Update From the Field - August 8, 2014

Hello everyone! I know its been over two months since my last e-mail update. Today is my 30^th birthday (my secret birthday wish was for a hot shower and some chocolate. The shower was not cold per se... so I count that as 0.5 down, 1 to go!), and I just received an awesome happy birthday video from my family as well as the little birthday package my mother sent back with me for today so so far so good. I thought I would take the occasion as an excellent time to think through what I’ve been up to all this time here in the Congo – in the process, this e-mail update wrote itself ;)

Some of it will be re-cap for those of you who have been reading my regular blog, but I’ve tried to do just a little summary of all the highlights in this update. For those of you who read the regular blog, feel free to skip to about half-way through to where the new stuff starts (though there are some new videos that weren't on the regular blog updates :)

Enjoy!

***

So my last update a couple months ago in May ended right before we started making solid plans to visit the Equateur province of the DRC in order to evaluate the possibility of staring a new endeavor there to help with the pregnant refugees who are dying from childbirth complications at an alarming rate. The planning of the trip had to start with a visit to the local travel agent’s office in order to get flight prices. As you can see from this picture, the travel agency office is a little sketchy…

But the actual agency itself seems rather reputable – the plans for this trip are still in the works, although it looks like I won’t be able to join the expedition since my time in Congo is quickly coming to a close.

Next, it was time to pack up Dr. Imani’s clinic here in Bukavu so that he could start making plans to open the new clinic in Kavumu. You may recall that Dr. Imani is an ob/gyn who has a passion for providing dignified care to vulnerable communities in the villages. We are supporting his efforts and trying to help him open up his new clinic. You can see the video we shot of him talking about his work here on youtube:

Here are a couple of pictures of us packing up the clinic and hoisting it all up the hill to the truck at the roadside.

Shortly after packing Dr. Imani up, we joined him and his team for a mobile clinic mission into the Kavumu area. It was really neat, we set up in a tiny health clinic and people came all day to have a chance to see the specialists and receive medication. Dominique and I got to bring along our supply of reusable sanitary pads and hygienic home birth kits to give out to the women of child-bearing age. I got to demonstrate giving birth on the floor several times… here are a couple of pictures and a rough video of me explaining what we were up to.

Later on we went to see a possible site for the café Dominique is hoping to open in order to provide steady funding for Channel Initative's work here. She used to be a barista and is very excited about the idea.

Over the last two months I have attended two workshop/meeting type things organized by Dr. Mukwege in order to help his staff understand the vision and direction that the Hospital plans to go in when it comes to providing a full range of services to survivors of sexual violence. He is an excellent speaker and it was really neat to be at both meetings. At the moment he is at the Whitehouse representing the DRC at the African Leaders Summit (Congo’s president, Joseph Kabila, is also there…)

One weekend some Swiss friends of ours had the notion that we should go climb one of DRC’s many beautiful mountains. I thought this sounded like a great idea (forgetting entirely my vow never to climb a mountain again when I last was silly enough to so at Mount Washington) so off we went. It was neat for the first hour. The forest is beautiful and about halfway up one goes through a huge bamboo forest which, when the wind blows even slightly, makes it sound like you're is in a wicker furniture warehouse during an earthquake. Quite surreal.

After the first hour of continuous steep incline I hazarded to ask (by wheezing) my heavily armed guide (see photo above...) how much further to the top. He assured me that we were almost there. About 20 minutes later, sure enough we reached a beautiful clearing. It was then that he congratulated me on my achievement and let me know that there were only two more peaks to climb before reaching the summit. … yeah… Here you can see a picture of the place from which I was standing when I received this news. And in the foreground you see the second peak he referred to, and behind that, the third.

Well, this 30 year-old wasn’t having any of that. I collapsed right where I was and assured the rest of the group I would remain right there until they returned from the breathtaking peaks at the top. The Swiss mountain people then proceeded to almost skip lightly away up the rest of the mountain, chattering away about the weather, while I was flat on the ground attempting to regain some pulmonary composure. My friend Muriel from Physicians for Human Rights found me there and had the exact same idea, so we hung out in the sun together for about 3 hours while waiting for the Swiss pros to return. Dominique never showed up, turns out she had given up quite a bit behind us and had returned to the welcome centre for some eggs and a nap. Why didn’t I think of that.

The day after my mountain experience it was time to return home to Toronto for precisely 7 days for Kara and Meghan's wedding. It was a really short trip, but a lot of fun. Here you can see some pictures of the wedding festivities.

  

While I was home I took a day to also drive to Quebec where I picked up this suitcase of donated medicines for Dr. Imani’s clinic. Thanks Collaboration Santé Internationale!

And I took another day to drive to Niagara Falls, NYC to pick up this solar suitcase that will provide light and solar power to Dr. Imani’s clinic. Thanks WeCareSolar!

On my way back to the Congo I had a 9 hour layover in Amsterdam. I’ve never been there before so I took the opportunity to go into the heart of the city and see the sights. Unfortunately, it was a very cold and rainy day… but I had a little fun anyways. I took a boat tour in the canals and I also got to taste 20+ kinds of cheese at this cheese shop/factory.

After Amsterdam I spent 5 days in the capital of the country of Burundi, where I was waiting for a friend of mine to arrive and take me back to Congo with her. Given my tight budget, I didn’t do much in Burundi except catch up on some computer work and stroll around. I did have to buy some toothpaste the first night, whereupon I found this exciting new brand:

In a way, its really effective marketing because as soon as I saw the name I felt the need to brush my teeth vigourously. However, Crust's clever marketing ploy backfired for them because my impulse to immediately clean my teeth was directed towards absolutely any other kind of toothpaste available besides this one. I bought a tube of Colgate and got down to business.

A week after I arrived in Bukavu, my good friend Christina Gagnon came to pay me a visit on her way home from Zambia! We had a lovely week together during which I, surprisingly, took no photos of her and I whatsoever. Sorry about that. But I DID get her to do a special star cameo appearance in the video we were making. It is an attempt to use a bit of humour to explain why we are trying to raise money to build chicken coops at the health centres that we support. The staff who work there and the patients who live there temporarily have little to eat all day and nowhere really to go to find nutritious food. If we can start a productive egg and chicken coop sort of thing, it should help to subsidize their needs and prop up staff morale.

This isn’t the final version of our video, its just a draft I had some fun editing, but you get the idea.

About a week after Christina came to visit, it was time to visit Kavumu again to help Dr. Imani add the finishing touches to the clinic building in time for its grand opening on August 11! We brought the medicines and solar suitcase that I had taken back with me from my trip home and went through the contents with Dr. Imani and Dr. Racine. They were happy about the medicines but were absolutely enamored with the Solar Suitcase. Here you can see Dr. Imani getting all excited about the headlamp and demonstrating how useful it will be during his gynecological examinations and treatments…

Here are some other pics of that trip to Kavumu and a picture I took of our 1 hour motorcycle ride back home afterwards.

Which brings me to yesterday when we had a surprise trip out to our other site, the village of Kilungutwe. Our friends over at “Food for the Hungry” were available to go to Kilungutwe for the day and invited us to join them. We are hoping to partner with them in our efforts to open a  proper health clinic there. You will see why that is necessary in the pictures that follow.

So Kilungutwe is the site where 80% of all the work that I do is focused. I had never actually been there, but most of the fundraising, advocating and supply-sourcing that I have been doing here in Congo has been in order to build a completely new health centre in this area and you will see why in a second. Unlike Kavumu and Mulamba which I have visited in the past and written about in my earlier posts, the medical situation in Kilungutwe is pretty dire.

There are two clinic type places in the area at the moment. Here is a picture of the first one. They don’t do any surgeries or complicated treatments here, its more just a place to recuperate and receive medications. It is the government-run clinic:

Down the road from that government-run clinic is this private clinic:

We did a walk through. As you can see, there is no power or lighting in the centre. The walls and floor are dirt and the patients lay 2 or 3 to a bed in these pitch black rooms day and night. The beds are basically wooden pallets constructed close to the ground. It felt like we were touring some sort of terrible dungeon of medical procedures as we were going through there. 

This is the gynecologist who runs the clinic. He charges $4 to see a patient, $7 to perform an uncomplicated delivery and $50 to do a C-section. That’s right, he does C-sections on that red table you can see in the background of this picture below.  You can see the instruments he uses to do it sitting on the table in front of him. He pulled them out from under the operating bed when we asked him about them.

Dominique had brought 40 hygienic home birth kits to give out to women in the area, but upon seeing the state of things here and finding out that this surgeon had no sterile equipment, knives or bedcovers whatsoever, she decided to give all 40 to him to allow him to at least do his regular deliveries with some semblance of safety. Sigh. What a disaster this place is. During a focus group earlier with some of the women from this village they were asked why they don’t go to the clinic to give birth. A lot of interesting responses were given, but one woman just stood up and said “I don’t go there because I don’t want to die!” I gotta tell ya, I had the same thought when they were talking about trying to encourage village women to come to this clinic. There is no way I’d choose to go here rather than take my chances at home. This village really needs prayer support and help when it comes to the availability of medical care and emergency services.

There was a bright spot at the end of our trip to Kilungutwe, though. As I mentioned, because of the desperate state of things here in this village (the nearest decent hospital is 30kms away and must be gotten to by foot or motorcycle as there is no road), Dominique has been hoping to raise enough money to build a real health centre based on the world-class Panzi model. Well, it seems that another NGO called Maltaser had the same idea and they had gone so far as to build a beautiful building a little ways down the road in order to do just that. But then they abruptly had to pull out of the Congo altogether, abandoning this building which has been locked up ever since. Dominique is hoping to get permission to take it over, equip it and staff it for a brief period to get it on its feet and self-sufficient. Basically the same thing that we’re doing with Dr. Imani’s clinic in Kavumu. Here you can see a picture of the new facility.

I’ve been trying to convince Congo construction companies to donate their time to help us build a facility since I got here, but we will be able to save a ton of money and stress if we can start with a building already built and available! Now its just a matter of getting the funds for supplies and staff, which I am still working on.

Well, that pretty much brings you up to date as to where I am at. As of today I have about 20 days before I return to Canada. First to Toronto for Carolyn’s wedding and then back to Quebec City. I am really looking forward to returning home, but I will certainly be sad to see my time in Congo come to an end. Dominique is still here and I will continue to work with Channel Initiative both as their Legal Advisor and also continuing to try and source supplies and funds for the clinic in Kilungutwe and Dr. Imani's Clinic in Kavumu.

I know this update is pretty long, but hopefully you enjoyed the pictures and have a better idea of what I’ve been up to in this part of the world. Congo definitely still needs your prayers, especially in support of the doctors and other dedicated professionals committed to bringing hope and a better quality of life to these people.

I have a yearly habit of trying to memorize my birthday psalm the night before my birthday (an old Jewish tradition I picked up from my days at the synagogue) and I found this to be a pertinent prayer of hope for the people in pain in this lovely country:

Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. [...] You hid your face and I was troubled. I cried out to You, O Lord. [...] You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, to the end that my glory may sing praise to You and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever. 
Psalm 30:4-12

There are lots of amazing things that God is doing in the lives of the people He has made and placed in the DRC. It has been awe-inspiring to see His work amidst the ashes of suffering that have plagued this place for so long.

I hope you all are well and thanks so much for your encouragement and prayers during my time here. It has meant a lot to me.


Now off to find that chocolate... ;)


Yours truly,


Genna.