Accounting in Congo

I have been in Congo for 4 weeks, and time to blog about why I came.  Ach, say the word accounting and I think only my friends in the accounting department where I worked until retiring will bother to read this.  I get it, accounting is boring. Although, the Director of Development at the school I worked for years ago said I was a creative accountant.   I know it was meant as a high compliment, but I was never completely convinced…

The school uses Quickbooks Pro 2007 (QB) to manage their accounting records.  However, much of the finances are really managed by lots of bits of papers and cash. Everything in cash, US dollars cash. I was not expecting this, but this part of Congo has no functional banking system.  Few checks are written; most transactions are handled in cash. Things are bought and sold in cash, people are paid in cash. Plenty of receipts, plenty (!) of paper, and I wonder if this was what life was largely like for Bob Cratchett (of Christmas Carol fame), hunched over his desk keeping paper ledgers for Scrooge . Credit cards are accepted in Kinshasa, but I understand even there (the capital) only a very few places accept them.  Bunia feels like an underground economy, but I am not sure you can have an underground economy if everything above ground is cash too. Collecting any income taxes must be a real challenge. The treasury must be starved for funds, which makes the customs levies all make sense.

The school’s books mirror the economic life of Bunia, and transactions are recorded as they happen.   But hard to track what to expect if you only record what you get when you get it.  At first, I could not understand hardly anything about the school’s books, as things were recorded so differently.  But I kept asking questions.... My primary project, as it developed,  is putting in place a student billing system to bill students at the beginning of the school term. My work experience at a school years back allowed me to understand what needed to be done, but I am not familiar with the accounting software this school uses. I think I could have figured it out, but the books are in French, and I can read just enough French to make it all very frustrating.  I thought it a huge mistake to have come, because I could not navigate the software well enough to figure out how to implement this in their system.  But my church came to the rescue. I am so grateful for their help.  They sent me an old copy of Quickbooks 2008 (close enough!) in English, and I have been able to make real progress.

After being here for 4 weeks, I will finally start tomorrow to migrate hundreds of tuition account receivable balances around their balance sheet to make a way for a student billing system.  I have offered suggestions on making changes to their income statement and balance sheet, and some operational suggestions as well. The books will still not be GAAP, but I think that is not so important here. What they will be able to have is more transparent reporting about how they are doing and the ability to forecast accurately where they will land at year-end.

There are two more projects I can tackle if I have time, and I think I might be able to get to them.  The dispensaire needs an inventory and billing system. While I have never worked with accounting for inventory, QB should be able to support this, and it will be a bit of an interesting challenge to figure it out. Okay, maybe only an accountant would say that…  But they could really use some help on that. And there is a primary/secondary school on campus, not part of the university, but connected - the University sort of acts like their bank, keeping their funds and paying their staff. They need their books set up, because they are going to start managing their own recordkeeping in the upcoming school year.They will be using QB as well.

To give you a flavor for how things work here, the school acts like a bank for a number of people/entities, since the banking system is not that reliable and fees are quite high. Foreign businessmen (mostly Chinese) come to Bunia to sell their goods, and since it is a cash economy, at the end of their selling, they have thousands in US dollars. It is not very safe for them to carry that cash back to their country.  USB is a school that needs lots of dollars (until a few months ago, all salaries were paid in cash) for their operating expenses. So the businessmen give their cash to the University and the University wires funds from the school’s account in Kenya to their banks in China. It all works and everyone gets what they need – funds safely in China and the dollars in Bunia to keep the operations going.  (Of course, all tuition is paid in cash, too…) I marvel at the resourcefulness, but also remember that when I was a Controller, I hardly ever even saw money.  In America, accounting is so much more about controls and process, here it is so much more about handling hard currency.

Updating on other matters:

It has rained some, and they say the rainy season has started, even if much delayed.  Not that much rain, but the days are cloudier, and it is a bit cooler. Although that is relative, as the temperature is pretty much between 23C and 28C year round.  Weather wise, this place would be ideal for US retirees, sort of Florida like, only much nicer. They just need to build roads, develop reliable electricity, have safe water, a good banking system and a postal service, deal with the rebels,  and oh yeah, the malaria thing… Hmm, I guess the developers are not going to rush in… Well, no nice shopping either, but I figure the developers would have managed to fix that one…

It is day 23 without electricity, and I am getting used to it.  No word on when it might come back. Nights are very dark. Several people have checked in on me to see how I am managing alone, and I am now on my fifth book. Nothing much to do recreation wise, except reading, so it is good that I like to read. I am very appreciative of my Kindle, thank you Rachel, and glad to be having this adventure now and not ten years ago before there were Kindles!

Now that the Witmer’s have left, Kwinie is cooking some African fare for me, and I am enjoying that very much. They don’t have ovens here, so everything is cooked on stovetops, just like in Morocco.  I am up to about 12 words or so in Swahili, and able to now be polite to people in Swahili as they pass me in the streets. I can say jaumbo (hello), and ha-bari (how are things) with a measure of confidence! Don’t quote me on the spelling though!  Asante.

Alone...

I am now by myself in the house.  Ted and Dana left for the US Friday, and will not be back until September. I was aware that Ted and Dana would be leaving for the US about 4 weeks after I arrived and would not return to Bunia until after I left.  That would mean 7 weeks more or less on my own.  I hesitated to come here at first, but felt that God opened this opportunity, and He would provide a way. I am glad I did not know that life in Bunia is so difficult; I would probably not have come, and I would have missed the opportunity to serve these wonderful people at USB, and learn a bit about the people and culture of this beautiful country that has seen so much grief and so much pain.

Still, I laugh now, saying to myself, “What was I thinking?”    I can’t even speak French!  These past few weeks have been an introduction to one of the least developed nations in Africa, and one I could not have imagined.  There are no paved roads.  It is not safe to travel after dark and it is dark 12 hours a day.  Even modest homes have bars on their windows and the more substantial ones have not only bars, but walls and metal gates and barbed wire (or glass shards) embedded on top of their concrete walls.  The police can only walk around on their patrols, while so many of the young men zoom about on motorcycles. Even some of the missionaries I have met joke, ‘Welcome to the end of the earth.’ A Samaritan’s Purse field rep I met said  he has travelled to 30 African nations and Bunia is just about the least developed city he has seen, only Freetown, Serra Leone being worse. Yet, these Congolese manage and exhibit great ingenuity amid poverty, health and infrastructure issues. I marvel at the at the way they simply get on with life, constructing sofas and chairs outside in the open, selling recycled everything in the marketplace, sewing clothes using a manual sewing machine outside under the round shelters, washing clothes outside in large basins, pounding manioc root, and cooking outdoors over charcoal fires. The women especially, are very stylish - many with beautifully braided hair, beautiful and impeccable pressed outfits, wearing shoes I can hardly believe are able to walk over the dirt and stone imbedded gullies that pass for roads.  This is a picture of the translator helping me, and so many of the young women around here are dressed very much like her. Très jolie, n’est pas?

 

 I feel a bit more confident about staying on in the house by myself since we have a working generator again. Fourth generator since the power went out 18 days ago. It is a Chinese model, which in Africa usually means cheap.  The Chinese make quality goods, but the saying in Africa is that the good stuff is sent to America and Europe, the junk is shipped to Africa. This fourth generator initially only lasted three hours before it seized up, and Ted took it back. They would not return his money, but they did fix it, and I am going to treat it gingerly in hopes that it will go the distance. The Honda generator is kaput for now, needs new rings, and Ted is hoping to buy the parts in Kampala (Uganda) on his way back to the states and send them back to Bunia on a MAF flight (remember, no postal service in Bunia; even the University's PO box is in Kampala, which by the way, is in another country...) so repairs can be made. This working generator should be able to give the house power for 4-5 hours a day - lights, recharging my cell phone and the laptops, with enough ‘juice’ left over to plug in the fridge for a few hours (I will use the freezer section as my refrigerator) OR pump the water into the tanks. Not enough to heat water or turn on the oven, so cold showers for now, and only eating food that can be cooked over a kerosene burner.  Hmm, this is sounding a bit like camp. I wonder if I can buy marshmallows, Hershey bars and graham crackers in a douka…

Ted, Kwienie (the cook, born the year Queen Elizabeth was coroneted, hence her name, although probably not spelled this way) and I went over the food arrangements the day before the Witmer’s left. Kwienie and I both needed Ted to moderate the conversation because Kwienie speaks Swahili and a little French; I speak English and very, very little French. She will continue to come every day (except Sunday) and cook a hot meal at noon, and do most of the marketing. I had Ted tell her she can start using onions and garlic, and I asked for some African fare.  Should be an adventure! And I wrote down (phonetically) in Swahili the words yes, no, good and bad, so I can communicate a little, at least about how I am liking the food! I am up to 12 words in Swahili now.  I might just get better at Swahili than I am at French. But I do have this French phrase down pat: Je ne parle pas française. Je parle anglais. Pardon moi. I must be getting better at saying this, because sometimes they just start talking away in French at me. 

 

Once I used a French phrase I learned, one to communicate that I am not lost.  I take a walk nearly every afternoon for about an hour, and some people feel I must be lost, seeing this white maman walking about the roads, so I learned a French phrase to let people know I was not lost and did not need help. I carefully repeated my rehearsed phrase to one man who had stopped me, asking if I needed help (at least I am sure that is what he was asking), and he just looked at me and asked, en française, whether I spoke French or English.  When I said, en française, English, he just looked at me and said emphatically in perfect English, ‘So what is your problem?”  I felt a bit defeated, and I just had to laugh at myself.  

 

So I am trying hard to focus on, and remember, that I worship Jehovah Jirah, the God who provides. Next post, maybe something about what I have been doing. I have found that challenging, too!

 

 

Peeing refrigerators and other facts of life

My hosts keep pointing out things I might want to talk about in my blog.  Hence, peeing refrigerators, which I image sounds pretty unappetizing.  Today is day 13 without power. Gas is expensive here, about $8 a gallon, and very expensive given the average wage paid in Congo.  One must be judicious about when and how long to run a generator. At our house, it is being run in the morning for 4- 5 hours, enough to charge laptops and telephones, and again for about 3 hours in the evening, which provides lights (sundown is around 6 PM, no long lingering spring/summer evenings like in the US this time of year) and again, the power to recharge laptops if needed. An unexpected expense – costly for a family (although most would not have a generator) and eating into the profits of businesses. So the refrigerator’s freezer is now more or less the refrigerator for keeping things cold.  It seems to be continually defrosting, and small rivulets of water trickles over the kitchen floor…  Ah, a peeing refrigerator.

Yes, a long haul on the electricity, although there are rumors that power is coming back soon. There were even rumors that this was announced on the radio, although I am not sure those rumors should get any more credence. That was three days ago. There are a number of stories as to what happened. No official explanation and no one seems upset that an explanation was not forthcoming, but the most credible story is that a man threw a chain over electrical wires to short them out so he could steal the copper wiring without harming himself. Unfortunately for all of Bunia, he did not target ancillary transmission wires. He shorted out primary wires coming out of the hydroelectric plant, which fried some major plant equipment.

Even without power, life goes on here and no on hardly mentions it, except us ex-pats. I try to take an hour walk every day and the sound of humming generators is heard everywhere. The schools are open and the children sing, people sit in their douka, selling wares…   But keeping food safe to eat is a concern.  It is not hot here, only about 80 degrees during the day, but the temperature never varies much, and it is humid (in spite of no rain!), so mold grows easily. The Witmers always kept everything in the refrigerator, but that is a feeble option now, and food is spoiling quickly. The WItmer’s will decommission the fridge for their time away, so unless the electricity comes back on, I will be without refrigeration come Friday.  And given the track record with power, I would want to clean out and turn off the fridge too if I were going to be away for three months.  The last thing they need when they come back in September is a moldy fridge.

 I am a bit more concerned about the generator, which is not working well. It has been out for repairs twice, and it will be hard to do my project if I cannot charge my laptop.  The school’s Quickbooks program is older (2007), but it is the last version produced in French so they cannot upgrade. It cannot run on a system higher than XP.  I have it loaded on a school XP, but the battery life is only about 2 hours, so recharging (or plugging it in to a power source) is critical.

I haven’t really been given a full tour of Bunia, but have accompanied either Dana or Ted on a few errands, and I meander around when I take my walks.  Since USB is located in the heart of the city, I have a pretty good idea of the layout of the land.  Dana was taking some of the thermal rolls I brought over in the suitcases to the central hospital, so I got to see what the main government hospital looks like. Rwankola Hospital is so much nicer!  The main hospital was build back in the colonel era, well-built and still standing, large and laid out for a tropical climate. But it was meager and sparse and in need of a major refurbishing. So many women outside cooking and washing their clothes and bed sheets, caring for their sick relations.  No running water, no bathrooms. We walked through the pediatric ward, and its intensive care does not even have oxygen, let alone any monitoring equipment. Dana said that when it is really crowded, they put two people to a bed!  It probably made a stronger impression on me because of my own medical forays to the hospital during the past couple of years, but honestly, it was hard to see this and not be moved.  We dropped off the rolls at the lab, and I saw the blood bank.  Four pints of blood total for the entire hospital.

Today I saw a large tractor shovel like machine spreading dirt on the road, smoothing out the holes and gullies a bit. Personally, I wonder if the Governor of the Province, who came to Bunia to see about the power problem, was taken aback by the roads, and ordered something to be done. Dana said they do this periodically, but the dirt is soft and  lasts only until the rain comes. Of course, no rain in sight right now.  The few main roads they ‘fixed’ today were extremely dusty.  And more dangerous, as the motorcycles can get up to 30 (kilometers, about 25 miles an hour), which is the speed limit, although until today, I hadn’t seen anyone able to go that fast.  There are so many motorcycles and they weave and bobble. There is no left side or right side of the road for any driver, you drive where you can navigate. But the people are so resourceful, transporting even full size sofas on those motorcycles.

Okay, next time, maybe I will talk about the university.  Different than America, to be sure, and my hat is off to the students.

 

PS Internet service is simply not good enough to put in pictures at the moment. So sorry, as I have some good ones and a picture is worth a thousand words.

A morning at Rwankole

Rwankole is the hospital where Dana practices her pediatric skills two days a week, and sometimes more. I was invited to tag along with her morning rounds in the pediatric ward, and then observe her clinic appointments. My translator came along to translate for me. I guess no HIPA law concerns in the Congo…

Main entrance to Rwankole

Rwankole was across town, about 3-4 miles, and getting there was the most jarring 20 minute drive I have ever experienced. I was thinking as Dana drove, that there are worse roads than the ones around the school, and I sent pictures of the road conditions before I had done a proper survey. The hospital just built a new pediatric ward, so I was expecting, well I don’t know what I was expecting, but somehow a bit more than what I found…  The ward is a small building with one big room, and no medical equipment other than a scale for weighing, and some homemade IV poles.  In this room were a dozen or so metal


Pediatric ward

 

Mother watching her child being bathed by nurse

beds, each with a thin and well-worn plastic mat, a foam mattress and a bed sheet. Mothers were holding and rocking their sick children - the mothers take care of them, and cook their (and their child’s) meals outside and wash their clothes in plastic bins, as needed. No complaints on hospital food, I suspect. The walls were freshly painted, and the ward had the same poured concrete floor you find in nearly every building, including homes. With the dust, concrete floor are really the most practical, and sanitary too.

Nearly every child had malaria, most also had typhoid and worms. Dana asked about mosquito nets, and whether the child plays in the river, among other questions, a sure invitation for typhoid and worms. Most had enlarged liver and spleens from the worms, but fortunately there is medicine for all of these diseases. She spent time teaching the nursing students gathered round, for nurses provide most of the primary care in Congo. Dana says Rawnkole has a good reputation for providing good care; the difficulty is money to pay for the medicines, for so many are very poor. (For example, a brick maker / layer – a dual job because construction sites tend to make the bricks on site, and then use them for the building - earns about $5 a day, a lot of hard work for money that does not go very far.)

Next was Dana’s clinic appointments - only one that day. But I was invited into the exam room to observe, and when the visit was over, the mother took out a dollar or two, and gave it to Dana to pay for the visit. I certainly did not expect that! While Dana was checking on something, Ruth my translator took me over to view the maternity ward, and a few other areas of the hospital.  The maternity ward was donated by Finland.  It is a common sight to see the flags of other nations on schools and public service facilities, evidence of their donation, and sometimes I wonder if UNICEF, the UN, Samaritans’ Purse, Americare, and other charitable groups are the only employers here. So much damage done by the war… So much need… And there doesn't seem to be good solutions to all the problems.

 

Workmen were busy refurbishing the old pediatric ward.  And the hospital beds donated by Samaritan’s Purse finally cleared customs and were stacked outside, waiting for the ward to be ready.  I took a picture of them, as they are so Spartan looking, not like anything in America. But the internet is so spotty and weak right now, I cannot upload any more pictures.  I tried a few times, and decided better just to go ahead and post this.

 

Still no electricity (day 13) , and I am weighing my options for living once Dana and Ted leave for the US next Friday. (I will be here 7 more weeks on my own.)  There are options, but I am feeling a bit vulnerable.  For those who have asked, the computers are now safely on campus, but under lock and key of customs.  The rector (essentially the President of the school) is working his government contacts to get the issues resolved. I have no idea of the customs amount in play. But this is Congo, and it is what it is…

 

 

High and Dry

One of the rainy seasons in Bunia is March- June, but this has been a very dry rainy season.  Only 2 short rains (each lasting less than half an hour) since I arrived two weeks ago. And it is hotter than usual, getting into the mid-80’s when it is normally in the high 70’s.  (June is supposed to be the coldest month of the year, but that means mid 60’s at night, and mid 70’s during the day.) I can’t complain about the temperature, it really is pretty moderate given that Bunia is 1 degree north of the equator. But the drought continues, and many here are subsistence farmers, with plots outside town, and many crops have been lost.

The  lack of rain is serious for us too,  and serious because we currently have no power. We lost power during the night last Wednesday and were initially told that the outage would last to the weekend. But now we are being told that the breakdown is quite bad, and it could take some time to fix. (Possibly a month or longer…)  There is a gold mining operation not too far away that depends on the same power plant for their electricity, and in that there is hope. They will exert pressure to get the problem fixed, but getting parts can be difficult, so sometimes even pressure doesn’t make it happen any faster. There are three generators at the power plant, but only one is operational, so when it breaks, there is no power. The University is running on generator for part of the day, but after many days, they are starting to have problems too.  Right now, the university is rationing laptop plug- in usage in the library to graduating students, so they can get their thesis done.  (The advent of laptops has been a boon for the university, as students can work on battery power through short outages, which happen every day, but batteries only last so long and have to be recharged.) And adding to that, the school’s internet was migrated onto a new satellite by their service provider, and the provider does not have enough band width for its customers. So the best we can get with the internet right now is email, and even that is problematic. No ability to access the internet otherwise, so I am dependent on the five minute BBC news that comes over a short wave radio to know what is going on in the world. I miss reading the New York Times on-line, and for those of you who know my passion for reading obituaries, I am feeling a bit bereft!

With no power, there is no pumping of the University’s well, so we have no ‘dirty’ water coming into our home, that is, the water used for showering and washing.  (Those in NJ with well water are familiar with no electricity = no water, given Hurricane Sandy last fall.) We are relying on the tank  of collected rain water for all our water needs.  It is nearly half full with about 650 gallons. As drinking water, 650 gallons will last a long time, but we now need to use that for washing and showering, and with the dry season approaching and the need to conserve our drinking water until the rains come again in September, we are on strict water rationing. (I am already dreaming of a long, hot shower, and I need to get over it, as it may be a long, long time…)

And then the Witmer’s generator conked out!  It was being run a few hours a day to connect to email and heat the water OR run the refrigerator OR use one burner on the stove (it can only really power one thing, plus provide lights and recharge our computers, cell phones and for me, my Kindle.)  The Witmer’s leave for the US in ten days, and then I will be here by myself for another 7 weeks, so okay, yes I am starting to get a bit nervous!  Ted borrowed a generator today, so we have power again at the house for 7 hours a day (morning, and three hours in the evenings which is just about the minimum needed to keep the food cold enough not to spoil -well, that and the fridge is wrapped well in a blanket). I am only writing this now because the computer I am working on for the accounting project is older and only has a three hour battery, so I am out of power until the generator is powered up to recharge it. I am concerned because if the power does not come back on, I have no way to get gasoline for the generator myself.  I am sure the Witmer’s will assign someone to look in on me, but still… I already don’t know how I will communicate with Kwienie, the cook, or Nguana, the outside man, as neither speaks a word of English.  I have learned a bit of French and even a few words of Swahili, but not enough to say anything that makes sense.  However, I am finding that many at the University speak some English, far more than I expected, so I am going to hold on to that as my comfort right now.  I am sure it will work out one way or another, but I am gaining in my appreciation and admiration for people who come to the US and have to navigate our largely ‘English only’ culture…

God is in this, too, so I am not alone!   I accompanied Dana to see one of the support group leaders today , and it was humbling to see how a Congolese family lives. If I never have any gasoline to run the generator, I am living in a palace.  No open door to let the mosquitos in, or the roosters, and we still have running water, so my lips are sealed of complaint this evening!

A bientôt

Business as usual in the Congo

Running a business, including a school, has to be very frustrating in the Congo. The Congo is ranked as the 3^rd most corrupt business environment of the 168 countries in the world, at least by one internet search I did before I came over.  (I had mistakenly thought #3 was a good thing, because a higher number was good on another web site of rankings. It didn’t sound right that the Congo’s business structure was that pristine, and now I know I gravely misunderstood!) As if near impassable roads, lack of good drinking water, no postal service to speak of, and a sketchy electrical supply (electricity went off early Wednesday morning and we are being told maybe power by the weekend – I am in a university office and hardwired connected to the internet to post this blog), is not discouragement enough here in Bunia, it is difficult to navigate the government rules about business matters.

Like all governments, the Congo assesses customs on imported goods. But Congo does not have a ‘Walmart’ mentality about imports – import a lot of stuff and tax it a little to raise a lot of money. Instead, it has a high customs tax on imported goods which makes the Congo not competitive for international companies to come in, and hard for local business to be able to invest in new equipment to expand, or even import parts at a reasonable cost to keep existing things working.  And because the official customs rate is very high, customs are often ‘negotiated’ at the local level and the monies collected don’t always (often?) reach the coffers of the government, reinforcing the cycle of high official tariffs and more ‘negotiated’ rates at the local level. And at the local level, the assessments may bear little relation to published rates. The University brought in some computer parts to repair existing equipment at a cost of about $300; customs assessed over $200, in large part because the local authorities decided it was worth more. I heard one story (although it was about Uganda customs) in which a German NGO (US equivalent of a humanitarian not-for-profit org) sent toothbrushes to distribute, and the ‘customs’ assessed was more than the goods were worth. These types of imports are supposed to be exempt from any duty, but local authorities use ‘discretion’ sometimes, to the harm of its own people. Right now, the university is trying to get 132 refurbished laptops through customs, and there is a fine pending because a disputed import document. (They have not started the customs discussion yet.) They are sitting at the airport, and Ted asked if the university could at least transport them to the school and keep them locked up, with customs having the key, until the customs can sort out the fine and duty.  But they said doing that would require the permission of a committee consisting of 5 people, and only 4 of the people were available to make the decision, so the laptops sit at the airport, and there is the danger that some will go missing.  Whatever the frustrations with, and poor rules of, the US government may be, they are not so onerous as to make it impossible for most of us to live and prosper. Here, almost all the people suffer.

Banks are not generally trusted, so the economy is primarily a cash and carry enterprise. A local bank failed several years back, and many people lost their money (no such thing as deposit insurance!) which added to the mistrust. Not many have bank accounts. So you have to carry money with you everywhere. (But I’m told it used to be much worse in the old days, when inflation resulted in an exchange rate of 4 million Congolese francs to the dollar, and buying anything in francs required real muscles.) Most everything here is purchased and sold in USD; even the university books are kept in USD, which is easier for me, and probably for the finance people too, as the exchange rate is 900 CF to the dollar, and that would be a lot of zeros if the books were stated in CF. But the cash economy makes robbery a more potent concern. Much of local commerce is conducted at (very!) small local stalls, called (phonetically) douka in Swahili, and the merchants carry their sales receipts home at night, and are a target of robbers. 

The government requires businesses to pay not only salary to their employees, but also pay a transport allowance, furnish a home or provide a rental allowance, and cover the health costs for their employees.  Plus, a dependence allowance if you have a wife, and an allowance for each one of your children. BUT, there is no minimum wage, so all the allowances are, for all practical purposes, taken into account first, leaving whatever is left as your salary. Only the salary is subject to income tax and the equivalent tax of our social security system. Of course, most people do not have salary jobs. There are few jobs as we think of jobs, many live on subsistence farming or subsistence selling at their douka.

But ‘the way it is’ can be good for some businesses. A bar opened just over the wall of the university campus about two years ago, and they blare loud music every night starting about 8 PM and going until around 2 AM, later on weekends. The music is extremely loud, louder than I can describe. (We all sleep with ear plugs, and I was very grateful Ted gave some to me when I arrived, but the music is so loud that I can hear it quite well even with the ear plugs and this house is not even next to the bar.) The university complained; it took 22 months for the matter to come to court. The court found against the bar, agreeing that it was disturbing the peace of the entire neighborhood, and assessed a fine of $50.  So a win for the bar, which probably earns that much each night in its first hour of operations. They paid the $50, and the music blares on. That is the way it is…

But in other ways, business life just goes on.  No electricity, but schools open and businesses open and you work around it. The Witmers have a generator, and run it a bit, just enough to keep food from spoiling. (That, and they wrap their refrigerator in a blanket.)   A bigger concern is water, always water.  Without electricity, the well on campus cannot pump, and everyone is in conserve mode. Fortunately, we have the tank of rain water; most Congolese do not, and Dana said some come begging for water to drink when the electricity is off for a long time.

The Congo isn't like Hopewell

 

Ted Witmer

Here are pictures of my hosts, Ted and Dana Witmer. Ted is the director of development at the University, but he teaches as well, and wears many, many other hats. (He was a mechanical engineering major at Princeton, and that really comes in handy.  Everything here seems to be in need of fixing, and unlike America, nothing is wasted here. Even empty glass jars, if not needed by the Witmers, are taken down to the people selling in the market for their use.) Ted works closely with Martin, the IT person, on computing needs and set ups, and current projects include setting up a computer lab - 132 new computers are due to arrive today, and Ted has asked a senior person in the University with good relations with the authorities to handle the customs discussion - and exploring a self-service system for the students. This is much needed in a country that has no mail delivery, and no way of getting information to the students, including their student bills. 

 

Dana Witmer

 Dana is a pediatrician, and she is one busy lady. She works at the hospital two days a week and at the school clinic two days a week. She is also very instrumental in organizing church based support groups, something much needed after the Congolese civil war of 1997-2006, when entire villages were torn apart by the atrocities of the war. And still needed, as rebel groups are active in the eastern Congo – rape and looting still happen, with devastating consequences. (A recent example:  Three women in one village were raped recently by rebels. These women were isolated in their huts, devastated; if raped, women are always turned out by their husbands. The support group reached out to them and brought them into their care, and reached out to the husbands as well, with the result that the husbands have accepted their wives back, something simply unheard of in this culture. Praise be to God!) These support groups have also been instrumental in getting the society to come together and not ostracize those who carry the HIV virus. Dana is in the background, mentoring 2 leaders from Bunia who are developing the support group leaders.  Dana says that the biggest health issues for the children here are malaria… malaria… malaria… and tuberculosis. She is no nonsense, a vocal and focused advocate for the health needs of children here in Bunia. She comes home from the hospital with stories of sickness and malnutrition that I doubt I would ever hear in America. They are amazing people.

Rainwater tank

Things I take for granted in America are very different here in the Congo. Perhaps the thing that most affects my daily life here is water.   Ted told me never to drink any water anywhere in Africa, as one cannot be sure the water is safe.  My hosts collect their rain water to drink. They have a pipe connected to the gutters of their roof which allows the rain to flow into a 5,000 litre (~1,250 gallon) tank. From there, they fill a blue plastic 5 gallon water jug and cart it into the kitchen.  The water is then boiled and when cooled, put into a water dispenser that filters the water.  Only then is the water ready for drinking.   The primary concern is amoeba in the water which causes a particularly nasty form of dysentery, although there are general purity concerns as well.  (I learned that eating the seeds of the papaya will help kill the amoeba, although I am still glad to have a supply of Cipro…) A covered pitcher of water is always in the bathroom to use for brushing teeth. For bathing and washing dishes and clothes, rain water supplemented with water piped from the University well is used. It is not safe for drinking, but okay for other uses. Here are pictures of the water system, and the kitchen water filter, holding the water safe to drink.


Kitchen water dispenser (yellow)

 

Water system to house,
rain barrels and piped water from
well, using a gravity system
for delivery to house.

 

The nurse practitioner at Passport Health where I got my yellow fever shot (required to obtain a visa for the Congo) also went over rules about water usage in Africa, and said a common mistake for visitors from the West is not keeping their mouth shut at all times while showering. I would have never thought of the need to do that! You should try it yourself and see how hard it is.  Near impossible, but I do the best I can. The water supplied for the ~50 students (and their families) who live in University housing comes from a well on the campus property, and needs to be treated with chlorine tablets before drinking. This is true of any water anywhere. The health clinic on campus buys these tablets by the thousands, so students have ready access to treat their water. During the rainy seasons (March-May) and (Sept-Nov), one can use water pretty freely, but one must conserve during the dry seasons or you could run out. The rainy season of Mar-May has been particularly dry this year, and the ex-pats I meet are quite concerned about whether they will have enough water to get through the summer. The driest time of the year is Jan-Feb.

Electricity goes on and off, usually several times a day, and sometimes many times a day and almost always for a period during the evening.  In every room, there is a switch to turn on a 15 watt battery powered light, so one is not completely in the dark when the lights go out. Ted says the electrical supply gets particularly spotty when it rains.

Home security is a big concern because there is a lot of crime, especially after dark. My hosts keep their doors locked at all times, as do many of the homes. Many of even the more modest homes have a security wall and gate.  At night, in addition to the normal locked door, there is a metal outer door that is securely locked in place over the wood door, and bolted at the top and bottom from the inside. (And needless  to say, there are bars on the windows.) Below is a picture of the Witmer's metal outer door.

 



One of the few good roads I have encountered, although the flat smooth road only lasted for about 500 feet.

 

Homes range from a few big houses to modest homes to many, many shanties. Many of the big homes are enclosed by a wall topped with barb wire with quite a few having a guard tower on the inside wall perimeter staffed by a private guard, some just at night, but some 24 hours a day. Above is  an example of a big house with a guard tower. If you look closely, you can see a small slanted roof that looks a bit like a solar panel. That is the roof of the guard tower.

 

I took a picture of this wooden bridge over a fetid gully stream (forgetting that bridges are prohibited photography, but I am not sure it really qualified as a bridge) and saw a boy ease himself down into the stream bed and start filling up his yellow 5 gallon water containers, the kind used by most people to transport their water home. Maybe the water was not intended for drinking, but my heart ached that anyone would use that water for anything.  And yes, motorcycles and cars use this bridge to cross!

 

UN security vehicles and installations are throughout the town. Since the civil war, the UN has a large peacekeeping force here in Bunia. There is still a considerable amount of rebel activity, and many roads and areas in the outlying Orientale Province (Bunia is located in this Province) are unsafe.  If you have to go somewhere else, I am told it is best to go by plane. 

 

So yes, this does not look or feel anything like living in Hopewell. I sit here, a bit embarrassed by my riches back in America, and also sobered that I had no idea of how safe and secure my life in America has been.