Pangi

THURSDAY MAY 7
I've had a long but good day; it's almost 7.00 pm now and I've been visiting different activities and such since 7.30 this morning. Quite a long day. But really wonderful. When in Bukavu the work we do is looked at and evaluated on such a large scale that it's easy to forget the personal individuals who are benefiting from our work. Today I went with one of our agronomists and field assistants first to visit some of the associations we've worked with in seed multiplication. The associations have all finished harvesting, and one of the things they have to do is reimburse 25% of the seeds back to FHI. FHI then usually gives these to other associations we haven't yet worked with, or maybe sells the seeds and supports small projects like small livestock breeding with other groups. Anyway, this idea to me is just really sweet, and even though there were problems w/ the seed mult activity, all the associations I met with today said the training and technical support was really strong, and so now hopefully they will use this in the future. FHI's work is trying to change really basic things. For instance most people here do slash and burn agriculture. We're trying to teach differently to save some trees and also produce more plentiful harvests. So today I went to help pick up the seeds the associations were giving back to FHI.

Then I went with our other agronomist, plus another field assistant and our site coordinator to our public demonstration fields and the fields where we train mothers of malnourished children. We also went to the General Hospital where the mothers and their children stay (a therapeutic feeding center, meaning these kids are severely malnourished). We met with a group of mothers for a while, then went to see some individuals' gardens. The individuals were all beneficiaries of trainings and seeds at either the nutrition centers or the public demo fields. It was just great to see the impact, you know? That our training was then being implemented by the individuals themselves. Plus, we give seeds and plants and we found one woman's garden where the woman hadn't received anything directly from FHI; but she had these nice amyrynth (sp?) plants growing, and her neighbor had given her these. Her neighbor had received the amarynth from FHI!

A FEW OTHER SNIPPETS:
this morning I met with representatives from 3 different seed multiplication associations in the village of Mubile (vill of about 100 Households); I asked the members to give me a summary of how things had gone, problems that had arisen, suggestions, etc. 2 of the 3 ass'ns are women's associations, one of which probably 15 or so of their members were there. At the end the women from this last ass'n all started singing and clapping a traditional song of thanks, and they were singing it to FHI. It was a really wonderful moment and I was just there, you know, clapping along with them and taking it in as a beautiful moment.

Two days ago I went to the village of Kamakozi, which was pillaged and destroyed totally by the war (it was basically a battlefield between Mai-Mai and RCD troops). The villagers fled and were in the bush for four years, and recently returned in late 2004. They are slowly putting their lives back together. They've organized associations, have rebuilt their houses (many were burned) and are hopeful for better things. They showed me their impressive recently constructed livestock pen for chickens. It was an extremely difficult road there (30 km from Kalima, only accessible by moto, bicycle, or foot), and therefore is very isolated.

I basically have spent the last week either in the FHI vehicle (about 330 km), on the back of the FHI moto (340 km) or talking with our beneficiaries and our staff. Spending time with some people who have benefited from FHI assistance has been amazing, cuz these are people in villages way out in the bush and are truly vulnerable, with hardly anything. It was just amazing at times to stop and realize what I'm doing.

"Give me a gun," he said, "and I will go get rid of them myself."

In Congo, Trolling Through the Lives of Those Too Wretched to Merit Aid
By HELENE COOPER
Published: May 22, 2005, New York Times

WALUNGU, Congo

The July summit meeting of rich nations in Scotland will dwell on ways to help African countries, especially those that have shown themselves capable of good governance. And President Bush will promote his Millennium Challenge Account, which is supposed to channel money to poor countries that promise to use it to promote development and lift people out of poverty, instead of lining the pockets of corrupt officials.

But what about the millions of people who, through no fault of their own, live under bad governments? This village of Walungu, about 30 miles from Bukavu near the borders of Rwanda and Burundi, is a sad case in point, one of the most wretched places in one of the world's most wretched countries. Its people suffer under not one but several warring governments and armed groups, every one of which - but especially the Rwandan Hutus who have fled their own country - preys on the local population.

Especially the women. Last September, Rwandan Hutus kidnapped a 25-year-old mother of three, dragged her out of her house as her husband stood watching, and took her into the forest, where she was raped, again and again and again. After a month, she escaped when the rebels turned their backs as she was washing their clothes in the river, but when she returned home her husband threw her out.
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"It's the war that has caused these problems"

For Congo's Mothers, Unceasing Loss
War, Though Ended, Still Claiming Children

By Craig Timberg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, February 12, 2005; Page A01

SHABUNDA, Congo -- Nsimenya Kinyama carried her 3-day-old baby outside bundled in rags and gingerly placed his tiny, jaundiced body in a rusty blue crib. As the first healing rays of the morning sun reached him, he fussed and wriggled and stretched his arms up.

Kinyama, 36, stared at her new son with a flat, empty look in her eyes. She was wondering if this child, like the six who had come before him, would die.

"God help me," she prayed, "so that this child can live."

It is a common prayer in Shabunda, a former trading center in eastern Congo that was ravaged by war, then left poor and isolated by the destruction of roadways that had long given it life. A recent survey by the International Rescue Committee found that Shabunda's children were dying in such numbers that more than half would not see their fifth birthdays.

Such is the nature of death in modern African conflicts. For every soldier felled by a bullet, countless children die quietly of preventable and treatable maladies while fleeing to safety, waiting for care at an understaffed clinic or huddling terrified and hungry in a jungle hideout.

"It's the war that has caused these problems," said Kinyama, who has a gentle voice and hair woven into braids. "It has made us poor. It has brought hunger, and it has given us a hard life."
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