in French.

I still don’t think they’re happy about it, but at least they seem to understand that this is something we have to do, not that we want to do. After they sign a receipt, I reach into my backpack and pull out a stack of $20s and $100s, which I count out slowly as they watch. We hand the money to the supervisor, climb into the cars, and head to the next site. We have the same conversation three more times during the day, and each time, it’s a similar response. Nobody is happy about losing money, but after we make it clear that this is the government policy, and there’s nothing we can do to change it, the workers seem to accept it, and we move on.

I can’t remember who said it, but to paraphrase, it’s been written that the taxes we pay are the price of admission to have a functional society. Without taxes, the police don’t come when you call, the fire burns down your house, teachers don’t come to work because they don’t get paid, and the roads fall apart. Without taxes, you have eastern Congo.

The next time the Tea Party set feels like they’re throwing money away for the government, I’d suggest a visit here. Yes, money gets wasted in the US; the difference, however, is that in Congo, there’s rarely even a transparent attempt to make people believe that the state is serving their best interest. In my mind, that’s the difference between a state, and a failed state. Failed state or not, taxes are taxes, and as four groups of laborers in Masisi territory can now explain, few things are certainties in life, but this is one of them.

Kigali, May 10

2010-08-02T10:53:00.000-07:00

I took advantage of a long weekend to visit Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. It was a nice break, and chance to have a little bit of normality, with coffee shops, 24-hour supermarkets, and more.

DRC #10-Fun in Goma/Gisenyi, Apr. 2010

2010-08-02T10:51:00.000-07:00

Since I arrived in Goma, I've been fortunate to meet some great people, and despite all the work, managed to have a good time...

The African?

2010-05-17T09:58:00.001-07:00

Back home, my stepfather was recently in a community theater production of Man of La Mancha. It’s the first time he’s been in a production in more than 20 years, following his glory days in high school and college as the lead in practically everything, from ‘The Music Man’ to ‘Hair.’ Obviously, I wasn’t able to see the show, as much as I’d have liked to, but one of the tradeoffs of living overseas is that you get to see things you’d never experience back home, but the experiences back home are often the ones you’d most like to be a part of.

I at least get an emailed version of the program from the show, however, which is fun to read. Something catches my eye as I scan through the biography though.

‘Ken also has two grown step-sons, Nathaniel "the African," and Alex "the Singing Chef" Tishman.’

The whole ‘Singing Chef’ thing is a long story- one better left to my brother’s blog. But ‘the African,’ I guess that must be me.

Really? Have I become African?

In some ways, maybe this could be a good thing. Maybe I’ve picked up some of the positive qualities from the places I’ve worked and lived on this continent. There’s a lot of good to be had here; the resilience of the Chadians who became my friends and colleagues in Gounou-Gaya, the welcoming hospitality of many of the Congolese I’ve come to know over the past few months, the artistic talent of the silversmiths and leatherworkers in Niger from whom I bought jewelry and sandals, or an appreciation for the athletic wizardry of the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon on the soccer field. Obviously, I’m not saying that I’ve picked up all of these skills, of course, but being exposed to them has at least shown me parts of Africa that I would never have known about before this whole job/career/adventure/experience started.

Looking at it from the other side of the coin, however, many of the patterns and traits I see here are things that I’m glad that I haven’t learned or adapted. Too often, it feels like creative thinking is an impossible task, that fatalism saps any sort of progress, and that the ultimate ambition is to end up with a Mercedes-Benz, a potbelly, and a houseful of servants to order around. Fortunately, I don’t think I’ve developed too many of these ‘qualities,’ as far as I can tell.

But what does being ‘African’ mean, exactly? That’s like saying I’m ‘North American,’ implying that by being born in Alaska and raised in Florida and California, I somehow have the same outlook and mentality as someone from rural Mexico- they’re North American too, after all. On a continent of 1.3 billion people broken into almost 55 separate nations, there are certainly plenty of commonalities, but the average Moroccan is likely to have at least a slightly different outlook on the world that a Mozambican would, considering they live as far from each other as England and Kazakhstan.

When you hear about ‘killer bees’ in the US, they often talk about them as being ‘Africanized,’ a breed of more aggressive insect. Has the Africanized me become more aggressive too? Maybe. I’ve noticed that the longer I seem to work in places like Chad, Cameroon, Congo, or anywhere else, I have less and less tolerance for what seem to me to be poor decisions, lack of foresight, or simply acceptance of a non-functional status quo. If something doesn’t work, rather than simply living with the problem or claiming that the French/Belgians/British/Portuguese or (insert other colonial power here) caused the problem, I wish I saw more people making an effort to solve the problem, and when I don’t see it, it can drive me crazy.

Maybe that’s overly aggressive, maybe it’s a lack of cultural sensitivity, or maybe it’s simply an inability to adapt, but I think it’s something else- simply a realization that no matter how long I spend here, I’ll never be ‘African,’ even if that was something I wanted. My outlook on the world is always going to be different than people I meet in Goma, Juba, or anywhere else, and the clash of perspectives comes to a head at times, pissing me off.

As a Peace Corps volunteer, one of the most important things to focus on was on ‘integration,’ becoming part of your adopted community. In that sense, the idea was to ‘become African’ in a way, if that meant taking an adopted name, bargaining at the market over the same dried fish parts and millet, and traveling in the same bush taxis and cargo trucks with everyone else. It was a critical part of your ability to succeed; working at such a micro-level, often with a small village or a few close colleagues, there had to be a sense that people in the community understood you could relate to their experiences, even if you still lived a life apart simply by virtue of having the magic blue booklet stamped ‘PASSPORT’ with an eagle on the front.

As I’ve continued to work in Africa though, I’ve come to realize that the higher up you move in the field, the less it’s possible to integrate. As a foreigner working in the NGO world, my life is a world away from the average person I see in Goma; I buy things without being overly concerned about price, I travel when and where I feel like it, and my housemate and I have cleaners, gardeners, and 24-hour guards at home. I live a life of ridiculous wealth on a salary that’s solidly average by Western standards. The reality of this is a distance that didn’t exist when I was teaching 11^th graders in Gounou-Gaya.

Some people try to integrate a bit too much, I think, the clichéd idea of ‘going native.’ To me, this just seems stupid. It doesn’t prove anything, except that you can endure Giardia on a regular basis, and that you’ve sublimated everything about who you are to make a point that seems lost on the majority of people in the adopted community; they know you’re not one of them, and barring extraordinary and impossible adaptation, you never will be, at least not all the way. I remember a colleague as a Peace Corps volunteer who tried this, seemingly drinking the dirtiest water available, walking alone through N’Djamena in the evening, and basically doing everything possible to be as Chadian as possible. One time this person asked me, ‘Why are you really here?,’ disdain dripping from every word. Clearly, I wasn’t ‘African’ enough for this person’s taste. Maybe it was something that I realized even then, that you can live within a community, but that still leaves you a long way from being completely part of that community. It’s one thing to be culturally sensitive, but sensitivity doesn’t mean a complete abandonment of everything that makes you a Westerner, just because you’re not living in the West, at least to me.

None of this is to say you can’t have close friends and colleagues in an adopted home in the developing world, but the differences grow greater as you move higher, and trying to pretend they don’t exist serves no one, in my mind. If you have a decent job with a good salary, attempting to integrate by living like a broke volunteer is simply patronizing to your local friends and co-workers; they know perfectly well you can afford to live a comfortable life. But again, a nice house and financial freedom doesn’t mean you can’t have local friends and make an effort to learn as much as possible of the language, culture, history and traditions of a place.

When I first started doing this work, now more than 5 (!) years ago in Chad, I felt like it was critical to integrate as much as possible, to become a part of the community as much as you possibly could. I still think this is a noble idea, but as time has gone on, I’ve come around to thinking that maybe a healthy degree of respect while still maintaining some sort of distance might be more appropriate. This approach doesn’t work for everyone, but it does for me. Rather than try to be something I’m not, I’d rather pick and choose where I can, combining the cultures I’ve lived in as some sort of mixture that’s better than the sum of its parts. I’m happy to try to live a life here that combines the education, values and beliefs that have been instilled in me from childhood as an American, hopefully coupled with some of the positive traits I’ve come to admire over the years in each of the places on this continent I’ve had the privilege to live in or visit.

In the Man of La Mancha, Don Quixote spends his time ‘tilting at windmills,’ living a fantasy form of adventure that doesn’t really fool anyone else. To me, the idea of trying to ‘be African’ in a place like this is a similarly fantastical quest. It’s not that you can’t appreciate and acquire some of what you see in a place like this, but attempting to reinvent yourself as Congolese, Chadian, Cameroonian or anything else is as transparent and as doomed to failure as Quixote’s attempt to joust a set of whirling blades. Becoming ‘African’ is something that perhaps a small part of you can transform, but its impossible to adapt completely; I, for one, would rather be happy with who I am- a little African, a bit Floridian, mostly Californian with a hint of Colorado and Massachusetts, but in the end, still me, and better off for the good qualities here that do exist.

In my stepfather’s program, I’m ‘the African;’ maybe that does play a role in who I am, but if it does, it’s not the lead. In the play of my life, there’s an African understudy, but the lead is definitely American.

DRC #9-Walikale/Ndjingala, Mar. 2010

2010-05-17T09:55:00.000-07:00

One of our projects is in Walikale Territory, about 200km west of Goma in the forest. We've been installing a water system and other similar projects for people who have been displaced by conflict in the area.

For more information, see the captions...

DRC #8-Rutshuru School Opening, Apr. 2010

2010-05-17T09:52:00.000-07:00

As we've been finishing up one of our education projects, we held a ceremonial opening for a few of the schools we built in Rutshuru Territory, north of Goma in Virunga National Park. We traveled as a group there at the end of March to participate, and inaugurate the new buildings...

DRC #7-Gisenyi/Goma, Mar. 2010

2010-05-17T09:47:00.000-07:00

We all need to be able to take a break, and for those of us in Goma, we're fortunate to have Gisenyi, Rwanda just across the border... It's a nice break, and they even have a beach.

I promise that life really can be challenging here, photos of paradise aside...

DRC #5-Walkikale NFI Fairs Part 1, Mar. 2010

2010-04-05T10:18:00.000-07:00

I traveled to Walikale, about 200km west of Goma, in the forest. We were organizing NFI (non-food-item) fairs, where people who had been displaced by war are given vouchers that they can use to purchase things like mattresses, cookware, clothing, and more.

DRC #6-Walkikale NFI Fairs Part 2, Mar. 2010

2010-04-05T10:09:00.000-07:00

More photos from the Non-Food-Item Fairs in Walikale

Numb?

2010-04-05T10:01:00.000-07:00

A few days in Ngungu, and I’m starting to wonder if I’m becoming numb, if I’ve reached the point in the humanitarian and development field where little, if anything, surprises me any longer. Maybe this sounds melodramatic, but walking the short distance between our office and guesthouse, I see things that would shock people unfamiliar with life in the developing world. Has something changed in me to the point where I barely notice some of these things any longer?

I walk with the team to go and visit one of the local authorities this morning- it poured last night and mud is everywhere, punctuated by the occasional stone jutting out of the alleged ‘road’ through town. We pass between two houses and make our way towards a central square of sorts, the office for the government representative. We pass one of the front courtyards of a house, and I see a toddler, a little boy who looks to be maybe around a year old. He’s wearing the ragged remains of a white sweater, of which a few shards dangle from each corner. He has nothing else on and sits plopped down in a pit of mud, making noises to himself. His nose is dripping a grayish-green mixture, and his face is streaked with dirt. His stomach, distended, protrudes from underneath the bits of sweater that remain. This kid is a toddling, lurching, pediatric nightmare- undoubtedly undernourished and presumably filled with amoebas, parasites, and disease from the contaminated water he drinks and the mud he plays in. Drop him down in front of your average parent in the States, Japan, or Europe as-is, and Child Protective Services (or whatever the local equivalent) would seize him from his abusers without a second thought- in Ngungu however, the mud puddle is day care. I walk by, and although I see the toddler, I barely react- I keep walking- another day in Africa.

As we continue back to the house, I pass a soldier. This isn’t anything unusual; DRC is a heavily militarized place, and soldiers are a constant presence. What strikes me though, is that rather than a soldier, this is a kid of about 13, wearing fatigues and cradling an automatic rifle. To identify him as exactly what he is, a child soldier, is to understand that his existence here, in these fatigues and with his gun, violates dozens of UN and national policies about the use of kids in combat, and would expose his leaders to charges of child abuse of the worst sort if this were a different place. I glance at him as I walk along, and although I have some peripheral awareness at how bizarre and wrong this is, I keep going.

On the way back to the house, I see three women, walking barefoot in the mud; this may actually be the best strategy to keep from slipping. This isn’t what catches my attention though. The women each have a 25kg sack of cement on their backs, attached by a strap tied onto their foreheads. They’re clearly struggling under the weight of the bags, and have a blank glassy-eyed expression on their faces that can only be described as cow-like. I’m well-aware of how bad that sounds, but it’s the truth- it’s as if everything making these women people is gone, and all that remains is a beast of burden. The vacancy behind their eyes is something that would shock most people, I know, but I’ve seen it countless times over the past few years, to the point where it doesn’t faze me, I simply accept it as part of life here.

When I was a kid, and through my early teenage years, my dad was a funeral director. To answer the inevitable question, we never did live in the funeral home. Having him in this line of work meant that I was exposed to death far more regularly than most people, certainly most kids, to the point where walking in on my dad in the middle of embalming someone or scraping ashes out of the crematory seemed almost normal. I remember asking him about it once, how he handled being around bodies, some whom were people who had undoubtedly suffered violent, untimely, and painful deaths. He explained that the only way he could do this sort of job was to compartmentalize himself, the same way firefighters of police officers would at the scene of a horrific accident or crime. It’s not that this is a unique skill, but I hadn’t thought of it in that way before. I’m starting to think that humanitarian worker is another one of those professions where this is necessary- seeing so much human suffering, degradation, appalling conditions and misery can tear you apart if you don’t have some way to cope with it. Many people in this field turn to alcohol or drugs, and burnout/mental breakdown is a constant threat. Although I’ve been able (fortunately) to avoid substance abuse, I suppose this work has caused me to form a sort of mental callus, to the point that things that would shock me in another life barely seem to elicit a shrug.

In spite of the numbness that can (and does, at times) exist, there are little moments from time to time that make doing this sort of thing feel worth it, and make me realize I’m not completely crazy to go 15,000km from home and work in some of the most impoverished, conflict-ridden and otherwise fucked up spots on the planet. Looking out the doorway as I write this, I see a little girl in a clean neon-green dress, maybe four years old, running along a muddy path. She’s towing a homemade kite made of a few scraps of wood, a length of thin vine, and a plastic bag stretched across the frame. She clearly doesn’t have a care in the world, and seems concerned only with keeping the kite in the air- I can’t help but smile as I watch her.

Driving to a nearby village the other day, we get briefly stuck in a large mud pit. Forced to stop while the driver coaxes the Land Cruiser free of the thick brown/black goo, I find a scene of almost impossible beauty spread out in front of me. The sky is sapphire blue with a few wispy clouds sailing on the breeze, and a series of dazzlingly green mountains and fields planted with corn and potatoes surrounds our car. In the distance, I can see herds of black and white cows gorging themselves on the hillside. It’s a scene so perfectly idyllic as to be cliché, and a place that my family and friends back home are likely never to see.

The natural beauty and unadulterated joy I get to see and experience as part of what I do doesn’t erase the other side, the poverty, dirt, abuses of basic human rights and dignity, but it helps make it bearable, at least to the point where I’m not ready to abandon this field, not yet. The good manages to balance out the bad, to an extent, and form some sort of reasonable mental equilibrium. As I write this last paragraph, a song comes up on my iPod, and I can’t help but laugh at how well it encapsulates this state exactly. “I,” sings Roger Waters and Pink Floyd on “The Wall,” “have become/Comfortably Numb.”

DRC #3- Rutshuru Part 1

2010-03-21T01:57:00.000-07:00

I traveled to Rutshuru, a region about 85 kilometers north of Goma in the middle of Virunga National Park. We've been working on a project there to build new schools, pay teachers, and provide supplies for communities that have been displaced by war throughout the region.

As a bonus, the area is absolutely stunningly beautiful, as you'll see below...

DRC #4-Rutshuru Part 2

2010-03-21T01:52:00.000-07:00

More pictures from the trip to Rutshuru and the villages in and around Virunga National Park

Up to Ngungu

2010-03-21T01:43:00.000-07:00

I’ve never been to Ireland, but visiting Ngungu, I think I have a sense of what it might be like… if I was visiting 1,500 years ago. The hills are emerald green and grassy, there are plump cows everywhere, potatoes and cabbage are the staple foods, and the weather seems to constantly cycle between fog and rain, chilly all the while. Ngungu is 80 kilometers from Goma, easily another 1,000 meters up, and many, many centuries behind the times in terms of development, minus the tin roofs and the occasional nasal beep of a motorcycle horn.

Beautiful as it is, I’m not here for the scenery. Like virtually every human settlement in DRC, from the urban chaos that is Kinshasa to the tiniest village, access to water is an enormous problem. There might be plenty of it around, but drinking a bit is likely to give you stomach cramps, diarrhea, and maybe even a bacterial infection or amoebas if you really hit the jackpot. This is where we come in; I’m leading a team in collaboration with Ibrahim, our water engineer, and we’re conducting a study about people’s perceptions about the quality of the water they drink, and seeing how knowledgeable they are about basic sanitation, things like washing hands before cooking or after using the latrine. We have a team of agents on the ground already, trying to spread messages about simple things anyone can do to have better hygiene. A truckload of PVC pipes, valves, clamps and cement arrived this morning, the first step in construction of new water points, latrines and showers for the people of Ngungu.

The ‘road’ up here from Goma, if you actually can label it as such, is something to behold in more ways than one. It’s spectacularly bad in sections, with enormous patches of thick, blackish mud, seemingly wide enough to swallow a 4x4 whole. Equally, if not more spectacular though, is the beauty of the drive- North Kivu is undoubtedly the scenic jewel of DRC, and the way to Ngungu might be the single most beautiful point in the province. Climbing the mountains out of Goma, the views of steep green mountainsides and the enormous bluish-gray expanse of Lake Kivu form a vista that would rival any Swiss postcard. Once you actually arrive, however, the scenery is still beautiful, but the town is behind the times, even by the standards of the developing world. Electricity is a distant dream, naturally, everything is muddy, the market has very little available aside from the ubiquitous (and weak) Tiger Head brand batteries, tubes of super glue, and barely edible ‘Glucose Biscuits.’ There’s a strong odor of cow manure that seems to come and go on the wind, and soldiers in mismatched fatigues who look like they couldn’t possibly be more than 15 wander around aimlessly cradling large machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

On the first full day in town I accompany Ibrahim and our team of technicians to a series of water points, where we’re collecting samples for testing. Each water point, usually no more than a pipe sticking out of the ground is surrounded by women and young kids carrying large plastic Jerry Cans- water collection is definitely not a man’s business in this or any other part of Congo. The pipes were put in place by a German NGO many years earlier, and although they still deliver water, they’re badly contaminated in many cases. The water points are surrounded by a sea of mud, and people wade across it barefoot to fill their containers, often several times daily. The technicians take turns filling small sample containers, checking the pH, taking the water temperature, and measuring the turbidity (the cloudiness) of the water at the source. Each result is carefully recorded in a notebook to be included alongside bacteriological tests later on.

In addition to the water testing, we also administer our questionnaire to a random sample of households throughout Ngungu and a few of the surrounding villages. We’re asking very simple questions, things like, “Do you think it is important to wash your hands?” and “Does the container you store water in have a cover or not?” It’s fairly basic information, but the sort of data that’s essential in allowing us to get an idea of how much, if anything, your average family of residents or internally-displaced people knows about elementary hygiene practices. The interviewers go to a randomly-chosen house and ask to see the adult woman, as she’s almost always the one responsible for collecting water, feeding and bathing children, and cleaning up garbage inside and out. Many of the women seem shy or reluctant to respond at first, although a little by a coaxing by the interviewer seems to cause them to open up. Listening to their answers, even though a translator, can be revealing, and it’s surprising just how low the level of knowledge about this sort of thing seems to be. Multiple people said that they rarely, if ever, wash their hands following a trip to the latrine, and the idea of having a covered storage vessel for water seems foreign to many. The interviews are (for the most part) conducted entirely in Swahili , the local language in this area. This was actually a big surprise to me; I’d never thought of Swahili being spoken outside of Anglophone east African countries like Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, and finding out it was the main language in eastern DRC wasn’t something I’d expected. It makes sense though- this part of the country borders Uganda, and Tanzania farther to the south, so it’s only natural that the language would have made it here, although it does have a strong French flavor to it in these parts.

Since Swahili is the common language here, there’s one word I recognize immediately from my (brief) time in Uganda, ‘mzungu,’ the universal word for ‘foreigner,’ or ‘white.’ I hear it constantly here, from the hordes of kids who follow me whenever I leave the house, fascinated by every move I make. I’ve often wondered what could be so endlessly fascinating about me simply because my skin is a different color- as I write this, I’m sitting outside, and more than a dozen children are watching me as I put pen to paper silently. Walking around collecting water samples with the team yesterday, I (no joke) must have heard mzungu 2,000 times in two hours of testing. Something I’ve noticed over the years that holds true here as well is that the sight of a white foreigner seems to inspire people to do the most bizarre things. Kids mug and stare at me as I walk by, make faces, give exaggerated thumbs-up or karate poses, while young teenagers shout bits of fractured English (“HowareyouIamfineandyou!”), while others simple stare, hiss, or give what feels like a mocking laugh- it’s enough to drive you into blinding rage, if you let it get to you. Instead, I try to let it bounce off, stay as impassive as possible for the most part, although someone being particularly persistent or ridiculous can make me show a flash of annoyance or smile a bit. It’s not that I enjoy being stone-faced while being shouted at, bur I find it’s the best defense mechanism to prevent me from going insane over being stared at like a zoo animal. In this, I have to say that I envy Ibrahim, who’s Sierra Leonean, and blends in with everyone else.

One word I’ve been called is a surprise though, and I hear it for the first time as I’m walking around; after the first time, I hear it several hundred more times.

“MONUC! MONUC!”

For the uninitiated, MONUC is the acronym for the United Nations Mission in Congo, MONUC in French, and the largest UN peacekeeping operation in history, at more than $1.4 billion a year. Apparently I singlehandedly represent the United Nations. I think for an instant about responding, ‘that’s Mr. MONUC to you,” I don’t think the joke would really make it across the language barrier.

“MONUC, biscuit!”, the kids yell, demanding cookies. I find out from one of the agents that the MONUC troops often pass out cookie s to the kids as they patrol. Joseph, my colleague (and fellow mzungu) jokes with me that if you were to come back to this part of Congo in 30 years and ask the adults at that time what the mandate of MONUC was, they’d probably say it was to distribute cookies. Since many of the MONUC soldiers are non-African, from places like Uruguay and India, it stands to reason to the kids of Ngungu that any foreigner must be MONUC, and must therefore, be carrying an endless supply of cookies to be surrendered upon shouted demand.

Being in a place like this, it can be easy to feel disappointed or dispirited at the incredible amount of squandered and ignored potential. I suppose you could make that statement about DRC in general, which has an alleged $24 trillion of mineral resources under its soil, but this goes beyond simple wealth from something extracted out of the ground. If some authority or backer, whether the Congolese government or someone else, were to invest in an actual road, electricity, and a functional water system, it would have a dramatic impact on the fortunes of Ngungu and other communities in the area in several ways. For one, it would notably improve life for everyone concerned, the most important thing. Secondly, it would be possible to bring tourists here- this place could be paradise. If people other than the locals and humanitarian workers were to see the scenery I saw yesterday, the money would pour in, and this region could get on the road to stability and development. Uganda and Rwanda, both less than 200 kilometers from here, have figured this out, and have infrastructure for people to see the mountains, the gorillas, and the lakes- there’s no reason DRC couldn’t do exactly the same thing. I don’t see it happening though, at least not anytime soon- the fatalism, corruption, and willful slowing of progress for political gain seem too entrenched.

Ngungu isn’t likely to change much, aside from (hopefully) an improved water system and fewer cases of diarrhea. It’ll still look like Ireland, complete with hills, mist, potatoes and fresh cheese, but it’ll be the Ireland of the early Middle Ages, for the most part. One reason for this, I think, is the functionality of the government, and the systems that underpin it. In Ireland there’s a legal system which has played at least a part in enabling it to develop in the way it has- the only legal framework I see applying to Ngungu has an Irish name at least- Murphy’s Law.

DRC #2-Ngungu Baseline

2010-03-14T01:20:00.000-08:00

For my first visit, I traveled to the small town of Ngungu, about 80 kilometers from Goma, in the mountains of Masisi Territory. We're working on a project to improve access to clean water for people in the community, and helping to promote better hygiene habits where we can. It's a long process, and not an easy one, but we can at least make a start of it. As a bonus, the area is stunningly beautiful, as you'll see below...

DRC #1-Welcome to Goma

2010-03-14T01:15:00.000-08:00

Back in the days when this was the Belgian Congo, Goma used to be something of a resort town for the colonial settlers. With the scenery around here, it's easy to understand why... Unfortunately the authorities here are very touchy about taking photos in town, so there's only so many pictures I can post- I'll do what I can though.

We now return to our regularly scheduled emergency...

2010-03-14T00:28:00.000-08:00

“Nah-than-iel, I wanted to talk with you about something.” Christophe, the Country Representative and my boss in Yaoundé is calling me, his English spoken with a strong Francophone Belgian accent.

…And just like that, my time in Cameroon ends and the next chapter begins.

“I was in touch with the regional office, and they wanted to discuss a position in Congo with you,” Christophe continues. “Would you potentially be interested?”

I pause a minute before I say anything, many considerations flashing through my mind. Congo. This is a place that’s been synonymous for decades with war, corruption, dictatorship, dysfunctional infrastructure, and everything else that gives Africa a bad reputation. Truly the ‘Heart of Darkness,’ as it was famously called by Joseph Conrad. Working in Congo would mean saying goodbye to much of the comfort and stability that have come with living in Cameroon, a developing, but largely together place, at least in the cities. It’d mean heading back into the maw of emergency work, having already experienced similar situations in Chad, northern Uganda and southern Sudan- my days of DSL at home, spring rolls at the Vietnamese restaurant, and cruising down the national highways at 110 km/hour would be over, replaced by emergency needs assessments, UN helicopter flights, and awful stories of flight from disaster and other miseries. Do I really want to give up the relatively comfortable life of working in ‘development’ for its rougher, harsher, and more intense cousin, ‘emergency?’ That’s exactly what this would mean. So, on one hand it’d mean saying goodbye to a fairly comfortable life- on the other, it’d be a huge opportunity; my salary would more than double, and I could have the distinction of putting Chad, Sudan, and DRC on my CV, the true humanitarian disaster trifecta.

“Yes, I’d definitely consider it,” I tell Christophe. “What would I need to do?”

One 10-minute ‘interview’ (more of a casual chat) with the Country Representative in Kinshasa, and a brief conversation with the head of the sub-office, and it’s done- I’m leaving Cameroon, next stop Goma, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where I’ll be managing emergency Water/Sanitation and Education operations for CRS. Less than two weeks later I step off the jetway at Yaoundé/Nsimalen Airport onto a waiting Kenya Airways 737, next stops Douala, Nairobi, Bujumbura, Kigali, and Goma. Landing at the small terminal in Kigali, it’s immediately obvious what they say about Rwanda, that it’s a country going places. Following the horror of the 1994 genocide, people have said that the country turned a corner, and is on the way to becoming a well-developed and organized place where things work, in other words, not your typical African nation. The current president, Paul Kagame, has been called the ‘Napoleon of Africa,’ and seems determined to drag his country out of the morass of corruption and poverty that seems to hinder everything in this part of the world. Many people have said that Kagame has overseen this development at the price of true democracy, however, so it’s not as if everything is perfect. Perhaps an analog might be the government of Singapore, which turned a backwater into a global hub, but did it at the expense of civil liberties. Under the surface many of the of the old wounds and tribal hatreds undoubtedly endure, but it’s difficult to see much evidence of this on my brief drive through Kigali’s impeccably clean and manicured streets, with tall buildings and activity everywhere.

“Voici Gisenyi et Goma,” our driver says, referring to the Rwandan border town first. Here are Gisenyi and Goma, the place I’ll call home.The city quickly gives way to the countryside as we climb up steep green mountainsides offering incredible vistas of the landscape below. The highway (and it can legitimately be called as such) is well-paved, striped, and has large white pillars marking every kilometer. It’s a three-hour drive from Kigali to the eastern border Rwanda shares with its enormous neighbor DRC, perhaps 25 times its size, or greater. Goma sits directly on the border, making Kigali far more accessible than the Congolese capital Kinshasa, more than 1,500 impenetrable jungle-filled kilometers to the southwest. Driving through the mountains of Rwanda, we suddenly reach a point where we’re overlooking a body of water that looks as big as one of the Great Lakes in the US, ringed with green mountains and the glint of many thousands of tin roofs in the late-afternoon sunlight.

The border crossing is surprisingly easy, and once we cross, the change is immediate. The well-paved road disappears, replaced by cracked and potholed tarmac; the buildings look less well-constructed, and everything has a more run-down feel to it.

Like Gisenyi, Goma sits on the shore of Lake Kivu- back in the days when this place was the Belgian Congo, Goma used to be something of a resort town. The weather is consistently pleasant, the views are stunning, and the black volcanic soil coming from Mount Nyiragongo, 12 km to the north, enables farmers to grow every type of fruit and vegetable imaginable. Unfortunately Goma has become has become known for other things over the years, none of them good. In 1994, at the height of the Rwandan genocide, waves of Hutu and Tutsi refugees poured across the border into Goma and hastily-arranged refugee camps on the shores of the lake. In the midst of a natural paradise, conditions quickly became hellishly grim, and a cholera outbreak only added to the misery. Cholera is an incredibly contagious disease, and by the time the epidemic had burned itself out a few weeks later, thousands were dead. To make things worth, North Kivu province, of which Goma is the capital became the scene of some of the worst of the fighting during the DRC’s multiple civil wars in the 1990s. As if to ensure that this place could never get a break, that it was cursed despite the idyllic setting, Mt. Nyiragongo erupted in 2002 and sent an inferno of lava cascading through town, largely obliterating the central business district. The last kilometer of the airport runway was buried in lava, and to this day cars crawl along the dried lava flow, leading to streets that are made entirely of large rocks. Driving anywhere in town, with the exception of the handful of recently paved roads feels like going on one of the test courses you see at Land Rover dealerships in the US or Europe, only real, and for kilometers at a stretch.

As the scene of so much misery, human-caused and otherwise, Goma has become a humanitarian and NGO hub, and any international nonprofit worth it’s 501c3 status has a presence of some sort here, and as such, this place is something of a boomtown. In addition to the NGOs, MONUC, the UN peacekeeping mission Congo (and largest of its kind in history) has set up a major operations base here, and the massive salaries the UN fonctionnaires bring with them (as well as the comfortable salaries of NGO workers) have sent prices skyrocketing for everyday items. Imported goods are expensive wherever you go, but a box of Corn Flakes doesn’t generally cost $12 except in NGO-stan, places like Goma, Juba, and N’Djamena. Expatriates in the developing world, with the exception of Peace Corps volunteers and missionaries (although even them to an extent) always live something of a life apart from the communities in which they live, but in Goma the divide feels especially dramatic. Foreigners (myself included) live in enormous villas with tile floors, spacious rooms, comfortable furniture, generators to cover for the regular power outages, all surrounded by massive walls and razor wire. Contrast this with the house of the average Congolese family in Goma, which in many cases wouldn’t be fit for animals in the developed world. At Shopper’s Market, the store where all the UN and NGO staff seem to shop, 200 grams of imported foie gras costs $49, but the vast majority of people in town struggle to earn more than a dollar or two a day. I don’t know if there’s any way to avoid this disparity; it seems simply to be fact of life in this part of the world, and in this career.

It can be hard to think of Goma as a ‘hardship post,’ a place where I’m receiving ‘danger pay.’ I think of this the other night when I go a party hosted by someone working for UNICEF. The house sits on the shore of Lake Kivu, surrounded by a stone dock and manicured garden of rolling lawns and tropical flowers. The weather is cool and pleasant, and the slight breeze makes the moonlight ripple on the shore of the lake. I chat with other expats like myself, drinking Absolut and snacking on crackers and imported French cheese. Someone’s iPod blares a mix of upbeat party tunes, and more English is being spoken than anything else. Looking across the lake it’s easy to forget that in a setting as perfect as this thousands have died needlessly and will continue to die from pointless war and easily preventable disease. That’s the paradox of Goma and other places like it, I guess- relative luxury in the midst of suffering. Yes, my life isn’t as comfortable as what I had in Cameroon, but it’s pretty damned nice- one look around is all I need to figure that out. It’s not that this sort of inequality should be the acceptable status quo, but for the moment this is how things are, and it’s time to adapt. This is where I’ll be living, and I may as well find a way to work within it; now entering bizarro-world, population plus-one.

Cameroon #9-Thank you, Yaoundé, and goodnight

2010-03-12T09:42:00.001-08:00

...And just like that, it's time to move on to somewhere new. Not before a few get-togethers and photos though...

Where it all began

2010-01-31T03:52:00.000-08:00

Another entry, another African capital. This time though, I already know my way around.

For the first time since 29 Peace Corps volunteers and staff crossed the Chari to avoid the forces of the FUCD (yes, seriously), April 14, 2006 at about 10:30 AM, I'm back in Chad, in N'Djamena. I wouldn't say if I've come full circle though- I feel like I'd have to go back to Gounou-Gaya for that to happen, and unfortunately that's not going to happen on this trip. I originally came up from Yaoundé for about a month to work on a proposal, but after CRS decided not to pursue the opportunity, I'll only be here a few more days before heading back to Cameroon. I'm a little disappointed; the opportunity to be back here, a place that most NGO people and diplomats dread, is wonderful.

The familiarity begins from the moment I arrive. I step through the turnstile gate into the main hall in the N'Djamena airport, and see a face I recognize. Abba Ali Mahamat used to be a driver for the Peace Corps, and is now working for CRS. He's rail-thin, enormously tall, and with skin so black it looks almost bluish. His hair is grayer than I remember, and he's wearing a dark-red 'func suit' as we used to call them, named after the two-piece functionnaire (civil servant) outfit common around here instead of the typical bubu I'd almost always seen him in as a volunteer. We embrace. "Nathaniel, it's been a long time," he says.

"Too long," I answer.

"Tu me rappelles, n'est-ce pas?" he asks. You remember me, right?

"How could I forget- you're Abba Ali Mahamat," I respond.

He smiles.

Even though my life of Land Cruisers, air-conditioning and high-speed Internet is a world away from what I knew as a Peace Corps volunteer, something about being here just feels right, and familiar. This is Africa as I first saw it five and a half years ago; hot, dry, and desperately poor, with mirrored sunglasses and turbans. Everything feels familiar here- the superheated dusty air, the sand along the streets, the beat-up yellow Peugeot cabs with red and blue hand-painted numbers, even the kids yelling 'nasarra' at me, the most familiar word for 'white person' I know.

Perhaps the epitome of this familiarity happens when David, the Country Representative, takes me out to dinner the first night I'm in town.

"We'll go to one of my favorite local places," he tells me on the way. We pass the Rond-Point de 100 Ans, the sculpture commemorating N'Djamena's 100th anniversary, and less than a kilometer later, turn off into the dust and park against a the high wall of a restaurant. "I don't know if you know this place, but this is Le Pelican," David says. "The food is good, and it's inexpensive."

I can't help but laugh, and I explain why to David. As Peace Corps volunteers, Le Pelican was one of our favorite places to go, for the same reasons as David listed. Also, it was an inexpensive taxi ride from SIL, the missionary compound where we used to stay. I've probably been there 20 times, enough to remember the large pelican (the namesake) that would promenade among the tables, squawking at anyone in its way, and to know that the beef brochettes were best avoided, as they usually had the distinct taste of the propane stove they were cooked over.

Memories of gas-flavored beef aside, this isn't to say that there aren't any differences though. To the contrary, N'Djamena feels like a city on the move- I'm not sure exactly where it's going though. On the positive side, newly-paved roads are everywhere; the bumpy track that used to lead to the Peace Corps office is now two paved and striped lanes on each side with streetlights running down the center. People still drive horribly along the roads, only now LED traffic lights powered by solar panels control at least a portion of the madness, when taxis and motorcycles bother to stop for them. On the other hand, the beautiful and enormous trees that used to line the shops of Avenue Charles de Gaulle are now gone, chopped down by President Deby's men following an attack by rebel forces on the capital in 2008. The road passing alongside the Presidential Palace and central government headquarters feels far more militarized, with giant cement blocks lining the walls, higher strands of razor-wire, and many, many more of the Presidential Guard, virtually all of whom come from the president's own Zaghawa tribe, their thin, angular, Arab-esque faces topped with crimson-berets and yellow bandanas, toting enormous machine-guns, all in desert khaki uniforms and reflective sunglasses.

The next day, I'm walking along the street, making my way to one of the nearby shops where I can grab an egg sandwich with peppers, one of the few street food options I happen to see near the office. My shoes have turned almost completely gray from several centimeters of sand lining the road. It's hot (no real surprise there), and I'm not really paying much attention to the people around me.

"Na-tahn-yel, bonjour!" someone yells.

I wheel around- I haven't heard my name pronounced like that in years. Who could possibly know me? I see a young man on a bike- he waves. I look a bit closer.

"Ramadji?" I ask.

"Oui, c'est moi," he answers. Yes, it's me. I shake my head in astonishment.

Ramadji Cyrus was one of my favorite students when I taught in Gounou-Gaya, one of the few who I could see had the real potential to be a success, provided he could get out of the village, and somewhere he could use his intelligence and talents. I'm thrilled to see he has, and to meet him on the street in N'Djamena, a city of roughly 1,000,000 people is pretty incredible. I'm running short on time, so we exchange phone numbers and agree to meet for lunch. The next day, over plates of shwarma and fried Capitaine (Nile perch) at La Marquise, the Libyan bakery in the center of town, Ramadji and I catch up. He's in his second year at one of the local institutes of technology, where he's studying telecommunications- with a certificate in the field, he can get a job with Zain or Tigo, two of the big mobile phone operators in Chad. It's great to see that he's been able to move forward, and listening to him tell me about the handful of other students I'd hoped to hear from - Koussoungue, Mystere, and Sippa, it's great to know that they're all doing well too, in universities, working, or something else.

I get back to the guesthouse that evening, surrounded (in typical expat fashion in Chad) by high walls, electrified barbed wire, and patrolled by guards- the reality of life in a place where the gap between rich and poor is so vast. Getting out of the silver RAV4, I stop to talk for a moment with one of the guards, a rail-thin young man with large brown eyes.

"C'est comment?" I ask. How's it going? It's a common saying around here, even though it's completely wrong in French.

"Ça va," he answers, the standard response for virtually any question in this part of the world.

"So, where are you from in Chad?" I ask.

"Le Sud," he answers. The south.

"Where in the south?" I press.

"A little village called Gounou-Gaya; I'm sure you don't know it."

"Are you serious?" I answer in disbelief.

"Oui."

"I lived in Gounou-Gaya for two years" I tell him. "I was a teacher at the high school."

He looks at me again.

"Monsieur Nah-tahn-yel, c'est vous?" Is that you?

"Yes" I answer. "Were you one of my students?"

"No," he responds. "I was already in Terminale (the last year) when you were there, so I wasn't in your classes."

"What an amazing coincidence, in any case," I answer. We chat for a few more minutes, and I walk into the house, marveling at how small the world apparently is.

A few days later I have a chance to meet Grâce, one of the language teachers we had during our Peace Corps training. She meets me in her sister's 4x4 at the French Cultural Center in the middle of town. She wears a matching blue and yellow complet, with a blouse, skirt, and headscarf, typical attire for Christian Chadian women, especially someone relatively well-off, like Grâce.

Arriving back at her house I meet Béatitude, Grâce's daughter, who I knew as a chubby five-month-old, but who is now a beautiful little four-year-old, who shyly shakes my hand and whispers "Ça va?" when I greet her.

As Grâce and I catch up, Béatitude begins to warm to me, coming over to tap me on the shoulder- I stick my tongue out, and she giggles. We talk a bit longer, and Grâce goes to get drinks from a nearby boutique. Béatitude sits on a plastic mat off to the side, playing with a plastic Fisher-Price airplane. She looks at me expectantly, and I join her on the mat. We play with the plane, tossing the pilots in and out, flying circles around her head, and coming to a landing at her feet.

She wears an enormous smile- it's probably rare that an adult will actually play with her, something that isn't common in Chadian society. After awhile, Grâce comes back, we talk a bit more, and I catch a ride on her friend's motorcycle back to the guesthouse, just as night is falling. It's a slightly harrowing trip on a motorcycle with a headlight that works only intermittently, and I'm very happy when I climb off the bike and back onto the ground.

The next few days fly by, a blur of meeting old friends, including a chance to reconnect with Al-Hadj and Adji, two of the former drivers for the Peace Corps. They both work for the US embassy now in N'Djamena, and over a lunch of nachif (grilled meat and vegetables), we catch up on the past few years. Both seem mostly unchanged, although there are new kids, jobs, and marriages- life clearly went on uninterrupted after we left. We talk about 'les evenements,' as the rebel attacks on the capital in 2008 are referred to, where large portions of the city were heavily damaged, with hundreds of people dying in the fighting. The only evidence I see is the machine that I used to get soft ice cream from at L'Amandine, the French bakery in the center of town- it still works, but now sports a rather large bullet hole in the side. Al-Hadj and Adji talk about a wary sort of calm throughout the city, as everyone waits to see what happens next.

That does seem to be the general theme of life in Chad though- always a sense of waiting to see what happens next, a life dependent on the fates, where the next rebel surge could change everything. Despite all of this, however, life goes on, and people find a way to cope. Life isn't easy there, and being back even for a brief time reminds me just how tenuous things can be. Even as a volunteer, I lived a well-protected and insulated life in many ways, and didn't really get a true sense of that fragility; I'm not sure if I ever could have. Now, I certainly can't. I think the realization that that tenuousness exists though provides some perspective, however, and it's one that I'm glad to have. Realizing that the majority of people in a place like Chad tend to look at life with the realization that everything can change on a whim affects how you design and manage anything, and can sometimes make the whole concept of sustainability seem a little ridiculous.

Ultimately, my trip ends up being much shorter than I'd planned, but I feel like it's been meaningful all the same. Not being able to go back to Gounou-Gaya, I didn't get the closure I guess I thought a trip to Chad might bring, but still feel like it was worth it. Seeing familiar places and old friends was a wonderful way to get some perspective, and as I move into the next step of my life in this whole 'development' thing, I'm grateful to have had a moment to catch a glimpse of where it all started…

N'Djamena, January 2010

2010-01-31T03:47:00.000-08:00

I had the chance to go back to Chad, although only for about a week due to a change of plans. I was able to visit a few old friends, and see some of the places I remembered, which was truly memorable.

Unfortunately, due to extremely heavy restrictions on photography in N'Djamena, I was only able to take a few photos, mostly of the people I met and a few places I was able to take pictures out a window in passing. I'll post these few though, and hopefully give you a sense of what life in the Chadian capital looks like today...

Europe Trip-#8, The Julefrokost Reunion

2009-12-31T03:34:00.000-08:00

My main purpose in going to Denmark was for an unofficial reunion of the Europe in the World international journalism program, which I participated in during 2002-2003. We gathered for a 'Julefrokost,' a traditional Danish 'Christmas Lunch' in the small town of Nørre Aaby, also on the island of Fyn. 10 people (out of the 20) attended, from Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, the UK, Lithuania...and me, from the US via Cameroon, I suppose. and it was wonderful to see everyone again- people move on though- marriages, kids, houses, everything. I guess that how it goes as you get older- in any case, it was wonderful to reunite, and I'm looking forward to the next get-together, wherever and whenever it may be.

Europe Trip-#7, Copenhagen & Odense

2009-12-30T09:59:00.000-08:00

Leaving Switzerland, I went to Denmark, possibly the one person flying to Copenhagen at that time with absolutely nothing to with the COP15 conference on climate change, which happened to coincide with the class reunion I'd come to attend. The city was blanketed in things related to the conference, but it was still possible to see some of the normal touristy stuff. The problem, unfortunately, was the almost all the hotel rooms were booked, meaning that I could only afford to stay in the one place I found for one night, and move on.

It wasn't too bad though- I went to Odense the next day, on the island of Fyn, one of the larger cities in the country. An interesting place, and fun to walk around...

A few of my favorites first, followed by the album.

Nyhavn, the famous (and picturesque) harbor

At the City Hall plaza, full of climate change exhibitions

Banners like this were everywhere.

The main cathedral in Odense, which holds the bones of a saint- see the album for details...

Europe Trip-#6, Lausanne (Pts. 1 & 2)

2009-12-30T02:01:00.000-08:00

After Chamonix, I traveled back to Switzerland, and spent a couple nights in Lausanne, a city about 65km from Geneva, also on Lac Léman. Lausanne is the home of the International Olympic Committee, and the Olympic Museum, has a beautiful cathedral, and is surrounded by incredible mountain scenery.

A few of my favorites, followed by two albums; the first highlighting the lake, the cathedral, and a truly unforgettable sunset over the mountains, the second in and around the Olympic Museum.

Looking from the center of town towards the water's edge

Cathédrale Notre-Dame, in Lausanne

Inside the cathedral

A sculpture in Lausanne Harbor

Lac Léman and the Jura Mountains on the other side

A sculpture at the Olympic Museum on the edge of the lake

Sunset over the lake, truly incredible

Europe Trip-#5, Chamonix

2009-12-29T15:12:00.000-08:00

I went from Geneva on a quick overnight trip to Chamonix, France, a few hours by train. Unfortunately the trip ended up being a bit of a dud, as the beautiful Alpine views I'd been hoping for were replaced by beautiful views of rain clouds. Nevertheless, I was able to get at least a few nice shots of the town, and one or two of the mountains...

Europe Trip-#4, Geneva (Pts. 1 & 2)

2009-12-29T14:14:00.000-08:00

I spent a few days in Geneva, staying with a friend of mine who I served with in the Peace Corps- I'd never spent any significant amount of time in Switzerland before, and Geneva was a beautiful place to start. The first album is mostly pictures of all the international things the city is known for, like the UN and the Red Cross, as well as a few photos from the Salève, a cliff overlooking the city. The second album is around the city itself, especially the Old Town and the St. Pierre Cathedral, inside and out.

As with most of these entries, I'm going to post a few standouts, followed by the albums themselves...

Looking down from the Salève, into Geneva and Lac Léman

Perfect timing for a rainbow.

Waiting for the télépherique, the cable car, on the way down...

The St. Pierre Cathedral

Along the Rhone, in the center of the city.

At the UN office, a sculpture representing victims of land mines.

The Palais des Nations, the European home of the UN.

A view of the city, from the top of the cathedral

Europe Trip-#3, Wangen (Alsace)

2009-12-29T13:52:00.000-08:00

I visited the Szobody family, formerly missionaries in Chad, in the small village of Wangen, France, about 30km outside of Strasbourg. After being in Paris and then Strasbourg, it was a really nice change to get out to the countryside.

Paul & Teresa, who I first met in Gounou-Gaya, Chad.

With a few of the kids (l-r): Matthias, Micah, Mercy, Phillip, and Tytus.

Walking along the fields in the countryside...

Europe Trip-#2, Strasbourg

2009-12-28T09:43:00.000-08:00

After leaving Paris, I went on to Alsace in eastern France, where I stopped in the city of Strasbourg. I'd been there before in 2005, but this time I went to visit the Szobodys, a family of American missionaries who I met in Chad when they were living in Gounou-Gaya, the village I served in as a Peace Corps volunteer.

As with the previous post, all the photos (and larger versions of them) can be seen by clicking on the photo in the slideshow. Same as before, I wanted to highlight a few of my favorite photos from the album...

The Strasbourg Cathedral, incredibly imposing- this is one of my
favorite pictures I've ever taken, and was another long-exposure.

Inside the cathedral, with the organ, the columns, the stained glass
and everything else you'd expect from a 500+ year old church.

A section of the Old Town of Strasbourg, with the
traditional Alsatian construction preserved.

A small canal linking up to the Rhine, which

serves as the French/German border.

Followed by the rest of the album...

Europe Trip-#1, Paris

2009-12-28T09:17:00.000-08:00

I began my two-and-a-half week European vacation with a couple days in Paris; naturally it was quite a change from the (relative) heat of Cameroon to go somewhere cold and almost snowy. Strange as it may sound, it was actually a really nice change. You can see all the photos in the album below, and can see larger versions by clicking on any of them, but there are a few standouts that I want to highlight first...

Notre-Dame Cathedral, early evening- I tried a long-exposure
photo, to make sure I had enough light.

Along the Seine, just across from Notre Dame

Inside the courtyard at the Louvre

One of the buildings of the Louvre palace- also a long-exposure.

...And the rest of the album.

Black magic, with a side of sheep

2009-11-27T01:34:00.000-08:00

I’m visiting Kumbo, a town high in the mountains (about 1,900 meters up) in the Anglophone northwest of Cameroon, where I’ve come with my colleague Dr. Leslie to assist in a microfinance workshop we’ve helped organize for an ongoing HIV and AIDS project. We’re here on another mission however, and it’s hard to say which is more important. We’re on the hunt… for goats.

Kumbo is known for its livestock market, held a few times a week, and we’ve been directed to pick up three goats for Dr. Kenneth, one of our Cameroonian project managers; he’s getting married at the end of this week, and as tradition requires, his fiancée’s family has insisted he provide three goats (as well as three pigs and other assorted livestock) as a dowry for their traditional marriage. This is interesting to me. Kenneth is a trained pharmacist, regularly attending conferences in Geneva, Mexico City, and the US. In order for his bride’s family to accept him though, he has to provide a goat? This in itself is something that has always struck me as interesting- I can understand why the idea of the dowry still persists among people living in the village, but the fact that it continues among urban, well-educated Cameroonians (and Chadians, and Ugandans, and Sudanese) seems a bit odd. Tradition is far stronger here, I guess.

The day before, for example, I’m sitting on an outdoor terrace with a Peace Corps volunteer I met in the middle of ‘Squares,’ the main intersection in ‘downtown’ Kumbo. As I sip my drink, I suddenly see four or five older men dressed in loincloths and carrying wooden spears, ceremonially making their way down the street. They’re dancing on either side of a figure dressed entirely in black, wearing a costume covering his face with nails protruding all over. He’s ‘surrounded’ by the men in the loincloths with the spears and ropes, and dancing his way down the street, lunging at people at random, and shaking the spear he carried.

“That’s the juju,” one of the Cameroonian men sitting with me explains, referring to the local black magic that’s still very much a part of life here . “They’re guiding him down to the royal palace for a ceremony.”

Nobody seems to find this even the slightest bit unusual, from what I could tell- taxis continue to circulate, women cook omelettes and fried potatoes in cast-iron woks over charcoal on the side of the road, and people chat on cell phones. I guess cultures everywhere like to showcase their traditions though - it’s why the St. Patrick’s Day parade exists, and why we light a menorah in the center of most major American cities at Hanukkah, right? In any case, the juju passes, I finish my drink, and Leslie and I continue to look for goats.

We arrive the next morning at the main livestock market, down a bumpy dirt road and in a fenced-off triangle. Leslie suggests that I should probably wait and follow him a few minutes later- if we’re seen together, the price for the goats we want will skyrocket- the fact of being white in Africa. I wait with Mahmane, our driver, by our truck, and watch. Sheep and pigs are milling around everywhere, and the chorus of maaah-ing and squealing is overwhelming, as is the smell. We don’t see many goats though, until we spot a truck on the edge of the market, where three teenagers are piling them into the back, at least 20 or more, most sitting in large woven-grass baskets. I decide enough time has passed, and I make my way over to Leslie, Mahmane in tow.

“That isn’t good,” Leslie says, gesturing at the truck. “Someone came from Bafoussam (the capital of the Western Province), and is buying all the goats to take back and sell. Now it’s going to be very expensive.” He does manage to arrive at a price with the seller though, 15,000 FCFA (about $33) each for two goats, and Leslie leads the animals to the back of the truck, where Mahmane ties them inside. Leslie goes off to find a third, and Mahmane and I wait.

“Il y a beaucoup des moutons ici; j’aimerais acheter un pour la fete de mouton vendredi,” Mahmane says. There are lots of sheep here- I’d love to buy one for the ‘sheep holiday’ on Friday.

He’s referring to Tabaski, a Muslim holiday known as Eid-al-Adha in most parts of the world. It’s meant to commemorate Abraham’s sparing of Isaac in the Bible, after which he sacrificed a sheep instead.

“How much are the sheep?” I ask Mahmane, an idea brewing.

“Maybe 25 or 30,000 FCFA,” he answers, about $55 or $60.

One of my favorite parts of living here, and living as an ‘expat’ is the ability it provides to do little things that can mean a lot for people. At the moment I’m earning a stipend, instead of an actual salary; the truth is that it’s a very generous one, and coupled with the additional benefits, it means that I earn substantially more money than the majority of the people I work with in the office. On one hand, I can see why this isn’t particularly fair; on the other, I realize that if Cameroonians working in Cameroon were paid on the same scale as international employees it would wildly distort their lives, and make extended families even more dependent on them than many already are. It means that I probably am taking home more than my boss does every two weeks, despite his 15 additional years of experience in this job. And it certainly means that I’m bringing home more than Mahamane, probably 15-20 times as much as his driver’s salary, I’d guess. This disparity isn’t something I have the ability to change, so rather than attempt to do so, I like to do what I can to provide a bit of help and support when it’s possible.

“OK, Mahmane,” I say. “Do you have 15,000?”

“Oui.”

“If we can find a sheep for 25,000 or less, I’ll chip in 10,000 for you.”

For the first time I can remember, I hear an adult Muslim man squeal with delight.

“Wow! Thank you so much!” he says, grasping my hand. I smile.

“It’s my pleasure,” I answer. “Now, let’s see if we can find you a sheep.”

We make our way into the market, where we see a few sheep tied up by the fence. We make our way over to one, white with long horns, and the seller appears. He’s an old man, wearing thick black plastic-rimmed glasses, dressed in a pinkish bubu, and sporting a bright purple cap.

“How now?” he says, greeting us in Pidgin English, the local lingua franca. Mahmane and I smile at him- neither of us are Pidgin speakers, and although normally Mahmane would take the lead, the fact that he’s French-speaking actually means it makes more sense for me to do the talking in this part of the country.

“How much for the sheep?” I ask, speaking as clearly as I can.

“You bring 33,” the man answers. Naturally the price is higher than it would normally be, simply because I’m standing there. I know how the game works though- after the initial offer, you generally offer half or slightly more, and get progressively closer from there.

“That’s expensive,” I respond. “We can’t do that- I can give you 20 though.”

The man shakes his head and clicks his tongue distastefully. “You bring 29.”

“22,” I reply.

“27,” he answers.

“23,” I shoot back. The man pauses for a second to consider. “You bring,” he says, gesturing with his fingers tucked into his palm. Mahmane reaches into his pocket and pulls out 13,000- I slip an additional 10,000 into his hand.

“Thank you again so much,” Mahmane says to me.

“Bonne fete,” I reply. Enjoy the holiday.

Mahmane and the seller pull the sheep out of the market and to our waiting pickup, where they half-wrestle/half-toss the animal into the bed. The sheep struggles at first, but eventually the two men are able to attach the woven grass rope to one of the metal rods holding up the canopy that covers the truck bed.

“Now that I’ll have a sheep this year,” Mahmane says, “our tradition says that I’ll need to slaughter one every year for the festival. It’s very important.”

I’m a bit concerned- I helped him to buy one this year, but when the next Tabaski rolls around, I almost certainly won’t be in Cameroon any longer- I wouldn’t want to put an obligation on him to buy something he can’t really afford.

“I hope I haven’t caused you a problem for the future,” I say. “I know sheep are expensive.”

“No, not at all- it’s important to have a sheep for the festival, and I’ll save up every year to be sure that I can afford one from now on,” he answers.

“Since you helped me to get it,” he continues, “I want you to join us this year- it’d be my honor.”

“If you’d like me to be there, I’d be happy to.”

36 hours, 500 kilometers, four goats and a sheep later, Leslie, Mahmane and I are back in Yaoundé. The livestock take to the journey surprisingly well, although I imagine the fresh carrots and cabbage we buy along the way in the home village of my boss, called Santa, help a bit.

The name of the village makes me think- I suppose there’s something Santa-esque about my role in this; I’m being the benefactor, providing a gift to make a holiday possible. On one hand, it’s truly a privilege to be in a position where I have the ability to make someone so happy with something that’s so (relatively) small. On the other, there’s the law of unintended consequences… By buying the sheep for Mahmane, I’ve locked him into purchasing livestock every year; he assures me he can afford, but I still wonder. I know I’ve made a difference for him and for his family this year, and I know it’s a positive one. In the future, I know this sheep will have a lasting effect, long after it’s been prayed over and served with carrots, couscous and sweet tea. Next time though, I hope it’s still a good thing…

Jail

2009-11-11T13:27:00.000-08:00

The next time you get into an argument, if someone tells you to 'go to hell,' let me know. I can give you directions.

New Bell Prison is the central prison in Douala, Cameroon's largest city. I visit along with Dupleix, one of the program managers and Olun, our technical advisor. We're working on a proposal about prisoner's rights, and have come along with Sister Jacky, a Cameroonian nun who has devoted more than 20 years to working with people in the prison system here. Having visited San Quentin prison in California once for a story I was writing, I remember how intimidating and scary it felt being there. New Bell is that and more, as it combines all the same disturbing aspects of a prison in the US or Europe with the poverty, corruption, and decay that permeates much of the developing world.

One thing I notice right away is that the prison is practically in the middle of town, maybe three long blocks from one of the main markets in Douala. New Bell was originally built by the colonial authorities, and was probably on the edge of the city at first, but rapid growth has swallowed it up, and now it sits surrounded by warehouses, homes, and storefronts. The prison was originally designed to keep 800 people locked up, but now holds somewhere between 3-4000, depending on who you ask. We've been told that of the people inside, more than half have yet to actually be convicted of a crime, but are simply awaiting trial, often for months on end.

Before we go inside, Sister Jacky tells us to keep anything valuable out of sight, and leave it in the car. I take out the single diamond earring I wear, hide my wallet and phone, and take off my watch, burying it in a bag in the backseat. Two guards with olive uniforms and large machine guns stand at the main entrance. We walk in to find three more guards sitting at a table in a dark room.

"Les pièces!" They yell at us. Your IDs. I hand over a laminated and stamped copy of my passport ID and visa pages- no way I would risk bringing something like that here. Another guard frisks us, and swings open a metal door held partially closed by a chain. We squeeze through, and we're inside.

Just on the other side of the door, across a small concrete walkway, there's a large fence with barbed wire spikes at the top surrounding a large courtyard. A ring of buildings surrounds the courtyard with warped tin roofs and crumbling walls. A few tiny windows run along the top of each building, filled with thick and rusted bars. One of the buildings looks to be missing part of its side, and the gaping hole in the internal wall is covered by a collection of ripped plastic sheeting and blue tarps.

At least 50 men lean against the other side of the fence- they wear dirty, torn t-shirts, gym shorts, or less- apparently there are no uniforms in the Cameroonian prison system. As soon as they see us, they start yelling.

"Le blanc! Le blanc! Ça va?" Hey, white man, what's up?

An overweight guard unlocks the gate, and we pass through. Sister Jacky goes first, the veteran, followed by Dupleix, me, and Olun. Immediately, I feel hands start grabbing at me, wrapping arms around my shoulder, 20 voices talking to me at once, all of whom seem to be asking something. Instinctively, I reach out and grab ahold of Dupleix's shoulder, a way of staying together in the midst of the mob. We make our way across the courtyard, the four of us surrounded by the group of prisoners.

"These men are called 'taxis,' "says Sister Jacky. "If you need to find someone inside, you pay them 100 francs, and they'll find the person for you."

At the edge of the courtyard we duck under a small partition, and find ourselves in a market. Stands are set up along the walkway that don't look much different from your typical Cameroonian open-air restaurants and shops. People are cooking pots of beans, sticks of manioc baton, and pots of okra and vegetable sauces. Sister Jacky tells us that these 'café's' were set up by the prisoners, who can buy a plate of food for 50 or 100 francs. Again, she explains.

"The prison provides food, but it's only boiled corn meal, with maybe six or seven beans. If they have money, the prisoners buy food for themselves."

Throughout my time in Africa, I've become accustomed to people staring at me- it's part of the reality of being a foreigner here, particularly a Caucasian foreigner. Inside the prison market/café though, I feel the stares much more than usual; the stares of bored and angry men. As we walk through I hear a few of them call after me.

"Père, père!" they yell. Father. Walking around in the company of nun, I guess I'm easily mistaken for a priest. We turn a corner, and duck into a small workshop. Three women sit clustered around large sewing machines, and are surrounded by crimson sweaters. They're making school uniforms for one of the local private schools. Sister Jacky explains that this allows the prisoners to earn a small amount of money for food.

On the way out, I notice a man laying prone on the concrete in the doorway. His eyes are red and cloudy and he's wearing a filthy light-blue sweatshirt.

"You're leaving him here?" Sister Jacky asks the other prisoners.

"Il est malade," one of them answers. He's sick.

"I'm going to the see the doctor now, and I'll tell him," she responds.

The doctor's office is on the other side of the courtyard. We make our way across, again being jostled and yelled at by the prisoners. I try to keep my face expressionless, responding as little as possible to the men on all sides.

"Tu es ici avec les noirs maintenant!" someone yells. You're here with the blacks now.

As we walk through, people come up to us, thrusting sheets of paper into our hands. I initially try to fend them off, but I see Sister Jacky taking them, so I accept one from one of the men. The sheets all have a similar format- the prisoner's name, date de condamnation (date of sentence), peine (sentence), amende (fine to pay), and the name of the sentencing judge. The crimes seem relatively minor- things like petty theft, although some list things like assault and worse. In many cases, the amende section has a number, perhaps 100,000 francs (about $220) or a time period, maybe 10 months. Sister Jacky explains that when a prisoner is sentenced, they're often given a fine, and if they're unable to pay it, it's converted into additional time to be served, something like 9,000 francs for every month.

We stop briefly at the doctor's office, where Sister Jacky tells him about the prisoner lying in the doorway across the courtyard. He nods, but doesn't seem like he's particularly interested. Just beside the doctor's office is another gate, which we pass through. This is the section for prisoners who have already been convicted. I can't exactly tell, but I think Dupleix says it may be some sort of isolation unit- there are only a handful of people in the section, and there are some vestiges of normality, with a television in the corner of one of the rooms. Two men sit on a low bench against the wall; a heavy chain with a padlock encircles their legs. A curtain parts, and I see something I'm not expecting, a white man. He's wearing a white t-shirt and ripped jean shorts, and has a several day-old beard. He looks haggard and weak. Sister Jacky seems to know him, and they talk for a moment. I can't make out their conversation exactly, as she moves away, I hear the last bit. "I'll contact the embassy," she says.

I remember hearing about foreigners are subject to local laws when they're visiting a country, but this is the first time I've seen it put into practice. I have to wonder what the man did, but unsurprisingly, he doesn't really seem to be in the mood to talk. I've been visiting New Bell for less than an hour, but looking around, I have a hard time imagining a worse place to be, particular as a foreigner. Perhaps he's in the isolation section as a means of protecting him from the other prisoners- I can imagine a blanc would be a pretty inviting target.

A guard opens another door, and we walk along the inside perimeter of the wall- looking up I see rows of barbed wire arcing inward, connected to what look like glass insulators- the wire must be electrified as well. We duck through a small door and find ourselves in a set of surprisingly nice buildings, freshly-painted and cream-colored.

"This is the juvenile section," Sister Jacky says. "It was built by the EU last year."

We step onto a large concrete porch, and see two large chalkboards. 'Controle de Français,' one reads. 'French test.' I look through it- there are a few questions on French grammar. A group of teenage boys sit on tables by the chalkboard, chatting. One of them comes up to me with a bright pink knitted hat- he gestures at me, seeing if I'm interested.

"What would I do with that?" I ask?

"You could buy it," he says.

I decline as politely as I can. Looking inside the rooms on either side I see several rows of bunk beds, each of which is sealed off with mosquito netting. Relative to the rest of the prison, this is luxurious. Dupleix has a small group gathered around him, and they're talking quietly. I go over to listen.

"Yes, it's true you made a mistake," he says. "You're young though, and you still have a chance. You need to learn from this, and when you get out, you need to follow the correct path." The boys nod. One of them passes along a phone number to him, saying he's an uncle in Douala. Dupleix promises to call.

We leave the juvenile section, and a guard lets us out through a side door- suddenly we're back in the main reception area; I'm grateful that we were able to avoid the crowd this time. We collect our IDs, and make our way out the door, where the same guards are standing with the same machine guns. Mahamadou, our driver is waiting across the road, and we quickly climb in and head off.

"Mon dieu," Dupleix says, shaking his head. My God.

I agree. I'm not particularly religious, but I think in this case, a little divine intervention at New Bell would be a good thing.

It's been said that the measure of the civilization of a society can be seen in how well it treats its prisoners. We have more than our share of problems with the prison system in the US, of course, but New Bell is something totally different. I've seen my share of disturbing things in the years I've worked in Africa, but the sights, smells, and sounds from today are something that will stay with me for years- it's scary to think what we're capable of as humans. I know we can't do much in the way of change for inmates of New Bell, but our visit there was meant as a way to get an idea- now that we understand the situation, at least someone, hopefully we can help...

Cameroon #7-FACTS Launching, Oct. 09

2009-11-11T13:08:00.001-08:00

Just after getting back from the East, I was involved in the launch of the Fight Against Corruption Through Schools (FACTS) project, a big deal for CRS. As with the rest of the country, corruption is a huge problem in schools, and the program aims to address some of the root causes and hopefully change them.

We launched the project at the Palais des Congrès, the main conference center in Yaoundé. It was a big deal, with almost 1,500 people, the Minister of Education, one of the main Catholic bishops in the country, and more. It was fun to get dressed up as well, and see all my co-workers in their Sunday (or Wednesday, I suppose) best.

To see a larger version of any photo, click on the slideshow... enjoy.

Into the Woods

2009-11-11T13:03:00.000-08:00

We go to visit the village of Nadegbe today, about a 15-minute drive outside of Batouri. It’s along a narrow dirt track surrounded by thick bushes on either side- as we drive by people walking along the road duck into the underbrush to allow our Hilux pickup to pass without injuring them. Despite being dirt (there’s no pavement after Bertoua, the capital of the East Region), the road is surprisingly good, and we’re able to cruise along with only the usual jostling.

When we arrive at Nadegbe, a crowd is already gathered. We’ve come to help Nadebe and two other villages- Mama and Pandi- prepare a community development plan, basically a list of priorities of things that they’d like to see built or bought to help them develop the area. These villages will begin earning money from so-called ‘Community Forests,’ a section of the rainforest surrounding the villages which the inhabitants are given unique license to harvest and exploit, selling the wood to companies and collecting the profits, which are then used to buy the things they need. It’s a smart idea, and one that the Cameroonian government has been managing for the past 15 years- few communities are aware of it, however, and part of our work here is to spread the knowledge of this opportunity, and hopefully improve people’s lives by providing basic services.

The chief of Nadegbe greets us under a tin-roofed shelter, where a few padded chairs and a couch have already been set up. As the guests, we’re entitled to the seats of honor, necessary or not. The chief is wearing a shapeless olive felt hat and a white tunic with long purple stripes running down the side. He greets us formally, we introduce ourselves, and we get started with the plan.

The village is divided up into three groups: men, women, and young adults, each of which gets a marker and a sheet of butcher paper. We’ve asked them to prepare a list of what they think are the most important needs for their communities, in the order they’d like to see them built or bought. The women gather around a small classroom desk someone has brought; many of them are carrying babies on their back or toddlers lurching around at their ankles. They discuss amongst themselves, at times shouting at each other, but generally seeming to come up with some sort of agreement. The list begins to take shape; schools, followed by a well or a water pump, and a corn mill. The young adults have set up camp on the hood of our pickup, spreading the paper across- they’re also talking, coming up with a similar list, except this one also includes a generator and soccer uniforms. Interesting to see the priorities…

When each of the groups have finished, they assemble as one, and we start going through the lists. Certain things, like schools and water sources are unanimous, and come to the top of the priority list. Other items, like the soccer uniforms, get pushed to the side, something that might happen someday, but it won’t be a priority.

The needs seem so basic, and it’s interesting to listen to the discussion. Cameroon is a far more developed country than most of its neighbors, but judging by this village, and the others nearby, you’d never know it. It seems odd that this is the same country where I see Cameroonians exercising on Precor elliptical trainers at the Hilton and using fiber-optic internet at their houses, while just a few hours down the road, people are struggling to get things as simple as clean water and a school that isn’t made of wooden poles and grass. I know that these people live a rarefied life in the capital, but still this disparity seems more pronounced than anywhere else I’ve worked so far. In Chad and Niger, by comparison, villages were still desperately poor for the most part, but even N’Djamena and Niamey weren’t all that much better off; they were certainly nowhere near as developed as Yaoundé, with things like overpasses, functional traffic lights, and a few genuine skyscrapers.

It feels ridiculous that things are this undeveloped in this part of the country, considering what’s available. Eastern Cameroon is one of the largest rainforest zones in the world, and the logs coming out of here to make floorboards and armoires for people in Europe and Asia sell for tens of the thousands of dollars each, in many cases. Considering this, why aren’t people better off? Unfortunately it’s the same answer that it always seems to be in this part of the world- corruption and greed. When most of the profit from the logging operations is skimmed off to buy larger villas and another Mercedes, the people from the source areas get ignored, unsurprisingly. And when even a small portion of the profit finally does get directed to the community, to do something like grade the road or install a few power lines, the people are so grateful that they aren’t likely to remember just how much they’re being taken advantage of. Without a change in the nature of society here, I’m not sure how things are likely to get much better; I hope the work we’re doing is a start though, at least to the people of Nadegbe.

#6-Batouri and the East

2009-11-11T12:54:00.000-08:00

I visited the East region of Cameroon a couple weeks ago to see a community forestry project we're working on. It was a great opportunity to see the rainforest, and to see the vast difference that exists in the poorest part of the country. I was fortunate to meet a few Peace Corps volunteers as well, something that's always fun on these trips.

Click on any photo to see a larger version, and check out the journal below as well...

Off to the field

2009-11-11T12:44:00.000-08:00

Heading off to ‘the field’ is always an adventure- this time it’s off to Batouri, a small town in the Eastern Province of Cameroon, deep in the rainforest. The East is the poorest, least-developed part of the country- perhaps the equivalent of the Deep South in the US.

Getting out of town for a trip is difficult anywhere, and Yaoundé is no exception. Rush hour is in full force, and in addition to all the private cars, buses, and trucks, taxis and motorcycles are everywhere, swerving in and out of traffic, running the few traffic lights that exist, and generally causing roadway chaos, the flies and mosquitoes of the road. We catch the brunt of the ongoing downpour as we leave, just after 7:00 AM, stopping first at Mathieu, our driver’s, house to pick up a suitcase, followed by a stop to collect Aurèlie, the Program Manager responsible for our work in the East, and finally Serges, a Cameroonian intern who has been working with Aurèlie for awhile on this project. By the time we actually get on the road it’s close to 10:00, and we have a seven-hour trip ahead of us. Fortunately the road opens up, and it’s (mostly) well-paved, making the trip a smooth one, for the moment.

One thing I notice as Mathieu and Aurèlie chat and we fly down the road- Cameroonians (or at least these two Cameroonians) TALK REALLY LOUDLY. I attempt to listen to last night’s Rachel Maddow Show podcast on my MP3 player, and even though it’s at the highest volume and the headphones are jammed into my ears, I seem to be hearing more of their practically-shouted conversation than anything else. I try not to get annoyed, and chalk it up to a cultural difference, but it’s challenging not to feel at least a bit frustrated. I can manage though- if I can’t handle something like that, I probably shouldn’t be here to begin with.

About two hours into the drive, we make a stop at Ayos, a larger town on the way to the East. Mathieu needs to take a break, and we all take the opportunity to stretch our legs and get some fresh air. It’s orange season, and women are lined up along the edge of the rest area, with piles of green-peeled oranges sitting in pyramids at their feet as they sit under umbrellas blocking the otherwise fierce sun. I’m loitering by the passenger door of the pickup (our ride), when someone suddenly slams their hands on the hood. I spin around to see what’s happening, and I see a little boy, who looks to be about 12 years old. I stare at him for a second, puzzled, and look at his face. His features are locked into a permanent sort of half-smile/half-grimace, an expression that reminds more of Gollum from the Lord of the Rings than anything else. His ears protrude, and he wears a faded black t-shirt printed with a lipstick kiss colored like an American flag. He scrambles around the side of the car with a shuffling-type motion, grabs a rag out of his back pocket, and begins scrubbing away the mud and dust that are caked onto our fender.

After looking for another second, I realize that he's clearly mentally challenged and rather than try to create a problem, I stand back as he goes about his business, frantically scrubbing the dust off the truck. From what I can tell, having a disability is challenging enough in places like the US or in Europe- I can’t imagine how much harder it is in a place very much still in the developing world, like Cameroon.

Mathieu comes back to the truck, and sees the boy.

“Tu as vu le fou?” he asks, laughing. Did you see the crazy kid?

“Yes,” I answer.

I don’t say anything, but the fact that he’s laughing disturbs me. I know I’m not going to change it though. I know I come from a place where political correctness is enforced far more strictly, but this just seems wrong to me. Over the years I’ve heard that in many places in Africa, laughter can be used to cover an uncomfortable situation. I don’t think that’s what this is though- it simply seems mean-spirited, like the taunting of a bear in an old-time circus.

I understand that Mathieu is a driver, not a professional, and that he probably hasn’t had the experience and the perspective that others might. Still, I’ve seen this sort of thing in other Cameroonians I wouldn’t expect it from, people with PhDs, who have lived and worked in places like France, Belgium, and the US. With someone like Mathieu, I can almost understand it, but for some of the others, it’s shocking to me- they’ve seen enough of the world to know that that really isn’t OK.

Maybe it just comes down to the fact that no matter how educated or well-traveled you might be, at the end of the day you’re still a product of your culture and your society, and if that society has raised you with the idea that mental disabilities are something to be mocked and laughed at, advanced degrees and thousands of frequent flyer miles aren’t likely to change anything.

I understand that some might say this is simply a case of me attempting to impose my ‘Western values’ on a situation I don’t really understand. I’ve been living in Cameroon less than three months, and it feels like I’m learning something new constantly. Still, I don’t feel like that this case in this situation- maybe I am projecting my own values, but laughing at the unfortunate circumstances of a mentally disabled kid in a small town feels messed up, no matter who you are or where you come from. The truth is that saying something to Mathieu or to any of my other colleagues with whom I’ve witnessed this would do nothing, aside from making things awkward. Maybe that’s the lesson to be learned from this, one more in the continuing tales of acceptance that come from living in a foreign place. The world can be a complicated place, and sometimes it takes the least fortunate among us to bring that to light…

#5-NW Cameroon, Oct. 09

2009-11-10T14:04:00.000-08:00

Here are a few of the non-landscape photos I took on a recent trip to the Northwest of Cameroon, where we were visiting local health centers to get a better idea of their needs.

Click on any of the photos to see a larger version, and view the whole album. Also make sure to look below for the landscapes and a journal on the trip itself...

Cameroon #4-NW Cameroon Landscapes, Oct. 09

2009-11-10T14:00:00.000-08:00

Northwestern Cameroon is home to some truly incredible mountain scenery- I took hundreds of photos during my trip there- these are a few of my favorites...

Click on any of the photos to see a larger version and the full album.

Thoughts on the Northwest

2009-11-10T13:30:00.000-08:00

Thinking of the mountains, my mind wanders to things I associate with my life in Denver; snow, microbrews, and grad school. Being back in the mountains now, it seems a little incongruous to combine those images with ndole stew of leaves of peanut sauce, fried plantains, shared taxis, and the constant greeting of “you are welcome.”

I’m sitting in a hotel in Bamenda, the largest city in the northwestern region of the country. It’s about 400 kilometers from Yaounde, and much higher up in the mountains, at least 1,000 meters. The city itself is surrounded by incredible scenery; sharp green mountains jut up at crazy angles, waterfalls pour off the hillsides, and things I never expected to see in this part of the world, like pine trees, are everywhere. I knew that places like this existed in Africa, of course, but most of my experience in this part of the world has been in scorching-hot, barren, and utterly foreign environments. Differences in the city itself aside, you could drop this territory down anywhere in the Appalachians or the Pacific Northwest, and it might be hard to tell the difference.

Of course the similarities end once you get to the people and the city, however. Mountain scenery aside, this is definitely still sub-Saharan Africa; the infrastructure is crumbling, goats wander the streets, motorcycle taxis carry four people at a time with enormous suitcases strapped to the back, and people run to approach passing cars constantly, selling plantains, carrots, kola nuts, cookies, and tissues, all balanced on their heads. Fortunately, the government seems to have had the foresight to pave the roads on the most treacherous of the mountain passes, which I’m certain has helped to prevent at least a few of the horrific accidents that happen on Cameroon’s roads on a daily basis.

Northwestern Cameroon borders Nigeria, and is home to the largest portion of the country’s English-speaking (Anglophone) minority. I knew before I came here that it existed, but it’s still bizarre to hear even small children speaking to each other in English, or at least a form of it. ‘Pidgin English’ is the lingua franca here, and it’s fascinating to listen to my colleague Leslie, originally from the area himself, communicate with people in the patois as I attempt to make out what he’s saying. “How be de day, you do go market for buy? OK, small time?” I had no idea that something like that could mean ‘How are you, are you going to the market? OK, goodbye.’

I’ve been traveling through this part of the country with Leslie, and we’re visiting local health centers in the Bamenda area and some of the surrounding communities. We’re visiting these places to get an idea of the needs of the various health centers. The idea is that by meeting the doctors and nurses who run these facilities, we can get a sense of what they lack (which is plenty), and use that information to write proposals targeting donors who might be interested in providing some of the supplies and equipment.

The places truly run the gamut. Yesterday we went to see a small clinic outside of Kumbo, a town much higher in the mountains, more than 2,000 meters (about 6,500 feet for the Americans) up. The clinic had two small rooms, a couple shelves of basic anti-malarial and diarrheal medications, and a few beds with mismatched sheets. The Catholic nurses there try valiantly, but they’re limited by what they have, which isn’t much.

Contrast this with the hospital we visited in the village of Shisong today, just outside of Kumbo. The hospital was built in collaboration with the Catholic church in Italy, and honestly, it’s an amazing facility. Hundreds of beds (from what I could tell); radiology, ultrasound machines, skilled nursing for people with HIV/AIDS, and a cardiac unit equipped to perform open-heart surgery. The brand-new buildings looked like something you could drop down in the States, and it wouldn’t look much different. And all this in a mountain setting that feels like a living postcard.

What’s amazing to me though, is that this facility is located at the end of a dirt track in a small mountain village, along a rocky path that could wash out at any time during the lengthy rainy season. I think it’s wonderful that this place exists, but if someone is having a heart attack, all the defibrillators in the world won’t save them if the road to the hospital is washed out.

This is part of a larger issue from what I can tell though, and something that strikes me about Cameroon as unique. As opposed to other places I’ve worked, such as Chad, Niger, and Sudan, this place has such incredible potential, and could be so much more than it is. This is not to say that places like Chad don’t have anything going for them, but the degree to which it exists is far more in Cameroon, I think. The mountain scenery, for example; with a functional road, decent network of hotels, and the right amount of promotion, people would come from around the world to visit here, I’d imagine. Its green year-round, the temperature is always pleasant, the air is clean, and the views are truly stunning. If it was done right, this could be a tropical version of Switzerland; instead, it’s a collection of villages and towns stuck in the mud on the way to paradise, figuratively and literally.

This place could be an economic powerhouse for the country, and could play a major part in catapulting Cameroon not necessarily into the industrialized world, but something much more together than it currently is. Due to short-sightedness, ethnic politics, corruption, and what often feels like a lack of imagination, this doesn’t seem to be happening. This part of the country, as the Anglophone minority region, has always been somewhat marginalized, and has been a stronghold of the political opposition, such as it exists here. Because the Anglophones have generally been opposed to many of the policies coming from the Francophone leadership in Yaoundé, this region has often been starved for funds by the central government, a tactic obvious in the decaying roads in the center of town, the regular power outages, and the lack of opportunity for most of the people here. It’s best not to discuss politics too much as a foreigner here, but looking around, it’s hard not to notice this sort of thing.

One thing Cameroonians are known for, for better or worse, is being ready to take advantage of a possibility where it’s presented. One person’s opportunism is another’s entrepreneurial spirit, I suppose, depending on how it’s approached. Visiting the cardiac center in Shisong today, it’s obvious the potential to do incredible things here exists. Driving the pitted streets of Bamenda and Kumbo, and the lakes of mud separating the two, it’s easy to feel like there’s not much hope. The question, I guess, is which way are things going, and which side will eventually win.

Cameroon #3-Kribi

2009-09-27T11:34:00.003-07:00

I went with a group of friends from the American school in Yaoundé (mostly) to Kribi, on the Atlantic coast. I'd been there before as a Peace Corps volunteer, but it was really cool to go back again, with different people, and have a very different experience...

The photos are all in the album below, but there are a few standouts that I wanted to post separately. Enjoy...

From Cameroon #3-Kribi, Sep. 09

And now, the album...

Cameroon #2-Mont Fébé, Mokolo market, and the Palais des Congrès

2009-09-27T11:02:00.000-07:00

A few from the past few weeks in Yaoundé, including the market and a good lookout point for the city...

Cameroon #1- Yaoundé, Aug. 09

2009-08-30T14:44:00.000-07:00

A few photos from the new city, new job, new house, and new life...

CA-Baltimore-Cameroon, July 09

2009-08-30T14:42:00.000-07:00

The journey to begin my new job, with a week in Baltimore, and a long trip...

Humboldt, July 09

2009-08-30T14:41:00.000-07:00

A quick trip home to see family, before heading back to Africa...

San Francisco, July 09

2009-08-30T14:40:00.000-07:00

Back in the Bay Area, seeing friends and family, and enjoying being a tourist, with the knowledge of a local...

Atlanta, July 09

2009-08-30T14:38:00.000-07:00

A few more, from a quick stopover in Atlanta, seeing a friend, and doing some touristy stuff...

Northern Georgia, July 09

2009-08-30T14:36:00.000-07:00

Here are a few photos from the family vacation in northern Georgia, almost immediately after I got back to the States.

Definitely not PC

2009-08-19T23:46:00.000-07:00

On April 21, 2006, I remember standing in the courtyard at the Peace Corps office in Yaoundé. I'd just been evacuated from Chad, along with 28 others, and after a few days of attempted transition between the life I'd known in Gounou-Gaya and what I was about to find in California, I was on my way to the Douala airport, and back home, via Paris.

When I got home, I remember thinking, "I've had enough of this, enough of the developing world. What's the point? Things are just going to fall apart in the end."

Funny how things can change, and how 1,212 days, three additional developing countries, one Master's degree, tens of thousands of dollars and frequent flyer miles, and one fellowship later, I find myself standing in the same courtyard.

This time I'm a visitor, and it feels like a world away. Aside from the obvious differences in lifestyle I talked about last time, there's something else, a new feeling of being a professional. I don't want to get too high up on a pedestal here, but I'm definitely no longer a Peace Corps volunteer- in many, many, ways, I've moved up in the world.

I'm visiting Peace Corps at the invitation of the Country Director, who called to see if I'd be interested in attending a ceremony for volunteers finishing their service. The 'Gonging-Out,' as they call it, is a chance for the staff to gather and say goodbye to the volunteers who are leaving (five, in this case), before they head to the airport, and their new lives.

This is something I've never seen before, and a nice touch on the part of PC Cameroon. Even though this was never something we had when we left Chad, given the circumstances, I can imagine how much this must mean to the outgoing volunteers. Volunteer life certainly isn't the most rewarding financially, but something else comes from most people's service, a sense of having done some real good, and relationships that last- I know that's been the case for me, at least. The staff go down the line, telling the group about each volunteer's accomplishments- the Country Director says a few words, and gives each of them a pin with a linked Cameroonian and American flag. After each, one of the staff hits a cowbell, a way to 'gong-out' the volunteers, and say goodbye.

Throughout the ceremony though, I find myself thinking of how strange it feels to be on the other side, the professional side. This office was the scene of one of the biggest transitions of my life, just a few years ago. I can feel the experiences of today and the memories of the past mixing though. Sitting on the same couch in the adjoining 'transit house,' while volunteers browse on the same computers that I remember using to watch the first season of LOST; speaking with one of the program directors, who remembers giving me a language evaluation in the midst of our 'Transition Conference'; most importantly seeing Chad, our Medical Officer (yes, in Chad), now doing the same job for the volunteers in Yaoundé.

I realize how far I've come when I meet the Country Director in his office. In 2006 I remember sitting in front of his desk, having a cursory chat as I tried to figure out the next step after what had been an extremely challenging time. This time, he invites me to come in, a chat among colleagues. Sitting on the couch, I notice a chess set made from miniature baseball helmets, Red Sox versus the Yankees- I decide not to ask where his loyalties lie, as I need all the friends I can get in Yaoundé. We start to talk though, and I'm explaining a bit about CRS, telling him about the Peacebuilding and HIV/AIDS work the organization is doing. I mention that our Country Representative is currently on leave.

"So, are you running the program while he's out?" he asks.

That's when I know just how different things are.

I laugh, and quickly explain that I'm hardly in a position to be running a country program- I'm very much in the learning process. Give me five or so years, and then I think I'd be ready, but not now.

We chat a bit longer, but the CD has to get back to to the flood of email though, so we wrap things up before long. Back in the courtyard, I find a few of the now-ex volunteers, new members of the RPCV community, and they invite me to join them for a beer. We walk to a place called Chez Francesco, a familiar-looking multicolored bar/restaurant less than 100 meters from the front gate.

This is much more the Africa I remember, rather than the expat palaces, the supermarkets, and the fitness center at the Hilton- it's not that those things aren't nice, but I don't know if you could call it the 'real' Africa. Obviously there are plenty of rich people on this continent, but the fact is that there are plenty more poor people, and the life I'm living now is a pretty rarefied one, compared to what I knew as a volunteer. At the restaurant with the volunteers, I look around and see tables full of 'normal' people, regular Cameroonians having a beer after work, watching a football match on TV, and bantering with the waitress, who comes over in a moment.

I order a large Castel, one of Cameroon's famous brews, and glance at the menu- halfway down, I see the 'Peacecorp Burger.'

"It's something like three beef patties and cheese," one of the new RPCVs says, answering my question- "I guess they figure we can use it when we come in from our sites." Weird for me to think about, especially now that the expat district of Yaoundé is the closest thing I have to a 'site,' and I can get whatever I want easily.

The evening passes quickly- they talk about their experiences as volunteers, and ask me about mine. I find myself lost in thought, thinking about all the things that have brought me here, back to the same restaurant where I sat in 2006 trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do next, maybe even at the same table, probably with the same beer.

The bill comes, another difference. Peace Corps volunteers are notoriously cheap (hardly a surprise)- as a volunteer I remember calculating everyone's share, making sure each Franc ended up where it was supposed to be. My share was maybe 1000 Francs- I have a 5000-franc note though, and I toss it in.

"Yours was 1000, how much change do we owe you?" one of the RPCVs asks.

"Nothing," I answer.

"But you paid way too much."

"You're volunteers, and I'm not. This is what expats used to do for us," I say. It's true- I'm on the other side, the place where I've wanted to be for years.

As I head back to my house I look out the windshield and see a maroon Peace Corps Land Cruiser, on the way to Douala, and the airport. Watching the Land Cruiser in front of me feels like looking back in time- I remember the same trip- the anxiety, the excitement, the sadness, the relief. That car ride was the end of one chapter, and the beginning of another for me- I think of the now-ex volunteers inside. Will any of them find their way back here? What would they feel if they do? I don't think I could offer much advice, but if they need a place to stop and reflect, I can recommend a very nice courtyard in which to do it.

New Place, New Life

2009-08-10T14:21:00.000-07:00

I've been in Yaoundé for a week now- I was here briefly in 2005 and 2006, but this feels completely different. For better or worse, I think I'm an expat now...

It's been a major transition already, and this may be a bit stream-of-consciousness, but I'm going to recount the highlights of the past week as best I can.

I arrive on Monday night courtesy of Air France, after two long flights- Washington to Paris, and Paris to Yaoundé, Cameroon's capital. Having flown into several African capitals over the past couple years, I could tell right away that this is very different. As opposed to airports in Niamey, Juba, and N'djamena, Nsimalen airport in Yaoundé doesn't feel like it's falling apart- it's small, but clean, and didn't feel much different than the airport in small town anywhere, USA. Getting through passport control is efficient, my WHO Yellow Fever vaccination is checked quickly, and our bags come off the carousel within a few minutes of getting in.

Once I collect my bags, I get my first sense of how this is going to be different than anything I've done before. I see a sign with my name on it, and go over to the two people waiting. Hotance, the Administrative Assistant for CRS, greets me in English, asks me about my trip, and helps me with my bags. Here's the strange part- we've barely left the airport when she hands me a sleek black mobile phone (+237 75059009, if you feel like calling), and an envelope with 41,000 FCFA (about $88).

"The phone is prepaid, so you don't need to worry about buying credit- we unblocked the international calls, so you can call home as you'd like," she says. "The money is per diem for two days." When I was a Peace Corps volunteer, that money would have lasted a month in my village.

Arriving at the CRS office, I see my new place for the first time. It's enormous. The office itself is a converted four-unit apartment building in Bastos, the nicest district of Yaoundé. They've left one of the apartments as-is for me, and honestly, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the space. I have three bedrooms (one of which is converted to a living room), three bathrooms, a kitchen, pantry, air-conditioning, and fast internet access. This is definitely not Peace Corps, Mercy Corps, or anything else.

The next morning, I wake up to the sound of singing. Seriously.

It's not exactly on key, and I can't make out what's being said, but I'm interested. I unlock the door to the apartment and find myself face-to-face with a smallish older woman wearing a black dress and a yellow headscarf, carrying a mop.

"Good morning, sir!" she exclaims.

"Good morning, how are you?" I ask. "I'm Nathaniel."

"With Jesus, sir!" she says. I nod, not entirely sure how to respond.

"My name is Mommy Grace," she continues. "For 30 years, I've worked here. I've been here longer than anyone."

Wow. 30 years- I haven't been alive 30 years.

Later in the morning, after I have a chance to meet the rest of the staff, Margaret, a Cameroonian and the acting Country Representative, takes me aside.

"We've set up interviews with a few possible housekeepers," she says. "One of them is here now."

I try to think about what I'm going to say, and go to meet Odelia, one of the women interested in a job I didn't know I'd advertised. I immediately get a good feeling from her- she's warm, friendly, and brings a stack of recommendation letters. I let her know that I'll get back in touch with her within a couple days, but I've already decided that she's the one.

It feels weird though. A housekeeper? OK, I'm definitely no longer a Peace Corps volunteer. I'm not quite sure how I feel about this, but after a bit of reflection, I realize it's probably for the best. The truth is that I could spend my entire weekend badly doing laundry and mopping floors, or I could pay Odelia to do it very well, and then she can use the money to send her kids to school. It seems awfully selfish of me to take away the opportunity to help someone improve their life because it feels imperialist and uncomfortable to have a woman mop the floor for me. In my mind, if you're living in the developing world, and have the good fortune to have money (as most non-Peace Corps foreigners do), you have a certain responsibility to do what you can to help people and the economy, and if that means feeling a bit uncomfortable at the idea of having someone do laundry and sweep, so be it.

This feeling of being uncomfortable though, I hope it's something I never lose... I realize that when I go to a going- away party hosted by staff of the US embassy the other night. I don't want to be undiplomatic here, but talking with a few of the US Marine guards at the party (all American embassies have a Marine detachment), I realize how easy it can be take the assistance of others for granted, and to be in a place without actually being there, if that makes sense.

This whole experience feels like a major shift though, one that comes with the territory. As an 'expat,' one of those people I used to feel so disdainful of as a volunteer, I have the freedom to do much more than I ever could before. I can ride a motorcycle whenever I feel like it, stay in the capital as long as I feel like (it is home, after all), and go the grocery store with the realization that I can afford to buy whatever I want, whenever I want. It's something that comes with becoming a professional, and moving into a new phase of my career, I suppose.

I've been here a week, so my observations should be taken with several handfuls of salt, but from what I can tell, Cameroon feels like much more like a country that's actually developing, as opposed to other places in the 'developing world' that don't seem to be moving forward. As such, there's a strange mix of modern industrialized life coupled with a more traditional view of Africa. There are wealthy here, of course, and there are many, many poor people, but there's a legitimate middle class from what I can see. These are people who have university degrees, work in professional jobs, and have the money to shop at Casino, the big French supermarket downtown. At the same time, some of these people will also go to Mokolo, the enormous open-air market about a 15-minute walk from my house, and bargain for 100 FCFA (22¢) worth of carrots. It's a place where you can reserve your seat on a luxury bus to Douala online, but where the shop you go to get a document laminated is a table under a palm tree, with a fraying cord plugged into a worn out extension cable.

But that's the nature of life in this part of the world, I suppose. No country is going to develop at the same rate throughout, and I'm sure I'll continue to see these weird contrasts of modernity and poverty while I'm here. I also know that once I get outside of the capital and the other large cities of the south, Cameroon is likely to feel as poor and as undeveloped as most of the other places I've worked in so far. I'm sure it'll feel bizarre to see the same scenes I remember as a volunteer, but with so much more opportunity, and the possibility of making a more significant impact. I don't know yet where that impact will be, but it'll be interesting to see how this job, and this new chapter of my life develops...

On the way home- Nairobi, London, and Miami

2009-07-24T12:22:00.000-07:00

Again, no story here, just photos from the trip home, including stops in Nairobi, London, and Miami...

Juba on the Nile, and Yei

2009-07-24T12:21:00.001-07:00

No story here, just a few photos from the banks of the Nile at Juba, and a quick trip to Yei before leaving Sudan for the last time...

Health Education, Water Testing, and Renk

2009-07-24T12:10:00.000-07:00

Here's another album- most of this one is from a visit to a health education session, where facilitators were working with the community to talk about how to prevent things like malaria and diarrhea, etc. I also have photos in this one from a visit to a few water sources, and a testing program put in place after the use of filters. Finally, there are a few random ones from Renk. There's a story about the water testing below the photos...

A fresh, and safe, cup of the Nile

Magara, Upper Nile state (Sudan) – Miriam Adam’s two- year-old daughter takes hold of a plastic cup with both hands and tips her head back, taking enormous gulps of water. She quickly drains the cup, putting it down with a satisfied look. Not long ago, her cup of water, drawn from the banks of the Nile less than 200 meters away, could have contained any number of viruses and parasites- now, Adam has no need to worry about what her daughter drinks.

“The kids were sick, but they aren’t now,” she says, speaking in Arabic.

Six months ago, Mercy Corps and a consortium of three other non-governmental organizations came to Magara village to provide water filters for the community, who until now had been drinking contaminated surface water from open pools and the Nile River without any form of treatment. The filters given to the people of Magara, which look like small concrete pillars with a spout protruding from the side, are locally made and easy to produce. When used properly, they provide an easy and cheap way for people to access safe drinking water, an important step on the path to better and healthier lives.

“When contaminated water is poured in, it trickles through and the bacteria, viruses and suspended solids get trapped in between grains of sand. As a result, clean water comes out,” explains Francis Okello, the Water and Sanitation Sector Head for the Northern Upper Nile Recovery and Rehabilitation Programme (NUNRRP). “The filtered water is absolutely safe,” he adds. “It’s obviously better to drink water from the filter than directly from the river.”

This technology, known as the bio-sand filter, was first developed at the University of Calgary (Canada) in the mid- 20th century, and uses the principle of slow-sand filtration to make contaminated water drinkable. The filter contains a bottom layer of gravel, with another layer of finer sand on top. When river or well water is poured through the filter, the grains of sand trap bacteria and viruses, and eliminate turbidity (cloudiness).

While the bio-sand filters are a new addition for families in southern Sudan, the concept of slow-sand filtration is a very old one. “Since time immemorial we’ve been using slow- sand filtration on a large scale for big cities but never at a household level,” says Okello. “We’re simply scaling it down from commercial to household level, but the principle remains the same.”

The filters require virtually no maintenance, only an occasional cleaning, as there are no moving or electronic parts. Simple designs such as these ensure durability in the harsh environment of southern Sudan. The filters come in three varieties, each constructed from different materials, but designed with the same basic structure of an upper chamber filled with sand and gravel, and a faucet or spout. The cheapest filters are made from zinc, and cost approximately 28 Sudanese pounds (11 U.S. dollars) to produce. Filters can also be built from plastic barrels or cast from concrete, but each of these is more expensive, 80 and 42 pounds (32 and 17 U.S. dollars), respectively.

“When the gravel and the sand become dirty I clean it out and wash it,” says Mohammed Ahmed, a resident of Magara, just off the single strip of dusty tarmac stretching more than 500 kilometers from Renk to Khartoum. Ahmed and his wife have four children- before receiving the filter six months ago, water-borne diseases were a constant issue for the family.

“We used to get sick with diarrhea and worms,” he says. “Now that we have the filter there are no diseases to worry about.”

Underground water is located far too deep in the area around Renk to drill boreholes for hand pumps, meaning that people have traditionally relied on water gathered from the river or other standing sources, leading to high levels of disease. Since 2007, Mercy Corps and its consortium
partners– the Fellowship for African Relief (FAR), Strømme Foundation, and Tearfund– have provided more than 2,200 filters to households throughout Upper Nile State. If each filter theoretically serves a family with multiple children, more than 10,000 people are likely to benefit from pure drinking water.

“People are much healthier now,” Okello says. “For years they’ve been unable to access safe drinking water, and just getting it from the Nile. Since the introduction of the bio-sand filters we’ve seen reduced rates of diarrhea and other diseases.”

The filters work extremely well, but the organization regularly tests the water to ensure their continued effectiveness. On a recent Friday morning Peter Agok, a Sanitation Supervisor for Mercy Corps, and Charles Primo, a Water and Sanitation Officer for the organization, visit several water sources and families around the town of Renk. Their plan is to sample water from the filters, and see how it differs from original sources such as wells and the Nile.

Agok and Primo’s first stop is at the village of Kolang, where they want to see the hafir (reservoir), located about 20 kilometers from Renk, along a bumpy dirt track. The hafir is
a large pit, dug in 2008 by Mercy Corps. It is roughly 20 meters by 40, and three meters deep, according to Primo, and built on a downward slope. As rain falls, it collects into a carved channel, gradually flowing down into the hafir. Primo walks to the edge of the water and dips in a plastic bottle, filling it just over halfway with brownish rainwater.

“The hafirs are a problem,” Agok says. “The water has a color and a bad smell- this is why we suggest they use filters.”

Following this, Primo and Agok collect three other samples, one from a well where a nomadic family is gathering water one jerry can at a time, and two from filters in Magara. Returning to Renk with the samples collected, they continue to a surprisingly well-organized laboratory at the water- treatment facility at the edge of town, near the riverbank.

Over the next 45 minutes Agok and Primo carry out a variety of tests on the water samples from the hafir, the well, Mariam Adam’s, and Mohammed Ahmed’s house. Primo carefully spreads growth solution onto a Petri dish, placing a few drops of water inside. Agok, on the other side of the room, pours a sample of hafir water into a clear plastic tube, squinting at the top to measure the turbidity. A moment later he takes a small sample of water and pours it into a color-coded meter to measure the pH- walking to the door, he holds the device in the sunlight, looking carefully at the small numbers on the side measuring the water’s natural acidity. Finished with their tests, they note the results in Arabic on a worksheet, close the lab, and lock the door, knowing their work is a small, but meaningful, step in improving the lives of vulnerable people in their community."

Seed Distributions, the Nile, and Renk

2009-07-24T11:58:00.000-07:00

Here's another album, most of which is from a visit to a seed distribution going on in the tiny village of Banashewa, near the Ethiopian border. I also have photos in the album from Upper Nile State, including a visit to the Nile, and a few from Renk, one of the larger cities in the region. As before, the story (one of my favorites) is below the album...

Sowing seeds, improving lives

Banashewa, Upper Nile state (Sudan) – Simon Jino, 22, pours two large handfuls of sorghum seeds into a waiting orange-and-white bucket. Hundreds of seeds spill from his hands in a cascading blur of reddish-white dots, hitting the bottom of the bucket with a pinging sound like raindrops falling on a roof. Three handfuls later and his work is complete, leaving a white dusty residue from his fingertips to his wrists.

“I plan to farm with these,” he says in clear English. “I can grow a big crop.” He’s come to a distribution in Banashewa, a small community located more than 45 kilometers off the large marram (a red clay/gravel mixture) road that connects villages and towns throughout this region of Upper Nile state.

In Banashewa and several other villages throughout this region of southern Sudan, Mercy Corps is working to distribute seeds and tools to rural communities, providing the means for people to begin to cultivate again, before the rains come, and Banashewa, on the opposite side of the river
from the nearest road, is cut off. In March and April of 2008 massive floods swept through the area, inundating recently planted crops, and destroying most of the seeds that were to become food for communities such as this.

“When there’s no rain, or when there’s too much rain, it’s a problem,” explains John Wenesa, the Mercy Corps Base Manager at the nearby office in the village of Bunj.

With the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the organization has purchased some of the remaining seeds from nearby communities and is distributing them, along with tools. Mercy Corps hopes that people receiving the seeds will use
them not only to grow crops for their current needs, but also build a reserve they can use in later years, and possibly sell to other villages in the region. Each beneficiary receives a nearly identical amount of sorghum and maize seed, as well as a set of tools.

“We don’t expect to come back next year and distribute [seeds] again. We expect to come back and for them to give us seeds of the same quality to share with other communities,” says Anthony Mayodi, Mercy Corps’ Business Development Advisor for Upper Nile state, who is managing the distribution project. “We are helping them to increase food security in their community, as well as to have extra so they can sell them and be self-reliant.”

As is the case with most Mercy Corps projects, the organization relied on the guidance of local authorities in selecting the sites for the seed distributions. Representatives from the payam (an administrative division) directed the organization to Banashewa and Bunj, two of the communities worst affected by the floods, where the seeds will benefit between 3,500 and 5,000 families. When finished, the project will cost approximately US $90,000– some of the money will be used for labor and transport, but the vast majority of the funding will be used to pay for the seeds themselves, most of which have been bought in the area.

We bought the seeds locally to inject cash into the community,” Mayodi notes.

As the distribution in Banashewa begins, the omda (chief) is summoned to receive the first buckets of maize and sorghum seeds, as a symbolic gesture. The chief, called Yousef, would likely have been present already but was only able to make a brief appearance, as he was presiding over the village court– at issue was the question of two men who had allegedly claimed the same woman as their wife.

Before taking the buckets of seeds, Yousef, a small older man wearing matching white pants and a shirt addresses the gathered crowd, speaking in the local Mabaan language.

“We will plant these seeds, and if there is rain, I know we will be able to succeed,” he says authoritatively, his voice quieting more than 150 people waiting. “God is the one who will make it possible.”

Finished speaking to the crowd, Yousef moves to the front of the line, collecting a bright green plastic bucket. Dried yellow and red maize kernels are spread out on a plastic sheet; he plunges the bucket into the pile, filling it. Setting the bucket back down on the pile, he brushes his hand
across the top, leveling the kernels at the top of the rim with a smile.

The sacks of maize empty quickly- fortunately, dozens of bags of sorghum seed remain. As people collect the seeds in their buckets, hollowed-out gara (calabash) bowls, and tied-together headscarves and mosquito nets, the piles quickly disappear. Two young men struggle to haul
additional sacks out of the grass-and-mud storehouse, staggering under the 100-kilogram (220 lb.) load before dropping it onto the plastic sheet.

Elizabeth Yelo, 24, is the first woman to come to the head of the line. She has waited for almost an hour. Her orange and pink sash is tied across a red t-shirt- a patterned headband keeps the sweat out of her eyes. She is collecting seeds to plant for herself and her two-year-old son, named Sankwat; as a single mother, she has few means by which to support herself, making the sorghum she receives today all the more vital.

“I’m alone and want to farm so I can help my child,” she says, speaking in Mabaan through a translator. “If I don’t have these seeds, I can’t plant anything.” Placing a plastic bucket on the ground, Mayodi pours in sorghum seeds; as she moves out of line, Simon, a volunteer community mobilizer with Mercy Corps, hands her the metal heads for a pick and a hoe, tools she can use to break up the hard earth and plant. Placing the tools into the bucket along with the seeds, she balances it atop her head and walks off.

Farther down the line, Deng Chuba waits. A blue-and-black knit cap is pulled down across his forehead, and he carries a large bucket. He has only recently arrived in Banashewa, and the seeds will be a critical first step for him, his wife, and their four children.

“It’s very helpful to us, since we just arrived here,” he says in a gravelly voice, speaking Arabic. “I can grow a crop that will multiply and get bigger.”

As the supply of seeds begins to dwindle, Gaga Goofoe comes to the head of the line. A wizened-looking old woman, she has a few wisps of thin white hair, a pair of metal hoop earrings, and sunken brown eyes clouded by time and cataracts. A middle-aged man, possibly her son, waits with her; Goofoe holds his shoulder to keep herself steady in the blazing sun.

“My son will cultivate for me,” she says in a voice barely above a whisper, when asked what she plans to do with the seeds. “I can grow a big crop with this.”

When the seeds are exhausted, the distribution comes to an end. As Mayodi, Wenesa, and the others fold the tarps and sort registration forms, a small boy who looks to be about three- years-old walks up, carrying an empty plastic water bottle. He grabs one of the few remaining handfuls of sorghum seeds in his small fist, and drops them into the mouth of the bottle. Filling it just under halfway, he gives a small smile and trudges off determinedly away from the rest of the crowd, heading away from the houses, and towards the waiting fields.

Schools, Malualkon, Juba, and the Goat

2009-07-24T11:49:00.000-07:00

There are a few different things in this album, but the main element is a series of photos from a visit to a school construction project I visited near the town of Malualkon. You can read the complete story below the photo album.

I also have photos later in the album from air travel between Malualkon, Juba, and Yei, as well as the fate of a rather unfortunate goat...

Enjoy...

"Pariak/Riang-Aketh, Northern Bahr-el-Ghazal state (Sudan) – Angelo Garang, the Deputy Headmaster of Pariak Primary School, picks up a small slate chalkboard, carefully draws a large capital ‘F’ on it, and holds it next to the trunk of an enormous palm tree.

“F!” He shouts. “Repeat!”

“Eff!” Shout the 40 students of class 1C at the Pariak Primary School. The lucky ones with a seat on the upward-sloping edge of a fallen log have a clear view, while the rest stand in a crowd around the tree and Garang, jostling for position. In their first year of school, and between about seven-and-nine-years-old, they haven’t graduated to using notebooks; each holds a similar slate, and some clutch bits of chalk in their small hands.

“Eff! Eff! Eff! Eff! Eff!” The children chant, as Garang smiles in approval. A small boy begins to draw a rightward-leaning ‘F’ on his slate.

This could be primary school in virtually any village in southern Sudan. Decades of civil war destroyed what little infrastructure existed previously, and for many students, the only place they can go to learn is in the shade of a large tree. When the rains come to Northern Bahr-el-Ghazal state in June, however, school is often put on hold, as students have no place to shelter.

“When it starts raining the students won’t come, and the teachers won’t teach,” says Angelo Garang Adjo, a teacher, and a cousin of the Deputy Headmaster.

With the help of Mercy Corps, however, this is changing. With funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the organization has partnered with communities such as Pariak to build needed infrastructure such as community centers, clinics, and in this case, primary schools. Mercy Corps typically contacts the leadership of each payam (an administrative division), and on their advice, approaches communities throughout the area to propose new construction projects in these selected villages. Mercy Corps typically provides expensive and difficult to procure items, such as cement and tin sheets, while the community is asked to contribute locally-made materials for the project, such as bricks, creating the sense of partnership and self-reliance that is a key step for sustainable development.

“Mercy Corps is promoting development where it hasn’t previously existed,” says Apollo Nelson Atiba, the organization’s Economic Recovery and Development (ERD) Project Manager at the field office in the nearby town of Malualkon. “This way they have ownership and can feel proud. They’ll feel like, ‘We struggled for this on our own.’ If you just give something to someone, they won’t take care of it.”

In Pariak, and in the nearby village of Riang-Aketh, Mercy Corps has funded the construction of two school buildings, each at a cost of approximately $25,000 USD. In Pariak, the new three-room school building is still a series of deep square trenches, surrounded by piles of tan-red bricks. A long rectangle of bricks, the beginnings of a foundation, sits in one of the trenches as laborers in torn t-shirts chip away at the brown soil with shovels, sweat dripping down their foreheads.

Teachers at the Pariak school expect that approximately 60 students will be able to use the classroom. And while this is a good start, it is only a first step- Pariak Primary School enrolls 404 students, just over 100 of whom are girls. While the new building cannot accommodate every student, the Deputy Headmaster still sees the construction as a good start on the way to positive change.

“It’ll be important because it’ll increase [the students’] morale, and when there is rain, they can be there. The textbooks and materials will be protected too,” he says.  And while not everyone can fit, Garang has a strategy for making the best use of the new building.

“The small children will be inside because they can’t control themselves and pay attention,” he points out. He may be right- many of the children of Class 1C seem to focus on everything except the letter ‘F’, following birds with their eyes, shoving their classmates, and chewing the pumpkin-like peel off the orange deleb fruits that fall from the overhanging coconut trees.

In the past, schools have been built in the area using local materials to create mud-and-grass tukuls (huts) where the students could learn. The tukuls would often collapse in the rain, dust, and heat common to the area, making them a short-term solution at best. Additionally, responsibility for the construction typically fell to the parents of the students, a time-consuming task.

James Wiik Tem is a member of the Parent-Teacher Association in Pariak. An older man, he wears a white short-sleeved golf shirt with blue flip-flop sandals. His deeply callused hands are rough to the touch, the result of a lifetime of manual labor. He has three children, each of whom finished school in Pariak a few years ago.  “It is a positive change to move from local infrastructure to permanent buildings,” he says in the Dinka language, speaking through an interpreter. “It will be a pleasure for the children to do their exams inside.”

Mercy Corps and the community are in the early stages of a similar project in Riang-Aketh, approximately 25 kilometers from Pariak, on the way to Aweil, the state capital. Far off the main road, the village is little more than a collection of tukuls in the midst of a few sparse palm and acacia trees. Rounding a bend in the dirt track, several piles of sand and gravel are suddenly visible, bordered by stacks of bricks.

The new building will be a major improvement, not only for the school itself, but also a first on the road to development for the community. “This is the first time a concrete building has even been constructed in Riang-Aketh,” says Atiba, the Mercy Corps Project Manager.

As in Pariak, classes in Riang-Aketh operate under the trees. According to the Headmaster, Mr. Carbino, the school has six classes, with 250 students enrolled. In a worrisome trend, however, only 10 of the students are girls. The students cluster in the shade of a thorny acacia, against which a large improvised blackboard is perched. The lesson on the board is in Christian Religious Education (CRE), a mandatory course in school systems throughout East Africa. “Christians do not offer sacrifices” reads a line.

Both Carbino and James Geng Rel, the Deputy Headmaster, attended the school themselves, which has operated since 1996, the height of the civil war. They sit with a group of other teachers under the shade of another tree near the site of the new construction. A pile of English textbooks and a dictionary with the cover ripped off are stacked on the ground in front of Rel, next to a bar-coded box of UNICEF chalk.

As is the case in Pariak, the new school building in Riang-Aketh is in the beginning stages. Trenches have been carved, clearly marking the spaces for the school’s three new classrooms.
 “We need to finish the construction soon, because when the rain comes, vehicles can’t come through,” says Carbino.

Despite this concern, Rel shares Mercy Corps’ belief that the new building will be a major improvement. “[It] will be an important improvement,” Rel says. “We’ll expect more output from the children.”

At the site, Atiba walks through the trenches, carefully inspecting the work and jotting figures in a small notebook. Mercy Corps expects each building to be completed in a maximum of 70 days, hopefully less, given the coming rains. As he walks through, he notes the progress, and reflects on its importance to the community and the motivation it provides for other similar villages hoping for future construction.

“They’ll have enough time to study, and won’t have to run home because of the rain,” he says, looking at the gathered students under the tree. “Other communities lay their bricks, and hope that [we can] come one day to help them too.”
 

Back in the world

2009-06-28T21:13:00.000-07:00

I couldn't sleep this morning.

The streetlights woke me up. It was cold too. Neither of these things have been a problem in almost five months.

I'm in Nairobi (Kenya), having just left Sudan yesterday afternoon. I'm on my way back to the States, via London, tomorrow (Tuesday) morning. I'm at the organization's guest house, which is actually in an apartment complex, the first place I've been in months that feels like something you'd see in 'real world.' When I say 'real world,' I don't mean to imply that southern Sudan is somehow false- hardly- it's very, very real, and the fact that so few people are aware of the reality there is part of the problem. The simple fact is, however, that things are so underdeveloped, the infrastructure is so bad, and the challenges are so great, that it feels like being in another reality.

Until yesterday, the largest city I've seen in almost five months is Juba, which has warped my perspective. Juba is a place where a nice hotel is a converted cargo container with air-conditioning and a generator, the roads in the center of town (which happens to be the unofficial national capital) are so rutted and cratered that it takes a Land Cruiser to move around, and everywhere you turn you see piles of trash, sewage spilling out into greenish-black puddles, and wandering sheep and goats.

The sense of relief I felt when the plane took off from Juba yesterday for the short (1.5 hour) flight to Nairobi was something I've rarely experienced, a palpable sense of, ' you did it, it's finally over.' Southern Sudan is poor, hot, and undeveloped, but I expected all of that coming in, and feel like I was as prepared as possible. I'm not sure what it was exactly that made my time there start to feel so frustrating, and like such a slog, although I'd guess that at least part of it was the fact that I was offered another job elsewhere within five weeks of arriving, meaning the majority of the time with the organization, I felt like I was just waiting for something new and better to happen.

Given this, when I arrived in Nairobi yesterday afternoon, I spent the majority of the time walking around in something of an amazed stupor. Even as we taxied to the gate at Jomo Kenyatta Airport (the main international airport), it was the first time in months I'd seen proper taxiways, jet-bridges, and even an airport terminal. I walked into the airport and found that I couldn't stop laughing as I looked around and saw candy, souvenirs, cafes, electronic displays of flight information, and so much more.

This sense of shock only continued later in the afternoon as I walked around Nakumatt Junction, an enormous shopping mall just a five-minute walk away from the guesthouse. I walked into a bookstore that was every bit the equal of anything you'd see in the US or Europe, had smoked salmon and cream cheese on a whole-wheat bagel for lunch at a coffee shop with pleasant music and souvenir t-shirts for sale, and finished it off with vanilla and berry gelato. I walked into the enormous supermarket (Nakumatt is a huge store here, similar perhaps to Wal-Mart or Carrefour), and saw... everything. From flat-screen plasma TVs to hundreds of varieties of toothpaste, it was all there.

I remember hearing as a Peace Corps volunteer about how intense the initial shock can be coming back to the developed world, but yesterday was the first time I really felt it. I wandered through the candy aisle, not so much because I wanted candy, but simply because I couldn't stop staring at all the packages, the colors, the varieties.

I certainly understand that the place where I was is a wealthy part of Nairobi, and there were foreigners (mostly white ones) everywhere, but there were also plenty of Kenyans, not simply the people serving drinks or cleaning, but shopping, dining, chatting on phones with Bluetooth headsets, and more.

I don't want to get overly philosophical here, or be an apologist for the colonial past of this place. The British ruled Kenya with an authority based on exploitation, violence, the pitting of tribal identities against each other, and arrogance. For all of this, however, the systems that they left behind, particularly the education and infrastructure, are what seem to me to have made all the difference. So many educated Kenyan professionals have built their country, and the amount of capacity among people here is such that there seems to be little need for expats- people can run their own affairs, and seem to be doing a good job of it, for the most part. One of the reasons why this is possible is because there's an infrastructure here that works- people can drive to work on a decent road, go the ATM to withdraw their Shillings, shop at the supermarket, eat at a restaurant, and catch a flight somewhere if they need to. None of this exists (or at least exists easily) in southern Sudan, and the difference is enormous. It isn't only an issue of violence- Kenya has had its share of war too, most recently last year, when the election went haywire. And despite the obvious advantages over a place like southern Sudan, Kenya is still very much a 'developing country.' Still, the degree to which things work here, and work properly, feels stunning after being in Sudan.

It's time for me to head to the office, so I'm going to wrap this up- before I go though, I'll have my granola, check my email again, and take a hot shower. It'll be London tomorrow, Miami and Tampa on Wednesday- crazy to think about. In any case, it's nice to be out, and in a place that feels at least a little closer to home...

Poorest of the poor?

2009-06-25T12:01:00.001-07:00

I'm back in Juba, sitting in the dining room at the Shalom Hotel this morning with Taban, one of the accountants for the organization. We're having the standard breakfast of omelettes, fruit salad, and fresh bread. The hotel is owned by Eritreans, so everything can come with a dusting of beri-beri spice (the distinctive flavor you always taste in Ethiopian and Eritrean places), if you ask for it. I do.

We're chatting, and I distractedly keep an eye on CNN– the sound is off, so I can only follow so much– plus, it'd be rude to watch too intently. I swallow a few multivitamins and my daily dose of Doxycycline (an anti-malarial pill), and we continue to talk.

I mention to him that I'm heading home- going to Nairobi this Sunday, London Tuesday, and Florida on Wednesday. I'm excited to be leaving, and I suppose it probably shows. It's not that this has been a bad experience in every way, but it definitely has not been what I'd hoped for. I feel like I've spent the better part of the past five months on a permanent camp-out, and frankly, I feel like I did that for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer. In any case, I'm not writing this to rant- that'll be the stuff of individual conversations with some of you.

"I have a brother in the US," Taban says, seemingly out of nowhere. "One in Australia too."

"Really?" I ask, surprised.

"Yes, they were resettled during the war."

"So they came as refugees, right?"

"Yes. The one in America is in Fargo, North Dakota."

I can't help but laugh a bit as I picture an enormously tall, rail-thin Sudanese man who'd never known days cooler than 25º C cruising around in Fargo, a place where I'd imagine 'cold' doesn't begin to do justice to the bone-chilling frozen-ness of the place. Odd how the US government tends to settle refugees in some of the least-expected places. I wonder how they decided on Fargo?

Like many of the Sudanese men and women working for the organization, Taban tells me about how he spent most of the past few decades out of Sudan. He left his village in 1985, as the north-south civil war was at its worst. As we finish our omelettes, he tells me about how people in the village, called Kajo-Keiji, managed to get ahold of an anti-aircraft gun, and shot down one of the north's Russian-built Antonov bombers. Supposedly, the wreckage is somewhere in the nearby mountains. With the war escalating he fled to Nairobi, where he attended university, and became an accountant.

As we talk, I realize something, my own misperception.

One of the things I've noticed, I tell him, is that I think working in this amorphous 'development' thing, it's easy to lose sight of the reality on the ground, and in some cases, that includes the positive. Working to do things like install hand-pumps, distribute seeds, or train people on the proper use of ox-plows, we spend most of our time working with the 'less than one dollar a day' segment of the population.

When all you see are the people who have nothing, it's easy to forget that while this is a large segment of the population in a place like southern Sudan, it's not the only one. There are entrepreneurs, scholars, and professionals, people like Taban. Honestly, it's encouraging. Working with people in villages, providing things that feel incredibly basic, and teaching things that seem so simple, it's easy to lose perspective, and feel like there's no hope for this place. As challenging as things may be here though, there are reasons to feel positive, and the reminder of this sometimes comes in the strangest places- in a hotel dining room, in this case. Taban came home- he tells me about how his brothers have talked about coming back as well, to do what they can to rebuild their country.

I hope they do. Southern Sudan clearly has a very, very long way to go as it moves forward. For the time being, at least, the government and the people here will probably continue to need the support of NGOs, most of which are led by expats. If things work how they're supposed to though, and the goal is to 'build capacity,' (a phrase you see constantly in reports), eventually a new group of Sudanese professionals will be ready to take the helm.

If that happens, I know a good accountant...

Near Khartoum?

2009-06-08T10:19:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay on blogging- no excuses, I've just been lame...

I'm in the village of Bunj, about halfway between the towns of Renk and Malakal, an today, I go out with the health promotion team to observe a 'mass education' event.

It turns out to be big success. More than 100 people gather as Asunta, a tall grandmotherly woman addresses the crowd, along with El Faki, another health promotion agent. They take turns with a megaphone, speaking to the crowd in Arabic, pausing every few sentences for one of the men in the crowd to translate into Mabaan, the local language.

"Mosquitoes live in standing water, so you should try to drain anything near your house," Asunta says, as she holds a drawing of a smiling mosquito looking hungrily at a lake. The crowd nod their heads.

And so it proceeds- El Faki exhorts them to use mosquito nets for pregnant women and for children. He walks through the audience, holding a picture of a family sitting under a net- again, they nod.

The training also is focusing on preventing diarrhea, and Asunta tries to teach the children a song.

"I wash my hands like this/ like this/ with soap and water/ with clean sand," she sings in Arabic. The kids repeat after her, clapping along and miming hand washing, following her lead. By the end, the kids are clapping constantly, and with a huge shukran! (thank you), Asunta ends the song.

It was very interesting to watch all of this, and really get a sense of development in action, I suppose. More interesting though, is an interaction that I have after the education campaign, as we wait for the Land Cruiser to arrive.

I'm sitting with Asunta and El Faki, another man, and a girl who looks to be perhaps 15-years-old. She wears a purple shirt with white embroidered flowers and an orange sash/headscarf wrap. As you would expect, she doesn't speak a word of English, and my Arabic ends somewhere around "thank you," and "give me one Coca-Cola." Fortunately Asunta is there, and she translates.

She's incredulous at the fact that I can't speak Arabic, and I smile sheepishly.

"Where are you from?" she asks.

"America," I answer, "very far away."

"Far away," she says. "Is America near Khartoum?"

Wow. How do I answer that one? This is a girl who likely hasn't traveled more than 50 kilometers from her village in her life; Khartoum is maybe 500km away, an enormous distance for her. How do I explain that my home is about 25 times farther away, more than 10,000 km?

I laugh. "No, it's much farther away than Khartoum," I say. I wouldn't want to sound patronizing here, but the honest truth is that I don't think this girl would begin to understand if I told her that I lived across an ocean, and flew 1,000 kilometers per hour 10 kilometers in the air to come here. I suppose the simple explanation is probably the easiest in this case, even if it's only the partial truth.

Our conversation only lasts a few moments, but it serves as yet another reality check into just how vast the difference is between the developed and the developing world. Because of who I am and where I was born, I've been the beneficiary a good education, a decent health care system, roads that work, and so much more. The girl I'm speaking with has seen none of those things, and likely never will. I don't mean to sound overly fatalistic here, but it's simply the reality of life in this corner of southern Sudan- life goes on more or less as it always has, with the addition of a hand pump here, or a plastic sheet there.

I wonder sometimes if this whole 'development' enterprise is really as patronizing as it can feel. NGOs are digging boreholes for pumps, building clinics, and helping people set up small businesses, all of which are good things. The part that hits a bit of a sour note for me is the fact that the things that are built are still incredibly basic- a person from the developed world would never drink out of a pump like the ones organizations install, and would wait for a medevac helicopter to take them to to Kenya before visiting a clinic like the ones most NGOs build. I know there's an argument to be made for 'appropriate technology,' for building at a level that makes sense for the community in question. Still, it seems a bit hollow to me. I'm not sure if there's any good answer to this, but I have to wonder..

In any case, end of musing/rant. Heading back to Renk tomorrow, a town which feels more like the north than anything else I've seen in southern Sudan. Everything is in Arabic, and they have things like raisins and shwarma. Not a bad spot, actually, to spend the remaining couple weeks in Sudan. I'm looking forward to getting out of here soon though, and for the next chapter to begin...

Message From An Old Friend

2009-05-23T07:20:00.000-07:00

I've been trying for the past couple months, but I was finally able to get through to Marc, my friend and 'host father' while I was with the Peace Corps in Chad. He was my next door neighbor and close friend for the almost 21 months I lived in Gounou-Gaya, a small town in the southwestern portion of the country, not far from the Cameroonian border.

I've wanted to speak with him for awhile now, to tell him about my new job in Cameroon, and how I'm hoping to come back to Chad at some point to visit him, if I can. We haven't spoken since last summer, something I feel really guilty about- I keep meaning to, but something gets in the way, or I'm suddenly off in a place with no phone reception for a month at a time. In any case, the Zain Prepaid gods are cooperating in both Yei and Gounou-Gaya this morning, and my call miraculously goes through.

It's great to catch up with Marc, and we exchange the usual greetings, the endless ritual of "ça-va" ing ('How's it going?' in French), cut short for the phone. He says it's great to hear from me. I tell him about the new job in Yaoundé, and he sounds genuinely excited to hear about it. I hear him explaining it to his wife, Valaddi, in Musey, their native language. I've forgotten the little bit I knew, but I manage to hear 'ça-va-Oui, au Soudan," and "Yaoundé.'

"I wanted to call you earlier to tell you," Marc says in French, "but I didn't have your number."

"Yes, I've been moving a lot," I answer.

"J'ai perdu ma fille en Janvier," he says. 'I lost my daughter in January.'

I freeze. I remember each of Marc's daughters well. Tang-Ira, (aka Tanga), the oldest, who was about eight years old when I lived in Gounou-Gaya. I remember helping her get enrolled in the private Catholic primary school in the village, run by a group of nuns. Ka-Idi, two years younger, started school at the same time, with the cutest wide smile, and always wearing a brightly covered headscarf, to look more like her mother.

Hophyra, the mischievous four-year-old (at the time) who used to run up to me and clutch my leg- I remember her telling her father one night that she wanted to go to school for the bouille, the milky-peanut porridge that all the little kids got for lunch, and watching Marc laugh uproariously. And Dakassia, just around two-and-a-half when I left; I remember how she would poke her head inside the covered patio of my house, looking for me, saying 'Nyah-ne-nehl,' and waving. I had an American flag pattern hacky-sack I got from the US embassy in N'Djamena that she and I used to play catch with; I'd toss it, and she'd fling it back at me, as hard as a two-year-old could.

"Ç'était qui?" I ask, wishing I didn't have to find out. Who was it?

"Ma fille, Dakassia," he answers.

"Oh Marc, I'm so sorry," I say. "Do you know what happened?"

"We think it was malaria."

"My condolences, Marc. Thank you for telling me."

We talk a few minutes more, but I feel like I don't really have much else to say. The thought of his daughter dying hangs over me, and doesn't really make me want to continue chatting.

Less than a month ago, in this same space, I wrote about what it'll be like when I go back to Chad to visit, and how much I was looking forward to seeing Marc and all of his children again. Of all his children, I feel like I was the closest with Dakassia, and found myself smiling to imagine the cute little girl she'd be by now, possibly just starting CP1, the first year of school. Instead, she's dead, of a disease that can be prevented so easily. One more casualty that didn't need to happen.

In Chad, one in five children is expected to die by the age of five; it's the brutal reality of life in that corner of the developing world. The World Health Organization says that almost 2,400 people die of Malaria in Africa every day, the majority of them children under the age of five. I've known about these statistics for years, internalized them, and always thought about how tragic they are. Until today though, they'd just been numbers, and I never had a face to put with them. Now, picturing Marc sitting with all the other men at the place mortiere, the traditional gathering in southern Chad after a death, where everyone arrives and sits quietly with the mourners. Nothing needs to be said- the sense of grief is palpable, and shared.

Objectively, it makes sense- Marc had five children, so statistically, it was probably going to happen. That doesn't make it fair, or right though. I wish I'd known sooner, and I wish there was a way I could have done something to help. Crass at it may sound to say this, it's too late for his daughter, but there are still ways to get involved and work to stop the spread of Malaria. I've included a few links to major NGOs and campaigns working to do things like distribute treated bed-nets, and promote education campaigns, key steps in the fight against the disease.

http://psi.org/
http://www.nothingbutnets.net/
http://malariaconsortium.org/
http://www.rollbackmalaria.org/

I may be in Sudan, but today, my thoughts are in a small Chadian village. It was great to speak with Marc this morning, but I still wish I hadn't heard such terrible news. I hope I'll have the chance to see him before long, and the rest of his kids- when I do though, someone, a little girl, will be missing.

I'll remember though...

A Lesson in Aweil

2009-05-10T09:49:00.000-07:00

The past few days have been mercifully cool (for Sudan); the sun has been blocked by dust, and although it means a fine layer of greyish-brown particles on everything, it still beats the consistent awfulness that is 42º (about 107ºF) without air-conditioning. I'm still in Malualkon, but will be heading back to Juba tomorrow (assuming the plane will land with the dust) for a few days, and then off to Yei.

On Saturday, I take a day trip to the town of Aweil, about a 45-minute drive down the surprisingly good road from Malualkon. Aweil is the state capital of Northern Bahr-el-Ghazal, and has things like cell-phone reception, a couple two-and-three story buildings, and a stand in the market that sells oranges, grapefruits, hot peppers, cabbage, and more. I go with Ellie, a British woman working for an NGO affiliated with the organization, and six Dinka and Nuer men. Their NGO does journalism-related work, and the guys are all going to town to cover a rally for the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), the dominant political party around here.

When we get to the rally the guys jump out of the Land Cruiser to go and gather stories, leaving Ellie and I to wander around town a bit. We try to see, but the crowd is huge, and short Dinka men are generally at least six feet tall, so it's a pretty hopeless effort. At the podium, the speaker is shouting in either Dinka or Arabic, making the speech completely incomprehensible. Ellie and I try to make our way through, around the rear of the podium stand, so we can get out to the main road. A fleet of Land Cruisers with mirrored windows is parked behind the podium, the getaway cars for all the 'big men' once the rally is over. As we walk along, people stare at us incomprehensibly- the idea of a khawaja walking through this place, two even, including one with bright red hair (not me), is more than a little bizarre.

We escape the rally, and walk through the main street towards the center of town. The road is lined with enormous trees, one of the few remaining vestiges of the colonial era, when Aweil was a British settler town- supposedly a spur of rail line still exists, although it hasn't worked in decades. Within 200 meters though, after passing both SPLM headquarters, and the office for the National Congress Party (President Bashir's) we realize that virtually everything is closed- the rally has shut down almost the entire town. Deciding the best option is simply to wait it out, we make our way to a quiet café where we can relax under the trees. After about 90 minutes we hear the wail of a police siren, an odd noise for this part of the world- the rally is over, and the important people are off to their next destination. Within about 15 minutes, Aweil comes back to life. The shops reopen en masse, and the reporters arrive at the café, where we share a lunch of roasted meat with tomatoes and onions, beans, and chapatis, all surprisingly good.

Now that the markets have reopened, we decide to take a walk through town, with the guys. People stare just as much as before, but having an involuntary escort of six enormous Dinka and Nuer men seems to keep some of the harassment we might otherwise get at bay. We walk past stands filled with Chinese-made purses and backpacks, enormously long colorful dresses for enormously long Dinka women, and the ubiquitous plastic zipper-top storage bags with printed designs of LONDON (featuring a picture of Big Ben), NEW YORK (with the Statue of Liberty), PARIS (the Eiffel Tower), and SEE THE WORLD (with a bald eagle mid-flight).

Continuing through the market, we move into the electronics section, where dozens of cassette player/boomboxes sit, most with styrofoam bracing on each side, wrapped in very dusty plastic. Following that, we come to a long row of spice merchants, selling dried chilies, crystal salt, and other spices and powders I couldn't possibly identify. As the spice sellers come to an end, the dried fish section begins, and the putrid stench almost makes me gag. Strands of semi-cured Nile Perch stand on the table, some braided together into something almost resembling the conical shwarma kebabs you can buy throughout Europe and the Middle East. We walk through as quickly as possible, fortunately before my nausea gets the best of me.

Jacob, Luka, and Nyol, three of the guys, want to go and smoke sheesha, flavored tobacco in hookahs, so we follow them to a coffee shop. Crowds of men sit gathered under the tin pavilion as boys run back and forth carrying fresh pipes, hoses, and more charcoal. Along the side wall a woman is making Nescafé, hibiscus, black, and mint tea in small glasses. Not wanting to smoke, Ellie and I sit at the edge of the café by the door, and order two glasses of mint tea, which arrive a moment later. Fresh mint floats inside the glass, and the first sip brings an intense minty-sugary wave.

As we sit and watch people go by, we both notice perhaps a four-year-old a boy walking across the path from the shop. He's barefoot, and the pants he wears may as well be non-existent; huge gashes have split both the front and back. He stops for a moment, looks at the two of us, and begins to climb a rack of pipes sitting along the path. As he climbs, the non-existent pants begin to slip down, and he quickly jumps off, shoots an embarrassed look at us, and scoots away. We watch for a bit longer as the guys smoke. A kid walks by, carrying an enormous burlap sack on his head.

"These kids work so hard," Ellie says. "Can you imagine? Never a day off."

"No, I couldn't begin to," I answer. "If you ever need any reminder of how good you have it, just look around."

I find myself thinking of a story Ellie tells me earlier in the day about Luka, who is missing three fingers of his right hand, leaving only the index finger and thumb. His left hand is complete, but there are massive stretches of scar tissue along each side of his wrist.

"It's an amazing story, really," Ellie says. "He was hiding with a group of children when the government attacked. Someone threw a hand grenade into the hut, and Luka grabbed it, to protect the kids. He was able to get it out and start to throw it away, but just as he threw, it went off."

"All of these guys," she says, gesturing at the three smoking sheesha, "they were all probably child soldiers."

On some level, I understood that time-wise, that'd make sense, but as I think about it, I realize that I can't begin to imagine. I've been so fortunate to live my life in a developed country, in a place that hasn't seen a military attack in my grandparent's lifetimes. To deal with a war where both sides (the Sudanese government and the SPLM) routinely recruited or conscripted small kids, to have witnessed brutality beyond anything I can comprehend, and to lose everything, in a place where most people have almost nothing to begin with.

I don't know how people do it- I know I couldn't. The fact that they continue to move forward is an incredible testament to the will to live among the people of southern Sudan, and they have my profound respect.

Schools & Clinics, Aweil

2009-05-03T05:00:00.000-07:00

A few more from school and clinic construction projects supported by the organization- story to follow later. Also a couple other landscapes and random photos from Aweil.

Malualkon, Landscapes, and Aweil

2009-05-03T04:41:00.000-07:00

A few more from the latest field site.

Tea Shops, Restaurants, Wunrok, and Schools

2009-05-03T04:23:00.000-07:00

A few photos from upcoming stories, as well as from the field office in Wunrok.

Just the Way It Is

2009-05-02T02:30:00.000-07:00

I have an interesting conversation with John, one of the Kenyans working here. He's been in Sudan for five years, and is getting ready to head home within a month or two. I give him all the credit- I couldn't handle being here for anywhere near that long. We start discussing this, as the generator isn't working properly, and we have time to sit in the large tukul (a traditional hut) that constitutes the kitchen here in Malualkon.

"It's been hard," he says. "The conditions are very poor. I don't understand how people who are from here put up with this all their lives."

"I think that for us foreigners it's both a blessing and a curse," I suggest. "We know there's another world out there, which in a way makes it more difficult when we see how things are here. If you go to a small village, this is the only life people know."

Just to pause for a moment, I'm well-aware of how condescending that might sound, but that's certainly not my intention. If you go to a remote village, knowledge of the outside world is all-but nonexistent. You can beat around the bush about that fact as much as you'd like, but it's the simple, brutal truth. As far as many people here are concerned, a 'city' is simply a place with more cows and mud huts, perhaps a handful of electric lights and a couple freezers running on diesel generators.

"The thing here," John says, "is that people are resistant to change. They say 'this is my life,' and they won't take steps to improve their situation. For people here, life has only a few stages- birth, grow up, get some cows, get married, have children, and the cycle repeats itself. People say, 'we're fine with this, we don't need anything else.' But it isn't good."

After living and working in Chad, northern Uganda, Niger, and southern Sudan, it feels like a breath of fresh air to hear someone from this part of the world actually come out and say what feels like the obvious truth. The sense of fatalism here is so overwhelming, so crushing, that there's never an incentive to get ahead, to do something to improve your situation in life. Once again, I know I'm imposing my 'Western' values on a completely alien environment, but honestly, how much more could have developed here if people were willing to take the steps needed for real change?

I guess it shows the difference even within the region. John, as a well-educated Kenyan, is one of those people who make me feel like there is real hope for development throughout Africa. His family clearly worked to make sure he had the chance to go to school, and do what he needed to do to become a professional. They weren't happy with things just staying the way they were, which, as many rationalizations as you want to make about people being 'in a poorer but happier time,' were bad.

And it's not that it couldn't happen, even here. Yes Sudan (and the south in particular) has suffered through decades of war, the climate is harsh, and disease is rampant. Climate aside though, how much of that is really different from the situations any of our ancestors in the (now developed) world confronted hundreds of years ago? Places in other parts of the developing world were just as rough before- Mexico City is built on a giant swamp, just as one example. The difference is that they made the leap, weren't afraid to be daring or be laughed at, and through it, we moved ahead.

Out in the villages, people's lives are almost exactly the same as they were 50, 500, or even 1500 years ago. It makes me wonder, with so many organizations working in these incredibly remote areas building things like schools, clinics, and markets, what it might be like 100 years from now. Will anything have changed? The forces holding people back are so powerful though, that it's hard to feel optimistic.

Lunch and Equality

2009-05-02T02:26:00.000-07:00

I'm out on a field visit the other day, with James and Peter, two of the Sudanese staff, checking out some of the organization's projects in a few rural villages for a story I'm doing. They've been providing financial support to build schools and clinics here, using a method called 'cash-for-work,' where they lay out the money for the materials, and to hire people from the village as short-term laborers to do the construction. It's a double benefit, as it not only stimulates the economy, but also helps communities develop needed infrastructure- once the story is finalized, I'll post it here.

After seeing the sites, we stop for lunch at a restaurant that was deceptively nice, considering the size of the town. This is 'nice' by southern Sudanese standards, of course- it's clean enough for this corner of the developing world, but I can only imagine the horror on the face of my brother the chef, or a health inspector back home if he or she saw the place. The restaurant, a big tin building, is big enough to have several tables, an open kitchen, fans redistributing the hot air, a stereo blasting Arabic pop, and (weirdest of all) two glass display cases for sodas and water, the kind you would see in any convenience store in the West, filled with 7-Up, Coke and Pepsi, all labeled in Arabic script.

The kitchen consists of a large area near the front of the building, where three guys scoop beans into bowls, fry eggs on a charcoal-fired grill, and mix a massive pot full of a combination of bread, beef, onions, and egg, a sort of goulash that gets dumped into a communal bowl for people to pick from, using their right hand only, of course.

Southern Sudanese food will never win any awards for culinary excellence; beans, meat, stew, bread, fried eggs. I ask for a plate of fuul Arabiya (Arab beans, as they're called here), mashed fava beans served with a small squirt of lime juice and a couple of surprisingly good disc-shaped pieces of bread. Beans have been my usual fare when eating in the field, as they're usually a pretty safe bet- they're hard to screw up, and less likely to make you sick. The fava beans are pretty bitter, but the lime (along with salt) helps.

One of the young boys waiting the tables brings our food- James and Peter, along with our driver, tear into the big bowl, while I dip the bread into the beans. People eat quickly here, and there's little discussion, usually. After we finish though, and are polishing off the sodas, James has a question for me.

"So, Nathaniel, are you married?"

"No," I answer. "Not married, no children." They find this incredibly funny for some reason.

James, Peter, and the driver chat amongst themselves for a moment, speaking Dinka. They turn back to me.

"In your country," Peter asks, "how much do you have to pay for a dowry when you marry?"

Huh?

I pause for a second, trying to figure out how best to answer this.

"Well, in the US we don't pay a dowry when we get married," I answer, trying not to appear too taken aback.

If the answer about not being married was funny, this is absolutely hilarious.

"This is a very good system!" James says, guffawing- Peter and the driver do the same nodding their heads in agreement.

In Sudan, as in a number of places throughout the world, when a couple wants to marry, the groom is responsible for paying a 'dowry,' a price to the bride's family, as a way of owning the woman. In Dinka territory, where people have been raising livestock for thousands of years (with very little changing, aside from the occasional radio and English Premier League football jersey), the currency of choice is cattle. Around Malualkon a groom's family will likely pay anywhere from 30-80 cows, an expense that can translate to thousands of dollars. I understand that it's tradition, but the idea of 'purchasing' someone seems inherently wrong to me. I try to think of how best to explain it, without stepping on anyone's metaphorical cultural toes.

"Around here, some people ('like you,' I think to myself), think that men and women aren't equal, that men are higher than women, right? They nod their heads at this seemingly obvious truth.

"In the West, men and women are seen as equal," I continue. "If they decide that they love each other and want to get married, they just decide to do it, there's no payment involved. Sometimes the man will ask the woman's family for permission, but it isn't required. Also, both families will usually help pay for the ceremony, the food, the music, and that sort of thing, but there's no price for any person."

"That is a good system," Peter says. "But here, it is very different."

No kidding. There are any number of arguments that can be made about 'culture,' and how something perfectly acceptable in one place may be criminal somewhere else. In grad school we talked a lot about the concept of 'universalism,' the idea that there are a certain set of basic human rights to which everyone should be entitled, regardless of culture. I know that I'm imposing my 'Western' values on a country that it feels like time forgot, but still, the idea of buying or selling anyone just seems wrong. If there's one thing I've come to realize in my time working in the developing world though, it's that I'm not going to change much, no matter how much I might wish it were different. Social change is a slow, indigenous process, and has to come from within.

Finding My Motivation

2009-04-23T08:42:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I found out that I was selected for a fellowship with Catholic Relief Services, meaning that my time with my current organization will be coming to end at the end of June. It makes being here challenging, knowing I have something much better coming down the line.

Earlier this week I learned a bit more detail about the position with CRS, and it looks like I'll be moving to Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon, beginning in August. After working in Chad, northern Uganda, Niger, and southern Sudan, the thought of being based in a big green city, with mountains, nice restaurants and more is pretty exciting.

For the moment though I'm here, and I'm trying not to let the challenges weigh me down too much. It's mostly little stuff, but when it's all lumped together, the frustration builds. The heat is truly oppressive, for one- it feels completely unfair that it's already 100º F (38ºC) at 11AM, and thermometer regularly hits 112º or more (44º) at the height of the day. The hours between 1 and 4PM are the worst- the fan I have pointed at my face just serves to redirect the hot air more forcefully.

I think the thing I've had the hardest time with though, is food. When the only green things in sight are the canvas tents that serve as our bedrooms, plastic tarps, and acacia trees sporting massive thorns, it makes the thought of a salad feel like a distant, happy memory. Meals around here tend to be basically white rice and meat, with the meat basically looking like it was prepared by forcing a grenade down the unlucky cow's throat.

It isn't the conditions though, as much as just a feeling that I'm ready to move on professionally, and the idea of continuing to work in communications, which is interesting, but not what I want to be doing, is tough. Also, the second-class status that comes with being 'the volunteer' is always there, even if it's unintentional.

I don't meant to turn this into a bitch session though- I knew what I was getting into when I came to Sudan, and if I couldn't hack it, I wouldn't be here. Still, given that I know something better is coming along, it isn't the easiest thing to put up with life in a tent, crappy food, and oppressive heat as daily facts of life.

Whenever I feel like this though, it's hard not to feel a little guilty though, knowing just how I good I have it. Every walk I take down the road, through the market, or even around the compound reinforces the fact that I won the geographic and socio-economic lottery in so many ways, and that being able to leave Sudan in just a couple months is a luxury few people around here, if any, will ever have.

I find myself thinking more and more about what life will be like in Cameroon though, and how strange it'll be to finally be living more of a standard 'expat' life. I wonder if I'll miss some of the challenge that comes along with a place like southern Sudan. The previous places I've worked have all allowed me to claim a certain amount of 'hard-core' credibility, and I wonder how it'll feel to be in a place people go on vacation to, instead of from.

I guess the key is not letting Sudan get to me over the next eight weeks. Yes, things aren't ideal, but it's a temporary thing, and if I can manage to stay busy, I'm sure it'll fly by.

I hope so, at least.

***

On a different note, since I've learned that I'll be going to Cameroon, I've had another thought on my mind. How and when I can get back to Chad? It's just northeast of Cameroon, and I feel like I need to see the people I left behind so abruptly when Peace Corps pulled out. I keep thinking about what it might feel like to show up in Gounou-Gaya; how would people react? How many would remember me? Would it be different, now that I'd be 'the expat' living the big city? Those sorts of things concern me.

Then I think about what it'll be like to see my friend and 'host father' Marc again, to see his four daughters, the youngest of which used to chant 'Nyah-na-nehl' and clutch my leg as she waddled along in the way that only toddlers can. What about Hophyra, who I remember as a mischevious four-year old who loved to wrestle her big sisters at any and every opportunity. Will Ka-Idi and Tanga, the oldest, still be in school?

I'm sure it'll be wonderful to see them, but probably a little weird at the same time. Hard to say though; I guess I'll only know when it happens.

Abyei & IDP Resettlement Sites

2009-04-12T10:28:00.000-07:00

A few more photos from the Abyei area, where Internally-Displaced People (IDPs) are settling in temporary sites- story to follow later on.

A Few From Agok

2009-04-12T10:27:00.001-07:00

These are mostly from the mechanic shop story I wrote about earlier, plus a couple random ones from Juba, the southern Sudanese capital.

Nyori Refugee Camp, Story & Photos

2009-04-12T08:47:00.000-07:00

I had a chance to visit the Nyori Refugee Camp recently, for Congolese running from the Lord's Resistance Army, and fleeing into southern Sudan. I'll include the article I wrote about it below the slideshow.

***
In the shade of an enormous tree, Kulito Change sells Pure Milk brand Glucose Biscuits, bright-blue Mukwano bar soap, and small pieces of candy. Fifty meters to his left, a long line of men and women wait to register their bar-coded ration cards at a table cordoned off with red-and-white police tape tied to the antenna of a nearby Land Cruiser.

“Two packs for one pound,” he says hesitantly, pointing to the biscuits.

Whether he’s struggling over the English phrase, or the currency exchange isn’t clear – he’s more accustomed to selling in Congolese Francs, and to speaking French or Lingala.

Five weeks ago Change arrived at the Nyori refugee camp from the village of Aba, 18 kilometers from the camp and 10 kilometers outside the Sudanese village of Lasu. He and 6,000 others fled after the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) attacked Aba in December.

“The LRA came, they destroyed homes, and they killed many people,” he says.

Founded in 1986 under the leadership of Joseph Kony, the LRA has become infamous for widespread atrocities in Northern Uganda, the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and southern Sudan, notably the kidnapping of children to use as soldiers. According to the Swiss NGO Trial Watch, more than 85 percent of LRA fighters are children between the ages of 11 and 15, 40 percent of them young women.

Kony, who claims to be guided by visions instructing him to overthrow the Ugandan government, and to conduct attacks as a means of ‘purification,’ has largely led the LRA away from northern Uganda in recent years. Beginning in December 2008, a joint operation has combined the Ugandan, southern Sudanese, and Congolese military forces in the border region, in an attempt to eliminate the LRA. Despite this, the LRA has attacked numerous times along the DRC and Sudanese borders, in Aba and other communities.

With ongoing attacks in the region, refugees have flooded into southern Sudan, leading to a string of camps along the DRC/Sudan border. According to the United Nations, more than 16,000 refugees have fled Congo, spread across an area of 600 kilometers. Since their arrival, the refugees in Nyori camp have depended largely on the support provided by international agencies, as they were forced to abandon virtually everything as they fled their homes. And while they appreciate the work relief agencies are doing, some wonder if either the camp authorities or the Congolese government are listening to their concerns. Despite the challenge, however, they are moving forward, building what they can in the midst of a violently disrupted life.

Nyori camp, run by NGOs, and coordinated by the United Nations’ organization for refugee affairs, the UNHCR, straddles a small creek. At the bottom of the steep ravine, a newly painted red-and-white wooden bridge connects the two sides of the camp. On either side, the refugees live in small rectangular grass huts, most of which have been reinforced with UNHCR-issued white plastic sheeting.

Jamba Abarago’s small hut sits at the edge of Nyori. An older man, Abarago is the Chef de Camp, the ‘Camp Chief.’ Wearing a faded French Football Association jersey, he sits on a folding chair made from animal hide and wood with a small group of other men and describes the situation. A crowd quickly gathers.

Abarago says roughly 600 LRA soldiers attacked Aba, killed the village administrator and burned numerous buildings and vehicles. Several children were kidnapped; many others were murdered.

“They killed more than 100 people,” he remembers, speaking in French.

According to Gaston Madsona, another refugee, the LRA forces attacked as a group, but quickly split into smaller units.

“They divided up so they could kidnap more of the children,” he says.

After the attack, residents of Aba began to flee.

“We abandoned our manioc and peanut fields,” remembers Samuel Binima, another one of the men gathered around Abarago. The people of Aba and other surrounding communities traditionally rely on agriculture to support themselves, as industry in the region is all but non-existent.

Among the refugees from Aba, there is a pervasive frustration, a sense of ‘why us?.’ People in Nyori camp struggle to understand what would motivate the LRA to attack inside DRC, or anywhere other than northern Uganda. The cross-border region, a small sliver of territory where the Ugandan, Sudanese and Congolese frontiers intersect is largely an unpatrolled and unenforceable area, giving LRA fighters the flexibility to strike when and where they choose, seeking to terrorize the population, and steal supplies.

When the people of Aba fled, some came via the main road from the Congo border, with others making their way through the bush, arriving near the site that would become Nyori camp within a day or two. Once they arrived, UNHCR began working with the refugees to provide basic needs such as food, water, and sanitation.

“The UN helped us with things like jerricans and buckets,” says Change, the young man selling biscuits.

While NGOs have been working diligently at Nyori since the refugees arrival to provide support, distributing buckets, silverware, and plastic sheeting, and other items from large cargo containers at the edge of the camp, some feel they are having a difficult time getting key needs met.

“We don’t have enough food, and it’s causing nutritional problems,” says Logala Bang. “We only have sorghum and beans,”

“The health situation is catastrophic. Many people have died even since we came here,” adds Madsona.

The Aba refugees are concerned about a lack of educational opportunities. Many of the young people who fled Aba were in the middle of the school year, and there is a great deal of concern that the academic year will be an année blanche, a wasted year. Rather than being in classrooms, even makeshift ones, school-age girls gather at the bridge to wash red and white enamel dishes in the creek, while the boys fish for tadpoles with handmade fishing rods built of sticks and small bits of string.

“There are many students who were forced to abandon their studies,” Madsona says.

Having never been in a similar situation., many people at Nyori express a sense of confusion about what they should expect.

“This is the first time I’ve ever been a refugee. I’d like to know what is expected of us, and what rights we have with the UN and with the Sudanese government,” says Emmanual Tamaro Tembe, a young man with short-cropped hair and a pink-and-white striped shirt.

Many of the refugees wonder if anyone in their country is paying attention to their situation, and are concerned that the authorities in Kinshasa, more than 1,800 kilometers southwest, have turned a blind eye.

“Does the DRC government even think of us?” asks Nathaniel Dramule, a refugee sitting next to Abarago, their leader.

“How can we communicate our situation to the Congolese government? They’ve said nothing,” the chief adds.

Despite the challenges they face, the villagers of Aba are hopeful for the future, and ideally would like to return home to Congo, should the situation permit. For the moment, however, they feel safer staying in Sudan, and hope to improve their situation where they can.

“Our desire is to improve the quality of our lives here,” says Dramule.

The refugees have been taking concrete steps to develop the camp where they can. The path leading down to the bridge is a steep dirt trail, one that will undoubtedly become treacherous as the rainy season intensifies. A group of men work with hoes and picks, widening the path, and cutting the outline of steps into the loose soil. Nearby, a man in ripped white tank-top hacks at fallen logs with a panga, a machete, each subsequent ‘thwack’ spitting a spray of wood fragments into the air. The logs will be placed into the newly cut gaps, providing a safer path for the stream of mothers with babies strapped to their backs as they move from one side of the camp to the other.

And while the refugees seem resigned to the thought of remaining in Sudan for the near future, their desire to return home is obvious, something pointed out by one of the youngest members of the group. ““If security is guaranteed, we’ll return,” says Tembe. “For the moment though, we’ll stay here.”

A Recent Article

2009-04-12T08:40:00.000-07:00

Here's a recent article I wrote about the organization's work here- I thought I'd go ahead and paste it. Sorry about having to edit out the name, if that seems a bit jarring.

Enjoy...

***

A new engine for Agok

The screech of tearing metal rips through the air as Salah Ahmed lowers the diamond-edged saw to a grease-covered piece of steel frame. Glowing-orange sparks shoot into the air as Ahmed, one of the mechanics at the Wauashen Auto Repair Shop slices into the metal.

Located at the edge of the town of Agok, in the Abyei area, the garage is a simple tin-walled structure, wide enough to comfortably fit two vehicles at a time, with an adjoining shop.
Inside the garage, a silver Peugeot waits for a mechanic, hood open.

The garage, opened at the end of December 2008, is a part of ( XX's) Programme (ARRP), which aims to help communities in the greater Abyei area, such as Agok, recover from the effects
of the 23-year civil war that ended in 2005. The $7 million program, funded by the European Union and administered by the United Nations Development Programme, began in
2006 and is likely to run through at least 2010. Fighting reignited in Abyei town in May 2008, forcing its more than 50,000 residents to flee. The mechanics of Wauashen
garage, working in Abyei at the time, lost everything. Several relocated the 20 kilometers south to Agok, seeking a chance to rebuild.

“We decided on [the garage project] because we knew they’d had a shop in Abyei before,” says James Akai, XX's Business Development Advisor. “Their property was destroyed in the war last summer.”

After the mechanics formed a cooperative, XX supported them with start-up capital. Using this seed money to purchase tools and supplies from Khartoum, the mechanics then purchased tin, cement, and gravel with their personal finances, which they used to construct the
Wauashen shop. The land government authorities allocated the cooperative is on the fringe of town, in a zone that will flood quickly once the rainy season begins in May. Without a
gravel pathway from the road, the garage will be inaccessible due to thick mud.

To Akai, the fact that the mechanics used their money to construct the shop is a positive development, and proof that XX has made a smart investment. “It isn’t the best land, but the fact they accepted it and brought gravel on their own is a sign of commitment,” he notes.

The garage employs 19 mechanics, each earning an average of 10 pounds per day for their work on electrical systems, welding, tire repair, and engine overhauls. The mechanics charge on a sliding scale, with small repairs incurring minimal charges; a major overhaul for a bus or
truck can run 8,000 pounds, roughly 3,600 U.S. dollars. Ahmed, who worked for several years as a mechanic for both the United Nations and the World Food Program in Khartoum before returning to the Abyei area, has worked to build the capacity of others at the shop. “I’ve been training the other mechanics,” he says in Arabic, speaking through a translator. As he talks, he adjusts a thick gauze bandage on his index finger.

Walking around, the garage is abuzz with activity. While Ahmed slices through the frame, Saïd Abdumahhamad Rasman, another mechanic, cleans a fuel pump on a large
cargo truck parked outside, its cab tilted forward to better access the engine. Inside the shop, Akenyei Kiir twists a wrench in the engine cavity of the Peugeot, loosening a bolt.

Ahmed and the other mechanics have big plans for the shop. “When we train enough people, we’ll be opening a new section of the garage,” he says. According to Akai, the garage has already attracted a large number of clients, and the organization has every reason to think the business will continue to grow. “I see a lot of potential,” he says. “The head mechanic is responsible and extremely honest.”

And while the garage could not have been successful without the labor of the mechanics, they recognize the role XX played in helping them begin, and appreciate it. “XX has helped us a lot,” says Ali Hassan Ali, another mechanic.

Just off to the side of the garage, a small shelter constructed of wooden poles and sharganiya, woven grass mats, provides a bit of respite from the scorching heat. Inside, the faint scent of cardamom is in the air, and a small circle of plastic chairs sit in a circle near a wooden table covered with tea and powdered milk. With the opening of the garage, an enterprising young woman opened this coffee and tea shop, providing drinks and a place to sit for customers as they wait for a tire or brake pad change. At 50 piastres, half a pound, a glass of hibiscus tea is a small price for an escape from the heat, and a positive example of how one small enterprise can serve as an economic engine for others nearby.

Akai and other XX staff see the project as a major success. Over the next few years, the garage seems likely to expand, something the organization is happy to see. He feels that the garage could easily become the shop of choice in town, in line with the mechanics’ plans. “We want to open three garages, including new ones in Abyei and Wau,” says Ahmed.

And as the garage grows, the mechanics intend to bring new employees into the fold. Next to the garage entrance, by the small door leading to a storeroom, Mien, a 14-year-old boy, sits with a ratchet, unfastening a washer from the engine of a small Mitsubishi Pajero 4x4. He wears blue rubber sandals, and his tan pants have small streaks of grease.

“I’ve learned how to open up engines,” he says proudly. “Now I want to become a mechanic.”

Why?

2009-04-07T11:28:00.000-07:00

Interesting...

I was just chatting with one of the people in charge here in Agok, and he seemed to be having a bit of a tough night. It's been a challenging couple days, I think, and an issue with money put him in a bad mood that seems to have lasted.

"Why do you want to do this job, Nathaniel, honestly?" He asked, as we sat in the dusty area outside the main pavilion, swatting mosquitoes.

Good question. I wonder myself sometimes.

Why exactly is it that I'm willing to live in some of the hottest, driest, poorest places on Earth, eat crappy food, sleep in a tent, and deal with latrines that feel way too full? Seems crazy right? At home, I could have a good life- not that I'd be likely to be well-off, or anything, but at least I could have a salad once in awhile, and travel wouldn't be on roads that feel like they're 80% crater, 20% gravel.

But I know why I'm here- it's not about those things. Yes, conditions are rough, but every job has it's challenges- the ones here just happen to be a bit more in-your-face. Yes, I could be home, living in a comfortable place, but I know I'd be missing something.

As cliché as this sounds, being in Chad, and being in the Peace Corps changed my life. Five-and-a-half years ago, had someone asked me if I wanted to go live in a village in a poor, hot, corrupt, and violent country, I would have simply assumed they'd taken an extra shot of crazy in the coffee that morning. Now, I feel like I get it.

Since I began doing this in 2004, I've been places nobody else in my family would dare to go, and seen things so tragic that you feel them eat away at your soul. I've observed poverty beyond anything most people can imagine, where $1 literally would be the difference between life and death.

But I've also seen resilience beyond anything I could imagine, and signs of progress in places one would never expect it. Seeing someone 'get it,' over something as simple as the reason to send their child to school, or how drinking water from a pump instead of a pond will help them avoid a bad case of amoebas is what makes it worthwhile, the knowledge that you did some small thing for the better.

My brother, the chef, asked me the same question once.

"What is it about this?" I remember him asking, as we drove over the Bay Bridge back into San Francisco, the lights of the Ferry Building and the Embarcadero beautiful as always.

"Think of the thing you're most passionate about," I said, "and try to explain to someone why you care so much about it."

It might not make sense to anyone but yourself, but if you have a passion, you know why you follow it. The question, though, is do you take the steps you have to do to make it a reality, or do you let it go, in favor of something safe, something comfortable?

Not me. I'm still following it- hard to say where it'll lead, but I bet I'll be happy along the way.

Big News

2009-04-05T07:46:00.000-07:00

I just got an email from Catholic Relief Services, one of the world's largest NGOs, the other day. I'd applied for their International Development Fellows Program, an initial one-year position with them designed to lead into a long-term career with the organization. After months of waiting, and a narrowing down from 500 to 150 to 50 to about 20, I found out.

I got it!

It's not 100 percent certain yet where I'll be, but as of right now, it should be in Francophone Central Africa. That means any of the following: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Congo Brazzaville, Chad, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Rwanda, or Burundi. Nigeria is also on the list, but as an English-speaking country, I assume that won't be happening. I should find out exactly where within a couple weeks.

If you'd like to find out more about it, by the way, check out:
http://crs.org/about/careers/fellowships/

I'm pretty excited about it, as you can probably guess. It feels like a validation for all the volunteer and intern work I've been doing over the past several years. It means that I'm actually going to have a career in this after all, so it seems.

I'm very appreciative for the opportunities I've had with my current organization, but I feel like it's time to do something new. Like I mentioned in my last post, I've been working in communications here, which is interesting, but really not what I want to be doing long-term.

Also, and at the risk of sounding a little spoiled, I wouldn't mind something a little more comfortable. I'm perfectly content to live in challenging environments- it's the nature of working in development. With that said, to this point I've worked in Chad, northern Uganda, Niger, and southern Sudan, each among the hardest terrains on Earth. I wouldn't mind being in a place where it isn't 45º celsius as a rule, where roads are mostly functional, and having a few creature comforts like air-conditioning and access to vegetables. With this fellowship, I think all of that will be possible.

My plan as of now will be to stay here in Sudan through the end of June, come back to the States, with training beginning in July. As I know more about my placement and work, I'll post it here- keep checking back...

A Few New Developments

2009-04-05T07:40:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay in posting anything here- it's been a busy couple weeks, and blogging has taken a backseat to work and moving around. To attempt to make up for it- here's a three-part post.

About a week and half ago, I had a chance to visit a refugee camp for about 6,000 Congolese who fled to southern Sudan following an attack by the Lord's Resistance Army in the area. Founded in 1986 under the leadership of former altar-boy Joseph Kony, the LRA has become infamous for widespread atrocities in Northern Uganda, the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and southern Sudan, notably the kidnapping of children to use as soldiers. According to the Swiss NGO Trial Watch, more than 85 percent of LRA fighters are children between the ages of 11 and 15, 40 percent of them young women.

Nyori camp, where I visited, is only about 10km from the DRC border. It's run by NGOs, and coordinated by the United Nations’ organization for refugee affairs, the UNHCR. It straddles a small creek. At the bottom of the steep ravine, a newly painted red-and-white wooden bridge connects the two sides of the camp. On either side, the refugees live in small rectangular grass huts, most of which have been reinforced with UNHCR-issued white plastic sheeting.

(By the way, I have photos from the camp, which I'll post as soon as I get the chance.)

I certainly wrote about this plenty while I was in Chad, but seeing the camp made me realize yet again just how incredibly lucky we all are in the developed world. We never think about what would happen if a militia suddenly attacked our community, what we might do if we had a parent, sibling, or child dying from a completely treatable disease, or how we'd manage go half the places we do if we had to use roads that were more crater than gravel, spending four hours to go 30 kilometers. This is southern Sudan, and this is the situation the Congolese refugees are fleeing to. I don't have anything particularly pithy of profound to offer on this, but it's just something to think about the next time you might feel like complaining about your flight being delayed 20 minutes.

***

Speaking of flights, the travel from Juba to Agok was...exciting, as usual. Flying out of Juba is always a challenge- the airport has one entrance, guarded by SPLM (the southern Sudan military) troops, and always surrounded by a mob of people, every one of whom is trying to get in the same doorway, waving passports and southern Sudan travel permits. I did make it through the door, however, but quickly found myself in the midst of another mob- it so happened that my World Food Program (WFP) flight happens to be checking in at almost the exact same time as one of the regular flights to Nairobi, leading to a huge crush of people trying to check in at the single counter next to me. I'm able to push my way through, however, and hand my agency identity card to a man in a fluorescent green vest at the counter so that he can check my name on the manifest, the only ticket needed for UN travel.

In Juba, you walk behind the counter to deal with your baggage, causing a huge crush as people try to squeeze through. On WFP flights, you can carry a maximum of 15 kilograms, officially- in practice, the number seems to be higher, if you're friendly enough. My bag seems to always be a few kilos over the limit, and again I'm lucky that after throwing it onto the scale, the baggage handler shrugs, and hands it off to me. The next step is security- I lug my bag to another countertop, where an SPLM soldier and airport security officer wait. They gesture for me to open the bag, which they ruffle through, setting aside clothing, multivitamins, and a jar of peanut butter I picked up at the Sri Lankan-owned supermarket in town. Airport security. Over to the side, a new X-ray machine waits, turned off.

Checking my big bag, I squeeze through to the other side of the counter, and make my way to the other half of airport security, the waiting room before the terminal. In another logic-defying move, the entrance to the waiting room is only accessible through a single tiny door, where other security agents wait to search your carry-on bag. A huge line divided in two is parked in front of the door- one for men, one for women- in a huge blow for equality, I guess, the women's line is about 1/8th the length of the men's. Making it to the front, the agent searches through my bag by hand, removing the batteries from my alarm clock- almost as logical as airport security back home. I duck under the fake leather curtain separating the security checkpoint from the waiting room, am quickly frisked by another agent, and waved through. Mission accomplished, much pushing and shoving later.

To get to Agok we fly first to the town of Wau, via another town, Rumbek. We take a small turboprop exactly like the ones you might take in the US between San Francisco and LA, or Miami and Tampa. We arrive in Renk just under an hour later, hitting the dirt runway with a cloud of red dust behind us. After picking up a few passengers, we're on the way again, off to Wau. 30 minutes later we touch down at the airstrip- as we flash past, I can't help but notice the broken fuselages of two large jets. Each is tilted crazily up on their wing and in several pieces- whether it was a poor landing or artillery that brought them down, it's hard to say.

After a two-hour delay that was supposed to be 30 minutes, I head to Agok. We fly on a tiny plane called a Twin Otter, which bounces through the clouds as I hold on, trying not to think about it. On a rational level, I know everything is fine- a pilot friend of mine explained to me recently how they look at turbulence in the air in the same way that the captain of a ship sees waves. Still. I'm close enough to the controls that I can see a GPS unit ticking away the distance- that helps, plus the fact that I see the pilots joking with each other over the headphones. If they were concerned, I'm sure they'd look serious.

We fly past the runway first, in a wide circle. No air-traffic control around here, so this is the only way to make sure that the landing strip is free of children, goats, or anything else that might get in the way. Doubling back, we hit the gravel and bounce along, coming to a stop next to a few parked Land Cruisers. I've arrived- 400 kilometers and six hours later.

***

So, the village is called Agok, but I think 'surface of the sun' might be a better name. Holy crap, it's hot.

Agok is dry and brown, with a few tough acacia trees hanging on to provide a bit of shade here and there. It reminds me a lot of Chad- same heat, same dust, same goats, same seko grass mats, same women in bright headscarves.

I'll be in Agok and the surrounding towns for about a month, looking at the organization's work in Economic Recovery and Development, writing stories, and taking photos. It's interesting stuff, but still not exactly what I want to do- fortunately it looks like I won't be doing it for much longer... Details to follow.

How's the Malaria?

2009-03-23T07:28:00.000-07:00

It's a wonderfully cool (relatively) day here in Yei- rained most of yesterday, and the remaining clouds have blocked out most of the heat, making it surprisingly pleasant. I even wore my long-sleeved Peace Corps Chad shirt most of the day, the first time that's happened since I arrived.

I've been fighting a cold since Friday, which feels like a huge injustice in a place where it's so. damn. hot. (except for today) I understand that it has very little to do with the weather, but it still feels frustrating. It's like something has turned down the volume in my head by about 30 percent on everything, although it's still way too easy to hear the roosters, who begin their roosterly duty at what can't be any later than four in the morning. Whatever, I'll live.

I'm having breakfast this morning, which feels like an extra-special treat now that we have both peanut butter and honey in the pantry, and in walks Joy, our head cook/housekeeper.

"How is your malaria?" she asks.

I pause for a second, setting the spoon down I've been using to drizzle the honey onto the bread.

"Malaria?"

"You don't have malaria?" She asks, looking a bit confused.

"No, just a cold... But I'm feeling much better now," I respond.

"That's good," she says. "Thank you."

I go back to my roll, and smile a bit to myself. I remember this in Chad, how almost everyone in Gounou-Gaya assumed that whenever someone got sick, it had to, had to, be malaria. There simply wasn't any other disease. Perhaps a broken arm, but that was about the extent of it. Seems as though this is the case here in Sudan too.

It makes sense, I guess. In a place like this, where health education certainly wasn't a priority through almost 25 years of war, it's not a surprise that people's knowledge is limited. And it's true that malaria usually manifests itself as something like a bad cold, at least for most people here: chills, headaches, fatigue, etc.

Most of the people here who survive childhood (and there are plenty who don't) have been exposed to malaria multiple times, and while they certainly haven't developed an immunity, they tend to build up enough of a resistance that it's manageable. A day or two in bed, and they're back on their feet. Not so with me though- coming from North America, if I get it (haven't yet, knock on wood), it'll be bad, and make a cold seem like nothing. I continue to take anti-malarials every morning though, so hopefully things will continue to go well on that front.

On a totally different, but also slightly disturbing note, I'm at the office this morning and hear a sudden, deep rumble. Although it's cloudy, this definitely isn't thunder.

"Did you hear that?" I ask my supervisor.

"Yeah. Sounded like a land-mine," he says, casually. "It was probably a cow."

Holy crap. A land mine? In spite of myself, and feeling bad for doing it, I can't help but smile when I think of an exploding cow. I know how bad that sounds, sorry.

Again, another one of these things that sounds crazy, until you think about the context. The north/south civil war only ended in 2005, and there are still mines all over the place. Nobody seems to know exactly where they are, and there are plenty of no-go zones. As our security manual says:

"Landmines
Stay on the paths.

Types:
Anti-personnel.
Anti-tank. There are always anti-personnel mines around an anti-tank mine.

Marking:
Red-painted sticks or signs: Danger.
White-painted sticks or signs: The area has been cleared.

Other indicators in unmarked areas:
Dead animals.
Uncultivated ground in cultivated areas.
Deserted building in populated areas.
Area marked locally, with piles of rocks, crossed sticks, rocks across a path, empty mine
packaging, injured people.

Marking is the exception, not the rule. In Sudan, there are no maps of where mines were planted. "

Wow. Definitely not in Kansas any more. Unless it's post-apocalyptic Kansas. Several NGOs work around Yei, trying to get rid of the mines, but it's definitely an imperfect science. Given this, I understand why we're encouraged to stay on the paths at all times.

Ah Sudan... the happiest place on Earth.

Right?

Nonna

2009-03-18T07:52:00.000-07:00

On a completely different, unrelated-to-Sudan note, I want to take a quick moment to remember my great-grandmother, Anne Krum, who died late Tuesday afternoon, aged 105.

Born in 1904, Nonna (as everyone seemed to know her) lived a life that can only be described as remarkable. Immigrating from Poland in the early 1920s, she passed through Ellis Island and eventually settled in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Graduating high school in just two years, she raised three daughters singlehandedly following the death of her husband. One of them, my grandmother, subsequently cared for her throughout the past several years.

In times when it would be generously described as rare, and less generously as bizarre or a bad decision, she worked full-time, a single mother taking care of children. Years later, she went into real-estate, becoming highly successful, and dividing her time between homes in Miami Beach and Pittsburgh.

As she entered her 90s, it became clear that she needed to be closer to family for health reasons, and she relocated to Florida permanently, first Miami, and later Sarasota, where my father and grandmother live.

It was only after she retired that she became a serious painter. She'd been interested in the early 1950s, but responsibilities and life had gotten in the way. Over the past several years, she produced hundreds of paintings, ranging from large canvasses to hand-painted cards with wildflowers, with phrases written on the inside like "Happy Birthday, Nathaniel. Happy Every Day." Last year she produced a one-person show displayed in Sarasota's main library, and although any sort of travel outside the house was difficult at that point, she received a critical reception from friends and family.

The past few times I've been in Florida have been for big family events like birthdays, bar/bat mitzvahs or holidays. Each time, Nonna would basically hold court in the living room of my grandmother's house, sitting in a comfortable chair while all of us- almost 15 great-grandchildren, a dozen grandchildren (the same people I know as late-40s and mid-50s parents, uncles and aunts) would come sit with her, talk, and get advice. Incredibly intelligent, she had a great way of cutting through the crap, dispensing blunt advice (politely though, at the same time), and always making it clear that despite her physical frailty, an incredibly sharp mind was still there. Seeing my young teenage sisters and cousins sitting and talking with her was always amazing to see, as they seemed to get taller even as she became noticeably smaller.

As a risk-taker, and someone prepared to embrace things that some people might think odd for someone of a certain age or gender, I can't say I was all that surprised when I opened me email one morning a few months ago, to find a message. The subject line: "Anne Krum Added You As a Friend On Facebook."

Nonna, at age 104, joined Facebook. How great is that? Shortly afterwards, a group was formed in her honor, "Fans of Anne Krum, Oldest Person on Facebook." When I checked this morning, there were almost 300 members, from across the world.

As I write this, it's sad, but at the same time, I can't say it comes as a surprise. After going strong for so, so long, she began to decline quickly over the past few months. Yesterday evening, she moved on- we can only hope it was somewhere better.

Goodbye Nonna.

We'll miss you.

With her great-grandchildren, January 2008

Back to Yei

2009-03-18T07:50:00.000-07:00

Just arrived back in Yei yesterday, after a week in Juba. It's nice to be back in the 'field,' and certainly in Yei, which is cooler, windier, and much greener than the scorching, dusty, expensive craziness that is the southern Sudanese 'capital.'

It may be nicer, but it's still Sudan, with all the craziness that implies. I logged on to Skype a little while ago, and saw one of my co-workers updates.

"Some Demonstration and Light Shootings in Yei Town."

Apparently war veterans and soldiers are protesting in town, after not receiving pensions and salaries for months on end. It shouldn't be a surprise- this was a regular occurrence during my time in Chad, when teachers would go unpaid for four, five, six months at a time.

A couple thoughts. As I've seen in each of the places I've worked and traveled around Africa so far, there's money around, but it's usually invested in the Mercedes, Land Cruisers, and villas of the elite. Same thing here. As a result, salaries don't get paid, people protest, and soldiers come out to beat and kill them.

Also, it seems bizarre just how casual everyone seemed. Of the local staff at the office, nobody seemed the slightest bit perturbed. Again, I guess I can understand- growing up in a country that's been at war for the better part of its history, I suppose it might make you somewhat more tolerant of situations those of us who grew up in peaceful countries can't understand.

Hopefully things will stabilize by tomorrow, although apparently there's a curfew tonight, with nobody allowed out after 6:00. Not that we're leaving- the head of office doesn't want anyone out of the compound, for obvious reasons. We'll see how things go- I'll post an update if anything changes...

A Few Photos

2009-03-15T06:26:00.000-07:00

Here are a few photos from the first couple weeks. Unfortunately they're mostly places and scenery at this point, but I'll try to add more soon...