Devon and I just updated the Goma Student Fund site. Mostly, we just adjusted a lot of the text on the site to reflect the fact that the school has begun its second year. From our most recent blog post:

We’re happy to report that our lovely school in Mugunga has begun its second year. Board member Eric Nguyen (that’s me) was in Goma for the month of September to meet with the local board members, teachers, and of course the students.

With some work over the summer, we were able to expand enrollment from 140 to over 250 students. The little ones range from five to twelve years of age. They’re now all hard at work learning French, Swahili, history, mathematics, and human biology. It’s amazing, in fact, how hard they work. Even crammed four to a bench and sharing pencils and paper, I never saw students act up or talk back to a teacher. Instead, there was boundless enthusiasm, laughter, little hands stretching as high as possible to answer a question.

Occasionally, kids who we couldn’t take would stand outside the windows, watching the lesson from outside. We’ll keep growing, slowly, for them.

Here’s a short video that we posted on the front page, containing short clips from my visits to our new school in Mugunga, just outside Goma:

Big props to Senator Russ Feingold (D, Wisconsin) for speaking up on the Senate floor about his recent experiences in the D.R. Congo. An excerpt:

The Great Lakes region is at a critical moment in its history and we run the risk of contributing to events that could have far-reaching and long-term repercussions if we do not engage responsibly. With its vast resources, the DRC could be an anchor of stability in an area that has been plagued by violence and destructive activity for decades. The changing nature of global threats could render sub-Saharan Africa — and the Great Lakes region in particular– ripe for exploitation by any number of rogue actors. We can stop this before it begins if we work to ensure stability for the long term.

Mr. President, our National Security Strategy states “we will work with others for an African continent that lives in liberty, peace, and growing prosperity…we must help strengthen Africa’s fragile states and help build indigenous capability to secure porous borders…” I know the United States has many priorities that compete for attention and resources, but if done right, and as part of a comprehensive long-term strategy, a little can go a long way towards achieving these lofty goals in Africa. The United States should increase engagement in and expand assistance to the eastern DRC.

The senator stayed at our house in Goma while he was travelling there, though I missed him by a few days. Representative Jim McDermott (D, Washington) came through the following week. It was great to see Lyn and Jo Lusi (the founders of HEAL Africa) bring policy makers up to speed. They can pack a huge amount of insight into someone’s head over dinner, while making it seem like casual conversation.

Amongst the treasures that I’m bringing home from Goma are some cool woodcrafts, a shoka (axe) made of bone, and a ton of clothing (almost $300 worth) made by the HEALing Arts women. The most precious item, however, is two large nutella jars packed with Piri Piri made by Mama Germaine, back at Maji Matulivu. The main ingredient is the wickedly spicy African Birdseye chili pepper (a.k.a. “African Devil”), with a Scoville rating of 50,000-175,000 units.

This stuff is absolutely delicious. It’s not the heat that makes it so good. In fact, I wish it were less spicy so that I could put more than the usual half-teaspoon of it on my food. I’m told that every Mama has her own recipe, and this stuff definitely packs more flavor and heat than what I got at the restaurants in Goma. I don’t know what alchemy Mama Germaine performs to make the peppers taste so good. What I do know is that I and many of the guests at Maji would routinely abuse our gastrointestinal tracts with the stuff at every dinner, consequences be damned. Sam Dargan (a regular at Maji and Piri Piri connoisseur) has dubbed Mama Germaine’s variety of piri piri “Goma Lava,” in tribute to the active volcano that periodically wipes out parts of the town with molten rock.

So, before I left, I asked Mama Germaine to cook me up a huge batch to take home, gave her ten bucks, and left while the pepper-preparation (frying, I think) made that whole wing of the house uninhabitable.

I’m going to dole this stuff out to friends and family in little jars. If you get to try it, remember that I brought it to you out of love, and that it definitely hurts me as much as it hurts you

Oh, and the “explosion” part (in the title of this post): As it turns out, nutella jars do not have lids that screw down particularly tightly, and both jars leaked Piri Piri oil during the bus ride from Goma to Kigali. Upon opening my suitcase, I was greeted with that familiar, eye-watering fragrance, and I knew I was in for an afternoon of careful wiping and washing. Of course, I got some in my eyes and had to warn the staff to be extra careful with my laundry. But in the end, the spill was contained in a new jar and sealed tight with electrical tape and a surgical glove.

Though I half expect the stuff to melt through glass and take down my flight somewhere over the Atlantic…

Two things happened on Saturday that may mean that my project does not reach completion. First, Dr. Vindu (the really sharp Congolese pediatrician who was going to help drive usage of the OpenMRS system) didn’t show. I was hoping to have a solid five hours with her, getting her up to speed on the intake and order forms and to go over the reports she was generating for donors. Instead, she got called to a meeting with the national office (Programme National de Lutte contre le SIDA) and neglected to tell me. So half the day was spent walking around and trying to find her.

Later that day, the power supply for my laptop died. Granted, it’s seven years old, but I really would have expected something else to go, first.

If I’m lucky, I’ll find a suitable power supply somewhere in town, on Monday. But I had an incredibly tight four days left to get the doctors familiar enough with OpenMRS to start entering in data in parallel with their paper forms. Having two knocked off completely like this probably kills the project. I’d left this way too close to the end of my trip.

I’m not sure what to say, really, or why I’m putting this on my blog. I have to write it down somewhere.

It’s funny how quickly I can sometimes move on from an initial emotion, especially when it comes to work. It wasn’t long after the implications of those two minor catastrophes dawned on me, on Saturday, that I started triaging. I should probably stop working on it immediately, and instead see what other projects can be tied up in my last two days. Meanwhile, the configuration for OpenMRS that I’ve created so far can all be put in a repository somewhere and documented. I’ll be able to contribute a lot if the next team that comes (possibly as soon as February) decides to take this project on. I could come back, in a year or two. And all of my other work here went quite well.

Hm. I’m not quite to the stage of taking comfort in these things, yet.

[Update: Functional power brick obtained, triage in process...]

Three articles, after the jump. The headlines read: “China to invest $5bn in Congo,” “Alarm over China’s Congo deal,” and “China opens coffers for minerals.” For comparison, D.R. Congo’s GNP was less than $7bn, in 2005.

Screw the IMF and its conditional loans, hm?

(tnx to Desiree for the articles)

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Healing Arts is a crafts production studio near the hospital where women who are awaiting fistula repair surgery can learn valuable skills before returning home. From the HEALAfrica blog:

This new program was begun in September 2006 to support women recovering from fistula repair in improving their income-generation skills. They are making and selling skirts, tops, bracelets, placemats, baskets and baby layettes.

Before Healing Arts, most of the 120 women waiting for or recovering from fistula surgery were hopeless and wandering. If a woman returned home with nothing to show from her time away, she would continue to be looked upon as a worthless.

With the skills and income they gain from the program, the women who come here to heal (physically, emotionally, after horrific experiences) have a chance to start over when they return home. Here’s Dada, working on a purse using one of those awesome, foot-powered, built-like-a-tank singer sewing machines:

And here is Francine, showing Desiree a wrap skirt:

I got a shirt, today; the most Congolese one I could find. My guess is that I’ll have few occasions to wear it, back home. But at $10, I couldn’t resist. Francine took a photo for me:

In fact, I took a lot of photos and wrote down the prices of various things that the women had put on display in the showroom. They make really nice clothing and woven purses, baskets, and mats. Here’s my limited-time offer; put in an order in the comments (or send me an email.) I’ll spot you the cash and bring you back whatever you want. Think of it as free credit and delivery. It’s for a good cause, and the prices can’t be beat. You have less than a week, or until my suitcase fills up. I already have an order for 40 bracelets

See the impromptu “catalog,” after the jump… Read the rest of this entry »

Just posted a bunch of new photos on Flickr. Nothing about my work, just fun and games. The other sets to come, later:

• Random scenes of Goma and friends
• Photos taken by Anaise, the world’s cutest four-year-old
• Maji Matulivu, the house where I’m staying
• Hanging out at Pieter’s Chimpanzee sanctuary

Goma city power has been working more consistently than usual, this week, so I’ve been letting the Flickr Uploadr run while I sleep

Mugunga is a large area outside Goma where many have fled to during the conflicts and natural disasters of the last decade. In the last month, its population has swelled once again, as people have moved there to keep safe from the fighting North and West of Goma. I’ve included an excellent article by journalist Dominic Johnson, if you want to read more about the situation. This Flickr pool also has good images of the camp.

The Goma Student Fund has run a small primary school in Mugunga for the past year. The kids just started their new year, last Monday, so Eve (Devon’s sister) and I headed out there to visit, say hello to the kids, and observe some of the classes.

We didn’t know what to expect, but thankfully, the chaos of Mugunga hasn’t reached the area where the school is situated. Joseph, the director, told us that a they’ve taken on about a dozen kids from families that have fled to the area, but the school year has otherwise begun without a hitch.

As we drove on the main road out of Goma, we passed through a checkpoint of heavily armed Congolese government troops, armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. As far as I could tell, this was the edge of town that the army was planning to hold, should Goma come under attack. Just beyond there was the turnoff into Mugunga. There’s a UN presence in Mugunga (we politely made way for this armored carrier), but it seemed clear that Mugunga was outside of the protective bounds of Goma.

The Goma Student Fund school was a relative oasis of tranquility and smiles. Joseph and Prosper took us on a tour of the facilities, introducing us to each class and pointing out high-priority improvements that they would like to make to the facilities. In each classroom, the kids would all stand and shout “Bonjour, visiteurs!” in unison. Most aren’t city kids and are less used to us strange muzungus, so we got a mix of smiles and awed stares:

The rooms are packed; 40-50 kids per teacher. That might be an unmanageable class size in the states, but in Mugunga, you can have four kids to a bench, sitting elbow to elbow. They’ll quietly take in each lesson. When they have them, the kids will even happily share notebooks and pens: These guys know that they’re lucky to be in school. In addition, the Congolese teaching style is primarily didactic. The teacher lectures: the kids listen. For better or worse, the kids are not encouraged to speak out of turn or ask too many questions.

I’ll try to come back in the coming weeks; next time, I’ll try to stay and sit in on some classes. I really hope that this school year goes well for the little ones, despite the instability they know is just outside the school walls.

Read the Dominic Johnson article after the jump.

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A handful of us ventured out into town for lunch, yesterday, and found a swanky Rwandan joint called Soleil (Rwandan cosmopolitanism vs. Congolese hickdom is a frequent topic of debate; I won’t get into it, here.) On the veranda, a band was practicing, with a bunch of their dancers going at it out front. I was fascinated, so I took some video. This was pieced together from screenshots:

The movement is difficult to describe or to see from the montage, above. The closest thing to it that I’ve seen is krumping. The music itself was tame, in comparison, a variant of N’Dombolo:

Another notable feature in Congo culture is its sui generis music. The DROC has blended its ethnic musical sources with Cuban rumba, and meringue to give birth to soukous. Influential figures of soukous and its offshoots (n’dombolo, rumba rock…) are Franco Luambo, Tabu Ley, Lutumba Simaro, Papa Wemba, Koffi Olomide, Kanda Bongo, Ray Lema, Mpongo Love, Abeti Masikini, Reddy Amisi, Pepe Kalle and Nyoka Longo.

I’ll try to post something on YouTube, when I get home.

I would love to go see some live bands while I’m in Goma, but I would have to find safe (boring) places like this one. I’ve been warned several times by expats not to go to Congolese-only clubs at night. They say that I’d be looted upon entry. True or not, I’ll take their word for it until someone tells me otherwise.

UPDATE: Uploaded!

After almost a week of being stalled, I’m finally making good progress on OpenMRS. The problem turned out to be a stupid one: Corrupted files that I had downloaded from the OpenMRS site. Once I got onto the forums, the very responsive developers there were able to help me figure out the problem.

Geek details after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »