UCBC - Round 2

Avid readers might have noticed a post a couple days ago where I pretty much vented lots of frustrations without giving the rest of the story and trying to explain things better. I apologize for this super-biased post and have deleted it and will re-insert parts of it into the coming posts hopefully explaining a bit more of the situation. There were many reasons for my frustration, but not a lot of background to the situation. Now I'm going to write about things the university and the students are trying to do, maybe highlight a student's story or two (with permission), and show what the students are giving up to come to the University. It'll probably take a couple posts, and I hope you enjoy the awesome things that are going on at the University more than my frustrations. I think the main reason I was so frustrated was because good education is something that I care dearly about. It's something I value incredibly and I feel God is calling me to education in some capacity in the future. I have lots of ideas about education and have studied education a litle, and where UCBC wants to go is awesome and I get excited just thinking about it.

First we'll talk a little bit about the educational background of many of the students, and for this I'm going to talk in general about the background of the history of Congo, and things I've learned in Goma as well. The first thing that comes to my mind when thinking of the education system of the Congo is a lack of government support. The government is unable to provide finances to schools and organization across the whole country is extremely difficult because of the large, untamed country. It is impossibly to travel by car from Goma to the capital for instance. You must fly because the land in between has no connecting roads. There is very little coordination and support from the government.

This means the schools that are supposed to be free for students charge fees on the side. Besides that, corruption and greed at every level mean people at the schools get varying amounts of money. One way many teachers make up for their lack of money from the government and the system is to charge students for grades. Maybe not implicitly stated, but implied is the fact that grades are often bought and not earned here in Congo. If you are on the wrong side of a teacher, and can't pay, you might be as smart as Albert Einstein and fail every year. The other, horrible thing is that for women, the accepted payment for grades is often sex. If a student is unwilling to offer her body to a teacher, they might not make it to the next year. I don't know if there are any studies about that, but I have heard many people state these things as fact, Congolese as well as aid workers. That was also one of the things UCBC stood on saying payments of money or sex will not be accepted for grades and standing in the schol. Because of this and a very poor standard of education in general, most of the students have not been to a school with academic integrity standards and is something UCBC is totally trying to change.

The other thing that has heavily influenced, no, dominated most of the student's lives, is the war. For years Eastern Congo (and much of the whole region) has been in active conflict. Many of the students have fled from villages and small towns to larger towns, other countries, or remotely into the bush, hiding from the fighting and the ravages of war. Many of the students have been moving from place to place for a long time. When the fighting first broke out years ago, most of the students were living in this area where the fighting was bad. One student's father was captured and killed and they never found his body. Another student hid in a ceiling for a week when the rebels came to his town and then escaped. These students have had fractured education for their whole lives, insecurity their whole lives, and many are just now beginning to have something that is fairly stable that represents some sort of security as peace slowly comes to Congo.

Finally, I want to say how much the students have given up to come to UCBC, and how much they care about being there (as evident by how much they have given up). Some of the students are living with extended family members because they come from areas outside of Beni. These students live with them, not seeing their families very often, and often have to do many housekeeping chores on top of their school work. Besides that, most of the students walk 1-2 hours, BOTH WAYS. Some students walk a total of 4 hours a day just to get to school and back. If I walked two hours to school, went to school for 6-8 hours, and then walk two hours home, then had to get water for the house, cook, clean, etc... I wouldn't want to (or probably would not be able to) study at all. Especially when you consider there is no electricity in most of Beni and by the time they sit down to do homework, maybe it's 10 or 11pm and they have to leave at 6am, probably after doing some more chores of some kind in the morning.

The school fees is something that is being worked on. To be self-sustaining in any way, and really to be practical at all, there has to be some sort of school fees for the operational expenses of the university. However, UCBC does not want the school fees to be the limiting factor in student's attendance. They don't want it to be a school for the economic elite, they want it to be a school that creates leaders of integrity, values, and sound education irregardless of economic status. To help this they are trying to work out a scholarship program somehow, but it's still in the early planning stages. Back to the students though...

A very few students were able to pay the student fees right away. It has been a tremendous help to have the 250 dollar fee per student per year from those who have paid it going to operational expenses - staff salary, gas for the generator, etc... Let's throw this $250 into perspective. The average worker for a labor position makes between 30 and 50 dollars a month. There are positions that offer more, and some people have them, but any labor position without a lot of skill and experience is usually between 30-50 dollars. That's 5 - 8 months wages with no other expenses just to pay for school. And there are other expenses. People pay for housing, clothing, food, siblings' school fees, etc... and this is often for a family of many people. 6-8 person families are often the norm (and sometimes on the small side). Many families have other relatives staying at the house as well to be cared for. Some of the students could afford to pay some, but not all of the school fees because of these limitations. Some have not been able to pay any, and UCBC has accepted them with open arms.

Finally, things like going to college are not just a single family affair here in Congo (and many places of the world). As an example, a student went to Butembo yesterday to ask his cousin for school fees. The extended family is often asked to help support students with opportunities, and thus provide for the student as well as add to the number of people that are interested in seeing the student succeed - if you fail class, maybe they won't continue to support you. Often the whole extended family knows what is going on and looks to that student to succeed for many reasons. In a diploma, a family sees future security, and they will suffer, give, and support a student who might be able to help them in the future. That in turn puts pressure on the student to succeed and do well. Often the student that gets money for a family is the only one in the family (at that time) because the financial burden is too much to send multiple students to school at once.

There is finally another category of students. These are older students who are coming back to school. There are not very many of them, but they are incredible people to talk to and learn from. They remember Congo before the war and have seen a peaceful Congo. Most of these students are men, and one guy especially has an awesome story. He worked really, really hard to put his wife through nursing school before, and now she is a successful nurse. Now, she is helping support him as he is going to school, but these older students are surviving on only one income, with children to take care of and pay school fees for. How are they supposed to do that? The before mentioned student can afford to live on his wife's income by giving up many things, but he cannot pay his school fees on top of that.

Many of the students at UCBC have given up incredible amounts of things to go to school - time, money, resources, jobs, etc... They want to be here. They are working hard to be here. Given the background of many of the students, it's incredible that they are even at the school, trying to succeed in academics when they look at a country that is just crying out from past wrongs. The students heard about UCBC. They heard about the goals of the university, not to provide a Congo standard of education, but to provide a higher standard. A university that not only teaches students academics, but helps them glorify God with their actions and integrity as future leaders of their fields, communities, cities, provinces, and all of Congo. The vision for UCBC is huge, awesome, and daunting - although not impossible. Not only is it not impossible, the foundation is being laid in a way that not only helps success from a human standpoint, but with prayer and listening to God, steps are taken that UCBC is in complete line with God's will. I can think of no better place to be than in line with the will of God.

Two things

Today was an awesome day. UCBC had a basketball match against the UN
Indian Battalion and we won! The Indian team we were playing was not
very good because many of them were just learning how to play (but then
again, so were many of our guys) but more importantly, our team had an
awesome first half where things were going right and the guys were able
to see (and be a part of) a good team. The passing was good, defense
was awesome, and in the second quarter it seemed like every shot went
in. It was great.

I was playing below the basket and commanded the paint. I imagine I
looked kind of funny at times with my arms in the air running around,
knees bent slightly to respond better. It was a blast though. I also
blocked some shots, intercepted some passes, and scored 10 of our 32
points or so (something like 32) including 2 three point shots. It was
great because the students were really excited and while it was a low
scoring game (the second half seemed to have every shot miss) the
defense was pretty good for UCBC which is an improvement over what I've
seen before. At the end the Indian Battalion invited all the students
for tea and some crackers and snacks. It was really cool. As another
bonus, I was also invited to come and play with them in the evening some
day as they play every day at 6:30, so I might have to take them up on
that and if I'm lucky (maybe I'm pushing my luck here!) get invited to
have some awesome Indian food!

The second thing is even more exciting than the basketball (well to me
anyways, and I'm pretty sure most people will agree). I have a return
flight now. I am coming back with Megan on June 6 in time for Sarah's
graduation on the 7th. What?! Yeah, that's right. I said June 6, as
in less than two months away. Actually, like a month and a half. I
just realized that now. That's pretty sweet. Why the early return when
I was originally planning on being here until December?

Originally I was thinking December, but my departure was already moved up to at least September because of applying to grad school (as many people know). Why then did it get pushed forward again to June?

A number of reasons really. First off is things aren't going incredibly
well in Goma. There is still fighting in the surrounding area so I
can't work in community development (one of the things I was really
looking forward to working with HEAL Africa because they do lots of work
in the village communities) and Mawe Hai isn't doing all that much
either because of the fighting as well. It's supposed to be a teaching
place and no one wants to come and learn about agriculture if they can't
do it at home because an army will just come and destroy/steal whatever
they do. War sucks. Besides that, I've had a couple ideas and they just
haven't taken hold. It seems the people working at Mawe Hai are very
happy with their (in my opinion) fairly easy jobs and don't want to do
anything more than they already are. Who would want to do more for the
same money? They are not going to become rich, but for the field work
they do, 55 dollars a month is a pretty darn good wage that many other
people would love to have.

That said, another possibility was to work in Beni for the rest of my
time at UCBC, but I don't really feel that that is a great option
either. I think Beni is a place I could come back to, but I really just
feel my time here in Congo is done. It's time to do something else.
What that something else is I'm not entirely sure because it's looking
like my chances to get into grad school are less and less as the days
pass, but I'm excited to see what God has planed for me.

Of course, there is also the missing my girlfriend and family and things
in Wisconsin, but I firmly believe that if things were going better and
there was more purpose in my time here that it would not be a big deal
at all. As it is, I'm super excited to go home in June and live with my
brother and one of my best friends for a summer (at least) and possibly
longer (depending on school).

That said, if you know of any job openings for something you think I
might be good at, let me know via jdparsons86@gmail.com Otherwise, I'll
be chilling in Milwaukee this summer so you'll have to drop me a line
and hang out sometime anyways because I'm pretty sure the Parsons'
Fortress is the sweetest compound (yes, anyone who has seen the
retaining walls we built in our front yards would agree it's a compound)
in all of south eastern Wisconsin. See you soon (if you're reading this
from Wisconsin)!

The Evil Muzungu

Well, I arrived safe in Beni on Sunday and will be here for a month
working with the UCBC university. I'm helping the university start some
agriculture projects on their 90 acres of land. They have a work
program with lots of labor from the students and agriculture projects
seem like a good idea to the board and I agree. I'm not going to be
doing lots of teaching or anything too cool, I'm just trying to set up
some basic agricultural guidelines for UCBC to follow in the years to
come as the university gets larger, expands programs, and teaches
Congolese students how to be leaders with morals and integrity. I
firmly believe in what UCBC is doing and am happy to be here supporting
them and their goals.

Yesterday I walked around some of the land where we want to start the
projects. Because there is so much land and UCBC has not used much of
it yet, they have let community members farm the land, for free, with
the understanding that when UCBC wants the land, their squatter fields
are forfeit. We have the support of the law (it's our land and we have
the title) and the chief and mayor of Beni, as well as many community
members who see UCBC as an awesome opportunity for Congo development.
Unfortunately though, the squatters have put in tremendous amounts of
time and labor working these fields and I'm pretty sure we do not have
their support as we will call the land into use for UCBC both in
agriculture projects and building projects in the future. They have
used much of the land already and so yesterday I walked around with
Kutembo to look for places that had not been cultivated yet to tread on
as few toes as possible. Or at least that's what I thought we were
doing.

After arriving at UCBC I talked to Kutembo and he said he would come and
find me when he was ready and able ot head into the field to look. I
thought that was a good plan and so got to work planning some other
things. He came and found me and we headed out.

I know I explained that I wanted to see the land on this side of the
spring and I wanted especially to see the land that no one is using
right now (this was on Tuesday). He said okay and lead the way off,
making a bee line to the first squatting farmers we could see. He
approaches them happily saying how are you and how is the work. They
reply happily that it is good. It's still early enough in the morning
that they did not tell the Muzungu that they were hungry. Maybe they
should have because Kutembo then started talking again. I didn't fully
understand everything that he said but I heard enough. He basically
told them that on Thursday UCBC would need all the land. They responded
and he said again, all the land, implying their fields that they were
working in at the time!

And here is the white guy, three paces behind him, cowering in his wake,
trying to take up as little space as possible in the hopes that they
don't see me. I really don't want to be on this trip anymore. Why does
it have to be with the Muzungu that he goes and takes away their land?
Well, maybe he just misunderstood me, so as we leave those workers
looking a bit confused and dejected, I explain again that I want to see
the land that no one is using. Okay he says and we walk on.

Must not have got the message because we did it again too. I tried one
more time to shrink away into nothingness as these people have enjoyed
these fields, until this Muzungu came and took them from us (at least
that's how I imagine they felt - I could be completely wrong, but the
first time a Muzungu walks the land, their fields are forfeit). I tried
one more time to explain to Kutembo my intentions of looking for unused
land and he finally said that there really wasn't any, except for very
small pieces here and there. By this time I was pretty distressed, not
wanting to cause problems and was done with the trip, but we continued
and gave a couple more farmers a hard time. Finally as we were walking
back to the building where they keep classes there was a sizable piece
of land. It looked like it had for sure been planted at one time,
possibly harvested and planted again, but it was overgrown enough that I
was comfortable saying we could use that land. The cassava growing
there was irregularly spaced and it looked like no one was using it. It
was also pretty close to the building so that's good too for security
purposes. On Thursday, the students will begin to clear and cultivate
that land. We will hopefully plant next week Tuesday or Thursday. I'm
not sure what we will plant, but I"m happy that we found a piece of land
we can use without kicking people off right away.

As it is, as people finish harvesting their fields now they will be
reminded that when they started they were told they would lose their
fields eventually and the time is here. UCBC will expand it's
agriculture program, a soccer field, and building projects in the next
months and years. On the one hand I know it's UCBC property and it's
awesome that they let the farmers use it, for free, but I still feel
like a jerk going around taking the land back from them.

As a side note, the official UCBC policy on this is the fields will be
forfeit after a harvest or the farmers will be compensated for their
expected harvest. We are not an evil empire who just takes people's
fields and hard work right before it's harvested.

The roads are (were) fixed!

There has been major road work in Goma. They have a huge grader, a front end loader, and a steam roller. They truck in gravel and pour it on the roads, level it with the grader and flatten it tight with the roller. Some places they are even attacking the lava that is sticking up with hammers and metal rods. They have made tremendous progress and...

Now it's all gone. For the last week we haven't had any rain and the roads have been great. Yesterday we had a pretty good storm, lots of water, and it came fast, and the roads are already trashed. Granted the roads are still a lot better than they were, but every time it rains, they get just as bad as they were before. These large scale efforts are encouraging to see and applaudable in their ambitions, but it's hard to see what the point is. In my mind, there are really only three reasonable options.

The first option is to build new, paved roads. By not wasting resources on week (sometime hour) long fixes until the next rain, save that money and invest in GOOD road building. Use good materials and you won't have to fix it as much. Pave the road and it will last.

The second option would be to do very small scale fixes. I think every residency and business should be responsible for fixing the road in front of their house. Once a week the government could dump trucks of gravel at strategic, periodic places along the road. Then the residents are responsible for carrying a bucket of gravel to the holes in front of their property, putting the gravel in the pot holes, and tamping it down with a stick. The city has a clean-up day where everyone burns all the garbage around the streets so why can't they also have a road fix-it day? The government could even forgo the large scale, doomed projects they are doing now and fund people to go around with wheel barrels and shovels patching up the roads. This small scale would probably have to be weekly, but the money saved from the large scale projects would probably be enough and would be a longer term fix.

The final option is to do nothing. I think it's pointless to spend all this money on fixes that are good for maybe a week, and back to a previous state of car-destroying, inverted mogul hills in less than a month. The large scale efforts to provide dirt roads just don't seem to make sense to me.

The way things are supposed to work

Here in Congo, rape is unfortunately an every day occurrence. Here in Eastern Congo, HEAL Africa is fortunately there to help when it does occur.

A couple days ago a perfect example of how HEAL Africa helps came up. A woman in a village was raped and she was identified by members of the Nehemiah Committee in her village. The Nehemiah Committees are composed of community leaders from all faith and leadership positions in villages and they work together in community development. The Nehemiah members were able to get the woman in contact with a councilor in the village who is supported and trained by HEAL Africa. Through the councilor she received immediate emergency first aid treatment and they went and contacted a partner organization that works closely with HEAL Africa. The partner organization was able to arrange transport for the woman to come to Goma where she was received with open arms by another councilor who knew she was arriving. She was then able to receive further medical treatment and help in Goma.

In Africa things often go wrong, and sometimes it's really encouraging when things work just like they are supposed to.

Picinic at the beach

Some things in this world were righted today after way too many wrongs. I tossed a Frisbee for instance. Ah, the glorious white disc. Revolving swiftly, hurtling through the air, slicing one might even say. The back hand, the fore hand, behind the back, under the leg, risers, curvers, off balanced tosses, and some that did not resemble normal throws at all. The only two keys to tossing a disc are to keep the Frisbee as flat as possible (except for special applications) and to give it some rotation. If you keep these two things in mind you can toss a Frisbee with one finger, in all sorts of weird ways, and even when shackled upside down by your ankles (in the last case, throwing a Frisbee well would probably be the least of my worries though - one might wonder what the heck he was doing upside down in the first place, as well as why he were shackled).

This slight ode leaves out one of the special application throws though, where you not only are not trying to keep the Frisbee flat, but are throwing it, in fact, upside down. The Tomahawk throw, in all it's glory, has a special place in the world of circular flying objects. Thrown upside down, it's flight is different than a normal throw, a bit more unpredictable, but valid. Today, since I didn't have to throw over anybodies head, I used the Tomahawk throw to toss the disc up the 20 foot drop off we were playing next to. Normally thrown, a Frisbee at that angle will rise to substantial height, see it's prey, which is in fact the person who threw it, and will hone in at greater velocities than most people appreciate while climbing up a large pile of rocks. The Tomahawk overcomes this particular, potentially painful, obstacle because of it's different flight. I was happy to re-make it's acquaintance today.

I haven't even mentioned the various methods for catching yet. The pancake will always have it's place as the fail safe, but it lacks flair for sure. The one handed grab, especially via an outstreached hand, is a good step. The dive (defined by the body leaving the ground, acquiring the Frisbee, and only after that particular obstacle has been overcome, crashing to the ground via a body part other than the feet - finally, a dive is only valid if upon standing up one realizes he cannot because of a hurt limb (preferably a break over a sprain) or has drawn blood that is dripping from the body (mere scrapes do not count)) was unfortunately not implemented today. While I'm all about natural injuries, diving with jagged lava rocks everywhere did not seem appealing. I mean it could have been very substantial injuries had I dove, more resembling a bid for suicide than a glamorous catch. The glamor did not stop though with one handed catches. I ran through thick grass, jumped, and even caught the only one I tried to behind my back. I was waiting with baited breath for an opportunity to propel myself into the air, perform a half turn, and snatch the Frisbee out of the air between my legs, but unfortunately the opportunity never arose. I had to settle with juggling the disc with my feet before apprehending it in my hand.

Today 6 people from Maji, two from the hospital, a wife, a sister in law, and two kids and a driver went to Mawe Hai for a picnic. After a short tour we headed down to the lake to eat and drink and be merry. A half hour and lots of food later, I brought out my disc. The guys weren't too bad considering it was their first time to play ever. We were just standing in a circle tossing it around and the best part was after 15 minutes of playing Frisbee when Bizi (after missing one) goes "it was the wind!" How he already knew the best excuse to the unprofessional discer I have no clue, but that was the phrase of the day. I think I'm going to bring it back tomorrow too. Anything that happens is being blamed on the wind. Sounds like a good excuse to me!

Standing Water

This saga begins last night. It had been sort of a rough day. Lots of
waiting, frustrations, and a sense that nothing had been accomplished in
the 11 hours I had thus far been awake. Feeling rather grimy, sweaty,
and in general ready for a shower, I hopped in. Now in the states, when
I'm at home, I'm all about quick showers. You just waste so much time
in the shower. Here, I'm all about wasting as much time in teh shower
as is possible. I massage the shampoo into my hair, take a long time
soaping up, scrubbing everything judiciously (including my back) and in
general, sitting in a hot tub while standing up.

Finally deciding I was late enough for dinner as it was, I turned off
both the hot and cold taps. The only problem was after I turned off the
hot water tap, I was holding it in my hand. That's right. The nob that
shuts off the hot water had broken off and was in my hand. It took me a
second to realize what that meant, and then I observed the water
streaming from the hole where the tap should be as well as streaming out
of the shower head. It seemed the water could not escape sufficiently
fast enough just through the tap and the shower wanted to douse me with
scalding water too. I'm all about hot showers (if the water is
available - otherwise, I'll do a cold one no problem); however, this one
was out to get me.

I flipped the little lever that routed the water to the faucet instead
of the shower head and now there was just a steaming pool of water in
the shower that was constantly replacing itself as it flowed down the
drain. I looked at the handle in my hand and noticed there were some
treads on it. "Good" I thought as I tried to screw the handle back into
place, hoping that it would work, ignoring the areas of broken metal I
had observed making it apparent it wasn't going to work anyways. All I
succeeded in doing was screwing the nob into the hole (it screwed onto
something) but it wouldn't shut anything off. In fact, it turned the
water from the steady stream of a fire hose into a veritable shotgun,
spraying a hefty radius with steaming pellets of water.

About this time I begin to realize that my feet really hurt because I'm
standing in the super hot water just flowing from the shower. Realizing
the screw approach wasn't working at all, I just pushed the handle in
and what do you know? It stopped the flow. Only problem was I really
had to push it in, and it was going against the build up pressure of
water coming from the water heater next door. I tried tying it with a
bit of string a couple times, avoiding the faucet as the hot water had
turned the metal fittings into a maze of hot steel. It wasn't very long
before I realized that wasn't going to work. I only succeeded in mildly
burning myself a couple times and then decided I should probably desist
that action since it was going no where.

I dried off a bit, tossed on some shorts and a shirt and went outside.
Finding the one worker that stays the night (along with 3 guards) I told
him I had a big problem in my room and I would show him. I said the
water wouldn't stop in my bathroom and he looked skeptical. He was
probably expecting a bit of a leaky faucet. Oh was he surprised when he
looked in the bathroom and froze. I was trying to communicate that we
should probably shut off the water when he said "I'll shut off the water
and we'll fix it tomorrow." Eh, that's fine with me. I go down to
dinner, go to sleep, and am chilling at Maji today, trying to forget
about yesterday.

I was doing a really good job of forgetting yesterday via lots of
reading and other random stuff and the plumber was doing his thing. He
left to get something and I eventually went and ate some lunch. After
eating some granola with a bit of Nutella (a chocolate spread that is
absolutely delicious) I settled into the living room down stairs and did
some reading. I was thoroughly enjoying my book when I wanted something
in my room. Deciding I could read there too, and also watch the plumber
if he came back to make sure he didn't take anything (I wasn't worried
at all, but people keep warning me about the possibilities of my stuff
just randomly disappearing) I head back to my room.

Approaching the room I know progress is being made because I can hear
running water and I think "oh good, he's testing it out before
leaving." Oh was I wrong as I opened the door and observed water
flowing from my bathroom and into my room. At least half my room was
covered with water, and not just a little bit either. Because the floor
is uneven, there was quite a lot of water in some places, and it was
spreading rapidly.

Grabbing my computer cord from the floor and checking what the problem
is, cold water is now spraying from the cold tap that is open because
the plumber was going to replace the whole thing, and it's just flowing
all over the place.

Once again I'm out in the yard looking for someone to turn off the
water. I quick find someone and tell them we must stop the water and
show him my room. "I'm going to turn off the water" he says. Duh,
that's what I asked you to do. The same worker that helped me out last
night came and checked out what was going on too and he was like "what
happened?" Mama Ngeleza came and together we cleaned it up. Most of it
she squeegied out the door and there was a lot of water coming out. It
was much too much to soak up with towels.

The water had got on some of my shoes, which were laying sideways, under
a bin, and my table, so I moved that stuff outside and set it in the
sun. Only problem was 10 minutes after we start ridding my room of the
water I'm in the bathroom and hear a pitter patter on the roof. Crap.
Not only is my room flooded, but now it's raining too? Right after I
stuck all my stuff that was wet into the SUN 10 minutes ago?

It was a pretty bad two hours. The highlight of it by far was when the
plumber came back and saw the huge mess and looked utterly astonished
and Mama Ngeleza is there yelling at him and yelling at him and yelling
at him. I didn't understand most of it but I did understand that she
was convinced it was his fault (as am I) and that she was not happy
because she had been tired all day and now she had to come and clean up
(I volunteered to do it myself but she wouldn't hear it) and all my
stuff was wet and I had some good stuff that's wet now and he should
feel bad. It was great. It almost made it worth it... Almost.

Congolese Construction - Brick Walls

There are three kinds of bricks here in Goma. There are the lava rock
bricks that people make using hammers - 12 bricks a day yields a worker
50 dollars a month here at Maji. Then there are the concrete bricks
which are never made using enough cement and so some of them can just be
rubbed away with your fingers, and others you actually have to try a bit
harder or use a finger nail. Not exactly what I'd want to build a
prison out of for sure. Then there are the red clay bricks that are all
shipped in to Goma (because we don't have any clay - just lava). It is
these bricks that we will discuss today.

The new house at Maji is being built with a combination of bricks, but
the red bricks make up a lot of it. When they build the walls the
bricks are too far apart with lots of mortar in between the bricks.
Also because the bricks are not made very well, handled poorly, and just
poor quality in general, the edges are always chipped, usually more
round than an edge, and there are often dents and cracks on the brick
face as well. It doesn't look too bad from a distance, but it's not
what most people would choose to have their living room walls made
with. Joe is no different; even though the walls in the living room and
bedroom both are made of these bricks, it's not good enough.

So begins the process. First the workers take the broken bricks and
brick pieces and collect them from all over the site. Then they smash
them with a hammer until they are small enough to fit in the mortar and
pestles they use here. You guessed it, then they grind them in the
mortar and pestle until they are a fine powder. To make sure they are
fine enough they rub the powder through a screen. They then have the
colorant for the walls. They mix this with a little bit of cement and
they fix the walls.

I'm not talking about patching up the cracks on the faces of the bricks,
or even finishing some of the edges so they are actually edges. They
redo the whole wall. They bring the whole wall our a half inch or so as
they make a new brick over each previous brick. Using trowels they make
the face flat and smooth and then using trowels again they make the
edges sharp. They do each brick. It's painstaking work and I asked the
guy how much he did in a day and he highlighted an area of wall about
two and a half feet square. That's all that guy is going to be doing
for weeks!

There is one section of wall that is more gray than others and it was
the first section, so I think they added too much cement to the mix to
cover up the red from the bricks. Also I don't know what they are going
to do for mortar because now there is a good inch and a half depth from
the brick face to the existing mortar and it doesn't look very good.
I'm sure they will do something with that later. I also noticed on the
second wall they started on, they ignored the under layer of bricks
completely and are just spacing the new bricks where there is a good gap
and making the rows completely straight, which makes it look a lot
better, but then why did they use the red bricks on the wall in the
first place? Kind of crazy, but I must admit the end product does look
pretty nice.

Josh's Future

If you're going to read any post on my blog this year, this is the one
to read. Why is that? Well, here all things will be revealed and
understanding will flood your mind, the heavens will part, the angels
will sing, and Josh will hopefully get accepted to grad school in the Fall.

That's right. There have been rumors going around for a while, so I
figured I might as well get a jump on it and quell them now. Different
people know different amounts of what follows and I'll try and do my
best to relay all important information.

About four weeks ago now I decided to apply for grad school. I told
some people I was applying for January or next Fall - people that might
talk to Megan because I didn't tell her right away. Maybe I should have
told her sooner, but since I wasn't sure if I would be able to apply, if
I would get accepted, or even if it would work out for me to go in the
Fall, I didn't want to get her hopes up. Well, since I told her about a
week ago, and I'm sending in my application today, I figured I'd let
everyone know so they can pray for me.

I'm applying for a M.S. in Plant Breeding and Plant Genetics. I am
studying with the full intent of possibly working abroad when I'm done.
I've seen a huge need in this area here and I feel it's a great way to
use the academic ability God has given me and the technical mind to
really help people in a way not many people are doing right now. Many
people could do what I am doing now, but breeding requires more
training. I've taken a course on it too and loved it. I like that
plant breeding can work with so many things - increased yield, increased
nutrient content, disease resistance, local adaptability, etc... It's
also no limited to food crops and I think agriculture and plant breeding
as a part of that push, could really help some countries in Africa.
Right now I'm thinking about the Congo and using that in my mind as the
example because it's what I know most, but I hear other places are in
similar situations.

A degree in plant breeding will also give me a good background for
further study, or give me the background to get a good job in the states
as well. Basically, I see it as a great option. It's also the only
thing I've considered studying seriously for more than a week. I've
thought about it before, and think it's great. All the people I've
talked to agree as well, so that's encouraging.

The application deadline for Plant Breeding is July 31, but somewhere I
saw that most appointments were made by April 15 with the people
applying by January having the best shots. I missed the January bit for
sure, but am hoping my application is good enough to get in by the April
15 deadline. I hope to know by then if I'm in, but I don't know when
I'll know. Maybe I'll get an e-mail when I send in my application
today. I also saw somewhere that about 10 percent of the applicants get
accepted usually, so it's definitely not a given.

If I get accepted I'll be in Madison for two to three years working on
that. I'll come back from Congo in August and have at least one weekend
to go camping and fishing before starting at Madison again. I'm excited
because Megan will finish in December, so we'll have another semester
together in Madison, and I'm excited to get involved with the Navigators
Christian fellowship again as well.

So that's my future as I see it laid before me right now. My family and
Megan are both all about it so I'm really hoping it works out. If it
doesn't work out, I'm not sure what I'll do yet, but will probably stick
around here a bit and come back in time for deer hunting. That's right,
I have priorities in life. Okay, maybe I wouldn't come back for deer
hunting, but I'd consider it. Hopefully I won't have to think about it.

So, here's my request: please pray for my acceptance to Madison this
fall and that I find out soon. After I send in my application the
people writing my letters of recommendation will be notified and given
instructions as to what to do, so you can pray for good letters as well
and that they will be sent in quickly. Thanks for the prayers, and I'll
keep you posted on any progress.

Congolese Construction - Finishing walls

Using clay bricks to construct walls is a great idea, but when care is
not made in keeping the bricks edges straight and unbroken, and not a
lot of care is used when putting up the bricks, a rather horrible
looking wall is the result with too much concrete mortar between the
joints and too far to the middle of the brick to look good. The thing
is, for construction here, it never ends at that stage. It's always
covered up with a layer of cement and sand to make a smooth finish. I
had the pleasure of watching this process in Beni and I'll describe the
situation.

A rather short guy was the one finishing the wall. He was working on
the top part of the wall and was standing on two boards placed across
the top of a 55 gallon drum creating his OSHA approved scaffold. The
cement mixture was brought to him periodically as the cardboard he was
using to keep it on couldn't hold much and he was going through it
pretty quickly. The cardboard was sitting on the floor boards of the
scaffold and the corners were propped up using chunks of broken bricks.
This basin is where he would scoop the mix from using a trowel. With
some unnecessary hand movements (okay, maybe they were necessary, but
they looked a bit weird) the trowel would reach the spot he was working
on (about head high at this point) and he would throw the mix into the
joint on the wall. After slapping more mix on the wall with the trowel,
he used a wooden float to smooth it out. This was a piece of wood about
8 inches square and it had a simple handle on the back (two small strips
of wood running parallel to each other with one more strip of wood
bridging the gap making a handle) and he would go over the wall in a
circular motion (these are also the kinds of floats they use to smooth
out the floors).

If it is an important wall, strings will be set across the wall in a big
"X" to show how far out the mix should come. If it's not an important
wall (this one wasn't), the eye is fine. It will be uneven, but then
again, the rest of the house is probably uneven too so it doesn't really
matter much does it?

Beni

So I realize this is a week late, but I've been really lazy this last
week, so that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it.

On the tail end of my travels, I ended up in Beni, Congo. Beni is about
an hour plane flight north of Goma and in my opinion, way better than
Goma. Maybe I'm a little biased because Goma is lava and difficult to
grow things in, but Beni was awesome. No lava. No fighting. Not as
much traffic. Life was slower and simpler (so that's pretty darn simple
compared to the states). I actually pictured the Shire from Lord of the
Rings more than once, and was very impressed with the University I was
working at there (a couple posts ago I talked a bit about UCBC).

I was working with agriculture on their 90 acres of land, mapping out
possibilities and working with them to come up with a plan for
agriculture at UCBC. It was a blast and they were excited about
everything we talked about and willing and interested in doing all sorts
of stuff. Things were going great the first of my two weeks there and I
really felt progress was being made and was excited to start putting
into practice some of the stuff I was talking about.

Then a building team came from Elmbrook Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
and messed everything up. Okay, it was cool to talk with fellow
Wisconsinites again, and they were great people to talk to and I'm glad
they came, and they do pretty cool stuff for the university, but they
screwed with my work. As soon as they came, all of the workers and
logistical people came and helped them out and I'm not the kind of
person that insists upon doing what I want to do. I helped out a bit,
talked with students, did stuff on the computer, etc... Needless to
say, my two weeks felt a bit feeble compared to the recommendations I
had made in the first week and the lack of any showing the next week. I
tried to write things out as clearly as possible, but I don't know if
anything will happen from it. I plan on going back though (because I
loved Beni) and will see if anything has happened. I hope something
happens agriculturally, but only time will tell.

Brett

It's a sad day for all of Wisconsin (and apparently the world). Yesterday Justin got a phone call from his best friend, breaking the news of the Packer's quarterback's retiring. There is a team from Elmbrook church at the Kasali's house right now working with UCBC, and a cloud fell over many of them. It was actually depressing that here in Africa, news like that, about sports, can cause depression. Isn't it enough to depress the majority of the US at a time? (Only one team's fans can ever be truly happy. Those people that talk about "building years" and "it was a good season" are only trying to appease their souls).

I also thought it was interesting a couple hours later when, on CNN's global broadcast, they mentioned Brett's retiring and talked about it for a good 2 minutes at least. In this land of football (soccer) I wonder what think when they see these crazy guys who wear helmets and huge pads and claim to play "football". Either way, Brett will be missed, and his retirement made international news. Congrats to an outstanding career.

Congolese construction - mixing concrete

In America, working with concrete is no problem. When we want some on a
job site, we call the concrete company and say "I want 18 yards" and
they ask about kinds, additives, and figure out a delivery schedule.
When you want concrete in Congo, you mix it by hand, on the ground, with
a shovel.

It all starts with a pile of sand on a fairly "flat" surface. This pile
of sand could be a bucket, or a truck. At David's house, it's probably
a pile equivalent to 5 wheel barrows full of sand (the quality
contractor wheel barrows, not the garden ones). Then you need cement.
The cement comes in 50 kg bags and they never use enough (but that's
another blog post all together). The fairly cone like pile gets a spot
hollowed out and a bag is dumped in the hollow. They go to another spot
and fill in another hollow with cement. This continues until the pile
is sand with cement in pockets on the surface. Now, fun part number one
begins.

With shovels and lots of labor, they mix the cement and sand. They turn
the pile, flip it over, move it from side to side, and in general, act
like kids playing in the dirt until it's all a uniform color. depending
on the size of the pile, this is a lengthy operation, and is quite fun
to watch (although the workers don't always appreciate that). Once it
is a uniform color they know it's mixed well and they make it into a
circle shape about a foot or a foot and a half high.

Then they bring on the gravel. They bring this from the gravel pile
usually in small buckets (probably 2 gallons or so) and dump it, bucket
by bucket, onto the mix. They just dump it on top until they feel it's
enough gravel (the gravel is usually bigger than anything I've ever seen
in the states as well). Once all the gravel is on the pile, that begins
fun part number two.

I see what you're thinking, but you're wrong. They do not mix this like
they did the sand and cement. They get a hose of water (or lots of
jerry cans) and pour some water onto one small part of the mix. They
then mix the cement/sand/rock mixture only until that water is used and
then they use that part of the concrete. They then move next to that
section, adding more water and using shovels to mix the whole shebang.

They are complete with the concrete pouring when all the concrete is
used. It's not like the states where the truck empties the extra
concrete somewhere and cleans out. There is always something that can
use concrete. Something else standing by that is just waiting for
concrete. Something with it's hand in the air saying "pick me, pick
me." Any "left over" concrete goes here, and if it's not enough for the
extra job, oh well, it'll be finished another day. Hermoine Granger
would be proud of the walkway by the lake at Maji Matulivu which has
shot it's hand into the air more times than she has in all her classes
at Hogwarts.

UCBC

It's been a while, and for that, I partially apologize. I've been in
Beni, Congo and where I'm at, we don't have internet every day like I do
in Goma. It's really exciting being here though and very happy to be a
part of UCBC and what is going on here.

Beni is a city with about a quarter of a million people (rough, rough
estimate not done by me) north of Goma (on the other side of the
equator) and I love it. There are some, very short paved roads in town
and the rest are all dirt and rock roads. Better than the dirt roads in
Goma, but not by much. The improved speed of travel (because the road
is better) makes each pothole you hit (okay, the road is really just a
series of potholes that vary only in size and depth) more significant.
Along with the roads though, I love Beni and I love UCBC.

The Universite Chretienne Bilingue du Congo is a new university started
by David Kasali and his wife and will focus on creating strong leaders
with moral values and a purpose in life. The staff is Christian and
they teach Christian values. They are not exclusive and will accept
anyone who wants to come, but everyone will know that they are
Christians. They take classes not only in English, French, math,
science, etc... but also classes like Congo Realities where they learn
about the Congo and what some of the problems are. David said his
purpose with that class was to get the students angry and upset over
what is happening in the Congo and then to talk about ways to change the
system and fix what is happening. They are just taking exams for their
first term now and this term focused on English, to get the students a
foundation in the English language (almost all of them already know
French) and some basic courses (science and the Congo Realities). Their
dream is to have a university that can have people come from the states
and Europe to teach classes at the university level and their students
will not only understand, but be changed by their time at the university
and stay in Congo and help change the Congo.

They have humble beginnings right now. The Congo Initiative
(www.congoinitiative.org) is the fund raising and logistical
organization in the states, and through them this university is being
built. But it would be very wrong to say that's the whole picture.

Right now there is a "Depot" (a shop or mechanic's place) and one
building on the land. That one building has offices (with no lights or
internet), classrooms (2 finished rooms with tables and chairs enough
for each student only so they carry their chair with them if they have
to switch rooms), a library (with no shelves, books, tables, or chairs
yet), a computer lab (with no computers, tables, or chairs) and
unfinished bathrooms and one other room (unfinished means a dirt floor
yet). They have computers and books coming in a container from the
states. It hasn't left Phoenix yet (yes dad, that is the one we packed
in Wisconsin back in September - they had more stuff that was made
available so they were waiting for that stuff to get there before
sending it off) but when that gets here, there are lots of books and
quite a few computers (I know because I packed them) in there and it
will be the best library in Beni. The idea isn't just to be the best in
Beni, but to be the best possible, to have high standards in a country
where educational standards are dropping and paying people or offering
your body to teachers means good grades.

They have 80-90 students and most of them walk to school. They walk one
to two hours to get to school, and then walk back. Some of the students
approached David and asked if they could stay in some rooms in the
Depot, so there are a couple students staying there instead of walking
every day. They are hoping and praying for a 29 seater bus that would
make two trips to pick everyone up, but it's about 25000 dollars for a
decent one and gas is expensive. The only form of transport available
right now is motos and there is no public taxi or bus system.

A lot of the money for the buildings and things at the university come
from the states, but not all of it. At one time they were stalled in
building because of no money and it was close to being completed. As
the local people realize that the university is really for them and that
incredible things will happen there, they started making small donations
of money and supplies. Stores would donate a bag of cement and people
would volunteer to work. It's a very cool story and I hope someone
documents it for the future students of the university to read and
understand what the school is about.

One last thing. As the university is being built and a bus is being
looked for, the current students decided that next year (or when they
have a bus) the new students will have to walk to school for one month
before being allowed to take advantage of the bus. This "character
building" experience is seen as an integral part of the overall
education by the students who want to share this with their "descendants."

Thoughts on Jinja

When I first got to Jinja, it hit me how untypical it is of any place I've seen so far in Africa. It reminded me of a small American town, the likes of which you can still see on the Andy Griffin show. The streets are wide with little traffic. Jinja is neither a huge metropolis, nor a one road town. The buildings are mostly single story buildings with small alley-ways between them. There are some trees and green spaces and the people are friendly and walk most of the time. It is a pretty cool place, and I'm happy I went and didn't do anything "touristy" but just hung out with Patrick and his friends.

There were some differences though too. I think the market (which was very similar to every other market I've been in) would not be found in America, and all the buildings are made of concrete and the windows of every building had bars across them; while Jinja is safe (we often walked at night with no problems) the people are not stupid.

I ate with Patrick and his friend Phillip most of the time and they went to cheap places that were great. These places served buffets of African food, and by the thrid one I could already tell you what was on the menu. Guaranteed it was rice, irish potatoes, posho (ground corn boiled together into a mass), matoke (green bananas, again cooked to a mash), and cassava of some kind (either in the familiar mash form, random shaped chunks, or french fry like pieces), beans, one kind of meat (rarely there were two), a vegetable (usually greens or eggplant), and a peanut sauce (which I really liked). For drinks it was either a pop (yeah, I'm from Wisconsin, I can say pop) or fruit juice. If they had it, I'd always opt for that. The pineapple juice at one place was particularly delicious and I kind of wanted to take a keg of it back to Goma, but don't think they'd let me take it on the plane to Beni.

They drink "African tea" in Uganda most of the time. English tea requires seeping the tea leaves in water and then adding milk and sugar as you wish. African tea is seeping the tea leaves in milk and adding sugar as you wish. There is no water, and it tasted kind of good. I though it could have used a bit of cinnamon for flavor, and I'd stick with the juice if that is an option, but I will drink African tea like the Ugandan sitting next to me if that's all they have (well, almost like the Ugandan sitting next to me).

One thing that really surprised me was the incredible number of Indian people in Jinja. They were very nice people (at least the one's I talked to) and seemed to own every store I walked into (okay, maybe 30%). An African looking place would all of a sudden have an Indian guy walk out of a door at the back, and the Indian music was a dead give-away. Nothing against that though, especially because the supermarket (which usually had 2 young Indian guys there) next to the internet cafe had juices like apple, grape, and pear which I have not had in a very long time, and I gave them lots of business for that.

I also got a bag of Doritos at that supermarket and they were good until I remembered Doritos are inherintely covered in too much flavor.

One last thing about Jinja. There was a theater but it didn't look very attractive and I didn't recognize any of the things showing (either African or Indian). I thought the only things needed to make Jinja part of small town USA was a rennovated theater with a Western every now and then, and a bowling alley. Given those two things, I would want to live in Jinja.

Thoughts on Kampala

Kampala reminded me a lot more of China than the Philippines, Kigali, or Goma. There are lots of tall buildings that look really good on the outside, and then you go inside and realize the tender love and care the outside of the building received died at the door. The insides of the buildings were usually dirty and cheaply done with cheap materials that showed the wear. Almost every stair on the way down from the 8th floor of the building my test was in for instance was broke off on the edge. The lobby itself was really small, dark, and dingy. Some other buildings that looked very nice and new on the outside looked 30 years old on the inside, and also looked like not one maintenance person even looked at the building in 30 years. Also, the niceness of some of the buildings was set in sharp contrast to the people selling things outside the buildings. These people would sell books, news papers, shoes, and anything else they might be able to make a shilling on. They spread a piece of card board, or a blanket down on the sidewalk and then set their wares on top of them. That is their spot and it feels like a huge flea market wherever you walk.

Walking is probably the fastest way to get somewhere in one piece. The motos would be faster, but possibly deadly. The sidewalks are crowded with people, and are even more crowded because of the sidewalk sales everywhere, but they are not nearly as crowded as the streets at times. The traffic in Kampala usually averages speeds seen in Milwaukee only when there has been an accident and people are stopping to look at it, like the little kids are stopping to look at me right now outside the internet cafe's door. When traffic is at a stand still, that is your best bet for crossing the street. Weaving in and out of the cars, you really only have to watch out for the motos who are doing the same thing, trying to get to the front of the traffic column. Usually they are going slow enough to stop instantly if you step out in front of them, but I wouldn't put my life in their hands if I could avoid it. I'll just be more careful while crossing the street and not leave it up to some possessed moto driver to decide if I live or die. And that is only the danger while walking across the street, and then you try and take a moto?

I took one Sunday when I arrived in Kampala and it wasn't too bad because it was Sunday and there wasn't much traffic. The rest of my time I decided I was done with motos. They are crazy and I really think they should have you sign a will before you ride them during the week. They are much more crazy than the drivers in Goma or Kigali and really, I'm staying away from them if possible.

One good thing about Kampala is there are guards everywhere. Because every building, and sometimes even every floor of a building has guards, there are enough people with authority and with guns that it feels pretty safe, and really is safe. Especially on the main roads, it's no problem to walk around at 11pm (that's the latest I was ever out at least). When you're walking down the road at night, about every 100 feet there is a guard or two.

Kampala also has a place called Steers that had decent burgers. I ate there the first night I was in Kampala and actually went back the next two days I was there too. Three days of decent burgers was greatly appreciated by my burger deprived self. The bun wasn't amazing, but the burger itself and the other things on the burger were actually really good, and the fries were good too. They had a bit more flavor than most do here and it was a good change of pace since burgers and fries are some of my favorite foods ever.

I'm done

I took the GRE yesterday, and it wasn't too bad. The hotel I was staying at was about a 10 minute walk from the GRE testing place and I only had to cross two crazy roads, so my life was only partially in danger. The official check-out time of the hotel was 10am and my test was at 12:30pm, so that would have left a lot of time for me to do nothing. I talked to the desk and got them to put the check-out time at 11 and then I actually left around 11:30. I went to the testing place and they said no problems, and started signing me in. Then the lady says "ok, follow me and bring your things and you may begin." I was kind of hoping I would get to start early and not just have to wait doing nothing for an hour, but was still a bit surprised when she said that. We went down the hall a little ways and then registered at the master computer where they took my picture via a web cam. It was a really bad picture, but she said it was good enough. I don't know how they even figured it was me, but hopefully it will be good enough.

The actual testing room had three computers against the far wall from the door. They were separated by wood frames to provide a private work space and there was a camera at the back of the room which showed all three stations. I was on the end and there was all ready someone taking a test at the middle station. While he is taking his test, the lady leads me in and starts explaining things to me, and this guy is in the middle of his test. Maybe it wasn't distracting, but I thought it was a bit weird. I'm glad we didn't wait till he was done though because he either wasn't taking the GRE or he started really late because he didn't finish until an hour or so before I did. I thought he would have been done by 12:30 but was wrong, so kudos to the rude lady for getting me started while he was still testing.

The room had some windows on one side and some of them were open, but most of them could not open because they were just solid glass. There was a fan too, but it was still really hot. I should have worn shorts, but I didn't.

The exam itself is all computer based and wasn't too bad. The English part was not very nice to me, but it was what I was expecting. The only real bad part of the experience was when the power went out. They had a battery back-up system for the computers so I didn't lose where I was, but the testing lady had to turn my computer off until the generator kicked in. It took about 5 minutes, and in that 5 minutes, it got really hot really fast because the fan wasn't on. the other downside of it was I only had 2 more questions left on the whole exam, so it was like "you couldn't wait another 10 minutes for me to finish and tell the computer which school to send my scores to?" but oh well. We can't really control when the power goes out.

Oh, I lied. there was another bad part too, and that was on the bus ride from Kampala to Jinja when I realized I did one of the math problems wrong. That was disappointing since I was just sitting there and it popped into my head saying "you idiot, what were you thinking?"

Josh takes a test

I'm in Kigali, Rwanda right now, but I'm only staying overnight before
heading on to Kampala, Uganda where I will be taking my GRE. That's
right, it's taking me two days to travel to the place where I can take
my GRE. Not only do I have to pay for the test, I also have to pay to
get there, on not so nice modes of transportation (well, I'm not flying)
and then I have to sit through 4 hours of an exam I don't really want to
take. Oh well, I guess it's for a good cause.

What cause is that? I think I'm going to go back to school and get a
masters in Plant Breeding and Plant Genetics. I'm hoping to start
either next spring or the following fall and by taking my GRE now, when
it's a pain in the butt, I'll be better able to prepare applications and
things like that. I'm not too worried about the test itself. It won't
be very fun, but I think I'll do all right. I will do good enough to
get into school for sure (I hope), but I'm hoping to do pretty well to
get a better chance at a Research Assistantship. Besides being a great
experience, the benefits are pretty nice as well.

I've been looking over the math stuff most and reviewing for that. I
pretty much see the English side of the exam as a lost cause. I've been
using too simple of English and not reading enough for my vocab to be
where it could be. I should do all right though.

My travel plans are a bit complicated though. I'm in Kigali now and I'm
taking the bus to Kampala, Uganda tomorrow. It's about 8-10 hours by
bus. Sunday and Monday nights I'll spend in Kampala and my test is on
Tuesday at 12:30. After the test I'll take an hour and a half bus to
Jinja, Uganda. I have a friend there and it should be good to see him
again. He came to the guest house and has been trying to get me to
Jinja since November, so it's about time. Then next Saturday, I'm
taking a 2 hour bus to Kampala and beyond to Entebbe where the airport
is and am flying to Beni, Congo. I'll be in Beni working with the Congo
Initiative (www.congoinitiative.org) for a week to ten days and will
then fly back to Goma.

Wish me luck, both for the test and for the travel. I'll post how it's
going/went sometime soon.

Mawe Hai

I went out to Mawe hai a couple mornings this week and it's looking pretty good. Things are going well, the second batch of moringa seeds are planted and most have sprouted, and there aren't any major problems. Compost is being made and used on a regular basis now. The workers make compost every two weeks and use it after two weeks, then make some more. Two days ago I started a small field for artemisia. Artemisia is a plant that can be used to fight malaria. You can make a tea from the leaves if you are sick and it is pretty effective at fighting the malaria. It is actually processed in a drug as well, but you get the same effect just by drinking a tea. Not too bad if you ask me.

I had an idea too about starting a small garden behind the house that is being built out there. Now Mawe Hai has lots of fields but those fields show production on a large scale. We're going to tone it down and have just a small household sized garden with all the vegetables, medicinals, and fruits we can have in a small space. The coolest part is I think it should have a wall, partly to protect the small garden, and partly because I want to help build it. It'll be dry laid lava rocks so it should be kind of fun. We'll get started with that soon and I'm hoping that can really be an effective part of Mawe Hai.

Besides that, Dick Anderson, Wilfrieda, and I met again today to discuss where Mawe Hai is going and what the objectives of Mawe Hai should be and how best to achieve those objectives. One of the cooler things though is in our talks, and in my wanderings around Goma, I'm beginning to understand people a little better in Swahili. I can tell people what I've been doing and can often understand parts of what they are saying. I get a little confused if they talk about me or my things. I'm so used to talking about me in Swahili and what I'm doing (because that's what I learned first) that when people talk about me, and use "you" in Swahili, I think "hm, I wonder who they are talking about." Things are going all right here in Goma.

I'm back

Goma is back under my feet, and it was a lazy day today. The ride back from Kigali was much more enjoyable than the ride into Kigali because I got a ride. One of the guys, Achille, I met at the meeting I went into Kigali for wanted to talk to me and we decided we were going to talk on Saturday. Friday night I texted him and he said we'd have to meet in the morning because he was going to Gisenyi at 9. I texted back and said ok, we can meet at the cafe in the morning, and then I'll go with you to Gisenyi (that's the town on the other side of the boarder from Goma).

I show up at the cafe at 10 to 8 and then get a text. Actually, two texts came to my phone at the same time. The second one asked if I got Achille's message from last night and the first said Achille canceled our meeting because he was up really late and we could just talk in the car. It wasn't a big deal though because it was a cool cafe and I paid way too much for way too little coffee (Kigali is becoming a modern city) and had an omelet which was pretty good.

We rode with a couple women from World Vision who were going to see one of the projects of Achille's organization, Project Rwanda. We got in plenty of talk though, and I must say Achille was shamelessly trying to steal me from HEAL Africa. Project Rwanda is considering expanding into more direct agriculture work and he liked how I have so many crazy (yet usually practical) ideas. I kept telling him I couldn't commit to anything until we got to the hotel he was staying in that night. There was a jeep in the parking lot that was absolutely amazing. I told him if he got me a jeep just like that, I'd come work for Project Rwanda, and he said deal and shook on it, so we'll see what comes of that. Unfortunately, I don't think he was serious.

And for those who are avid readers and know I had some issues crossing the boarder into Rwanda, this time going out was no problem.

First impressions of Kigali

After almost 4 hours on a paved road with potholes (mostly filled in so it's rough gravel/rocks) and road construction (yeah, they have that here too) you come down a hill and into a valley. Then you go back the same direction you came to get to the heart of Kigali. My first impression was it was a lot like Baguio in the Philippines. It is in the mountains with more cars than the average roads and taller buildings (like 6-10 stories some of them). There are a lot of people everywhere and I arrived around 5pm which is probably when people are getting off of work and flooding the streets. There are some really modern things here though, like some of the buildings with curved glass fronts and a round about with huge fountain and a digital bill board. It's so far an interesting mix and I'm excited to explore it a bit more. I'll probably stick around a couple days, or depending on what else there is to do or what develops, I could go back tomorrow.

So what am I even doing here? Well, Sam was at Maji over New Years and we talked about a lot of stuff, and he knows I'm interested in renewable energy. Tonight there is a dinner/meeting at 8 somewhere and it's going to be about Jathropa, which is a tree that has the potential to produce a heck of a lot of oil for bio-diesel. I'll stay overnight at Sam's house and come up with a game plan for tomorrow then. I don't know anything about Kigali, but I could just walk around the city a bit too. I think that would be kind of fun.

Unexpected Journey

Last night the guests of the guest house were celebrating Christine's birthday at a restaurant and Harper goes "Oh Josh, I remember what I wanted to tell you before. Sam wants to talk to you, something about a meeting in Kigali tomorrow." So I call Sam and instead of going to Beni like I was planning on, I took a bus to Kigali today. (I was actually going to go to Beni. In fact, I gave the money for the plane ticket to Judy to take into the logistic staff yesterday and she forgot to give them the money so they never booked my ticket. Thank you God.)

I almost didn't make it on the bus (really a van) that I took. I got a ticket for a bus to leave at 12:30 and because my phone had the wrong time, completely thought it was way earlier than it was. I went to the market with the girls and then realized after like a half hour that it was already 12:20 and I had to go. I went to the bus stop in Goma and the bus already left. I quick hopped on a moto to the boarder and got there no problem. The people in the immigration office on the Congolese side couldn't have been in less of a hurry and took their time looking at my stuff. As I approached the Rwandan boarder I saw the bus. At the boarder, it stops and the people walk across on foot and then get back on the bus before going to the stop on the Rwandan side. Well, the Rwandan people weren't in any hurry either and everyone likes talking to the white guy, even if they get lots of them a day. I went into a building so a security lady could search my bags and the bus was gone when I got out. I walked over to the immigration office with my immigration card all filled out and hand it through the bars to the guy at the desk. He looks at it and starts asking questions about how long I've been here and what I've been doing (in English). Then, he looks at the passport and looks at me and he goes "this isn't you."

Ok, so what if I've been to the Philippines and back and then to Africa and through plenty of airports with that passport and no one else has said anything at all? I pull off my hat and he's like "nope." I'm thinking "come on! I've got to go catch this bus" and he's just holding me up. I don't know why he thought that because I only insisted that I was the person like 3 times and then said "you are welcomed in our country" and I considered it over. Just kidding, he comes back again saying "are you sure this is you?" and I told him I had an American drivers license too but it wasn't any use. Finally he just let me go, so I don't really know what the deal was. Really, I thought it was stupid to ask all those questions and then not even do anything about it, but oh well. I made it through immigration.

I got on a moto on that side of the boarder and asked him to take me to the bus stop as best I could. He took me to the wrong place, but thankfully they knew exactly what I was talking about and told the moto to take me to the right place. The bus was still there and after showing them my ticket and explaining (one Swahili sentence) that I missed the bus in Goma, it was no problems. We only sat there for about a half hour then waiting for one more person to make a full bus. All that hurrying for nothing...

What I've been up to (work wise)

Sometimes I find myself talking about stuff I think many people don't know, so here's what I've been up to a bit.

Wilfrieda, Mawe Hai, and I are beginning to take agriculture to some of the programs of HEAL around Goma. Right now this is Ndosho (which is a transit house I believe and they also have programs for kids) and Grounds for Hope, and will soon be a school (Jethrope or something like that). We are bringing in soil to get things started and will teach raising vegetables and composting and things like that. We are also using rabbits to provide protein, fertilizer (manure), and a rather tasty end product. The rabbit houses is what I've been working on mainly. I have a design in my head that uses almost entirely bamboo, but I decided I wasn't going to say "this is how it should be done" because first off, that would be dumb since i have no experience in building rabbit hutches in the Congo, and second because I am very interested in what the workers are doing and trying to figure out why they are doing it.

Besides this, Wilfrieda and I are going to meet Sunday afternoon to talk about the objectives and purpose of Mawe Hai and to hopefully get some guidance for where we are going in the years to come. I'm really hoping for a great meeting where Wilfrieda will be challenged to stop following what other people tell her to do only and start having ideas of her own (that are realistic) and to start taking ownership in Mawe Hai and really being a leader for it. Now there isn't a clear leader for Mawe Hai and it lacks vision, which makes a lot of things more difficult.

We also got 6kg of moringa seeds from Bunia, Congo which is north of here. We're hoping these seeds grow a lot better than the previous ones we planted from Kigali, and we will also plant these soon to capitalize on their viability (which doesn't last that long in moringa, about a year tops).

Finally, I've been roped in to helping oversee and brainstorm some of the building projects going on at HEAL. Basically what I do is talk to Dick Anderson (who is here until March) and he runs all his ideas past me. I also keep in contact with an engineer from Canada who came with the team from Wisconsin and tell him what's going on and he gives me feed back. The biggest thing we're doing is rearranging the semi containers at the Jubilee Center that are used for storage. There are 7 of them and we are designing it so there is storage, office space, and a covered work area. Dick is heading all the logistical stuff with that, but we talk about it a lot and it's pretty fun.

One more thing is sometime soon (within a couple weeks) I'm going to go to Beni, Congo (north of here) and work with David Kasali and the Congo Initiative (www.congoinitiative.org) to help plan and throw out ideas for agriculture on their 90 acre plot of land. I'm really excited about that and am sure you'll hear more about that if I actually go (and I'm planning on it). So, all in all, I'm not very busy.

Wilfrieda teaches compost

Yesterday Wilfrieda and I go to Grounds for Hope to check out the feasibility of putting rabbits out there, and we decide it's possible, but while we are there, something interesting happens. There is an unused field next to Grounds for Hope and the women plant things there. They had harvested something or weeded something and one of the women had a pile of stuff she was going to burn. I looked at it and thought "what a waste, it should be composted." About two minutes later, Wilfrieda starts talking to her and in 2 minutes has her convinced. Wilfrieda asked something about having good soil and the other woman said no. Then Wilfrieda gave a blurb about compost and a minute explanation about it and the woman very quickly was putting dirt on top of the smoldering pile of organic matter making a compost pile instead of burning it.

The pile survived because this picture was taken today. Or I should say, the pile almost survived. About two hours after this picture was taken I saw a women (I don't know if it was the same one or not) pull off the dirt, and about 5 minutes later, the delightfully sickening smell of smoldering organic matter that is not dry at all fills the air. It almost worked, but kudos to Wilfrieda for her excellent description and guide to compost, and negative kudos to the woman who took something apart that had potential just to get rid of it and ignore the long term benefits compost represents.

Random stuff

Yesterday I saw a little boy with a shirt that was too big for him that read "Canadian Girls Drinking Team."

Today was another day to show the benefits of compost. After a hot day with lots of sun, the cabbage plants in the compost/fertilizer/control experiment set up at Mawe Hai showed the benefits of compost. While the cabbage plants in the fertilized and compost trial look similar on a normal day, today the lower leaves of the fertilized cabbages were drooping to the ground falling flat. The leaves of the compost cabbages were still upright and looked great. Why is that? Well, besides being a great fertilizer, compost has tons of organic matter and the humus really helps hold water in the soil. Another point for compost (did I mention it's free for the making?). Check out the Mawe Hai album on the right for the pictures (I think they are at the end).

Today Wilfrieda was going to pick me up at 8 and then we were going to go to Ndosho to check on the progress of some rabbit hutches they are building, and then on to Mawe Hai. She arrived around 8:45 and needed to talk to Harper for something. Harper was talking to Lyn and even though Wilfrieda just needed a quick signature, she wouldn't interrupt the talking. We finally left Maji around 9:30 and were on our way. Where to? The hardware store because we needed more nails. We show up and we need 8 packages of different sizes and amounts of nails according to which project they are for. I've never seen anyone weigh nails slower in my life. I wasn't really paying attention at first, but when it rounded 10 I started getting a bit bored and antsy. We were done with the nails around 10:15 but Wilfrieda paid with a 100 dollar bill and we waited another 10 minutes for change. Then we needed some wire mesh. There goes another 25 minutes. We are finally on our way to Ndosho again and then we stop for 5 liters of gas for Mawe Hai (which was 1.7 a liter or 6.50 a gallon). We finally arrived at Ndosho after 11 when Wilfrieda said yesterday she would pick me up at 8. Good thing I'm a patient person and used to African time, or it would have frustrated me a lot more than it did.

I noticed a while ago that you can buy boards that are cut, but not cut quite all the way through. Like there are 5 or 6 boards that are completely cut except the last 3 or 4 inches, so it's like a section of log that's been cut, but they are still together for easy transport and also it keeps the wood flat as they cut it. I've noticed the last couple days there are a couple places past Mawe Hai where two people will roll a log onto a platform and one guy standing on top, and one on the bottom, will saw logs to make boards with a saw maybe 6 feet long. I can't imagine that it's a very fun job, but the boards are usually pretty even, so kudos to them. I actually think it's kind of cool though.

I've been on the ground in a couple places I'm not usually at and there have been a lot of kids around. They flock together saying "muzungu" like mad and any other English words they know (usually "morning!" or "give me money"). Today I decided I was going to have some fun so after I was bored and tired from a day wasted doing pretty much nothing (except playing with pieces of bark), one girl was walking behind me and said "muzungu" kind of quietly, but loud enough for me to hear. I turned around and said "Minajuwa niko muzungu, hunapashua kunisema" (I know I'm a white person, you don't have to tell me) while smiling, to which she said something about me having long hair. It's true, I really need a hair cut. I decided though as people say English words to me, I'm just going to say what they said in Swahili, so the next kid that says "morning" is getting an "asubuii" coming at him.

I can't really believe it, but the generator just went of to (drum roll please)... city power. We haven't had city power in about a week and a half. It's about time, but I wonder how long it will last?

Peace?

For the last two weeks or so (I know, I'm a horrible reporter) there has been a peace conference going on in Goma. This is the first such conference in North Kivu Province ever and has been attended by everyone except the FDLR (Rwandan Hutus responsible for the genocide) and there has been a lot of talking, a lot of politicking, and some hints of progress. It was only supposed to last a couple of days to a week, and I wasn't very optimistic about it and so was planning on writing about it when it failed. It has been extended many times and it might actually be going on to three weeks now, but last night all the groups that were present actually signed a peace agreement to stop fighting and work towards peace.

I don't know what the terms are, and I think some of them are still being worked out as to how they will be done, but there is hope because now, if nothing else, all the groups have signed this document so if they break the peace agreement, then international attention might be drawn because this is an official agreement. The meeting has been overseen by the United Nations, the African Union, and some American representatives as well. The groups were to receive compensation of some kind and that might have played a rather large part of the agreement, but either way, this is a huge step forward. Even if peace does not come, all the groups were together and talking, so it was great. If it fails, there is a document saying there should be peace, so finger pointing can come back to the document and say "hey, you signed for peace, what's up now?"

So what does this mean for Eastern DRC? Well, a meeting has been set up to start immediately to work out how the terms will be accomplished. There is a glimmer of hope in many people (I'm beginning to be a bit hopeful myself, in spite of my pessimistic view of peace in the area), and that is so sorely needed right now. Some people say the only thing to happen now is there needs to be international intervention to get rid of the FDLR in the area. If that happens, it is just a Congo conflict and Nkunda has no other excuse to fight. If the FDLR is gone and he continues fighting, then it's just ridiculous and there should be more of an international push to take him out. If the general fighting stops, then the Mai Mai militias have no reason to keep fighting.

Some say this will work. Some are less optimistic. This will show a bit about Nkunda's motives especially. Supposedly he is to protect the Congolese Tutsi minority (which isn't a minority at all in the Congo) and if he no longer has to "protect" them, will he keep fighting for economic and power reasons? It will be interesting times ahead and a candle is glimmering light into the darkness. Please pray that nothing blows the candle out.

For general news on Central Africa and recently some news on the peace conference (especially the last couple days) check out: http://www.mg.co.za/articleList.aspx?area=central_africa

Play ground

There was a container shipped to HEAL Africa about a month or two ago (okay, it was shipped like 6 months ago, but that's when it got here). In that container were lots of medical supplies (as always), a boat (inflatable and a motor) for Maji Matulivu as a get-away boat, and a play ground set. It was a prefabricated, all components in 7 boxes play set with swings, monkey bars, a slide, rope ladder, stairs and a ladder, a rock wall, and a platform with a canopy. It was a pretty cool thing made of cedar. Whoever sent the play set was thinking ahead because they also sent all the tools we would need to put it together. After Lyn decided it should go over by the church and the women's homes, Chris and I (he was on the Wisconsin team) started setting it up.

The only real problem was Lyn first told us it should go by the Jubilee Center. Or she told Chris where it should go and he just got it wrong. After spending half a day watching surgeries (a cleft lip and a rather messy abdominal one) and looking for all of the boxes, we were finally able to start putting it together around 1 or 2 in the afternoon. That night we worked until dark and everything was going fine. We got the ladder/step on one side, and the rock wall on the other to connect to the platform and it was a pretty solid set up. Only problem was it was in the wrong spot as we found out on the way home with Lyn that night.

Next day we spend an hour making it into three parts and then carrying those three parts to where it should go and building it again. Onward to the center of the earth!

We proceeded and set up the whole thing by that 2pm, including a bit of a drink break. It was so cool to build it though. Everyone wanted to know what it was and what it was for. No one here has ever seen a play ground. The adults didn't know what it was, the kids didn't know what it was, and very few people guessed what it was. After we told them they started smiling and thinking it was a great idea.

Jean Claude has a program with kids at HEAL and as we finished he was in one of his programs with the kids. I went up to him and told him we were done and that it was for the kids and he should feel free to use it if he wanted to. We went to get something to drink and came back. All the kids were lined up at the step/ladder end and going up one at a time to go down the slide one at a time and Jean Claude had everything organized and the kids were having a blast. Then Chris goes up to one of the kids in line, taps him on the shoulder, and puts him on a swing a pushed him. Chaos ensued as all the kids made a scramble for the two remaining swings, and once those were no more they just abandoned the line all together and did what kids are supposed to do. The chaotic jubilee was awesome to watch and all the women at the transit house were cheering and laughing watching the children. Everyone was so happy and thanked us many times. Building that swing set was so instantly gratifying that it almost made me want to stop doing agriculture and start an organization to just put of playgrounds for kids who have never seen one before.

For another bonus, I inherited the tools that came with the play ground and will keep them until I leave for upkeep of the playground if needed, and basically to make sure they don't walk off as is likely to happen if they are just left around the HEAL compound.

Again

After many days of trying to write something on my blog, my internet finally cooperated on an interesting story.

So I'm driving to Mawe Hai this morning, and I won't be caught again with my doors unlocked or windows open (read the bribe post below if you're confused) that are not occupied by people, so this time when I was stopped, no one could get into the car.

I'm on the main road this time, but at the same intersection as before. I get stopped in the middle of the road to let people cross the street. This has happened many times and I've thought before that this would be a good time for one of the police to decide to stop me, but so far I've been lucky. Today after letting the kids and women carrying 5 gallons of water on their heads for miles on end cross the street, the yellow clad police man motions for me to pull over. Being the upstanding citizen I am, I do and roll up my window a good two thirds of the way. Now he can't reach in here, and all the other windows are up and doors locked.

He comes to the window and I immediately say "why did you stop me?" and he asks for my license. Just then who shows up? The guy in blue I talked to before. "Again!" I demand and he smiles and sticks his hand in the window for a shake saying "hello." By this point I'm frustrated at being pulled over for nothing, yet am also laughing at this guy who ripped me off 10 dollars all of a sudden being my buddy. The first guy asks for my license again and I said "why? He saw it last week," indicating the other guy, but I got it out anyways. I opened it up and showed it to him from well inside the window so he could see it but not take it.

The blue guy said something about driving lessons at this point and I said no, I'm going to the field to work and I didn't do anything wrong, why did you stop me? At this point the yellow guy indicated he was done with the license and I took that as my leave to go so I said thank you and drove off without looking back. It was a bit interesting, and I was laughing about it as I drove away, but also my heart was pumping a bit too. Nothing like getting pulled over for no reason to elevate the blood pressure.

4 Surgeries

Here lies my rather lengthy tale of the surgeries I observed today. I focus a lot on the actual procedures as I thought it was fascinating. I liked the opportunity to write it down to help me think about it and the amazing bodies God has given us as well as the ability to operate on them. I'm going to try and report this as accurately as it happened, but given the fact that I'm not a doctor and am human, I'm sure mistakes will occur. Here is the gist of it anyways.

I entered the OR with Marc and Chris; they like working together. The first case was a (rather large) woman and she had a tumor on her right cheek. It wasn't complicated or big, so we think she was a paying patient (also judged by her rather largeness - if she could afford that much food, she could afford surgery). I was watching as they prepped her and was doing all right. Chris cut an incision over the tumor with the scalpel and then used a tool called a Bovie (ever heard of it?) to cut deeper into the tissue and to create a skin flap under the incision to get room to work with. The skin actually separates rather nicely from the other tissues and so this gives a large area to work with even though the incision is small.

It was somewhere around here where I started feeling really hot and soon after started having blackness crowd into my vision. I got a bit dizzy and said "I'm not doing so good" and made my way towards the door but another Chris got a chair and gave me some things to put in a plastic bag just as a stupid thing to keep me busy and occupied. What surprised me was the dizziness came on fairly quickly and I wasn't really thinking about it. I didn't think "wow this is disgusting' or anything like that, I was watching pretty interested because I love learning stuff and seeing stuff, and then I was gone. I didn't faint, but it was pretty darn close.

I got up after a bit and then watched maybe 20 seconds before deciding to call it quits for a while. I drank lots of water and walked around the hospital a bit looking for people for different things. When I came back I felt a lot better and waited for the next one. The surgeries actually went pretty quick today, but the time between the surgeries was at least an hour.

The next one I watched was of a baby, I think I heard 18 months. I think the condition is called hydrosephalis or something like that but basically there is fluid in the brain. Chris did most of this surgery too and after the baby was prepped and I well hydrated and taking deep, steady breaths, Chris made a "C" shaped incision on the right side of the baby's head. After making the incision he used the Bovie to separate the skin and tissue from the skull so when he peeled the skin back the bare skull was exposed.

As Chris did that, Marc was checking out the shunt and figuring out how this particular one worked and operated. He also filled it with a saleen solution and checked the pump on the shunt and got it ready to be inserted.

After the Skull was exposed Chris made an incision at the base of the shoulder and neck and another in the abdomen. Once these incisions were made and ready for later, Chris drilled a hole in the skull. It was maybe a quarter inch in diameter. I wasn't really looking at it for a size comparison, but I think that's about what it was. The first drill bit was really dull so he changed it and tried again. It was no time at all and he was through the skull.

This next part was so cool. The shunt itself was about the length of a pen but much thinner. There were little perforations along it's length and a tube opening at the top to attach to the pump and tube already strung through the baby's body. Lining up the shunt from the hole in the baby's right side of the skull to the left eye, Chris simply pushed it into the brain. After a couple centimeters, fluid started coming out of the top and I think he went another centimeter beyond that and the shunt was in place. There was a metal rod inside the shunt and he pulled that out and fluid poured out like a hose. Marc was clamping it shut a bit to slow the flow of the fluid so it wasn't too drastic of a change for the baby's body. The shunt was cut to size so it was a little past level of the skull, a 90 degree elbow was put on top of it, and the pump tube attached to the elbow. The pump tube is what made use of the other two incisions to get the tube from the baby's brain to the abdomen. This was really cool because as soon as the pump was attached, they tried it and pushing the pump caused fluid to come out of the end of the tube, so it worked.

Using a guide sort of like people sometimes use to guide feet into shoes (bad example of what it looked like but half way decent for how it worked), he started from the skull incision and worked the tube and guiding tool under the skin layer and down to the incision at the shoulder. That was pretty weird watching this thing push under the baby's skin from his skull to his neck. After the shunt was pulled that far they situated the pump for the shunt against a bone and got ready to make the next pass. Chris then made his way from the shoulder incision to the abdomen incision. After pulling the shunt tight from the skull, there was about two feet of tubing left. They conveniently just shoved the tube into the abdomen cavity of the baby so it would be there when he grows.

After that it was pretty basic as they closed the wounds up. The stitching is actually pretty simple and I was surprised at how much they could pull on it and get it tight. The human skin is pretty tough and can take a lot. I also noticed none of the incisions tore or anything like that, again showing how tough the skin tissue can be because at times they would move and pull on it quite a bit. To drain the fluid in the baby's head someone just needs to push the little bulb pump under his skin by his ear and the fluid should drain into his abdominal cavity where the body clears it out. It was a pretty spectacular surgery.

I'm not entirely sure if it happened in that order of shunt, pump, threading through the body, but that's the gist of it. That was surgery two of four.

I saw an X-Ray for the third surgery when we first got to the hospital in the morning. It was a chest X-Ray and you could see the esophagus and as it went to the stomach it was almost completely closed due to muscle tissue and scaring around the esophagus. The esophagus was a white tube maybe an inch in diameter coming up to a hazy looking circular shape (the stomach) and before it got to the stomach the white looking esophagus came almost to a complete point showing it was blocked off. I watched as Marc explained what was going on to the doctor in a book and got a pretty good understanding of what would happen.

The surgery started with us walking in on a young man (teenager maybe) naked on the table. They prepped him with sterilizer stuff and covered every part of him not being operated on with robes. This surgery started with an abdominal incision 6-8 inches long right in the middle of the stomach where there isn't any muscle to cut through. This surgery reminded me the most of deer hunting as I could see some of the organs and thought "hey, I know what that one is." Working within this incision Marc was looking for the esophagus and soon enough they found it. They were using these "L" shaped tools to hold the organs and skin back and also pieces of sterile cloth to get a better grip on the skin and organs. Once they found the esophagus they got around it and put a rubber hose underneath it. This they clamped to the cloths covering the boy and this kept the esophagus from falling down again.

From here they used the Bovie to cut the tissues and muscle around the esophagus starting all the way at the stomach and extending about 6-8 centimeters up the esophagus. Marc said the biggest failure rate on this operation was not clearing close enough to the stomach. Marc actually worked a bit on the stomach making sure there wasn't any muscle tissue in the way that would grow again and cause more problems. What surprised me here was how much Marc was showing with this guys stomach cut open. He was moving around organs and at one point actually had the stomach out of the body completely to show things and it was cool. When they sewed up this guy they first sewed the tissue under the skin and then sewed the skin shut so it was a double stitching (I think). Marc let the doctor from HEAL finish up the stitching and he's pretty confident it will be a successful surgery and this boy who hasn't been able to eat for a long time will be able to have fluids for a week, soft food for a week, and then real food for the rest of his life. Having just come from dinner, I think that's pretty darn incredible.


The fourth surgery was a long time in coming. The surgeries take less time than the turn-over between patients here and really we waited well over an hour, and possibly two for this last surgery to get under way. This final surgery was on another boy who had some lumps on his neck. Marc found out right before the surgery that he was being treated for TB so the lumps were probably expanded lymph nodes (which they were) and that at least answered one question. For this surgery, Doctor Luke (a doctor here) was doing it and Marc was assisting. This was a good one to watch because there weren't a lot of people and I could see everything great, but was much less dramatic than the last two.

An incision was made and the hunting with the Bovie began. As lymph nodes were identified Luke would cut the tissues around them and Marc would position it for a good cut until the whole node was free. This surgery was a bit cautious because of nerves in the area but they determined there weren't any in the immediate area and went along fine. They removed 4 nodes and there were more smaller ones, but they were too difficult to get at or were too small to worry about. They might shrink a bit as the TB gets better, or stay that size, but it shouldn't matter.

The coolest part about this surgery was watching them stitch the wound back up. Marc was showing Luke how to make a hidden stitch and once it was done, there was no stitches showing and it was a pretty smooth wound. The boy is young enough that he will have a scar, but it won't be that bad at all.

Overall, I was surprised at a couple things. I always knew they had to do something to stop the bleeding as they operate and the Bovie does a great job of that. The Bovie is an electrical instrument that has different settings for cutting tissue and coagulating blood. A metal plate with some sort of jell is placed under the patient to create a circuit and this is how all work inside the body was done today.

I was also surprised about how little blood there was overall. When they made an incision it was usually in a safe place to do so and not a lot of blood was there.

I was again surprised at how hard they would pull when they were stitching the wounds shut and how hard they could be on the skin and tissue. Looking at a deer I can kind of understand it, but I thought our skin would be a bit weaker than that, and it might be, but it didn't really look like it. They were always clamping and puling on it and it was fine.

All in all, it was pretty cool. I might try and catch a couple more, but the next couple days might be busy for me too so I'll wait and see what happens. I could always watch Joe too when he operates, I just have to remember to breath and drink lots of fluids.