There Aren't Any Stop Signs in Bukavu

It didn’t really hit me until I was visiting Rwanda. We were driving down the road and my eyes kept being drawn to the bright red signs that of course read “stop” across them. For some reason they seemed out of place. That was when I realized that there aren’t any stop signs in Bukavu, or traffic lights for that matter.

Although this isn’t terribly surprising given the lack of well paved roads in the country and the inability of the government to maintain effective control over its territory, this somehow seems like an excellent analogy for my time here so far.

My research is challenging. I am working with three local peacebuilding organizations to better understand the ways that they identify, address and represent the needs of their communities in peacebuilding processes while examining the dynamics within and between the organization. The way that I’m considering these factors is by observing the daily activities of each of the organizations and by conducting interviews with their leaders, staff, beneficiaries and international partners. It turns out, that this is quite a lot of work. I spend 1.5 days per week with each of the organizations, sometimes during these periods I’m also interviewing and or participating in meetings, field trips or special events. It becomes even more complicated when I’m invited to special events which don’t fall on the days that I’m supposed to be visiting a specific organization. On top of this I need to find time to write field notes and transcribe interviews. All of this to say that I could probably spend every waking hour working while I’m here but Bukavu is a bit exhausting at times, not to mention all of the work that I’ve done to try to achieve better work life balance. But where do I stop or draw the line? It seems risky to miss out on an opportunity to meet beneficiaries and participate in meetings because I may not have other opportunities to meet with those beneficiaries or observe that project, and if I don’t work on transcribing my interviews I’m going to have many painful months ahead listening to fuzzy French audio recordings.

However, this little analogy of mine extends beyond my own research, indeed, it would seem to apply to the broader context in the DRC. Take sexual and gender based violence as an example. I spoke with a government official here who told me that the number of reported rapes has dropped from 6,000 in 2014 to 3,000 in 2015 in the province of South Kivu, and therefore the rape epidemic was over. First of all this suggests that 8.5 rapes per day in one province of a much larger country is acceptable. Second, it totally ignores the fact that rape is highly stigmatized in the DRC and that many acts go unreported. Civil society organizations of course mount the same complaints against such explanations many of which run programs to help victims of sexual and gender based violence access the support they need. However, I’d also note that in a private conversation, a local employee casually mentioned to me that he feels that rape is simply being used as a tool for local NGOs to get more money and that the problem was not as significant as the broader violence occurring in the country. Although local and international organizations could be taking a somewhat more broadly defined approach that takes in the experiences of both men and women as survivors and perpetrators of sexual and gender based violence as well as other violence, the vulnerability of women is evident. In the first week of my visit here I of course heard from a group of survivors of sexual violence who had been assisted in finding treatment by one of the organizations I’m working with. It became even more clear when I left a hotel restaurant on a weekday in the middle of the day down a well travelled road to discover three men standing over a woman who lay on the ground screaming while one of them straddled her. Where does the victimization of women and men through this and other kinds of violence stop?

Of course it’s hard to stop violence, exploitation of natural resources, land conflict and identity conflict in a place where ineffective governance means that even the police and armed forces are unable or unwilling to enforce territorial armed groups no less protect the land and population from public or private violence or enforce basic traffic laws. Indeed, the lack of an effective government is frequently one of the causes of conflict identified by the organizations that I’m working with. However, how to effectively support statebuilding here remains a complex problem to be resolved.

On a lighter note, I stopped over for a little visit to Rwanda this weekend where I enjoyed lots of food and a long hike to this waterfall! Nothing like a bit of distance to give you some perspective.

Cheers!

Bukavu Week 2: Getting to Know You

Bukavu changes a little bit everyday. Sometimes it's a change in the cost of dinner. Sometimes it's the weather and sometimes it's the people around you. It's tough to adjust to a place when you can't quite figure out the rules of the game. 
Different members of the expat community have found different ways to explain this phenomenon to me. One said "I couldn't figure out why but I was really emotional for the first month, it's better now" and numerous people have told me that it takes about a month to "get used to it here". Whatever the cause and explanation is, below are some of the things I've experienced over the last two weeks and my attempt to make sense of it

Local Organizations
I'm working with three organization in Bukavu, all of whom work on peacebuilding and have overlapping agendas which include peace education, conflict transformation and have strong links with local churches.On top of that one has a focus on women, human rights and justice, one a focus on development and a third that I'm still getting to know. They all start the day with a morning prayer and all are highly critical of the government's ability to govern effectively. 
These organizations all feel very diverse but also inextricably linked through funders, themes and at times partnerships. I'm looking forward to getting to know the staff better and what makes each of these organizations unique. 

Field Visits to Bideka and Kadutu
All of the organizations that I am working with have strongly suggested that I visit their partners in the field. Each of these organizations have local fieldstaff or "animateurs" who help to implement peacebuilding projects at the local level. In my first two weeks here I have been fortunate enough to go on two short field visits.

The first was with the justice focused organization where we went to Bideka. In Bideka we met with members of the community who had been victims of sexual and gender based violence who were receiving help in obtaining treatment from the Panzi hospital who help to repair fistulas experienced by rape victims. It was striking to hear women describe their experiences of sexual violence, especially from the one who was unable to speak in front of the group but who insisted on meeting with Ian and I privately to tell us her story and who broke down at the end wondering what to do with her life now, after having been attacked for the second time and losing her family to violence. It was a good opportunity to learn about the insecurity which continues to face people living outside of Bukavu, which includes threats from demobilized forces and non-state armed actors. We also got to see the school where students were writing state exams and visit the health center which offered very basic services. Vaccines are stored in a fridge, food is distributed to people sufferring malnutrition and there is a very basic nursing station equipped only with running water, a surgical table and a scale. Despite the evident poverty and violence people were friendly and welcoming.

My second little trip into the field was still within the borders of Bukavu but in a neighbourhood where not many foreigners venture. This is because this is the area refer to as "chaud" (or hot) because it's crowded and there is a lot of poverty and other things going on. On this visit we went to see children who are part of local peace clubs play a soccer game for peace. These clubs are run by the peacebuilding organization with the broader focus on development. At the beginning of each game the organization explains to the children that they're being brought together to support peace and they're invited to play together. Notably there was only one girl on one of the teams. Although it was good to see the project I was a bit overwhelmed by the large group of children who crowded around me but couldn't speak French. I tried my usual fist bump tactic which elicited smiles but didn't disperse the crowd. Again, there was noticeable malnutrition and struggle.

Expats
The expat community is notably different from the people living in Kampala. It is significantly smaller and there are weekly events that a large number of people go to so it's easy to meet people. There seem to be two age groups here. People between the ages of 25-35 who are here performing project management functions at local and international NGOs and an older group with more senior positions in international NGOs. Everyone is friendly and evidently pretty tough. It's also interesting to see the differences between organizations and how they treat their staff. While some must be accompanied at all times others are left more or less to their own devices. It's also interesting to watch the interactions between UN, International NGO and local NGO workers, the local NGO workers tending to be the most "hardcore" of the group.

Everything is "Fine" 
The mantra that I keep hearing from my international and local contacts is that everything is "fine" in Bukavu. There are political tensions, and my friends at the justice organization fear assassination attempts but everything is fine because the war is not currently knocking at their door. Expats exhibit that they feel nervous about going into the field and even places around Kadutu but everything is fine because they are not in any immediate danger. And indeed, everything is fine but it is interesting to take note of how subjective the use of the term "fine" can really be. 

That's all for now. 

Bukavu: First Impressions

I'm not totally sure where to start this post because so much has happened in the last week and a half, in fact my field notes on their own are around 4,000 words and that doesn't even cover the personal parts.

 On January 30 I finished moving the rest of my things out of my apartment and briefly held back tears as my friend Ifte drove me towards the trains station where I was to meet my friend/colleague/travel-buddy-extraordinaire Ian. Over the next 24 hours we would travel from Ottawa to Bukavu, buying stroopwaffels in Schipol, staying across the road from the main stadium in Kigali and being met by Ian's partner organization in Kamembe who then helped us to cross the border into Bukavu. Because they're participating in my research I'm going to call this organization JH and not name any names in order to maintain anonymity, I'll be doing this a lot in my blog posts about my trip here.

It feels like the Rwandan-Congolese border is a great place to start the tale of my time in Bukavu. As you may know one of the reasons that the University of Ottawa was reluctant to allow me to go on my field work to the Congo was because of the boarder crossing. However, being met at the border by staff members from JH ensured that the border crossing almost went very smoothly (I'd note that the riskiest part was probably driving across the super rickety bridge).

The reason I say that the crossing almost went very smoothly is because when we arrived at the Rwandan side of the border Ian and I got out of the taxi were in and approached the border agent window. While we were doing this the JH staff moved all of our things from the taxi into the organization's vehicle. We then crossed the border and had our visas validated by the Congolese authorities which took about 15 minutes. It was at this point that I realized that my backpack with my laptop and all of my research materials was missing. I tried pretty hard to conceal my panic as I asked in French whether my bag was in the trunk. It was not. It was lost. My heart sank. At that moment the administrator for the organization sprang into action calling the Rwandan cab company where he knew many of the drivers well. Within 15 minutes my backpack and all of its contents had been retrieved.

I stuck pretty closely to Ian this first week attending meetings, going on a field visit to Bideka and meeting the provincial minister for gender, health and social services. I also had meetings with other potential participants in my research which showed the great diversity of local organizations here which was really interesting. I also met my room mate and attended some events with other expats. I seem to have hit it off with some of the people here although I'm still waiting for a follow up coffee invitation ;). 

I would really like to write more about Bideka but to some extent I'm still processing what I saw and heard there and I think it's probably a long enough story to be it's own post so keep an eye out for it in the near future.

Ian left on Friday morning which was an unpleasant shock to the system. Suddenly I was very alone in Bukavu which seemed and still seems a little bit overwhelming on top of the other things that are also overwhelming about fieldwork like building relationships, culture shock and jet lag. His departure has hit me pretty hard.

Anyway I thought I'd give a general overview of the environs here for your reference as a quick way to wrap this up.

Climate: Warm during the day time and cool at night, so overall very pleasant. It is currently rainy season but so far there has only been one significant rainfall and threatening skies. 

Food: Extremely inexpensive but there is definitely a lack of variety, I'll have to make due with no lettuce in my salads for the next little while.

Culture: Friendly and generally pretty respectful. So far I have experienced very little street harassment. 

Language: French! Boy is my language proficiency getting a ork out. 

Security: Not obviously dangerous but there is sort of a constant low level of concern. So far this has really been the hardest part of my trip to navigate. Most of the other expats here are working with international NGOs which gives them access to cars, drivers, assistance finding cellphones and ongoing security updates. This is not the case for this Ph.D. student which is leading me to feel a bit uneasy. However, I'm keeping my eye on the prize and hoping that it gets a bit easier with time. 

Anyway, that's all for now. Stay tuned for posts about my research, my trip to Bideka and other crazy adventures.

With love.