alive from Beni, DRC

Greetings from Beni, DRC

I arrived safely yesterday(Wednesday) at 3:30 Beni time. (that's 5:30 am CST) I started this journey Monday at 4;30 CST...
Tired and excited were the feelings of the day. I did not sleep the night before, because I slept all the way from Amsterdam to Entebbe. When I got to my motel, I was wide awake...last night i caught up and I am on Congo time.
Today was amazing. I had the opportunity to sit in on two classes at UCBC. This is the university that has been started and been in session for three weeks now. 90 plus student and more signed up today.
To see the looks on these student faces I cannot describe in a post. Hope...is the best way to describe it.I also had the opportunity to share during chapel. I was very humbled by this. What do I know about suffering?
No ESPN...no running hot water...these young adults have seen suffering first hand for the last eight years and now there is hope in the North Kivu region and the Congo.

Alive and well from the Congo,
rick

Get on the right side of the Road

My first experience with the English style of driving came as I left the Entebbe airport. As I approached the van, I moved to get in the drivers seat…realizing I wasn’t going to drive…I moved to the passenger side of the van….which is the wrong side…or is it?
It made me think tonight. Is my/our/the US way of things the right way? Do we have all the answers?
I’m asking God that he would humble me on this trip, which I may be taught there are many ways in which God works and my/our/the US way isn’t always the right way.
I must say that riding on the wrong side of the road is a bit freaky…but life can be that way eh?
I leave today for DRC….

Journey

Greetings from Amsterdam.
As I start my trek to the DRC...my first stop is Amsterdam. My computer says 12:30 am...the time here is 7:30 am. Not much sleep on the plane this time.
The flight was on time and without any excitement. That's the way you like em!
My next stop is Entebbe Uganda. I will spend a night at a local hotel. There i take a shuttle flight with MAF to Bunia, DRC and then finally onto Beni.
Thanks for trekking with me...

Riots in Dakar

Senegal Temporarily Lifts Street-Selling Ban
By Naomi Schwarz
Dakar
23 November 2007


Senegalese street vendors can once again sell their wares on sidewalks after two days of riots in the capital, Dakar. The rioting vendors were protesting a government ban on their business. For VOA, Naomi Schwarz has more from Dakar.

The Senegalese government has agreed to temporarily lift its ban on street vendors, at least until the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha in late December, known locally as Tabaski.


Selling breakfast sandwiches and coffee at a makeshift stand of tables and benches on the side of a main road, Harouna Ba says this is not good enough.

He says Tabaski is not even two months away, and he does not have enough time to find another way to earn a living.

Ba has been selling breakfast as well and fruits and vegetables in this spot for years. He built a small shed and broad tables for his product and his customers.

But Ba says when he came to work early one morning last week, everything had been destroyed.


Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade had ordered police to evict street-sellers across the city, saying they were disrupting traffic and costing Dakar international business and millions of dollars. Police enforcing the ban chased vendors off the streets and tore down roadside stands.

On Wednesday and Thursday, thousands of street sellers angry over the ban, protested. They burned tires and ransacked government buildings. Wednesday also saw separate protests from hundreds of labor union members frustrated over rising food prices.

Thousands of Senegalese make their living as street sellers. Some. like Ba, have small kiosks. Others carry their wares in backpacks and on their heads, selling to people walking by or in cars caught in traffic jams.

Ba says he was not warned about the street selling ban and was not reimbursed for his destroyed stand. He says he had no choice but to start over.

He says, as well, that he had extended credit to many of his regular clients, and he needs to keep working at this spot so they will know where to come and repay him.

The government is in discussions with a delegation of street vendors to find a long-term solution.

More than 40 percent of Senegalese are estimated to be unemployed. Nearly all the jobs that do exist are informal. The lack of employment has led tens of thousands of young Senegalese to try and emigrate illegally to Europe on flimsy boats that often capsize.

Momadou Korka Diallo, who sells phone cards at a busy intersection near a gas station, says President Wade is right to try to keep streets orderly.

He says it is not good if vendors block traffic downtown and also leave the streets dirty.

But he says if they are acting responsibly they should be allowed to keep working.

Senegal is one of West Africa's most stable democracies and protests and street violence are rare.

Congo and Rwanda Agree to Align Against Rebels

November 12, 2007
Congo and Rwanda Agree to Align Against Rebels
By REUTERS

KINSHASA, Congo, Nov. 11 (Reuters) — Congo has reached a deal with Rwanda to disarm Rwandan Hutu rebels on its soil, by force if necessary, in an effort to reduce tensions between the central African neighboring countries, a joint statement said Sunday.

The Hutu rebels, including former Rwandan soldiers and members of the militia known as the Interahamwe, are among several armed groups continuing to destabilize eastern Congo, even after the end of a broader war that ended in 2003.

Since the beginning of the year, more than 370,000 people have fled fighting between Congolese government soldiers, Tutsi-dominated Congolese insurgents and Rwandan Hutu rebels who are accused by Rwanda of involvement in the genocide against Tutsi and moderate Hutu in Rwanda in 1994.

Congo’s government “commits to launch military operations as a matter of urgency” to dismantle the Rwandan Hutu rebel forces, the countries said in a joint statement.

The agreement was announced after a meeting in Nairobi between the Congolese and Rwandan foreign ministers.

Under the terms of the deal, Congo will prepare a detailed plan by Dec. 1, with the backing of the country’s United Nations peacekeeping mission, to disarm the rebels.

Rwanda promised to share with Congo and the United Nations a list of people it accuses of orchestrating the 1994 genocide, in which an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were massacred.

The Rwandan foreign minister, Charles Murigande, also agreed to seal his country’s border with Congo and ensure that illegal armed groups, particularly a Tutsi insurgency led by Laurent Nkunda, a renegade Congolese general, did not receive cross-border support.

Mr. Nkunda is a Congolese Tutsi who has accused the Congolese Army of supporting the Hutu militias, which the army denies. Mr. Nkunda says his rebel force is simply protecting Tutsi civilians from being victimized again.

Congo’s army has been battling Mr. Nkunda’s forces in North Kivu Province since late August, when the rebel leader abandoned a January peace deal and pulled thousands of his fighters out of special mixed army brigades.

Army commanders in Congo have accused Rwanda of backing Mr. Nkunda, who led two army brigades into the bush in 2004, claiming he was doing so to protect eastern Congo’s small Tutsi minority.

The continued presence in eastern Congo of the rebels, who fled across the border after the Rwandan genocide, was used by Rwanda to justify two military interventions. The second, in 1998, helped unleash a five-year war that killed an estimated five million people, mainly through hunger and disease.

Fears that the current crisis in North Kivu could worsen into another Congo war have brought intense diplomatic pressure in recent weeks to find a peaceful solution.

The United States and United Nations have sent top level officials to the border province this month.

As part of the deal agreed upon in Nairobi, which was also signed by diplomats from the United Nations, United States and European Union, Congo said it would arrest and hand over to Rwanda anyone indicted on charges of genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity.

Rebel fighters who choose to disarm, and who are not believed to be the subject of Rwandan indictments, will be moved away from areas along Congo’s border with Rwanda, according to the plan.

Disease Stalks Congo's Displaced

Disease Stalks Congo's Displaced
By Noel King
Kibaya, DRC
21 November 2007

King report - Download MP3 (1MB) audio clip
Listen to King report audio clip

As fighting continues between dissident general Laurent Nkunda and the Congolese army, displaced Congolese have packed into squalid camps that are plagued with growing health problems. Humanitarian workers are racing to stem the spread of diseases including cholera and malaria. Noel King has more in this report from Kibaya, DRC.

People carry their belongings down a road in Mugunga, DRC, 13 Nov. 2007
People carry their belongings down a road in Mugunga, DRC, 13 Nov. 2007
When the town of Kibaya in Congo's volatile North Kivu province was overrun with 20,000 civilians fleeing violence, the town was simply unprepared to cope with the influx of people.

The health center employed a single nurse, who could see only three patients per day.

The few medicines available had passed their expiration dates.

And in a town where cases of chronic diarrhea were spiraling, only three packets of rehydration salts were available.

Bob Kitchen is an emergency response team coordinator with the International Rescue Committee.

"There's one water spring that serves the indigenous population of 20,000 plus the additional IDP population," he said. "Basically, it's a large puddle with thousands of people walking into the water to get water out. Every single site within there that we tested the water, it was heavily contaminated with fecal matter. So it's bad, bad, bad."

Water contamination is rampant because only five percent of Kibaya's 40,000 residents have access to latrines.

As a result, chronic diarrhea and suspected cholera cases are on the rise.

Congo's camps for the displaced are just as bad. Aid agencies have provided chlorination points and large containers full of fresh water.

But in the overcrowded camps, many people say they do not have access.

Bosco Machumpenze is an elected leader at Mugugna Two camp, which hosts some 15,000 displaced people outside the North Kivu capital, Goma.

He says the children are sick and they have diarrhea. The women have no water to cook with. The only thing to do is go down to Lake Kivu to get water.

Humanitarian workers say the collection of water from dirty sources, including Lake Kivu, and the character of the soil in Goma, have compounded the problem of cholera.

Louis Vigneault is a spokesman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Goma.

"Especially in this region there's been a history of cholera being a major problem," he explained. "Because the soil is basically only lava, it's not porous so all bacteria or disease will stay on surface and propagate, especially with people going to the lake to get water."

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says cholera broke out in North Kivu's IDP camps in early October.

More than 400 cases were identified in October, but because the testing process is long and expensive, many more cases may have gone undiagnosed.

Woman and children are particularly susceptible to illness.

Nuraka Jeduka is the mother of two-day old twins. Her babies were born two months prematurely, and she is worried about their health.

She says she fled her home to come to Kibaya when she was pregnant; and her stomach hurt all of the time. She says she is having trouble sleeping now and she is worried about how her babies will survive.

To combat the spread of disease, some aid agencies are undertaking creative measures.

Jasons Snuggs, an emergency response co-coordinator for environmental health with the International Rescue Committee, spoke to VOA in Kibaya during one of Congo's frequent heavy downpours, about a technique called rain guttering.

"Quite simply, on a traditional roof, which is made out of corrugated sheeting, we install a piece of bamboo which is split in half, and when it rains it fills up with water," he said. "We direct it into a container that people have."

Using rain gutters, Snuggs said each roof can drain off as many as 50 liters of relatively fresh water per day.

The challenges of working during Congo's rainy season are immense.

The IRC evacuated new mother Nuraka Jeduka and her infant twins to a larger hospital that same day.

But a downpour turned roads into muddy rivers and the family's car slowed to a crawl: clear evidence that rain is both a blessing and a curse in eastern Congo.

Congo Bound

In a few short days I will be leaving for my first trip to the North Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
I am excited and humbled by this opportunity to go and see first hand the work that God is doing in that region. For the first time, the people in that area have hope.
I will be flying into Entebbe , Uganda and be staying with an Ugandan for one night. My friend stayed at my house years ago when he was visiting the states. It will be good to see him again. Then I will fly via a small plane into DRC.
Arriving on a unpaved airstrip in Beni, DRC, I will begin my nine day visit.
Many of you might have heard of the fighting that is still going on in the North Kivu region of the DRC. While I'll be close to this, I will still be far enough away because of the infrastructure of the country. I've been told that this country, while it is the size of the US east of the Mississippi, has only 50 miles of paved road in the whole country. But the fighting has increase lately, and I would appreciate your thoughts and prayers as I travel.
The work in the Congo has really began.
From a vision three to four years ago, now is a reality. Here's an excerpt from the co-founder of the Congo Initiative.
The past few weeks we have spent in Congo have been an experience of Nehemiah as people from all walks of life joined in work so that the building would be ready, at least in part, to hold the consultation and start the academic year. We had a successful consultation, attended by over 120 people, leaders in churches, business, politics and community. We have opened the doors of the Christian Bilingual University of Congo. We had hoped to have 30 students; today we have 80, which by itself is another challenge, e.g., being ready with chairs, rooms, etc.

Young men and woman, the future of the DRC, have begun the journey to bring hope to a land that desperately needs it after years and years of oppression.
I hope to blog on my trip, when electricity and access allows it.
So check back often from 11-26 to 12-8 for updates :)

Congo Bound!

Democratic Republic of the Congo: Helping the Displaced

This area will be about 100 miles or so away from where I will be. I will be traveling to Beni, near the Ugandan border.

Food Crisis

Thanks to Rick r for passing this info on to me....



from a person that is on the ground in Senegal-
... on Friday we heard that millet (their staple
food) has gone from a normal price of 40 to 50 CFA/kilo to 175. So
their staple food is now about four times the price it normally is.
Rich people are stockpiling food now.



Senegal's Wade cuts govt pay as food prices rise Sat 3 Nov 2007, 13:17 GMT

By Diadie Ba

DAKAR, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Senegal's president has pledged to cut the number of ministers in his cabinet and reduce government salaries, including his own, in a show of solidarity for citizens struggling with high energy and food prices.

In an address broadcast on state television late on Friday, Abdoulaye Wade said his government would put an emergency bill before parliament authorising the temporary pay reduction in a bid to "lessen the suffering" of the country's poor.

"At a time when important fringes of our population are suffering in their daily life from the negative effects of the rise in world oil prices on their household, I have decided as president to set an example," the octogenarian leader said.

Prime Minister Cheikh Hadjibou Soumare said Wade had asked him to come up with proposals to reduce the number of ministers in the cabinet from a current 38 as part of the measures.

Surging food prices, with grains and other crops at record highs, are making life difficult for many families in Senegal and across Africa, leaving them struggling to afford the staples such as rice that make up the national diet.

Record oil prices have increased food transport costs, while the explosion of biofuels production from food crops, subsidised by some Western countries as less environmentally damaging than fossil fuels, has also contributed to the rise.

Senegal's state electricity firm Senelec, hit by a cash crunch caused by high global fuel prices and by rising consumption, has struggled to maintain supplies to the former French colony, an economic hub in the region.

Power shortages across the Sahelian nation of 11 million people have steadily increased in recent years, tarnishing its image as one of West Africa's most developed states and disrupting businesses unable to afford their own generators.

Wade urged the population to try to conserve energy in an effort to stave off a worsening in the power crisis.

"I call on the solidarity of all Senegalese, to the business community, the formal and informal sectors, to religious leaders, to take part in this national effort," he said.

SENEGAL: Smooth transition for Taxi Sisters

AKAR, 2 November 2007 (IRIN) - “It’s not heavy,” Sanou Top insists, as she takes a suitcase out of her client’s hands and hoists it into the trunk of her cab.

“I hope you drive like a man,” the customer says. The small-framed, head-scarfed 25-year-old laughs.

Top is one of 10 women chosen for a pilot project by the Senegalese government to get female taxi drivers on the road.

And after more than a month behind the wheel in one of the world’s most chaotic capitals for driving, Top says it’s been a smooth ride.

“At first, it was difficult,” Top says. But now? “Complete satisfaction.”

Her cell phone rings. She tucks it under her head scarf and begins a conversation, all while shifting gears and keeping an eye out for customers. It’s a system she seems to have mastered.

Money and autonomy

Under the ‘Taxi Sister’ project, 10 women have been given brand-new cars, which they will gradually pay for and eventually own.

The project is touted as a way to pull women out of poverty and introduce them to new occupations in Senegalese society. Within two years, the government hopes to have 50 female taxi drivers on its streets, and hopes to expand the project beyond the capital, Dakar.

According to the UN 2006 Human Development Index, Senegalese women lag behind men in development indicators. Less than 30 percent of adult women are literate, compared to 50 percent of men; and on average, women earn just over half the income men do.

Still, the new initiative is “not a purely financial activity,” explained Awa Paye Gueye, administrator of the national fund for the promotion of female entrepreneurship at the Ministry of Family and Female Entrepreneurship. “It’s a female leadership project as well.

“Where some say, ‘It won’t work because it’s women’, [this project] allows certain barriers to be broken,” Gueye said.

It seems to be working.

“I’m autonomous. I’m free. I’m my own boss,” said Top, a former accountant and secretary, who quit because she felt she was being exploited by her boss.

Other than their bright yellow and red uniforms and the Taxi Sister signs on the roofs of their cars, these women fit right in. They may be slightly less aggressive on the road, but they honk and argue just the same.

“Who do you think you are?” Maj Samb screams, her head out the window, to a male driver after their cars nearly collide in traffic.


Male resistance

For the most part, foreigners and Senegalese alike have been supportive of the project, a partnership between the government and the private car dealer Espace Auto. As the women drive by, people wave, little girls smile and young men call out “Taxi Sister!”

Top says the clean, well-kept cars – a far cry from the often dilapidated vehicles driven by their male counterparts – are good for Senegal, since “a cab is the first image of a country [to a foreigner]”.

Still, some men are having a hard time accepting the idea. The female taxi drivers complain of men who cut them off on the road and speak out against them on the radio.

Just outside the driveway to the Novotel, one of two hotels in town where the Taxi Sisters are stationed, a group of male taxi drivers sit around on shoddy wooden benches, protesting the extra support given to their female colleagues.

The women are allowed to park right outside the hotel doors, while the men must remain in the traditional taxi area, outside the hotel grounds.

''...Taxi driving isn't for women. It's hard work...''
“They get all the [customers], and we stay here with nothing to do but sleep,” said Alioune Ndiaye, 60, who has been driving a cab in Dakar for 35 years. “Before, there weren’t any problems. But now, the sisters have ruined everything.”

The state’s claims to alleviate poverty and raise the status of women in Senegalese society are noble, Talla Ndiaye, another cab driver, told IRIN.

“The state talks about equality. Yes, sure. But this isn’t equality.”

Besides, he said, “taxi driving isn’t for women. It’s hard work.”

Determination

The attitude that women should not be driving taxis is not uncommon, but it does not faze the women.

“There are some people who don’t want us to succeed,” said Assaïtou Goumdiam, 32. “It’s very normal…I don’t pay any attention to them.

“It’s those who say no [to the idea] who give you the courage and the strength to work,” she said. After two years of unemployment, Goumdiam will not be held back by a few skeptical comments.

That is not to say there are no challenges. The diesel is expensive and traffic is difficult to bear. Security has not been a problem thus far – the women were given self-defense courses and have internal communication systems in their cars – but Top says a customer once came on to her.

Still, they believe they will serve as examples to other women in Senegal and neighbouring countries.

“Many people thought it would never actually happen,” Top says. “This will really give [other women] courage.”

The Ministry of Family and Female Entrepreneurship has financed more than 700 projects for women since 2005 and says it will continue funding projects that encourage women to enter new occupations. The ministry has already received a funding request from female mechanics.

“Women must contribute to the creation of jobs in Senegal. They can contribute,” the ministry’s Gueye said.

As for Top, who hopes to own her own taxi business in the future, she says she is proud of herself for taking part in this initiative.

“For a long time, there were many occupations that were reserved for men. Now, people are realising that women have the ability too.”


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