My Day as a Vet's Assistant

Only in Congo would I be participating in the neutering of my kittens. And taking pictures! T

The boys have been peeing on everything lately, and I decided it was time they should be neutered. This was something I was hoping to put off, as I don't particularly trust the vet's domestic cat operating skills and I feel like these two have been through enough. However, the peeing has been getting ridiculous (on every plastic bag available and suitcases/duffel bags) and in order to prevent a full scale housemate revolt, I bit the bullet and had 'er done today.

I set up an "operating table" out on the deck (blanket, towel, hot water) and patiently waited till the vet got here at 9am. I was surprised to see two vets arrive. I think our regular vet was learning the cat neutering process from the other vet. YIKES!!!!! To make a long story short, I sat with the cats the whole time, petting and cooing and taking pictures. It didn't take too long, but the anesthesia has really knocked them out. Not that they were unconscious during their operations. Nope, they were awake but frozen. Seriously...8 hours later and Dr.J is still feeling the effects. Let's hope all this pain (for them and for me) pays off and I can stop cleaning cat pee out of everything.

If you are at all squeamish...don't scroll down.

Just a James Bond Day

Flying from Kalemie back to Bukavu with MONUC (UN Peacekeeping mission in Congo) means one of three things: flying direct from Kalemie to Bukavu, flying to Goma then to Bukavu, or the completely bizzare Bukavu via Entebbe (Uganda). You don't really know what you're gonna get till you check in at the MONUC airport.

I was really hoping to go to Entebbe. I was sure I was going to Entebbe. Going to Entebbe meant a good Cafe Latte, a Smirnoff Ice, a Coffee Crisp, buying a new book and general craft store browsing. This would have been an excellent way to spend the afternoon waiting for the flight to leave for Bukavu.

But that didn't happen. When I checked in I was told the flight was Kalemie - Goma - Bukavu. I've never been to Goma, so I guess missing out on Entebbe wouldn't be that bad. But wait...it got better.

As we walked to the air plane, I realized that it was an Russian Antonov. Cool! And it came with a Russian crew. I wish I had written down some of the lines delivered by the flight attendant. Suffice to say, her Russian accented English combined with her usage of english phrases was a highlight of my flight. The other highlight? Well in the cabin, there was english below the russian on all signs and an english safety card in the seat pocket. But in the bathroom...nyet. I was really hoping the black button next to the toilet meant, "press to flush." Even the air freshener was russian.

Flying into Goma is a bit surreal. I had been told the airport is in the center of town, but nothing really prepares you for looking out the window and seeing exactly what people are doing in their yards and on the streets. Yes, you get that close. Seriously, the airport is in the middle of town. There are houses maybe 100 meters away from the runway. There was a major plane crash last year where a Congolese airliner ran off the runway and crashed into the market. (A friends sister survived that crash - she was in the plane). I am surprised there aren't more accidents.

Once you get off the plane, you are loaded into a MONUC bus and driven to their airport lounge to wait for your next flight. I had about a 3 hour wait. The wiating room was croweded. After they called for passengers for the flight to Kinshasa, the room thined. Then they called the for the flight to Entebbe; the roomed thinned considerably. Looking around, there were only 7 of us remaining. I started to wish, then hope....

And my dreams came true. As the bus drove the 7 of us out to the tarmac and past the planes I knew I would be able to scratch a new item off my "Things to do Before I Die List." I was flying back to Bukavu on a helicopter. Whooo Hooo! I have always wanted to fly on a helicopter. This was one of the big military ones although I am not sure what kind. Unfortunatley I was squished up next to all the baggage (mostly soldiers duffel bags) and my right leg had to rest on top of a bag while my left leg was squished next to the lady next to be. But still, how cool. It is amazing to me how you just go up and down on take off and landing. It was very noisy, but the ear muffs helped. I was also surprised with how bumby a ride it is. For some reason I assumed it would be really smooth. And...the crew was Russian. Yep, Russian plane and 2 Russian crews made for a terrific James Bond day.

Note 1: Not sure why I was feeling like I was in a James Bond movie. It just did!

Note 2: Sitting in the waiting rooms at the MONUC airports, both in Kalemie and Goma, I was really struck by it being a United Nations airport. There were soldiers from Benin, India & Pakistan, a UN worker from Sierra Leone, a Chinese man and many others from different nations. For all that the UN is slammed for its beauracracy and ineffeciency, there is nothing more beautiful than seeing the world represented in a small airports in Eastern Congo.

Major Accomplishment

OK...this will be a short post...

Last week I went down to our site office in Kalemie to do a small training session. I have created a new Excel Spread sheet that combines both budget lines and figures with the actuals that are posted. You would think this would be easy...but when you have a hundred lines + budget with lines that are charged to the same account code, it makes tracking budget spending a little difficult. However, I think I cracked the code and have come up with the perfect spread sheet.

But that's not the major accomplishment. I gave the entire training in FRENCH! Ok, honestly, maybe it was 98% French and 2% English. Either way...whoo hoo me!

Got Rabbit?

The lengths Quinton will go to look for his pureed rabbit...

The Disappearing Dock

We had a dock. It was a nice, simple dock commissioned by our previous Country Director. I haven't been swimming in the lake and have only been down to the dock once since I came to Bukavu, but lots of others do and our dock was used as a popular swimming point. Our current CD has also been using the dock in the mornings to launch his kyak from. Slowly the dock has been disappearing. The wooden slats were stolen one by one. Now...the dock is gone.

This isn't a great picture, but you can see I am sitting at the end of the dock (Pic taken January 09)


This is all that remains of the dock as of July 2009.

What does it say about the state of things in Bukavu that the wood from a dock are worthy targets to be stolen in broad daylight?

Christmas in July

When I was in Kampala in May I bought a whole bunch of stuff to bring back to Bukavu. Stuff you can't buy here or you can if you are willing to give up an arm and a leg. Things like cereal and cat food and yarn and jam and ketchup and pasta. The list goes on. Plus, my mom sent me a ton of stuff with my dad: books and yarn and cotton face pads, etc. I can only carry 30kg on the Rwandair flight from Entebbe to Kigali to Bukavu, so I left a box, a large duffel bag and a smaller bag at the FH Uganda office as FH DRC had a 4 ton truck to be picked up in Nairobi and driven to Bukavu. Joel, my housemate and our head of logistics, said the truck would be coming through in about 2 weeks (that would have been 2nd week of June). A month and a half later....the truck arrived with all my goodies. The celebrations started on Monday when Joel brought me the smaller bag...there were good things in there. But the real show was last night when I opened the box and large duffel bag. I could tell you how much fun it was, but I would rather show you.

Opening the bag and box


Look at all the great stuff


Excited to be able to make Rice Krispie Squares


I think Q likes his new basket


Three housemates celebrating their haul

Avacodo on Steroids

The term coined by my dad to describe the avocados in Kampala. I think the term also fits for the avocados in Bukavu.

As seen here....

Sunday Excitement

It's Sunday...and I am sitting in my usual Sunday place, watching a little television and doing a lot of crocheting, when I hear a pretty unusual noise. It was coming from the lake side of the house and sounded like maybe the hill had given away. (Except there was no splash of water...so what was I thinking) I looked out the back windows to see if the guard had heard it...he did...then proceeded to the balcony off my bedroom to check out what had happened.

Turned out that part of the massive eucalyptus tree in the MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières - Doctors Without Borders) compound next door had fallen over the brick wall into our compound. It was kind of comical. There was no wind, no warning it was going to fall. And it was huge. There is a gate down to the lake...but you wouldn't be able to tell from the photo's.

MSF is going to help with cutting the tree off of the wall, but our guard, Maxime, spent the rest of Sunday afternoon cutting the tree away from the far back wall. He was concerned that if it stayed that way, it could be used by someone to climb up over the fence and into our compound. I love that our guards care about our safety. It's such a blessing.

Here are some shots of the tree from the balcony of the house then from ground level.

Oh and while I was down checking out the tree, I took this great photo of the house.

A Good Photo Op Gone Bad

When you have kittens there are lots of opportunities for cute photo's. And sometimes, that opportunity passes very quickly.

Case in point....


I'll leave it to you to imagine what the picture was supposed to look like.

What's New with FH Congo

I find that working in Finance does not give me a lot to blog about. Sure I could tell you about the new spreadsheets I am working on or the Access Database that I am trying to create for Human Resources...but hey, who really wants to hear about that?!?!? However, since you sent me to "work" with Food for the Hungry, I guess I should keep you updated on what's going on in my "work" life.

Last month was particularly difficult for FH Congo. There has been increased violence in North and South Kivu due to renewed efforts by the Congolese Army (FRDC) to push out the remnants of the Rwandan Hutu Genocidaires (FDLR). The FDLR "... have been operating out of eastern DR Congo since the aftermath of Rwanda's 1994 genocide by Hutu extremists against the Tutsi minority. Some of its members are accused of being among the main perpetrators of those massacres." (AFP - May 13, 2009) This increase in violence has forced us to shut down operations in South Kivu and suspending the contracts of our staff in these areas. This, however, affects our overall funding and means that we have less money to operate our main office in Bukavu. The result was that in June, we suspended the contracts of close to 15 Bukavu based staff.

So what does it mean to suspend contracts? Well, we secured what is called a Force Majeur. It is a document issued by the Provincial authorities stating that due to unforseen reasons (WAR!) we can no longer continue safely operating in the South Kivu region. Under the Force Majeur, we can suspend the staff contracts for 2 months. If after those 2 months the situation has not improved we can then terminate the contracts.

As you can probably imagine, this suspension of contracts did not go over so well with the staff in Bukavu (the staff in the fields completely understood the situation). Times are tough, and not getting a paycheck really hurts. The problem is further exacerbated by the fact that all NGO's are unionized here in South Kivu and that there is a central Union as well. It has been very uncomfortable for those of us who are still working. The biggest problem is that the actual organized push against the FDLR has not started, so there is no chance the situation will have changed at the end of the 2 months.

In a related news, we moved the office. By related I mean we drastically have to reduce our overhead spending. This is a source of much joy for me for many reasons:

1. It is only 5 minutes away from our house.
2. It is on the lake.
3. It is very QUIET
4. It is not located next to an elementary school (see #3)
5. It is not located on the main road (see #3)
6. There are no endless car horns (see #3 & 5)
7. There is no clinking of pop bottle openers against glass pop bottles (see #3 & 4)

There are lovely views of the lake from some of the offices...but not mine. Here's a pic of my very tiny office and of the views from the balconies.