Life and work in the DRC

 We have now been in the Democratic Republic of Congo (sometimes called Congo Kinshasa to distinquish it from its neighbor, Congo Brazzaville) for almost a month. We landed in Kinshasa as planned, but with only 1 piece of luggage. Obviously flight operations (of all sorts) are totally out of wack. We left the US late and therefore missed our flight in Paris. We then heard stories of a strike of baggage workers in Paris and saw some pretty apololyptic video of the baggage situation there. But, over the next 3 weeks, we did get all of our missing luggage! We were very impressed with the office in the airport that was directing the effort to recover missing bags and reunite them with their owners!

7 days after landing in Kinshasa, we were on our way to Bunia, one of the bases that Medair has in the East of the country. Medair's work is concentrated in Nord Kivu & Ituri provinces. And that work is based on life-saving assistance to internally displaced persons (IDPs) who have been chased from their homes because of the violence perpetrated by the over 100 armed groups in the east of the country. We have found out that often the health care workers flee with the other civilians when there is an attack. 

An IDP sourrounding a health center supported by Medair

The work is quite different from the work in Bangladesh, where we had our own health centers and nutrition centers. In Congo, Medair supports government-run health centers (-run, but not government-funded: the staff and centers are financed through fees) which do both health and nutrition work. Then the water and sanitation (WASH) department of Medair comes alongside the health & nutrition work to improve WASH facilities at these health centers. When Medair signs a MoU with a health facility, it means that the facility is responding to the needs of IDPs. Medair supports the facility in every possible way, including giving a stipend to health staff so that IDPs can receive health care free of charge. In addition Medair provides medical and nutrition supplies, WASH support, supervision (to assure proper care and management) and emergency support. 

It has been very good for Christine to be at the Bunia base as it has allowed her to get out and see what the work really looks like. Visiting 4 different locations where Medair is working has given her insight into the context that we work in, the challenges that our staff face, and the difficult realities of people Medair serves - both those who are internally displaced as well as the host communities. This part of the country is really quite beautiful with rolling hills, covered either in forests or farmland. However it also is conducive to the armed groups being able to operate as the road infrastructure is not well developed. On one two day trip to a location that Christine was visiting she literally bounced in the landcruiser for about 5 /12 hrs each day - going and coming. More to come on Christine's work in the future!

Phil's work has revolved around getting to know the logs aspect of Medair's Congo work. He has been able to see some of the weaknesses that exist in the execution of logs tasks in Bunia. And he has been working with the team there to set up framework agreements with vendors 

Picture from the LandCruiser
going out to a site

for some of the vital services or supplies that the team needs. These framework agreements really help the procurement task! He has also gotten involved in the final report for a project that ended the end of June - reporting on gift in kind (GIK) distributed through this project, equipment depreciation on equipment bought through this project (or previous ones from this donor) and writing the narrative about supply chain challenges (which will be the subject of another blog - there are a ton of them!). This is all pretty mundane logistics tasks, but all of them have been helpful in putting the logs puzzle together (still working at that)!

Some of you may have heard (if you follow international news - I believe it made the front page of the BBC news website) of the unrest in Eastern Congo over the last week. This has been largely restricted to 3 different cities. And it has revolved around looting and rioting against the presence of the the UN peacekeeping force, MONUSCO, here in Eastern Congo. The discontent has to do with feeling like MONUSCO's presence isn't really protecting people. So there are those who say that MONUSCO should withdraw. This article is a pretty good summary of the reality. Things have been calm the the last couple of days. But there will be some funerals of protesters on Monday which we pray will not become a flashpoint. 

There was hope that we would get our permanent visas yesterday or tomorrow. We haven't heard that we have gotten them yet. We are scheduled to fly to Goma on Wednesday for a strategic planning meeting. And the hope was that we would be able to simply stay there as we would have our passports back. We are not sure how that will all play out. But it has been very good to be in Bunia and see the work here. We are thankful!

Some of you may have contributed to Medair in the past, so we though you might be interested in looking at the Annual report: https://www.medair.org/annual-report-2021/. 

Also, before we left Bangladesh, we talked about the hunger stalking the world (exacerbated by the war in Ukraine). Here is a blog from the Medair CEO on the issue of global hunger. 

Thanks for walking with us as we work in DRC!

Praise: 

• For progress on our visas
• For our luggage getting to us in Congo!
• For a great start to our time in Congo
• For amazing Medair colleagues - both Congolese and international

Prayer:

• For our visas to be issued
• For peace to prevail on Monday during the funerals for protesters 
• For the few remaining Bangladeshi colleagues who have not gotten jobs
• For Phil to assemble the pieces of the logs jigsaw puzzle in order to better understand strengths and weaknesses
• For Phil to be effective in delegating so that he can, from the beginning, think strategically about the logs aspect of our work
• For a peace based on justice in Eastern Congo and with its neighbors
• For people of peace to prevail in the current challenge of riots against MONUSCO
• For Medair getting their customs convention signed in Congo - since coming I have learned that this is a problem for most non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
• For Manu finishing up his undergraduate studies well, and the Lord's leading for next steps