The Mercy Corps Blog

Blog Post Posted September 2, 2007, 2:57 pm by Matthew De Galan

Driver's Ed

Don’t leave home without them. Photo: Matthew De Galan

After my encounter with the soldier, I am hungry for tips on security. So at dinner I turn to Mugur, a Romanian who heads our emergency team here and has worked in some of the world's most dangerous places — Chechnya, Liberia, Darfur, Bosnia. Tonight's lesson: staying safe on the road in hostile environments. Some key points:

• Keep the windows rolled down and the radio off. This enables you to hear better — sounds like gunshots in the distance, guards shouting orders or a rifle being prepared for firing.
• Keep the interior light on when driving at night. You might think it makes you an easier target, but it actually gives people information — namely, that you are not military personnel and are not armed.
• When you approach a checkpoint, keep your hands visible on the dashboard. Make no sudden movements. Cooperate and do what they say. If they ask or your papers, ask them if you can get them from your pocket, and move VERY slowly. Don't volunteer anything. Just wait for them to tell you what they want.
• Don't use your radio or cell phone at a checkpoint. Do nothing. Just sit and wait.
• If they make you leave your car, roll the windows up and lock it. This helps prevent them planting evidence — a bullet in the backseat, for example — that could be used as justification to steal your car or, worse, arrest or shoot you.
• While driving, though, keep the windows down — not only to listen, but it also helps distribute pressure if you hit an anti-personnel mine. If you hit an anti-tank mine, well, it doesn't really matter whether the windows are up or down. You're pretty much dead.
• Watch for fallen trees or people on the side of the road looking injured or in need. Sure signs of an ambush. If it's a tree and you can't get by, wait. If it's a person on the road and you can keep going, then don't stop. No matter how bad it looks.
• And if you forget everything else, remember this: Always carry a pack of cigarettes — opened. You can offer them to soldiers and diffuse a situation. If the pack is closed, they'll take it all, leaving you empty handed for the next checkpoint. "This is life saving stuff," Mugur says. He is dead serious. On my way to bed I buy a pack of Sportsman's at the front desk.

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Blog Post Posted August 31, 2007, 9:31 pm by Matthew De Galan

A Soldier's Tale

Heading to market. Photo: Matthew De Galan/Mercy Corps

Yesterday we went up north to Kibumba, a market town in rolling hills, between three volcanoes, two in Congo, one in Rwanda. It's a beautiful place, mysterious, with the volcanoes jutting up into the mist and haze. On the other side of the volcanoes to the east are the famed mountain gorillas. All along the road up, there are soldiers. We passed a checkpoint, and were let through. Then we passed a base on a hilltop, then another along the road. Then, a soldier, maybe two, is posted about every kilometer the rest of the way up.

On one side of the road lies the national park surrounding Nyiragongo volcano; on the other side, is agricultural land, and that's where we are heading, with all three vehicles, the whole group together, our objective to conduct focus groups on agriculture, water and sanitation, health and food security.

When we arrived, the town was alive and buzzing. The market was in full force. People were arriving with huge bales of cabbage, green onions, potatoes, manioc. Some carried them on their backs, the produce stacked impossibly high, holding two strips tight to their chest, and with a strap wrapped around their foreheads, slumping forward, walking uphill and fighting gravity. Others, in groups of two or three, pushed bicycles piled high with produce.

It was toward two when we went into the market for our second focus group. Our goal was to find 10 market women and talk to them about food prices and consumer difficulties. Three soldiers were in the market place, and greeted us. One was drunk. He spoke in halting English, smiling the drunkard's smile. When he learned I spoke French, he greeted me warmly, shaking my hand in multiple variations. When he learned my name, he said "That was my little brother's name! You are my little brother! My little brother from another mother!" He said this all in French — Mon petit frere d'une autre maman. He immediately vows to help us, and says he will round up some women for us, right away. So many soldiers here steal, extort, rape women and girls. Is he one of them?

He kept talking to me, his French impossible to understand at times. I called Laura, our team leader, and told her I think this is a bad idea — what kind of a focus group can you have with women when they are rounded up by the same guys stealing their food and raping them? She agreed, and we decided to make a graceful retreat. I would explain that we had run out of time and had to leave, but thanks so very much for your help. You've been great. So nice to meet you. But by then, he was back, with 9 women trailing him, and they filed into the office, looking a bit nervous.

I called Laura again, and we decide to go ahead, as long as he leaves. After a bit of a fuss, he agreed, giving me a drunken salute, feet locked together. The focus group went on, but I couldn't focus. I looked around the room, and in the room next door a boy of 14 or so was cutting up a chicken with a long, sharp knife. He looked at me, unsmiling, and looked away. Midway through, the soldier was back, drunker still, though now he carried no assault rifle. He smoked a tiny black cigarette.

"I have to return to my post. But I would like to have a little talk with you. Can you come with me?" I said, no thank, you, that's very kind. I appreciate your help so much, but I must finish my work here. Perhaps we can speak later?

"But I must return to my post, and you are my little brother, Muteyi. I must talk to you. Please, come with me."

You've been so helpful, thank you. Good luck with your work. Thank you so much. You've been so kind. Now, I mush finish my work Thank you, thank you.

His voice gets louder, more insistent. I think he might get angry, but I keep smiling. It's harder to shoot someone, I imagine, if they're smiling at you. He leans in toward me, and I think he is going to kiss on the cheek, French style. He reeks of alcohol, his eyes bloodshot.

"The women," he whispers slyly, in my ear. "I could tell you about the women." He says something else about the women, but I don't understand it. Finally, he salutes and leaves. The room returns to normal, the women laughing at him, at me, at the tension relieved.

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Blog Post Posted August 30, 2007, 10:42 pm by Matthew De Galan

'A Fact-Finding Mission'

This morning we had a brief security meeting. Laura told us there was more fighting just north last night. Goma is safe, although there have been some political assassinations, including a journalist last month. We sent our assessment teams in another direction, but will avoid Mugunga and Lac Vert, which are just a few kilometers from Sake. Indeed, one day we missed our turn off and came to a makeshift army checkpoint. Laura said that more people were streaming in from the countryside, displaced from the recent fighting and coming into the relative safety of Mugunga and Lac Vert.

* * *

At dinner we met an Italian journalist named Pierrot who said that some Americans named Russ Feingold and Al Sharpton were here in Goma. A fact-finding mission. Could we explain who these gentlemen were?

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Blog Post Posted August 29, 2007, 2:40 pm by Matthew De Galan

Smoke-filled rooms

Today in the courtyard at the hotel there are a dozen soldiers, Congolese army, what they call FARDC (Forces Armeés de la Republique Democratic du Congo). Fully armed with assault rifles; one guy even has a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Why so many? I go up the stairs to my room, and one stands guard over the breakfast room, eyeing me with bored suspicion. In the back corner sits an officer — a general maybe? Lots of epaulets and badges and medals, a man in his 50s. He sits with two aides and two Chinese men in suits, smoking cigarettes. The room is entirely empty but for them. I walk past, get a spare computer battery from my room, and go back downstairs to the bar, our de facto office. An hour or so later, they all leave, the soldiers suddenly rousing from their torpor, running to their unmarked 4 wheel drive vehicles, jumping in, speeding off. I never see the Chinese guys leave. They vanish like ghosts.

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Blog Post Posted August 27, 2007, 2:27 pm by Matthew De Galan

Amani!

We do focus groups to supplement the survey work. We are looking for richer detail, more context, rather than data that can be entered, tabulated, analyzed. I like both processes. Either way, you get stories.

One methodology we use in the focus groups is to pit one expressed need against the other. We ask the community to name a few of its most urgent needs. In Muja, for example, a small town just north of Goma, the group named these needs:

• Water
• Maternal health care (i.e., a better place to give birth)
• Seeds
• Medicine
• Jobs/income
• Livestock/poultry raising
• Peace
• Education

Then, we ask them to choose between Water and Maternal health. Then between Water and seeds. Then between Water and Medicine. And so on, until, in the end, they have pitted every named need against every other. It's like the NCAA tournament if they used a round-robin format.

The order in which they state their needs has no bearing on how, in the end, they prioritize them. Indeed, the methodology is designed to make them think hard about what is really the most important. Instead of a laundry list, you get a collective analysis, born of hard head-to-head choices. Sometimes groups would pick five needs, sometimes six; one picked 8. If the group splits, then each need gets half a point — essentially a tie. But it didn't happen often. I did six focus groups, and only saw two ties. People know what they want, what they need. And, overwhelmingly, what they want, what they need is peace. Indeed, in six focus groups, peace never lost a single head-to-head contest. Peace finished 29-0. And from my observation, most were blow outs. No hesitation, no debate.

Yearning for peace. Photo: Matthew De Galan

In Muja, for example, three men and six women crowded in a house at midday. It was hot outside, but, cool and damp in the windowless home. A few bottle caps were pressed into the dirt floor, perhaps for decoration, perhaps just absently. The bright noon sun shone through the gap between the tin roof and the walls. We all sat, half illuminated in the deep shadows. After 45 minutes of discussion, we launched into the exercise.

Water starts out strong, beating maternal health, seeds, medicine, and jobs, though the later took some debate. I wonder if it might challenge Peace. The question is posed. And the answer is clear and immediate.

"Amani!" the group said. Peace, in Swahili.

Again and again in Muja, and later in Monigi, Ndosho, Mugunga and Lac Vert, the word rang out. "Amani!"

In Muja, the room felt like a church — that same dampness you feel in a dark place on a hot day. The congregants sang out the refrain, as in mass. Peace be with you. And also with you. Each time we asked the question, "Amani" rang out a bit louder, the chorus growing bolder, more determined, finding its voice.

Peace or Maternal health care? "Amani."

Peace or seeds? "Amani!"

Peace or medicine? "Amani!"

Peace or Jobs? "AMANI!"

I don't think I'll ever forget the sound of their voices. If we could harness this yearning, what might we unleash? What beautiful thing might take shape?

* * *

The final standings in Muja that day:

Sorry, livestock. Now you know how Vanderbilt feels.

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Blog Post Posted August 26, 2007, 8:07 pm by Matthew De Galan

The Water's Fine!

Lake Kivu at sunset. Photo: Matthew De Galan

Today I went swimming in Lake Kivu, the sixth largest lake in Africa. On one side is Rwanda, on the other Congo. The water was a perfect temperature - refreshing but not too cold. And just enough waves to bounce you around a bit. Supposedly, there is methane gas under the lake, which at anytime could burst forth and wipe out the population of Goma. But then, you could get hit by a Land Cruiser crossing the street.

Later in the day, at dinner, I learned the lake was a dumping ground for bodies during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. More recently, contaminated lake water has caused cholera outbreaks in Goma.

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Blog Post Posted August 23, 2007, 1:38 pm by Matthew De Galan

Questions

Francine's parents were killed in the war last year. Photo: Matthew De Galan/Mercy Corps

Spent today conducting assessment surveys with Fernand, one of our Congolese staff. Basically, this means going door to door and asking people 61 questions ranging from how much money they earn and what they eat each day to where they go for health care. We'll use the data we collect from 500 interviews to help design our program.

Fernand and I were walking through a shaded part of Mugunga when we found our next subject. Francine Ancirite. Beautiful, with a sad beautiful smile. She is 17, and if she was in the US she'd be running for homecoming queen this fall. When we find her she is sitting in the yard, chatting with some neighbors, older women, mothers. Young children run around the yard, playing - beautiful kids. Are they Francine's? No, surely she is too young. Slowly, we walk her through the questionnaire and get her story.

Last November, just north of here near the town of Sake, fighting erupted between the Congolese army and troops loyal to the renegade General Laurent Nkunda. Nkunda was threatening to take Goma. Somewhere in the middle of the fighting, there was an atrocity in Sake and dozens of civilians were killed. Among them were Francine's parents, who have a piece of land near there - this is only 7 miles up the road from Mugunga. At age 16, Francine suddenly found herself in charge of 4 children, three of them under five. It is a heavy burden. She seems tired, listless, sad, perhaps traumatized. She left school after her parents' death so she could watch the children. Her siblings also left school, unable to afford the cost of books, uniforms and the $3 monthly tuition.

What are her hopes, we ask? Does she want to go back to school, get married? She is realistic. School is impossible. Marriage unlikely - who will want to buy into 4 young children? Her hope is to start some "petit commerce" - sell things along the main Goma road, which runs just outside her house. Proximity to the road, it seems, is her one piece of luck.

When I got back I looked through the survey, looking for clues, insights, a bit of reality there in the data. Here's what one learns:

Question 14: Did you eat anything yesterday morning? No. We skipped the meal.
Question 15: Did you eat anything yesterday at midday? No. There was no food.
Question 16: Did you eat anything yesterday in the evening? Yes. Manioc, corn and peas.
Question 18: How many times per week to you eat animal protein? 0.
Question 19: How long do your food stocks last? N/A. We have no food stocks.
Question 20: List your sources of revenue for the household: Agricultural day worker, 400 francs/day (about 80 cents).
Question 26: In the last six months, have you borrowed or been given any money? Yes. 1000 francs to feed my brothers and sisters.
Question 34: What livestock or fowls do you possess? None.
Question 38: Do you have access to the quantity of water that you need? No. Because we have to pay and our means are insufficient.

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