realities of life

It’s the beginning of the new academic year here. It’s fascinating meeting fresh faces but it takes some mental gymnastics to remember all the new names. Usually there are at least three per student. The continuing students have just returned from their placements in their home areas scattered all over eastern Congo. The realities of life in their home areas are sometimes beyond imagining.

One of the freshers comes from a remote area in the very north-east of the country and is pretty overwhelmed by the big city (Bunia). He speaks the L. language. At the moment a team of translators are translating the New Testament into this language, so when he dropped round the other day I asked him if he’d got a copy of Luke or Acts, two of the books that have already been published. He hadn’t, but immediately wanted one. When I told him the price was $1 for each, he looked crestfallen. He didn’t have that much, he said. He told me quite matter-of-factly that the person who had supported him financially in the past had been hacked to death by LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) rebels and since then he’d been in extreme financial difficulties. I gave him a copy of Luke. A couple of days later I bumped into him on the road. He’d managed to find 1000 Congolese francs (just over a dollar) as payment for the book. He told me that he had never read anything in L. before, but he and his family were engrossed in reading Luke each night. Then he added that he might have to leave the university because the church community he hoped would support him doesn’t seem able to do so.

fruit from our field

I'm reaping fruit that I didn't sow. This whooper came from one of the avocado trees in my garden. Now you can see why I don't buy avocados when I'm in England! The campus children are very fond of avocado scrumping here, and there are plenty to go round.  I'm also enjoying delicately perfumed papayas, and the finger bananas are hanging so heavily on their trees that we've had to prop the trees up! They'll be ripe in a month or two.

water worries

the wonderful water tank

Five o’clock in the morning and I’m awake with a start. It’s the burbling of water into a plastic jerry can that did it. I scramble out from under the mosquito net to investigate who’s using my outside tap. I squash my nose against the metal mossie grill of my window to get a good look. It’s Esperance, daughter of one of the students, who’s been earning a few francs weeding the peanuts in my field for the last few days. This water harvesting from our tank is becoming a bit of a habit, but maybe she sees it as her tap, too, now she’s done some work in the garden. Other girls on the campus have started following Esperance’s example, too. The students don’t have running water in their houses so they have to fetch it from one of the outside taps on the campus, but sometimes there are queues. It’s quicker to go and get it from a private supply if you have access to one. The trouble is, my impressive black plastic water tank is limited. It only gets replenished when the erratic town water supply arrives or when the university pump is in action. At the moment it’s decidedly out of action, awaiting fixing. And the organisation I work for tells me I must keep two weeks’ emergency water supply on hand at all times.

My Swahili is not at its best first thing in the morning, especially not before daybreak, but Esperance seems to get my point, reluctantly turns off the tap and beats a dejected retreat. I feel like a Swahili-speaking ogre. But there can’t be a queue at the public tap at five in the morning, surely?

Welcome to the world of community living and cultural clashes. Which set of values should I go with? The Congolese one, which says share the little you have with whoever’s in immediate need, especially if you have more than enough? Or the Western one, that says you should plan ahead, be prepared for a crisis, and learn to say no. I could reel out Bible passages to support either. The first dilemma of the day.

Out and about

firewood and cassava

At seven in the morning things are buzzing on the outskirts of Bunia: throngs of school children smartly dressed in white and navy, cyclists straining valiantly to push bikes uphill, overburdened with sacks of potatoes, charcoal and containers of petrol strapped high, women balancing long bundles of firewood on their heads, others with wares for market, huge banana stems, cabbages, beans. Hundreds are going about the morning’s activities on foot, many walking dozens of kilometres to make a meagre living, or to find what they need for the arduous business of survival. I’m in the privileged position of riding pillion behind my colleague, K, and we’re both wearing helmets, a curious sight here, which attracts the gaze of onlookers. Or maybe the stares are simply because I’m a mzungu, a white person, a major curiosity, especially on the back of a motorbike. We swing from side to side, dodging ruts and holes, and trying to beat the bus in front of us which is waking the dust in clouds which cover us and set us coughing. In the distance, hazy blue hills, and in the wide valley between, lush grasses and fields of cassava. As so often, my heart hurts at the contrast between the serene morning landscape and the grinding poverty of the people I pass, hardship etched on their faces. When will the lavish natural riches of this country become prosperity for its people?

double birthday

10.10.10 My forty first birthday, and just the kind of stimulus I need for my first blog entry.

Twickenham birthday

Moving between continents has its advantages, especially when there’s a birthday in the offing. First I celebrated in Twickenham, London in autumnal style with aunts, uncles, brothers and cousins the day before my return to Africa. The climax of the party was a rowdy rendition of ‘We plough the fields and scatter’ and a heavenly chocolate Guinness cake rustled up my by brothers, plus a foray out into the dampness of the garden where the ash leaves were already falling. I pushed away the familiar sense of sadness at impending goodbyes and leaving the place where I have my roots.

A week later, a second celebration, this time in ‘les monts bleus’ which encircle Bunia, DRC. Many’s the time I’ve gazed at these hills in the clear air after a rain and longed to scramble up them. I once told myself I would finally feel fully at home in Bunia when I was able to hike in the blue mountains. And that’s what a diverse crowd of thirteen of us did on 10.10.10. The views of Bunia on the plain below were breath-taking, first in intense sunshine, then targeted with precision by torrential, tangential rain which gave the hills a wide berth. Sometimes you can feel hemmed in living in Bunia where there are not many possibilities for easy travel outside the town, nor for outdoor sports! The sense of freedom was glorious. We sang from the hilltop and prayed for God’s blessing of peace and justice for this town that has known horror in its recent past. Our expedition was crowned with a cuppa and pressies on a big boulder before we squashed back into the vehicle that had brought us, unfettered by traffic regulations. A truly beautiful birthday in Bunia, my home.

Bunia from les monts bleus

Bunia birthday hikers

rain on Bunia