Missive from the Congo 22

Keeping fit in the Congo. Staying fit while deployed is not just a good thing to do; it’s an operational necessity. People who are fit cope better with stressors such as changes in diet, sleep patterns, etc. Exercise itself is a good stress and tension reliever. Fitness is essential to operational effectiveness.

 

That’s the why of soldier fitness. The how is a little trickier. In a place like Kandahar, you’ll find a huge fitness center with just about every piece of fitness kit you can imagine. With a couple thousand Canadian soldiers alone, it makes sense to have a purpose build facility. However, in the Congo things are little different.

 

As I mentioned in a previous missive, there are a number of private gyms in Kinshasa one can belong to. I don’t know how much it costs but we can get reimbursed for reasonable expenses. To my knowledge there are no private gyms in Goma. There is a small gym at the headquarters which costs $50 a month if I recall correctly. However, apparently it’s locked during the day. After all the UN brought you here to work not workout.

 

In any event, we don’t use that gym. We’ve been provided with a reasonable amount of fitness equipment at public expense. The gym has been set up in a small room in the basement. In it we’ve got a spinning bike, a rowing machine, a weight bench, an assortment of weights, and an exercise ball. There used to be a multi-function workout machine in Kisangani. Not sure what happened to it. The probably figured it would be too difficult take apart and reassemble correctly to bother moving it.

 

Canada House Goma gym

Of course, you can go running if you can find a suitably smooth surface. The streets here are horrible for cars, let alone runners. One guy working at the headquarters goes running on the airfield early in the morning, before air operations start up. The airport is much too far for me but luckily there is a small hotel about 500 metres up the road. It has a sort of ring road which circles the property. I go run there. One lap is approximately one kilometre so it’s a reasonable distance and it has a hill as an added bonus. A word of caution, do not think about the upcoming meeting or you might not notice the rock jutting up on the path and go down hard, giving yourself a very thorough exfoliation of leg, arm and palm. Just saying.

 

Canada House Goma gym

Having the facilities is only half the battle though. Those weights don’t lift themselves. Our secret weapon is Royal Navy Lieutenant-Commander Nick Reed. Nick has spent a lot of time at sea, including quite a bit of time on submarines. He is also a small unit fitness instructor. So he has lots of knowledge and experience with fitness regimes in environments where equipment and space are limited. And he’s a great motivator. So us guys head to the basement three to four times a week to workout. We were four last night. Nick has created a training circuit with weight, abs, leg and arm stations.

  

Here is what the the weights and abs portion of the program looks like:

 

 Depending on how many people are there we’ll do three or four stations. The person doing the weights drives the timing. When they’re done with their 10 repetitions, we go to the next station. We normally do this three times with a minute break between each complete circuit. Takes about one hour, give or take. The room is relatively small and there is no air circulation so we come out of there drenched in sweat. But it’s well worth it. In fact it’s necessary given the diet high in fries, pop and beer. I, for one, don’t intend to gain weight like last time.

 

So that’s the low down on fitness here in Goma. One last point. Goma is almost a mile above sea level. About the same altitude as Denver. In any event, at this altitude the air is somewhat thinner and your body has to compensate by producing more red blood cells. This a significant though somewhat short-lived advance when exercising at lower altitudes. So my personal goal during this tour is to take my extra red blood cells for my first marathon upon my return to Canada. We’ll see how it goes. If nothing else the training will help keep the middle section from becoming too mushy.

 

 

 

Missive from the Congo 021

Feeding Canada House – A tale of two cities. Preparing meals and eating generally is something we take for granted. We all have our different routines at home but generally we shop, we cook, we eat. Pretty straightforward. However all of that is much more difficult here in the Congo. The first thing is to establish the division of labour. The people living in Canada House never lived with each other before. They are thrust together for a few months and have to sort themselves out. Who cooks? Who shops? And for what? All of these things need to be decided in a much more explicit fashion than back in Canada.

Shopping is a real chore. One reason is availability of ingredients. Although you can get quite a bit more stuff in Goma and Kinshasa than you could in Kisangani, it is still limited as compared to Loblaws, for example. Time and space is often an issue as well. Shopping is much more time consuming because you need to go to more places to get what you need and getting from A to B is generally a much slower process than it would be in Canada for similar distances.

Cooking is also a different process. Back home I know that my role is that of sous-chef and BBQ master. Here these roles have to be re-negotiated based on a new situation. The approach to this task is very different in Kinshasa and Goma.

In Kinshasa they have decided to cook supper for themselves (ie. no local cook). And because they are a large group (currently 9 but sometimes up to 12 with visitors) they have a posted duty schedule. The duty cook gets to choose what meal they want to prepare but they have to try and please most of the dinners with their selection. No really off the wall stuff (as far as I know). The cook has to identify the necessary ingredients and pass the list on to the clerk whose duties include grocery shopping. The cook then cooks the meal. This is generally the most challenging part. The kitchens in Kinshasa are small. I say kitchens because the residents are in two adjoining town houses. One of the houses seems to have become the de facto supper house though sometimes the cooks needs assets from both kitchens. The stoves are not the most powerful cooking appliances going. And you need to cook for a relatively large group. Hopefully you have good power when you’re the cook. Otherwise things go pear shape pretty quick. During my stay in Kinshasa I got tagged for one meal. I chose Indian butter chicken. We managed to get all of the ingredients. The meal turned out quite well but cooking it took considerably longer than I had expected because of quantity and equipment limitations. I’d say we ate about 40 minutes later than I had originally planned but I guess the others had a more realistic time appreciation because there was no complaining. The upside of being the cook is that you are excused from clean up duty. And of course you get to eat something you like.

Kitchen in Goma

The folks in Goma opted to get a cook. Our kitchen is somewhat bigger than the ones I Kinshasa. We have two butane powered burners and a small (24”) stove. Apparently the oven works now. And I purchased a microwave oven last weekend. We used to have one in Kisangani, which was purchased while I was there four years ago but I guess it gave up the ghost because it’s lying in pieces in the backyard. At least I think it’s the same one. Charlotte’s daughter Carmeli cooks supper for us. We check off on a sheet whether we will be there or not and she prepares a meal accordingly from a fairly finite set of meal ideas. I’d say there are about 10 meals on a rotation. Generally good but pretty basic. She and Charlotte do most of the shopping. On the weekends were on our own. In those cases we either go out or someone volunteers to cook something. It’s a much more informal arrangement but with a smaller group, we’re 5 in the house, it works.

Butane stove

One last thing about suppers. Meals in Goma are rarely a collective activity. The meal is prepared before Carmeli leaves and sits in the Kitchen. People go in and serve themselves. Some of us workout before supper. Others eat right away. I don’t think we all sit down for a meal at the same time more than three times a week. Again, a much more informal approach. In Kinshasa, they make an effort to all eat at the same time. They also always toast the cook at supper. Everybody has to acknowledge the toast of everybody else at the table, and you have to look everybody in the eyes. Eye contact is essential apparently. Nothing wrong with that I guess, it was just a bit weird. Those Kinshasa folks are eccentric.

As for the other meals, ie breakfast and lunch, the approach is the same in Kinshasa and Goma. You’re on your own for breakfast. Go to the kitchen. Find something and eat it. The maid does the dishes. For lunch people generally go out to a local restaurant. In Goma, the text messages start flying at about noon to see who’s going to be part of the group and where we are going to eat. There is a lovely patio with a fabulous view of the lake at the headquarters. We often eat there because it’s easy, relatively inexpensive, and generally good. There are a handful of other places we go to. The menus are generally similar and they are all uniformly slow. It took an hour and a half to get and eat a cheeseburger last Friday. There is no such thing as fast food in the Congo.

Missive from the Congo 020

This week’s missive is about Rwanda. Last weekend being a long weekend (Easter), five of us drove to Kigali, Rwanda for a change of scenery. In this missive I will discuss some of the similarities and differences between Rwanda and the Congo.

Someone, I don’t remember who, when referring to Rwanda, called it the “Switzerland of Africa”. The metaphor is apt. Rwanda is tiny. It has a total area of approximately 25 million square kilometres or about half the size of Nova Scotia. As with Switzerland, Rwanda’s neighbours are much larger. In comparison the Congo is almost 100 times larger than Rwanda. Rwanda is also very hilly. It is referred to in French as “le pays des milles collines”. The entire west and center of the country is mountains. It took three hours to drive from Goma to Kigali and the entire time was spent climbing and descending mountain passes. As an indication of how much up, down and around the road does, the distance from Goma to Kigali as the crow flies is 106 km but the actual road distance is 155 km. That’s a 50% premium. Needless to say it was an exciting drive in darkness.



New pavement in central Kigali



Having said that, one of the first things you notice the relative quality of the roads. The entire road between Gisenyi (the town on the Rwandan side of the border) and Kigali is paved, as are all the major roads in Kigali. Moreover the pavement is not leftover stuff from colonial days like much of the pavement in the Congo. It’s relatively recent and in good condition. In fact they were laying some fresh pavement while were there. The road east of Kigali to Akagera National Park was also well paved, at least up to the town just outside the park. Now to be fair, the side streets in Kigali weren’t any better than those in Kinshasa. Nonetheless there is a very significant contrast between Kinshasa and Kigali.

The means used to get around town in either city are pretty similar. Generally that involves collective taxis (mini buses), motorcycles and bicycles. The main difference though is quality. The vehicles in Kigali appear to be in good order. The relatively good condition of the roads helps keep them that way I’m sure. There are also a great number of motorbikes, as with Goma. Again the difference is quality. The motorbike taxis in Kigali appear to be regulated. The drivers have jackets with some kind of numbering scheme. All drivers have helmets and a spare helmet for the passenger. No such luxuries in Goma. There were also some “normal” taxis in Kigali. Again no such luxury in Goma and I don’t remember seeing any in Kinshasa.





Public service announcement



Finally, the thing that struck me the most is the language. Rwanda is a former German colony that was part of what was known as German East Africa. Following the end of WWI, the League of Nations declared Rwanda a mandate territory under the control of Belgium. As such, Rwanda became a mostly French speaking country. However, there is now a decidedly English bent to the country. The clerks, wait staff and others seemed determined to speak English instead of French. Public service announcements were in both Swahili (I assume) and English. I saw relatively few French signs, and those seemed relatively older. One of my fellow travelers, who has worked with a Dutch non-governmental organisation, said there was conscious public policy decision to shift to English. English is now taught in schools to a greater degree than French and as mentioned above many of the public service messages are in English as opposed to French. It is apparently intended as a deliberate break from the past.

All in all, Rwanda was a rather interesting study in contrasts. I don’t know how Rwanda and the Congo compared before the Rwandan genocide and subsequent African wars but they have surely drifted apart now.

Missives from the Congo 019

So I've been in Goma for a little less than a week though I've already spent two nights out of town in Bukavu which is at the other end of lake Kivu. Like the other major cities I've been to (Kinshasa, Kisangani, Kindu and now Bukavu) Goma has it's own personality. The first thing you notice is the weather. Goma is 1,500 m above sea level in the mountains of the central African plateau. It is cool here. The average daily high in 25 degrees and the low is about 15 degrees. So perfect weather in my books. There is no air conditioning at the house and you need a blanket on the bed. The altitude also means many fewer mosquitoes though we still sleep under the bug nets.

The other significant difference is the roads. The roads in Goma are atrocious. The is largely because of Nyiragongo, the volcano just 20 kilometers out of town. The entire town is built on more or less recent lava flows. The flows are hard, irregular and jagged. It is very difficult to create a smooth road surface on the lava flows. They cover the base with generous amounts of crushed stone and stone dust but some of it invariably washes away with the rains, leaving potholes with jagged lava rock sticking out. It's tough on the suspension and worse on the tires.

The availability of food and restaurants is much greater in Goma than in Kisangani four years ago. It rivals Kinshasa but at a lesser cost. More on this in a later missive.



Finally, Goma has a more eclectic mix of vehicles on the road. There are many more cars than in Kisangani but not the crush of vehicles you see in Kinshasa. There are also many motor bikes and, unique to the Goma area, chickadoos. These are like oversized wooden bikes mainly used to carry stuff around. Driving is ever a challenge in the Congo. Goma is no different in that respect.

All and all Goma is living up to its' reputation as the best place to be in the Congo.

Missive from the Congo 018

Boulevard 30 Juin, Kinshasa

So this is my last day in Kinshasa for quite a while. I take off to Goma tomorrow AM so my impressions of Goma will have to wait until next week. So this week I’ll talk about life in Kinshasa a little more. Last week I said that time seemed to have passed Kinshasa by. While much have remained unchanged in the last four years, after being for ten days or so, I have to admit that there has been some changes. The most noticeable change is Boulevard du 30 Juin. This is the main boulevard in Kinshasa. While is it was one of the better roads fours years ago, it has been rehabilitated with assistance from China. New pavement. New drainage. And new lightposts. It’s as good as any road in Ottawa, actually better than most. There is also construction along an extension of 30 Juin to widen the street and improve drainage.

Collective taxi

Another, more subtle change is in the number of what were referred to by the Canadians four years ago as “spidermen”. These are the guys, and they are invariably men, who hang off the back or sides of the collectives taxis. Four years ago they were everywhere, often four or five to a vehicle. Now I’ve seen a few but they are few and far behind. I mentioned the “spidermen” to my tour guide while on safari in Kenya four years ago. He said that the same thing occurred in Kenya until the government cracked down on this patently dangerous practice. I don’t know if that is the explanation for the change or something else but it is progress of sorts.



One other thing I noticed is that there seems to be more fitness clubs. Four years ago I was only aware of two places; the Grand Hotel and Elais. Now, there are at least two others and perhaps more. There are also bank machines. In fact the banking system has developed to the point there UN staff posted to major cities are now have their mission subsistence allowance paid to a local bank.



So I guess Kinshasa has seen some progress. It still has a very long way to go to be a liveable city for more than an very small minority but some is better than none.

Missive from the Congo 017

So here we go with the first missive of this my second tour to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The trip over was the usual very long day. The icing on the cake, after the seven hour flight from Paris, was the three hour drive to Canada House. This is a drive that normally takes less than one hour. However there was a rugby match which clogged up the only route from the airport tight. A one point there was eight lanes of traffic on a two lane road. The main cause was oncoming traffic turning left at an unregulated intersection. Some things never change.


In fact change does not seem to have troubled Kinshasa too much these last four years. I didn’t spend all that much time in Kinshasa last time but there is precious that appears to have changed. There are still vendors on the sides of the roads selling, watches, purses, clocks, maps, office furniture, safes, etc. In fact, if there is a market for it, you can probably buy it on the streets here.

Canada House "Blue"

One thing that has changed is Canada House. The size of the contingent in Kinshasa increased by two persons so Canada House had to change. The Canadians here currently rent two three story condos in a small three building compound. There are five bedrooms in each house. I am currently in one of the spare rooms on the third floor, at the top of a very narrow and steep spiral staircase, with steps whose spacing is ever so slightly out of whack. It’s clearly a sobriety test.

The introduction course to the mission starts Wednesday and runs for five and a half days. In it I will get to cover most everything I covered previously at least three times with the possible exception of the course on sexually transmitted diseases. They didn’t cover the use of condoms in Kingston. I believe the highlight of this week will be the English language proficiency test. Can’t wait.

Stair to the third floor

Finally, as many of you know there was an unfortunate airplane craft on Monday. I won’t speculate on the cause of the crash. The investigation will reveal that in due course. I will ask though that, should something like this happen again, you not panic or get anxious. There are tens of thousands of UN and UN-affiliated personnel here. The odds that I would be involved in any specific accident are remote at best. It is also likely that I would be unaware of the accident for hours or days and may not have ready access to the internet to post something to Facebook. So relax. Your stress won’t change a thing except make you feel anxious and lose your appetite. There’s no need for that.


That’s it for this week. Next week, first impressions of Goma.

Missive from Paris

Originally posted on Wed, 25 Apr 2007 04:38:15 +0000

Well, it's all over but the partying. I am writing this missive from the posh confines of the business class lounge in Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. We left the Congo last night and flew overnight to Paris. We arrive in Ottawa this afternoon.

A few final thoughts about the last six months. First, I don't know to what extent I personally made a contribution to the Mission or to the Congo in general. The problems are so large that no one person can deal with them. That being said, I do feel that I contributed in some small measure to improving the lives of the average Congolese. Even small changes can be significant at this stage. But there is still a long way to go.

Personally, the experience was everything I hoped for and more. The work was challenging and rewarding. The staff who worked for me were/are excellent (I got lucky in that respect). I met some fascinating people and made some good friends. It is an experience I will never forget. I am happy to have had this opportunity. I would do it again were I given the chance.

Finally, I would like to thank all of you for your support, and your support to Chantal and the boys. Your e-mails always livened up my mornings. I have a few weeks of leave before going back to work. That will give me the chance to organise the hundreds of pictures I have taken. I'll let you know when show and tell night is.

See you all soon.

John