Mercy Corps' involvement in the Democratic Republic of Congo is part of a larger effort by the international community to provide assistance to those affected by ongoing conflict. Photo Credit: Matthew de Galan/Mercy Corps

August 23, 2007 14:08 PST
Questions

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.

She seems tired, listless, sad, perhaps traumatized. She left school after her parents' death so she could watch the children.

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 do you eat animal protein?
0.

Did you eat anything yesterday at midday? No. There was no food.

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 US).

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.

September 5, 2007 15:46 PST
Rumors of War

We are strangely isolated here, and we get our news from the front — just 15 miles away — in strange ways. Sometimes, friends at home text or email us. They seem to know more than we do. Sometimes, though, we hear from local sources, in random ways. Take today.

We spent all day in a planning workshop, talking about goals, objectives, activities, indictors. Chelsea, our food security officer, and I were walking back to the hotel when we ran into the woman who heads the World Food Program office here, finishing up her evening jog along the lake. She told us that rebel troops had attacked and taken Sake, just 15 miles north, and 10,000 displaced people were flooding into Mugunga and Lac Vert, the very places where we spent so much time last week.

She told us that rebel troops had attacked and taken Sake, just 15 miles north, and 10,000 displaced people were flooding into Mugunga and Lac Vert, the very places where we spent so much time last week.

Mugur heard the same story from the MSF Holland security chief, and also from perhaps the best source of all — the drivers, who, no matter the country, always seem to know everything.

We were advised not to go past Mugunga, and to take caution even there. A bit later, the Mercy Corps team met in the bar, with the rain pouring down, and reviewed our security plan. The most extreme option is evacuation, but no one thinks it will come to that — there a couple of thousand UN peacekeepers here in Goma. No one imagines the rebels want to take on the UN and its well-trained and well-equipped troops from India, South Africa, Denmark, Bangladesh, Turkey and elsewhere.

The rainy season has arrived, with torrential downpours each night. What must it be like for IDPs (internally displaced persons? About 2,500 have taken shelter at the school in Mugunga. I saw that school. It's not that big. I imagine many are sleeping outside, in the rain, and it's quite cold at night. Even the displaced with huts will be miserable. Some have plastic sheeting; but many more do not; last week they asked us for more sheeting, they said the rain was coming and without it the water would pour into their shelters, pour onto the dirt floors and turn the floors to mud. Now there are 10,000 more of them, and still more coming in, and the rain is plummeting from the sky.

September 9, 2007 20:08 PST
Instructions

Finally, some real work! Actually helping people instead of listening to their stories and driving home. Mugur has found us a niche. He's been frantically working every angle and contact as the IDPs flooded into town this week. Being new to Congo, it's been tough to break in. At first, we heard that the UN had everything covered. We feared being stuck on the sidelines. But yesterday Mugur ran into the team from Solidarité, the French NGO, at Doga, the expat watering hole, and over cigarettes and beer he got us into the game. In just a few minutes we'll head out with a 12-person Mercy Corps team to help distribute water to displaced families in Lac Vert. The Congolese staff that's been helping us with the surveys has just been conscripted as aid workers. And they are tremendously excited. So am I. Our instructions are to report to an Italian named Eduardo.




Contributed by Matthew De Galan, formerly Mercy Corps' chief fundraiser. He now works on the field with Mercy Corps' international relief efforts. To read more of Matthew's journal, see Notes From the Congo.

To read another Global Envision article about the effects of war in Africa, see War Costs Africa USD18 Billion Annually.



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