Bang.

At 4:55 yesterday afternoon I stepped out of the Sobey's near my house in a bit of a rush. I had just picked up the remaining ingredients that I needed to make dinner and I was hurrying off to me a friend who I was nearly late to see. Since I start both of my new jobs next week I've been trying to catch up with friends who I might not see for a while since my schedule as a grad student has been more accommodating for their schedules as parents or commuters and that's all about to change.

When I stepped out of the grocery store I heard sirens and the familiar sound of a vehicle slowing down and then speeding up at intersections. I advanced along the side walk. When I got to the next intersection I decided to turn around to see how close the emergency vehicle was before I entered the intersection and I saw the police vehicle speeding its way up Metcalfe, other vehicles pulling out of its way. When I turned back around the light had changed, and I waited, uncharacteristically. I'm a habitual jaywalker but for some reason the combination of the red light and emergency vehicle gave me cause for pause. Then, just as the police vehicle was about to enter the intersection a cab pulled out from the side of the street, having dropped off a customer, and into the intersection. Bang. The vehicles collided, the police vehicle tearing the front clean of the cab, crossing two lanes of the road and eventually coming to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk. 

And then, there was a moment of stunned silence and stillness.

I dropped my groceries and ran to the cab, arriving at the same time as two other witnesses. All of his air bags had deployed but he was conscious and mercifully had no passengers who would have been sitting on the side that had been hit. I left the other two witnesses and ran to the police vehicle. When I opened the door and asked if the officer was alright, the first words out of his mouth were "I hit my head". I tried to talk to him to keep him calm when he started inquiring about the other driver and who was going to direct traffic. After a couple of minutes he got out and moved towards the other vehicle, luckily just to see if the other driver was okay. In a state of shock he then tried to start directing traffic when his colleagues arrived, and was ushered into another vehicle. Both he and the other driver were taken to the hospital, the other main witness and I left standing on the sidewalk waiting to give police reports the gasoline spilling out of the cab onto the road stinging our eyes. 

It's troubling to think about the fact that if I had been 30 seconds earlier or if I had jaywalked that I probably would have been hit by the police vehicle when it jumped the curb, it's also pretty amazing that no one else was hit on the busy sidewalk in downtown Ottawa that was about to be full of office workers leaving for the day. I also think that this is a nice reminder that people often come together during emergencies. I didn't hesitate to run to the vehicles to try to help the drivers, and neither did the young Muslim woman standing with me. I'm not sure what either of us would have done had we not found conscious breathing people in the vehicles. While I was standing with the police officer, several other people also stopped to offer assistance including a nurse. 

So, keep your head up and be grateful for today. 

Adventures in the DRC: My Long-Lost Friend

"Alina!" I shouted excitedly across the room before I could stop myself. It was 7 a.m. on a Tuesday and I had been in Goma for four days. Our team was about to depart for Masisi and things were not going smoothly. 

After I arrived in Goma I went straight to bed totally nauseous. Waking up briefly to try to eat something and soon realizing that remaining in bed was by far the better option. 

The next day I met the team early to go over the research tools for our review of humanitarian assistance. We would be travelling as a group of four over the next six weeks through North Kivu, Ituri and South Kivu. The first team member I met was the "Local Member" who was Congolese and had significant experience working with international actors in the region. He was responsible for logistics and arranging local accommodations during our trip as well as conducting interviews like the rest of us. He met me the night before at the airport. The second team member was the "New Member" who was a young woman working with The Firm as an intern but who insisted on being paid for her work before departing for the DRC (and justifiably so). She was responsible for conducting interviews with women's and youth groups and civil society. The third team member was the "Experienced Member" who had worked in a management capacity for the UN in the Eastern DRC for more than 10 years. A fellow Canadian, he was responsible for conducting the protection interviews for our review. 

During our Sunday morning meeting the New and Experienced Members expressed concerns over both the logistics of the trip and the design of the review. As the methodological lead I was most concerned about the design of the review so I spent the day working on that, making sure that the language in the questionnaires was better suited to the context. The Experienced Member was quite insistent that we needed to spend more time in Goma and less time in the rural communities where we were expected to spend ten days. Everyone seemed to be on the verge of quitting. 

The next day I woke up and my neck was quite itchy. I asked the New Member to take a look at it, but she said she saw nothing. 

The team then met with our team of enumerators for North Kivu. While we were responsible for interviewing "key" stakeholders, they would conduct surveys with beneficiaries. I was responsible for delivering the training but was somewhat distracted by the fact that I had sent an e-mail to the Director and the Big Man saying that all of the team felt that we needed more days in Goma before moving to the rural communities and that if that wasn't possible, that we would all quit. 

After a day of security briefings, interviews and training enumerators, some of whom seemed to have never conducted an interview before, the Local Member's phone rang. It was the Director. 

After yelling at me through the receiver for more than 30 minutes about how we had to follow the firm's plan exactly during the trip with no changes to anything ever, and that we were to leave for Masisi the following day, I conceded that I was not the person who needed to be convinced and handed the phone to the Experienced Member. 

When I saw Alina across the breakfast room at the hotel the next morning all my bags were packed (and I was ready to go). I couldn't believe my eyes. Alina had been one of my close friends while I lived in Uganda, but I hadn't seen her since even though she lived just South of the border. in the 30 minutes that followed I learned that she was finishing here master's degree at Harvard (of course) and had just finished a work placement in Rwanda. After briefly updating her on my life, we drove away in two range rovers towards Masisi, carefully following security precautions because protests were scheduled in Goma that day. 

Next Blog Post: Saturday at Noon! 

Adventures in the Eastern DRC: A Prelude

It's the one year anniversary to my second arrival in the DRC! The trip and the time that followed have been busy but it seems like I might finally have the time and head space to write about it. Names will be changed to protect the identities of the characters in this little adventure, and of course this is more focused on my personal experience and views, not those of my employer(s). 

It's 7 a.m. on July 26th 2017, one week before I'm supposed to leave . I blearily stare into my phone as I've become accustomed to do. Ever since I agreed to work with the firm as a public health expert on this project, I've woken up to many "high importance" e-mails. This morning's e-mail is particularly shocking. The team lead had quit and they wanted me to replace him. 

"What?!" I think to myself. "This trip is never going to happen." 

I then send a series of urgent e-mails to my doctoral supervisor and mentor friend type person in Ottawa seeking advice. One says "run!" the other says "go for it!". 

So I decided to negotiate. I could take on the job if they gave me a raise and guaranteed that I would not need to work for more than 10 days after I came back from the field. They agreed and suggested that I take on the role of "methodological lead" rather than team lead. I reluctantly accepted and my flights were booked for the following week. 

In the interim I had another meeting with the third person who I had e-mailed. The Big Man had referred me to the position and was distressed to learn that it all seemed to be falling apart, so he stepped up and was declared the new team lead while I remained the methodological lead. 

In his negotiations he indicated that he could not be with the team for the duration of its trip in the Eastern DRC. Instead he was to be with us for the first five days and to return at the end of the mission to wrap things up. 

Although we were both travelling from Ottawa, the Big Man and I were booked on different flights. I was supposed to be on a long-haul flight from Toronto to Addis while he had somehow convinced the firm to fly him through London. However, when my flight to Toronto was cancelled on the day of my departure, I was re-routed through London with him. 

I had known the Big Man for quite some time in a semi-professional context and he seemed friendly and easy going, although I had my doubts. I was naturally displeased when during the first two legs of our trip all he could bring himself to talk about was his expectation that I work beyond the 60 hour weeks that I had committed to until the job was done and that if I didn't take a job with the UN that I would be wasting my life. 

We spent the day in London. When we returned to Heathrow he had some difficulty boarding our flight to Addis. He explained that he was told that he had not obtained the correct visa to fly into Goma, despite having a UN passport but convinced Ethiopian to let him board the flight. 

After a five-hour layover in the tired and dated African departures terminal in Addis our flight was boarding. I was ahead of the Big Man in line and was waved on to the tarmac. He was stopped by the flight attendant behind me and informed again that he did not have the requisite visa to enter the DRC, he told me to go ahead without him.

Three hours later I arrived in Goma, nauseous, exhausted, with a strangely itchy head and back in charge of the team. Well. Sort of. 

(Next scheduled post: tomorrow! 5 p.m. EST).