The following is a public service announcement from Diane:
Fellow Woos,
Greetings from Bukavu, DRC!! What fun to read all of your blog updates!! Just thought I'd throw in my two cents (or 11.2 francs congolais) about life in Bukavu, DRC, and work in children's radio programming at Search for Common Ground…
Fun things that have happened thus far:
1. Trekking through the mountains of Walungu, South Kivu to interview children working in gold mines.
2. Getting a crash course in journalism…(I can now talk about spots, jingles and reporting styles like a vrai journaliste!!).
3. Teaching 5 Congolese teenagers whose radio program I supervise to swim!
4. Living in a Belgian Colonial house on the beautiful Lake Kivu.
5. Finding the Pakistani shop (labeled PX shop) inside the MONUC compound and buying turmeric, cumin and chili powder.
Not-so-fun things that have happened thus far:
1. Finding out that the beautiful Lake Kivu is full of methane and carbon dioxide gas that could eventually escape and suffocate everyone for miles around.
2. Experiencing my first ever earthquake!!
3. Living next door to a mining company that flies its helicopter right past my window at 6:00am every morning!! (The neighbor on the other side is no better—he was a central banker in Mobutu's time, and reputedly stole huge amounts of the nation's wealth.).
4. Spending a month cooking under the stars on a single burner petrol camp stove from the 1960s before we FINALLY got a real gas stove.
5. The police shoot outs, bus breakdowns and malaria that keep the kids I work with from getting to work.
6. "Flushing" the Turkish toilet with the wrong lever my first day of work, and getting soaked from head to foot as a result! (They had to call the plumber to stop the gush of water and reattach the lever that I had pulled off the wall!!).
"Simply bizarre" category:
1. When the guards asked if I or anyone I knew would be interested in buying mercury or uranium from them.
2. Canned popcorn from Saudi Arabia.
3. Finding out that the powdered milk I buy at the ex-pat grocery store was intended as WFP rations for refugees…
Well, that's most of the excitement for now…Keep your stories coming!! Diane
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1 comment:
Compared to this the daily morning siren, earth tremors from time to time, and lack of water pressure (and hence frequent lack of water) in Leon sounds almost luxurious. Keep safe!
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