Over the holidays I've been trying hard to make sense of everything that's happened in 2016. Overall I would describe the year as a terrible disaster with some silver linings, which I got through with the help of my friends. So I'm going to write to you about this year in three parts: Stormy Weather; Silver Linings and; Gratitude for Getting By With a Little Help From My Friends.
For this first post, please fasten your seat-belts and return your seat to the upright position, we are in for a bumpy ride.
In January 2016 I was full of enthusiasm for what I thought would be the first of two hard-fought trips to the DRC. Throughout the month I packed my bags not only for a three month trip but also to leave the beautiful apartment I had been sharing with one of my best friends who was going to be moving in with her boyfriend while I was gone. By the end of the month I had said goodbye to my family and friends and was facing a whole lot of change at once.
At the beginning of February I traveled to Bukavu by plane with a colleague with whom I shared some romantic type feelings. The first week in Bukavu was hectic with him being shuttled around by his organisation which was also one of the three organisations I would work with, trying to set up in my new apartment and establishing contact with other peacebuilding organisations. Although nothing notable happened during his presence for the week of my trip his departure hit me really hard. So hard that I spent an entire day crying in bed after he left. I was alone and feeling very exposed in a rural, extremely poor fragile context and wasn't sure where to start. After two weeks he stopped returning my emails without explanation and no, he didn't know about the crying.
Personally the trip was very hard. Not having drivers, cooks or security assistance, and working directly with local organisations left me very exposed to daily and more acute stresses. During my trip I watched a woman being beaten with no one to call for help, became very ill with a respiratory infection, was abandoned in a small town without a vehicle or cell phone reception in an area with an active rebel movement and was followed home by an individual who aggressively pressed me for money. On top of this our house cat who brought me some comfort disappeared at the beginning of April leading both to sadness and to an influx of rats in our kitchen. We suspect the cat was trapped and eaten.
In the end all of this was manageable. I took things one day at a time and got over it (except for the cat). Instead the things that I've found difficult to cope with were totally unexpected.
I, perhaps naively, went to the DRC hoping to come back telling a different story. Not one about how poor, suffering and traumatized the population was, but one of hope which highlighted the commitment of local individuals and communities to bringing peace to their country. While I think I did find the hope I was looking for, which I'll talk about in my silver linings post, this hope was ultimately overshadowed for me by the tragedy that I wintessed in the daily lives of my research participants and the other people around me. Almost all of the staff from the organisations I worked with had experienced loss as a result of the conflict, had witnessed extreme violence and/or had been forcibly displaced for a significant period of time. Despite having some of the more secure jobs available in the province they struggled to feed, clothe, house and educate their families. A lot of them faced violence and threats as part of their job. Yet, the absolute worst part of this was how scared they all were that the country was teetering on the edge of violence and poverty that they had no control over which arrived officially on their doorsteps in the later part of this year. It was even harder to accept. Let me be clear, there is no easy way out for the DRC. At some point the international community will need to step away and let the state actually govern its territory, but doing so will risk organised violence which could worsen what can only already be described as a humanitarian disaster, before the state finds its authority and ability to govern.
I came back to Canada in May still planning to return to the DRC but I was sick, very stressed and completely exhausted. I did what I needed to in May. Found a new apartment, fulfilled maid of honour duties and sought treatment for my cough.
By June I was feeling optimistic again. I moved, found a wonderful summer job and started dating the colleague mentioned above. My cough was even under control and I got to go to Halifax for a conference. However, it quickly became clear that the job was more stress than I could handle and the relationship ended quickly. By early August my cough was back and you've already read my post about medical house arrest. In mid-August a man who had continually harassed me by phone and email while I was in the DRC was trying to contact me on my Canadian number and via Facebook.By September tensions were rising in the DRC around the elections scheduled for November which were ultimately postponed leading to protests and violence.
It was time to face the reality that things were not working out as planned with my thesis.
In early September I discussed the possibility of choosing a new context for a second case study for my thesis with my supervisors, we initially selected Colombia. At the same time I was transcribing my interviews from South Kivu and began to realize how much data I had already collected 55 interviews, 35,000 words of field notes. It became clear that if I duplicated my research in another context that I was going to have so much data that it was going to be unmanageable and that I would struggled to finish my Ph.D.
I decided to pull the plug on the second case study in early October after a discussion with my co-supervisor led to a suggestion that I select another case. I frantically tried to develop a new plan and did which I presented to my supervisors. They wrote back with five points, four of which were reasonable questions the fifth which implored me to go back to the DRC for the sake of my academic reputation.
Again, I put my foot down. I wouldn't be able to go on to be a professor if I were too traumatized to go on working or worse if I was dead anyways. This led to an altercation with my primary supervisor with whom I had, had a difficult relationship from the beginning which ended with her resignation from my committee. Although I feel that it was handled very poorly ultimately I know that this was the best decision for both of us. I too had been trying to decide how to walk away from her supervision for several months.
As far as supervisory breakups go this one wasn't so bad. My co-supervisor agreed to continue as my primary supervisor and things have been going much more smoothly ever since. Late November and December have gone more smoothly with some annoying blips around the holidays related to gift giving and yet another relationship gone awry. Overall things seem to be moving in a more positive 2017, but if I learned anything from this year it was to not take anything for granted.
Check back tomorrow afternoon for my Silver Linings Post.
Thursday, December 29, 2016
Thursday, November 3, 2016
Sick Until Proven Well? My Journey under Medical House Arrest
In March 2016 while I was in the DRC I developed one of the worst coughs I ever remember having. I would start to cough and finish twenty minutes later. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't work, it was so bad that one of my research participants took my hand and prayed for me. Now my German doctor friend had a somewhat different take on the situation. After listening to my lungs he thought that my cough might just go away after two weeks.
Although my cough got better it never really left. When I would start to cough usually at night or while running, my chest would tighten and I would feel like I was choking. I thought I'd just wait it out and see if it got better when I got home.
Fast forward about a month. I'm staying at home with my mom in Mississauga and I come home from a run wheezing so badly that I'm shaking and have to actively work on breathing for about thirty minutes before I get back to normal. I'm finally convinced it's time to go to the doctor. A little concerned that it might be tuberculosis but pretty sure it's not.
The doctor is also a little concerned it might be TB. He sends me for a chest x-ray and orders some other tests. The x-ray is clear but the other test showed that I had an antibiotic resistant infection. We identify an antibiotic that will work. I move back to Ottawa about a week later.
The cough and wheeze slowly dwindle over the course of three weeks until I'm feeling pretty alright, but then it suddenly starts again. After two long bike rides and a children's Birthday party I'm coughing so hard that I throw up. Time to head back to my Ottawa doctor's office. The doctor at the walk in clinic listens to the history and is pretty sure we should check for TB again and orders two skin tests and four sputum samples. After two weeks I return to the doctor because I'm still coughing and haven't heard about any of the results. All but one of the TB tests have come back negative and I'm given the same antibiotic that I was on before.
So I went back to work. At around 4 p.m. I got a phone call from the doctor's office. The voice on the other end of the phone says that the test shows that I have a micro-organism in my lungs, probably TB, and that I have to go home immediately and not talk to anyone or go to any public places. My nightmare gets worse when I get a phone call from a public health nurse telling me that this "In-Home Isolation" is going to continue for weeks during which I'm not supposed to have contact with anyone or go into any public places where I might expose someone who is immune compromised to TB.
They arrange for me to meet an infectious disease specialist at the Ottawa Hospital the next day. My aunt, a former TB nurse agrees to drive me and help with groceries. The doctor who meets us explains that because of my travel history and the duration of the cough we are going to treat my cough with TB medication while we wait for more test results and that I need to be isolated from other people. We do another chest x-ray and my aunt takes me home. Later someone else from Public Health comes and drops off hundreds of pills. The following day a public health nurse starts coming daily to watch me take 14 pills per day.
So for 12 days everyday consists of taking 14 pills per day, supervised, which destroy my stomach and zap my energy. I convince the public health nurse that I should be allowed to see other people and she reluctantly agrees to letting me see people in an open-air environment. In no circumstance am I to go inside a building with another living being. My aunt continued to help me until she developed a blood clot in her leg and had to have two rounds of emergency surgery in 24 hours (she's on the mend now). At this point I'm calling my mother begging her to come and help me with my laundry and to help me get to my next appointment at the hospital.
I have to say that being on in-home isolation was really hard for me as an outgoing, active, extrovert. I felt very restricted in my home and I didn't seem to be able to get enough social interactions even with daily outdoor visits and frequent phone calls. I also experienced a lot of anxiety of how my illness was going to impact my very demanding Ph.D. program. It was also hard to slow down from my normally very fast paced lifestyle.
By day 12 my cough is gone but I'm exhausted and my stomach hurts all the time from the medication. At the hospital after a nurse completes my intake a doctor comes in with no mask on and announces "good news! you don't have TB and you don't have to wear a mask or take medication any more!" I don't think I could ever imagine being so furious and elated at the same time. On top of everything there is no explanation for why my cough went away with the medication (the doctor's guess was that the medication relieved existing inflammation in my lungs) or why I was allowed to continue taking this very strong medication for up to five days after the test results came back. There was also no explanation of how they mistook some other micro-organism for TB, all the report said was that it was something "naturally occurring in nature".
The good news is my cough never came back, although I guess we'll never know what was causing it. The bad news is that the medication seems to have had a lasting impact on my digestive system. I've discovered that this can be mitigated by not consuming greasy foods or alcohol, however I'm going to be a bit disappointed if I can never enjoy a burger and fries again.
What did we learn from this? 1,600 new cases of TB are diagnosed in Canada each year and a smaller proportion than you'd think are among new immigrants and refugees. If you're diagnosed with active TB you can be placed on in-home isolation and not be allowed to do much of anything. If you violate this condition and you're found to be a public health threat you can be hospitalized. Public health is supposed to help you complete the tasks needed to live like laundry and groceries and because their funding is often on the chopping block so that's easier said then done. (Subtext pay your taxes)
Personally I'm really glad that I didn't have TB. Another friend who spends time in the Congo did have TB and it's a long recovery. So long in fact, that if I had, had active TB that I would still be on medication, I might not have been allowed to go home for Thanksgiving, to Washington for my upcoming conference etc. I am a little disappointed by the way the situation was handled by the hospital and public health, at times it seemed like I, as an individual, wasn't being considered very much at all. This, among other things has also led to significant doubts about whether I want to continue with this line of research. I'm not sure that the health and safety risks are worth the reward (which these days seems to be living below the poverty line and fighting a lot with my thesis supervisors!).
Although my cough got better it never really left. When I would start to cough usually at night or while running, my chest would tighten and I would feel like I was choking. I thought I'd just wait it out and see if it got better when I got home.
Fast forward about a month. I'm staying at home with my mom in Mississauga and I come home from a run wheezing so badly that I'm shaking and have to actively work on breathing for about thirty minutes before I get back to normal. I'm finally convinced it's time to go to the doctor. A little concerned that it might be tuberculosis but pretty sure it's not.
The doctor is also a little concerned it might be TB. He sends me for a chest x-ray and orders some other tests. The x-ray is clear but the other test showed that I had an antibiotic resistant infection. We identify an antibiotic that will work. I move back to Ottawa about a week later.
The cough and wheeze slowly dwindle over the course of three weeks until I'm feeling pretty alright, but then it suddenly starts again. After two long bike rides and a children's Birthday party I'm coughing so hard that I throw up. Time to head back to my Ottawa doctor's office. The doctor at the walk in clinic listens to the history and is pretty sure we should check for TB again and orders two skin tests and four sputum samples. After two weeks I return to the doctor because I'm still coughing and haven't heard about any of the results. All but one of the TB tests have come back negative and I'm given the same antibiotic that I was on before.
So I went back to work. At around 4 p.m. I got a phone call from the doctor's office. The voice on the other end of the phone says that the test shows that I have a micro-organism in my lungs, probably TB, and that I have to go home immediately and not talk to anyone or go to any public places. My nightmare gets worse when I get a phone call from a public health nurse telling me that this "In-Home Isolation" is going to continue for weeks during which I'm not supposed to have contact with anyone or go into any public places where I might expose someone who is immune compromised to TB.
They arrange for me to meet an infectious disease specialist at the Ottawa Hospital the next day. My aunt, a former TB nurse agrees to drive me and help with groceries. The doctor who meets us explains that because of my travel history and the duration of the cough we are going to treat my cough with TB medication while we wait for more test results and that I need to be isolated from other people. We do another chest x-ray and my aunt takes me home. Later someone else from Public Health comes and drops off hundreds of pills. The following day a public health nurse starts coming daily to watch me take 14 pills per day.
So for 12 days everyday consists of taking 14 pills per day, supervised, which destroy my stomach and zap my energy. I convince the public health nurse that I should be allowed to see other people and she reluctantly agrees to letting me see people in an open-air environment. In no circumstance am I to go inside a building with another living being. My aunt continued to help me until she developed a blood clot in her leg and had to have two rounds of emergency surgery in 24 hours (she's on the mend now). At this point I'm calling my mother begging her to come and help me with my laundry and to help me get to my next appointment at the hospital.
I have to say that being on in-home isolation was really hard for me as an outgoing, active, extrovert. I felt very restricted in my home and I didn't seem to be able to get enough social interactions even with daily outdoor visits and frequent phone calls. I also experienced a lot of anxiety of how my illness was going to impact my very demanding Ph.D. program. It was also hard to slow down from my normally very fast paced lifestyle.
By day 12 my cough is gone but I'm exhausted and my stomach hurts all the time from the medication. At the hospital after a nurse completes my intake a doctor comes in with no mask on and announces "good news! you don't have TB and you don't have to wear a mask or take medication any more!" I don't think I could ever imagine being so furious and elated at the same time. On top of everything there is no explanation for why my cough went away with the medication (the doctor's guess was that the medication relieved existing inflammation in my lungs) or why I was allowed to continue taking this very strong medication for up to five days after the test results came back. There was also no explanation of how they mistook some other micro-organism for TB, all the report said was that it was something "naturally occurring in nature".
The good news is my cough never came back, although I guess we'll never know what was causing it. The bad news is that the medication seems to have had a lasting impact on my digestive system. I've discovered that this can be mitigated by not consuming greasy foods or alcohol, however I'm going to be a bit disappointed if I can never enjoy a burger and fries again.
What did we learn from this? 1,600 new cases of TB are diagnosed in Canada each year and a smaller proportion than you'd think are among new immigrants and refugees. If you're diagnosed with active TB you can be placed on in-home isolation and not be allowed to do much of anything. If you violate this condition and you're found to be a public health threat you can be hospitalized. Public health is supposed to help you complete the tasks needed to live like laundry and groceries and because their funding is often on the chopping block so that's easier said then done. (Subtext pay your taxes)
Personally I'm really glad that I didn't have TB. Another friend who spends time in the Congo did have TB and it's a long recovery. So long in fact, that if I had, had active TB that I would still be on medication, I might not have been allowed to go home for Thanksgiving, to Washington for my upcoming conference etc. I am a little disappointed by the way the situation was handled by the hospital and public health, at times it seemed like I, as an individual, wasn't being considered very much at all. This, among other things has also led to significant doubts about whether I want to continue with this line of research. I'm not sure that the health and safety risks are worth the reward (which these days seems to be living below the poverty line and fighting a lot with my thesis supervisors!).
Monday, July 4, 2016
All of the Things I Haven't Told You About South Kivu
A lot of people have asked me about my trip since I came home two months ago and I'm not always sure what to tell them, especially when they ask in a tone that makes it sound more like a vacation than a research trip to a Fragile and Conflict Affected State. I often answer that my trip was interesting but that the lives of people who live in South Kivu are very difficult. I guess the truth is I don't really know what to say.
For those of you who want to get past this very general explanation let me break it down for you.
My Research Went Very Well
In total I completed 55 interviews and 35,000 words of field notes during my time in Bukavu. My interviews were conducted with organizational leaders, staff and beneficiaries of the three peacebuilding organizations that I worked with and the field notes reflected what I observed at each of those organizations.
The highlights of my interviews were really learning about individual contributions to peacebuilding and what people were doing formally and informally to foster peace. Transcribing one of my interviews I was recalled that one of my interviewees share that before one of the organizations arrived in her community that women thought that rape occurred as a result of a curse and that women would go to witch doctors after being assaulted in order to be cured, all the while being left with debilitating sexually transmitted infections and fistulas. The organization came into their community and stressed rapid response to rape and taught both women and men about women's rights (addressing both the cause and the outcome of the problem).
I'd like to say that the highlight of observation was getting to visit the prison, or the Panzi Hospital or participating in a radio show for human rights. However, the actual highlight of my observation was much more simple. About a month into my research I had what I called an ethnographic breakthrough, suddenly the people I was working with started to open up in a major way telling me about everything from office politics, to their worries about their families and the war. This was really meaningful to me both on a research level and a personal level.
Expat Life in Bukavu is very Interesting
The expat community in Bukavu was pretty different from the expat communities in South Africa and Uganda. Overall it was very small and almost everyone got together every Wednesday and Friday night at a bar called Wendy's which is literally a shack at the side of the road in the wealthy part of town. There weren't very many things to do other than party so I often found myself kayaking or playing ultimate frisbee, which was nice but lost it's novelty after a while.
Near the end of my time in Bukavu I realized there wasn't a lot of balance for the expats there. Many of the more seasoned humanitarian workers had been to more intense places and were quick to assure that this was not in fact a war zone, much to the surprise of most of my research participants. Overall I felt intense pressure to prove that I was tough enough to succeed there. However I coped by concluding that everyone in Bukavu was an alcoholic, sexaholic, workaholic or some combination of the three.
What It's Like Living Under a Lack of State Authority
Basically if something goes wrong in Bukavu you have to resolve the problem yourself, often with some help from your friends, and if you can't you're in big trouble. Because the Congolese government doesn't pay it's police or army adequately they often extort money from the population causing most people to see them as a scourge rather than as a source of protection. This manifested itself one day when my taxi driver drove through a police stop one days, resulting in the police officer opening the back door but my driver just kept going saying "stupid police officer, he knows there's nothing wrong with my car. He just wants my money".
The lack of governance also leads to issues such as the disrepair of roads, the lack of access to adequate medical care and unpredictable price fluctuations which kept life interesting.
The Difficult Lives of My Research Participants
Every single one of my participants showed signs of the deep rooted trauma which arises from living through twenty years of violent conflict and extreme poverty.
The executive director at one of the organizations I worked with was assassinated in 2006, and approximately half of the current staff worked there at the time including the current executive director. Many of the staff at this organization fear the possibility of arrest and don't ever go out after dark for fear of their safety.
At two of the organizations I worked at, most or all of the staff were not being paid for extended periods because of a diversion of foreign funds from the Congo to other conflict affected states and an overall cooling of the aid market. These people continued coming to work partly out of their commitments to peace and justice and also because of the absence of better jobs that would help them keep food on the table for their families.
All of the staff at all three of the organizations had been traumatized by the war, reporting displacement and the loss of family members and friends. On top of their own trauma they were working to support beneficiaries who were often more traumatized than they were themselves, bearing witness to extreme acts of violence and hatred faced by many of the residents in la plaine de la Ruzizi. I'll never forget the story of one participant who voluntarily drove out to photograph a massacre because he thought that people should know what happened, an action that put him at risk of being arbitrarily arrested or worse. Only one of the three organizations offered psycho-social support to their employees to help them cope with these conditions and the other two simply lacked the resources.
The beneficiaries and participants of the organizations I worked with had it even worse. They mostly lived in areas outside of the range of protection of the UN and humanitarian organizations and lived in areas affected by armed violence and banditry. Many of them spoke to the need to engage youth to prevent them from joining armed groups. Some had been the direct victims of attacks and others had lost immediate family members. In addition to being the victims of war they lived in areas where no health care, clean drinking water, food security or security sector existed.
I started to experience compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma during this trip and I began to resent the fact that every person who talked to me shared their trauma, even though it was part of my research. This made me feel like a bad researcher and a bad person. Fortunately I was able to recover enough after a holiday to continue with my work. However, the thought that living a life of poverty and violence in this world is seriously based on the chance of where you were born remains too much for me the bare. It's difficult to know how to help when the problem is so pervasive and systemic.
The Contributions Made by My Research Participants to Peacebuilding
Please, don't for a moment think that the people who I worked with were passive victims of conflict, unable to act and that they need you to ride in on your gold stallion to save them. They aren't and they don't. The truth is, the people who I met are doing incredible work and understand the conflicts in their communities with much more depth than an outsider ever could hope to, which also means that they hold they best chance of resolving those problems, with a little bit of help from their friends.
Some of the amazing programming I saw included radio shows on human rights, human rights education, free conflict resolution services, community based conflict analysis groups, children's peace clubs, literacy clubs that taught women public speaking skills and programs that helped women access access legal and medical assistance after they experienced sexual assaults.
While many of the employees of the organizations I worked with showed commitment to peace, no more so than the women working at these organizations who made up less than 25% of the overall staff. All of the women I spoke with were running community or church based organizations to support peace, justice and economic development in addition to their paid work and caring for their families. In a country where women aren't traditionally allowed to speak in front of public audiences and couldn't travel without their husbands' permission, this kind of work takes incredible courage.
The Difficult Parts of My Life in Bukavu and South Kivu
Doing my research was a rich, rewarding experience. Unfortunately, my daily life in Bukavu was a strain. I had some third world problems including frequent power and water outages, a lack of food variety and poor road transport. I had some expat problems like homesickness, culture shock and coffee withdrawal.
I also had some big problems. The second biggest problem was when halfway through my trip I developed a cough, which a western doctor listened to and said he thought it was antibiotic resistant or viral and that I should wait for it to go away. It didn't go away in the promised two weeks, in fact it lasted two months by the time I finally went to the doctor, worried that I might have TB. In the end it was antibiotic resistant bronchitis which I am just finally getting over.
The biggest problem was my overall security. Local people have their personal networks of information and support which help to keep them safe. Most expats have security briefings, drivers, and extensive human and financial resources which help to keep them safe but I was all on my own. All on my own when I witnessed a woman being attacked on the side of the road. All on my own when a security guard from a hotel tried to force himself on me one night. All on my own when one of the organization's I worked with left me in a town on the side of the highway with no cell phone reception or vehicle and then was told it wasn't safe for me to be there. Even all on my own while I lay away at night wondering what would happened if the police arrived in the middle of the night and demanded that I hand over my research or worse arrested me.
It's true that it all worked out, but being solely responsible for your security in a conflict zone is tough on you both mentally and physically. I came back to Canada pretty exhausted.
What's Next?
As you might know this was only the first of two of my research trips. Although I came home with enough data to finish my Ph.D. my supervisors are encouraging me to complete a second field visit to the Congo or elsewhere. Intellectually and emotionally I'm still very attached to the idea of returning but I'm now much more acutely aware of the challenges in doing so. Goma was always the more risky location and the economic, security and political situation are all deteriorating.
Careful self reflection have led me to the conclusion that I can probably go back to the DRC with some adjustments to my security strategy and a bit more cash in hand. This is of course contingent on the situation not falling apart as a result of the elections currently scheduled in November. The office of risk management, my supervisors and I will all be watching the news carefully in the coming months to decide whether or not a second trip is viable. I hope it is, for my own sake as well as for the sake of the Congolese people. They have shed enough tears and blood for many lifetimes.
In the mean time I'm working both academically and professionally to advance my thesis and make some money. I am also coping/working through the mild vicarious trauma and traumatic stress I acquired during my trip. These things are more or less going fine.
Ending at the Beginning
There's a story I like to tell people about my trip. When I arrived in Kamembe (Rwanda) my colleague and I were picked up by his Congolese counterpart in a Taxi which drove us to the Congolese border. Once there, we went through immigration while the staff of the organization offloaded our luggage into their organization's vehicle. We got into the truck, crossed the rickety bridge into Bukavu and while we were having our passports validated it suddenly struck me that I didn't see my backpack containing my laptop and research materials in the truck. After our visas were validated, we returned to the truck and I inquired about my backpack discovering that it was not in fact in the truck. Trying to moderate my panic I explained the problem. To my amazement the man who had helped us through the visa process using his connections called the Rwandan taxi company, located my backpack and it was returned to me within less than fifteen minutes.
The moral of the story is that although my trip was scary at times, that it all worked out in the end.
In peace.
For those of you who want to get past this very general explanation let me break it down for you.
My Research Went Very Well
In total I completed 55 interviews and 35,000 words of field notes during my time in Bukavu. My interviews were conducted with organizational leaders, staff and beneficiaries of the three peacebuilding organizations that I worked with and the field notes reflected what I observed at each of those organizations.
The highlights of my interviews were really learning about individual contributions to peacebuilding and what people were doing formally and informally to foster peace. Transcribing one of my interviews I was recalled that one of my interviewees share that before one of the organizations arrived in her community that women thought that rape occurred as a result of a curse and that women would go to witch doctors after being assaulted in order to be cured, all the while being left with debilitating sexually transmitted infections and fistulas. The organization came into their community and stressed rapid response to rape and taught both women and men about women's rights (addressing both the cause and the outcome of the problem).
I'd like to say that the highlight of observation was getting to visit the prison, or the Panzi Hospital or participating in a radio show for human rights. However, the actual highlight of my observation was much more simple. About a month into my research I had what I called an ethnographic breakthrough, suddenly the people I was working with started to open up in a major way telling me about everything from office politics, to their worries about their families and the war. This was really meaningful to me both on a research level and a personal level.
Expat Life in Bukavu is very Interesting
The expat community in Bukavu was pretty different from the expat communities in South Africa and Uganda. Overall it was very small and almost everyone got together every Wednesday and Friday night at a bar called Wendy's which is literally a shack at the side of the road in the wealthy part of town. There weren't very many things to do other than party so I often found myself kayaking or playing ultimate frisbee, which was nice but lost it's novelty after a while.
Near the end of my time in Bukavu I realized there wasn't a lot of balance for the expats there. Many of the more seasoned humanitarian workers had been to more intense places and were quick to assure that this was not in fact a war zone, much to the surprise of most of my research participants. Overall I felt intense pressure to prove that I was tough enough to succeed there. However I coped by concluding that everyone in Bukavu was an alcoholic, sexaholic, workaholic or some combination of the three.
What It's Like Living Under a Lack of State Authority
Basically if something goes wrong in Bukavu you have to resolve the problem yourself, often with some help from your friends, and if you can't you're in big trouble. Because the Congolese government doesn't pay it's police or army adequately they often extort money from the population causing most people to see them as a scourge rather than as a source of protection. This manifested itself one day when my taxi driver drove through a police stop one days, resulting in the police officer opening the back door but my driver just kept going saying "stupid police officer, he knows there's nothing wrong with my car. He just wants my money".
The lack of governance also leads to issues such as the disrepair of roads, the lack of access to adequate medical care and unpredictable price fluctuations which kept life interesting.
The Difficult Lives of My Research Participants
Every single one of my participants showed signs of the deep rooted trauma which arises from living through twenty years of violent conflict and extreme poverty.
The executive director at one of the organizations I worked with was assassinated in 2006, and approximately half of the current staff worked there at the time including the current executive director. Many of the staff at this organization fear the possibility of arrest and don't ever go out after dark for fear of their safety.
At two of the organizations I worked at, most or all of the staff were not being paid for extended periods because of a diversion of foreign funds from the Congo to other conflict affected states and an overall cooling of the aid market. These people continued coming to work partly out of their commitments to peace and justice and also because of the absence of better jobs that would help them keep food on the table for their families.
All of the staff at all three of the organizations had been traumatized by the war, reporting displacement and the loss of family members and friends. On top of their own trauma they were working to support beneficiaries who were often more traumatized than they were themselves, bearing witness to extreme acts of violence and hatred faced by many of the residents in la plaine de la Ruzizi. I'll never forget the story of one participant who voluntarily drove out to photograph a massacre because he thought that people should know what happened, an action that put him at risk of being arbitrarily arrested or worse. Only one of the three organizations offered psycho-social support to their employees to help them cope with these conditions and the other two simply lacked the resources.
The beneficiaries and participants of the organizations I worked with had it even worse. They mostly lived in areas outside of the range of protection of the UN and humanitarian organizations and lived in areas affected by armed violence and banditry. Many of them spoke to the need to engage youth to prevent them from joining armed groups. Some had been the direct victims of attacks and others had lost immediate family members. In addition to being the victims of war they lived in areas where no health care, clean drinking water, food security or security sector existed.
I started to experience compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma during this trip and I began to resent the fact that every person who talked to me shared their trauma, even though it was part of my research. This made me feel like a bad researcher and a bad person. Fortunately I was able to recover enough after a holiday to continue with my work. However, the thought that living a life of poverty and violence in this world is seriously based on the chance of where you were born remains too much for me the bare. It's difficult to know how to help when the problem is so pervasive and systemic.
The Contributions Made by My Research Participants to Peacebuilding
Please, don't for a moment think that the people who I worked with were passive victims of conflict, unable to act and that they need you to ride in on your gold stallion to save them. They aren't and they don't. The truth is, the people who I met are doing incredible work and understand the conflicts in their communities with much more depth than an outsider ever could hope to, which also means that they hold they best chance of resolving those problems, with a little bit of help from their friends.
Some of the amazing programming I saw included radio shows on human rights, human rights education, free conflict resolution services, community based conflict analysis groups, children's peace clubs, literacy clubs that taught women public speaking skills and programs that helped women access access legal and medical assistance after they experienced sexual assaults.
While many of the employees of the organizations I worked with showed commitment to peace, no more so than the women working at these organizations who made up less than 25% of the overall staff. All of the women I spoke with were running community or church based organizations to support peace, justice and economic development in addition to their paid work and caring for their families. In a country where women aren't traditionally allowed to speak in front of public audiences and couldn't travel without their husbands' permission, this kind of work takes incredible courage.
The Difficult Parts of My Life in Bukavu and South Kivu
Doing my research was a rich, rewarding experience. Unfortunately, my daily life in Bukavu was a strain. I had some third world problems including frequent power and water outages, a lack of food variety and poor road transport. I had some expat problems like homesickness, culture shock and coffee withdrawal.
I also had some big problems. The second biggest problem was when halfway through my trip I developed a cough, which a western doctor listened to and said he thought it was antibiotic resistant or viral and that I should wait for it to go away. It didn't go away in the promised two weeks, in fact it lasted two months by the time I finally went to the doctor, worried that I might have TB. In the end it was antibiotic resistant bronchitis which I am just finally getting over.
The biggest problem was my overall security. Local people have their personal networks of information and support which help to keep them safe. Most expats have security briefings, drivers, and extensive human and financial resources which help to keep them safe but I was all on my own. All on my own when I witnessed a woman being attacked on the side of the road. All on my own when a security guard from a hotel tried to force himself on me one night. All on my own when one of the organization's I worked with left me in a town on the side of the highway with no cell phone reception or vehicle and then was told it wasn't safe for me to be there. Even all on my own while I lay away at night wondering what would happened if the police arrived in the middle of the night and demanded that I hand over my research or worse arrested me.
It's true that it all worked out, but being solely responsible for your security in a conflict zone is tough on you both mentally and physically. I came back to Canada pretty exhausted.
What's Next?
As you might know this was only the first of two of my research trips. Although I came home with enough data to finish my Ph.D. my supervisors are encouraging me to complete a second field visit to the Congo or elsewhere. Intellectually and emotionally I'm still very attached to the idea of returning but I'm now much more acutely aware of the challenges in doing so. Goma was always the more risky location and the economic, security and political situation are all deteriorating.
Careful self reflection have led me to the conclusion that I can probably go back to the DRC with some adjustments to my security strategy and a bit more cash in hand. This is of course contingent on the situation not falling apart as a result of the elections currently scheduled in November. The office of risk management, my supervisors and I will all be watching the news carefully in the coming months to decide whether or not a second trip is viable. I hope it is, for my own sake as well as for the sake of the Congolese people. They have shed enough tears and blood for many lifetimes.
In the mean time I'm working both academically and professionally to advance my thesis and make some money. I am also coping/working through the mild vicarious trauma and traumatic stress I acquired during my trip. These things are more or less going fine.
Ending at the Beginning
There's a story I like to tell people about my trip. When I arrived in Kamembe (Rwanda) my colleague and I were picked up by his Congolese counterpart in a Taxi which drove us to the Congolese border. Once there, we went through immigration while the staff of the organization offloaded our luggage into their organization's vehicle. We got into the truck, crossed the rickety bridge into Bukavu and while we were having our passports validated it suddenly struck me that I didn't see my backpack containing my laptop and research materials in the truck. After our visas were validated, we returned to the truck and I inquired about my backpack discovering that it was not in fact in the truck. Trying to moderate my panic I explained the problem. To my amazement the man who had helped us through the visa process using his connections called the Rwandan taxi company, located my backpack and it was returned to me within less than fifteen minutes.
The moral of the story is that although my trip was scary at times, that it all worked out in the end.
In peace.
Tuesday, April 19, 2016
Rumours
I started to notice the prevalence of rumours in Bukavu around la journée de la ville mort, a day when everyone stays home so the streets are dead so to speak, which took place here in February to recognize ongoing political oppression. I received vastly different accounts of what was going on depending who I talked to ranging from one quiet day (which was what actually happened) to three days of intense protest with the possibility of violent clashes between protest groups.
On Saturday morning I was naturally distressed to learn that an explosion had occurred in a vehicle close to a central market right along the main road in town which killed three people. However, there was evidence of rumours in the very first retelling of the story I heard which led me to check the news before sharing the information myself (it was of course confirmed). The first person who told me about the incident told me that a widow and her three children had been killed in an explosion in their vehicle which was caused by a grenade that was thrown at a car by the family of the widow's deceased husband who killed her husband years ago and now had returned to finish the job. Another informant told me that it was a dispute between neighbours which led to the grenade being thrown into the car. The two most far out stories came from other foreigners, one who told me that a grenade had been thrown at a crowd that had gathered to protest the financial mismanagement of a cooperative bank, and another who told me that a refrigerator exploded in the back of the vehicle. More recently I've heard lots of my local contacts speculate that the explosion was caused by witch craft, one going as far as to say that there was no trauma on either of the bodies (unfortunately someone posted pictures of the bodies on facebook so I can confirm that there was in fact trauma to the bodies).
All that has been confirmed by at least two independent news sources (Radio Okapi and Radio France International) is that an explosion which was the result of an attack occurred in a vehicle which caused the death of a mother and her two children and that police are investigating. It's not even clear if it was a grenade or a car bomb.
I find the pervasiveness of rumours in the spread of information here very interesting. It likely results from the absence of a reliable source of security information, lack of access to formal news sources (many people can't read and don't have access to a radio or television) and to a large extent fear. A lot of the people who I'm working with have recently expressed fear over the possibility of violence and war surrounding the election. Although none of the rumours I've heard have linked the attack to terrorism or armed groups, after recounting the stories each of my informants have concluded that "it wasn't an attack by an armed group" and I wonder if it's a reflection of what it would mean for them and their community it was in fact an attack, since indeed we have no information other than that three people were killed when something exploded in their vehicle.
On Saturday morning I was naturally distressed to learn that an explosion had occurred in a vehicle close to a central market right along the main road in town which killed three people. However, there was evidence of rumours in the very first retelling of the story I heard which led me to check the news before sharing the information myself (it was of course confirmed). The first person who told me about the incident told me that a widow and her three children had been killed in an explosion in their vehicle which was caused by a grenade that was thrown at a car by the family of the widow's deceased husband who killed her husband years ago and now had returned to finish the job. Another informant told me that it was a dispute between neighbours which led to the grenade being thrown into the car. The two most far out stories came from other foreigners, one who told me that a grenade had been thrown at a crowd that had gathered to protest the financial mismanagement of a cooperative bank, and another who told me that a refrigerator exploded in the back of the vehicle. More recently I've heard lots of my local contacts speculate that the explosion was caused by witch craft, one going as far as to say that there was no trauma on either of the bodies (unfortunately someone posted pictures of the bodies on facebook so I can confirm that there was in fact trauma to the bodies).
All that has been confirmed by at least two independent news sources (Radio Okapi and Radio France International) is that an explosion which was the result of an attack occurred in a vehicle which caused the death of a mother and her two children and that police are investigating. It's not even clear if it was a grenade or a car bomb.
I find the pervasiveness of rumours in the spread of information here very interesting. It likely results from the absence of a reliable source of security information, lack of access to formal news sources (many people can't read and don't have access to a radio or television) and to a large extent fear. A lot of the people who I'm working with have recently expressed fear over the possibility of violence and war surrounding the election. Although none of the rumours I've heard have linked the attack to terrorism or armed groups, after recounting the stories each of my informants have concluded that "it wasn't an attack by an armed group" and I wonder if it's a reflection of what it would mean for them and their community it was in fact an attack, since indeed we have no information other than that three people were killed when something exploded in their vehicle.
Friday, April 1, 2016
Too Many Sad Stories: Realities of Life in the DRC
I'm currently on a much needed vacation in Uganda. Since I've arrived here old friends and new ones have eagerly asked about what life is like in the DRC, and I wish that I had better news. However, what's becoming abundantly clear is that there is an overwhelming number of sad stories in the Eastern DRC and that peace and development have been slow to reach those most affected by extreme poverty and violence.
The sad stories must have started on the third day of my trip when I traveled with the staff of one of the organizations and their funder to Bideka. The overall tone of this visit was fairly light in comparison to what I've seen since. We arrived, viewed the local school and health centre and met with a group of women who shared about their experiences seeking medical and psycho-social support after having been the victims of Sexual and Gender Based Violence. I was surprised at how openly these women talked about their experiences. Closer to the end of the meeting another woman arrived and was asked to share her story. This woman didn't stand as confidently as the rest and she struggled to introduce herself, eventually terminating her contribution. After the meeting was over she asked to speak to me and the funder privately, at which point she explained that she had been attacked and raped in her home twice, losing her husband, children and sister. The young woman then started to sob and asked what she was supposed to do with her life now.
Unfortunately, this story isn't uncommon. Attending an intake for survivors of rape with the same organization, which I mentioned in my last post I met three women, I met three women all of whom had been violently and repeatedly raped. By far the most shocking story came from a 53 year old. Twelve years ago she and her family were at home when they were attacked. The rebels who attacked her killed her husband and half of her children, and the other half fled into the forest while she was gang raped. Her children never returned, and the woman lost everything in one night.
Of course it's not only the women who are suffering in the Congo. During my field visits to the Pleine de la Ruzizi I have also met with men who have lost children, whose families have been attacked and who have been targeted by other types of violent crime. Further, because of the lack of sustainable development both boys and men are at risk of being recruited into armed groups where they are forced to perpetrate unthinkable attacks. I realize that this last sentence might be surprising, but I think that this type of recruitment victimizes men further in a context where an absence of livelihood options means that men must sometimes choose between joining an armed group or sitting idly by as they and their families go hungry, sustaining a cycle of victimization. Few services are available to support victims of violence other than those who have been raped.
What perhaps is most troubling is the rate of traumatization among the local peacebuilders who are serving the broader population of conflict affected people. The former executive director of one of the organizations that I'm working with was assassinated 10 years ago, and many of his friends and colleagues still work for the organization, and of course this event remains at the front of their minds, causing them to fear for their own safety. Justice has never been served in this case. At another organization I'm working with a man who felt compelled to photo-document a massacre that happened in the Pleine de la Ruzizi in which hundreds of people were burned alive in a church, which was actually outside of his professional duties. Upon his return he presented the pictures to the local civil society coordinators who displayed the photos and called for three days of mourning. Shortly thereafter he started being followed by the ANR (the Congolese spy group) and targeted for arrest, he even had to change residences to ensure his safety. A final individual who I'm working with escaped kidnapping in his youth and said to me frankly "If I hadn't gotten away, can you imagine where I would be now? This is on top of arrests, petty crime and other traumas these peacebuilders and human rights defenders have experienced, while helping to address the kinds of stories I've included above everyday.
Only one of the three organizations that I work with has the resources to offer their employees counselling services to help support them in their work.
The situation in the Congo is, once again, at a critical turning point. National elections are scheduled to be held this year which has the potential to create significant civil unrest. In addition, a number of international humanitarian organizations are currently withdrawing or reducing their presence in the Eastern DRC as they move towards addressing emerging crises in South Sudan, Syria, Iraq and other parts of the World. However, much of the economy in the Eastern DRC is propped up by the presence of such organizations who employ local staff and whose foreign staff bring money into the economy. This withdrawal has already contributed to a notable deterioration in the security situation and the local economy. Together these two phenomenon could be a deadly combination living in the DRC.
Unfortunately, I don't know what the solution is to these challenges. My local contacts tell me that the government's capacity and territorial control needs to be strengthened, however corruption and personal interests threaten to counteract any efforts to do so.
On a very personal level I have found these stories of violence very troubling. I decided to go on vacation because I was starting to experience symptoms of compassion fatigue. However, there is also some irony in this. While I can always leave the DRC and traipse around East Africa for a couple of days to get my bearings back, staying in discount or otherwise hotels as I go, this is not an option for my Congolese colleagues and their beneficiaries who often struggle to put food on the table, no less take a much needed break.
Thursday, March 24, 2016
What Ethnographic Observation Looks Like
Pun Intended
In addition to interviews a large part of my research here is based on ethnographic observation. Ethnographic observation is a way of observing people in the course of their daily activities to try to understand both their daily lives and a specific phenomenon, which in my case, is how local actors contribute to peace.
But what exactly does that mean?
I spend 1.5 days per week with each of the three organizations that are participating in my research. Initially I was spending the other half day writing but recently it's been working out that I've been spending extra time with at least one of the organizations. Often while I'm at the organizations I'll conduct up to three staff interviews during a day. If I'm not interviewing anyone, I'm usually hanging out with the staff, listening to them discuss local news, their jobs or everyday life; all the while watching how they interact with each other and their superiors. Through doing this I've identified that one of the organizations laughs a lot together, one is very open to debate and the last one is very formalized. I also spend a lot of time talking with staff members one on one learning what makes them tick as well as hearing about their stories of personal bravery in the face of injustice, their work in the field and their hopes and dreams. Sometimes the workers at the organizations also talk to me about less optimistic topics like when their family members are the victims of attacks or accidents, or even sometimes their personal beliefs on gender equality (the Bible says that men and women weren't created equally you know...)
However, I really think that the highlight of observation for me has been accompanying local peacebuilders as they undertake community based activities. This started with a visit to a local jail where one of the organizations sends their lawyers to offer public defense services for inmates who can't afford a lawyer. The Central Prison in Bukavu houses 1400 prisoners, 1100 more people than the prison was build to house. As a result of the large number of inmates many go without receiving a trial for several years.
I think that one of the most hard-hitting experiences I've had so far was observing the intake and accompaniment of sexual violence survivors. We met with three women who had all experienced sexual violence and experienced prolapses. After they share their stories with the Children and Gender program we took them to the World famous Panzi Hospital where they would be assessed and received treatment. The Panzi Hospital is famous for treating women who develop fistula's after being raped, and they provide psycho-social and income generating support on top of the medical treatments they provide. It's worth noting the rape continues to be used as a weapon of war in the DRC by all of the active armed groups. On the day that I observed
I have also gotten to participate in a radio show and join a community group that meets regularly to conduct conflict analysis and undertake conflict resolution and mediation practices.
The other way in which I get to observe the organizations in action is through field visits. So far I have participated in two visits.
During the first trip I traveled with an organization to Sange, where we met members of their community mediation and women's groups. After conducting five interviews at a local school I also had the chance to meet the organization's Director's family.
During the second trip we stopped in several cities along the Pleine de la Ruzizi where I conducted interviews and the organization with which I was travelling checked on the progress of markets which they were helping to construct. On the way home the following day we participated in several ceremonies opening those markets which local politicians also attended.
There are also some major challenges associated with going to the field. During the first trip, we spent nine hours driving to spend 4 hours in Sange along the Ngoma escarpment road, along which you could see the trucks that rolled down never to be retrieved. On the second trip we used the much safer Rwandan roads, but I was asked for bribes crossing the Congolese border back into the Pleine. I was also put in danger by the director of my host organization who on more than one occasion left me in precarious situations, so that he could use the vehicle for something else or to attend some other meeting. These experiences left me very exhausted.
None the less I continue to enjoy learning about and from my research participants and understanding how local civil society organizations are indeed contributing to peace.
Cheers!
In addition to interviews a large part of my research here is based on ethnographic observation. Ethnographic observation is a way of observing people in the course of their daily activities to try to understand both their daily lives and a specific phenomenon, which in my case, is how local actors contribute to peace.
But what exactly does that mean?
I spend 1.5 days per week with each of the three organizations that are participating in my research. Initially I was spending the other half day writing but recently it's been working out that I've been spending extra time with at least one of the organizations. Often while I'm at the organizations I'll conduct up to three staff interviews during a day. If I'm not interviewing anyone, I'm usually hanging out with the staff, listening to them discuss local news, their jobs or everyday life; all the while watching how they interact with each other and their superiors. Through doing this I've identified that one of the organizations laughs a lot together, one is very open to debate and the last one is very formalized. I also spend a lot of time talking with staff members one on one learning what makes them tick as well as hearing about their stories of personal bravery in the face of injustice, their work in the field and their hopes and dreams. Sometimes the workers at the organizations also talk to me about less optimistic topics like when their family members are the victims of attacks or accidents, or even sometimes their personal beliefs on gender equality (the Bible says that men and women weren't created equally you know...)
However, I really think that the highlight of observation for me has been accompanying local peacebuilders as they undertake community based activities. This started with a visit to a local jail where one of the organizations sends their lawyers to offer public defense services for inmates who can't afford a lawyer. The Central Prison in Bukavu houses 1400 prisoners, 1100 more people than the prison was build to house. As a result of the large number of inmates many go without receiving a trial for several years.
I think that one of the most hard-hitting experiences I've had so far was observing the intake and accompaniment of sexual violence survivors. We met with three women who had all experienced sexual violence and experienced prolapses. After they share their stories with the Children and Gender program we took them to the World famous Panzi Hospital where they would be assessed and received treatment. The Panzi Hospital is famous for treating women who develop fistula's after being raped, and they provide psycho-social and income generating support on top of the medical treatments they provide. It's worth noting the rape continues to be used as a weapon of war in the DRC by all of the active armed groups. On the day that I observed
I have also gotten to participate in a radio show and join a community group that meets regularly to conduct conflict analysis and undertake conflict resolution and mediation practices.
The other way in which I get to observe the organizations in action is through field visits. So far I have participated in two visits.
During the first trip I traveled with an organization to Sange, where we met members of their community mediation and women's groups. After conducting five interviews at a local school I also had the chance to meet the organization's Director's family.
During the second trip we stopped in several cities along the Pleine de la Ruzizi where I conducted interviews and the organization with which I was travelling checked on the progress of markets which they were helping to construct. On the way home the following day we participated in several ceremonies opening those markets which local politicians also attended.
There are also some major challenges associated with going to the field. During the first trip, we spent nine hours driving to spend 4 hours in Sange along the Ngoma escarpment road, along which you could see the trucks that rolled down never to be retrieved. On the second trip we used the much safer Rwandan roads, but I was asked for bribes crossing the Congolese border back into the Pleine. I was also put in danger by the director of my host organization who on more than one occasion left me in precarious situations, so that he could use the vehicle for something else or to attend some other meeting. These experiences left me very exhausted.
None the less I continue to enjoy learning about and from my research participants and understanding how local civil society organizations are indeed contributing to peace.
Cheers!
Sunday, March 6, 2016
Introducing Local Peacebuilding in South Kivu
After being here for more than a month I'm excited to share with you about some of the organizations I'm working with in the DRC.
I'm going to start by explaining in more detail why I can't name the organizations I'm working with in my post, because I think it tells you a lot about the context here. Several participants in my research project have indicated that they fear violence as a result of their work. This is because the organizations that they work with challenge local power structures in a serious way. These activities include confronting the government over human rights abuses, trying to demobilize members of armed groups and generally working in unsafe parts of the country. As a result of their work members of these organizations receive death threats, have been arrested and have been the victims of violent attacks.
Here are some general trends I can note about the organizations. Two of the three organizations I'm working with are underfunded to the point that some or all of their staff are currently working for free, while the other is well financed. Two of the organizations work, at times with the states. All three of the organizations are heavily engaged in peace education, conflict resolution and have projects focused on women and/or children. They also work on human rights, ethnic discrimination, land conflict and natural resource management.
The staff of the organizations that I'm working at are made up of men and women, although there are a lot fewer women, and they generally range in age from 30 to 60. They are almost all University educated, pursuing programs in human rights and law, rural development and teaching.
The employees of these organizations engage in a wide variety of daily tasks. The ones that I have directly observed include the intake and accompaniment of rape victims, facilitating peace clubs, conflict mediation, facilitating of inter-community dialogue groups, public defense services at the local jail, the delivery of sensitization and training programs and research on the local causes of conflict. From speaking with them I also know that they participate in disarmament activities, ensure the safety of prisoners, coordinate with field staff (extensively), participate in regional civil society mechanisms and engage directly at the community level in conflict resolution, the demobilization of armed groups and in community building activities.
I often find myself inspired by the people who I am working with. I'm inspired by their commitment to peace, their willingness to continue their work despite some pretty significant structural and security challenges and their bravery when facing some very heartbreaking situations.
I'm really grateful that I'll have the opportunity to write about what I'm observing in greater detail in my thesis and beyond.
I'm going to start by explaining in more detail why I can't name the organizations I'm working with in my post, because I think it tells you a lot about the context here. Several participants in my research project have indicated that they fear violence as a result of their work. This is because the organizations that they work with challenge local power structures in a serious way. These activities include confronting the government over human rights abuses, trying to demobilize members of armed groups and generally working in unsafe parts of the country. As a result of their work members of these organizations receive death threats, have been arrested and have been the victims of violent attacks.
Here are some general trends I can note about the organizations. Two of the three organizations I'm working with are underfunded to the point that some or all of their staff are currently working for free, while the other is well financed. Two of the organizations work, at times with the states. All three of the organizations are heavily engaged in peace education, conflict resolution and have projects focused on women and/or children. They also work on human rights, ethnic discrimination, land conflict and natural resource management.
The staff of the organizations that I'm working at are made up of men and women, although there are a lot fewer women, and they generally range in age from 30 to 60. They are almost all University educated, pursuing programs in human rights and law, rural development and teaching.
The employees of these organizations engage in a wide variety of daily tasks. The ones that I have directly observed include the intake and accompaniment of rape victims, facilitating peace clubs, conflict mediation, facilitating of inter-community dialogue groups, public defense services at the local jail, the delivery of sensitization and training programs and research on the local causes of conflict. From speaking with them I also know that they participate in disarmament activities, ensure the safety of prisoners, coordinate with field staff (extensively), participate in regional civil society mechanisms and engage directly at the community level in conflict resolution, the demobilization of armed groups and in community building activities.
I often find myself inspired by the people who I am working with. I'm inspired by their commitment to peace, their willingness to continue their work despite some pretty significant structural and security challenges and their bravery when facing some very heartbreaking situations.
I'm really grateful that I'll have the opportunity to write about what I'm observing in greater detail in my thesis and beyond.
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