Missive from the Congo 014

Originally posted on Mon, 12 Feb 2007 22:25:50 +0200

Well I’m back in Kisangani after almost three weeks off so I guess I’d better get back to writing missives. As you know, Chantal and I were away on holidays. We spent our holiday in Africa but more importantly back in civilization; namely South Africa. Chantal met me in the capital of the Republic of South Africa, Johannesburg. From there we proceeded to the southern end of the country and continent, namely the Western Cape. We had a wonderful time. We split our time between Mossel Bay (on the Indian Ocean), Franschhoek (in the vineyards) and Cape Town (in the bistros).

The view from our room in Mossel Bay

In many ways South Africa, or at least the Western Cape, is like North America or southern Europe. For one thing, it is a civilized country. After three months in the Congo, it was nice to have reliable electricity, tap water you can drink and a multitude of good restaurants to choose from.

Nonetheless it was a very different experience. First of all, they drive on the left side of the road, like the British. I must admit that this issue was my greatest concern before going over. I was very concerned about getting into an accident because I was in the wrong lane. It turned out to be very easy to manage. Everything from the road signs, to the lines on the roads, to the placement of the steering wheel push you to the correct (left) side of the road. There were a few hesitations at intersections but on the whole it went well. I did hedge my bets by getting a car with an automatic transmission though. I didn’t think I would be able to concentrate on staying to the left and synchronize change gears with the wrong hand at the same time.

A wine tour on horse back

Language was another difference that we noticed, and I don’t mean Afrikaans (Afrikaans is their version of Dutch spoken in South Africa). I fully expected that. What was surprising was some of the English words being used. For example, I asked for directions to some place or other and was told to “go to the third robot and turn left”. I figured out from the context what they meant but it was very bizarre to my mind. It seems that traffic lights are called “robot”, don’t ask me why. Other words that were very different included “learners” or “scholars”. They are talking about students, of any age. I was told by some South Africans here is Kisangani, that “student” picked up some negative connotation at some point and so now they are “learners” or “scholars”.

Table Mountain

The currency was also a little bit of a challenge. Their currency is the Rand. It is, fortunately, a decimal based currency with the Rand being the dollar and smaller units being cents. So far so good. The issue, albeit a minor one, was that the Canadian dollar is worth six Rand. So you have to divide all prices by six. Prices were generally very reasonable (bordering on inexpensive) but just seemed high until you did the math. Three hundred and fifty Rand just seemed to be a lot of money for supper, even a very good one. Fifty-eight dollars, on the other hand, was much more reasonable.

Cape of Good Hope

There were numerous other little things; like the maid at every B&B we stayed at, the children and adults walking bare foot in the grocery store or mall, the huge number of security guards, among others. South Africa was just different enough to be exotic but similar enough to be comfortable. I won't bother saying how we had a wonderful doing X or seeing Y. It is enough to say we had a terrific time. So good, we may go back to do and see some of the things we missed this time. Now all I have to do is live on the memories of a good vacation for the next ten weeks...

Have a good week.

John

Missive from the Congo 013

Originally posted on Mon, 15 Jan 2007 08:36:54 +0200

Now you see it.

This week I though I would talk about water. It is not a subject we give much thought to in Canada but it is always a subject of discussion here in Kisangani.

Let’s start with the weather. In the Congo, as in much of Africa, there are two seasons; dry and rainy. We are currently in the dry season which started in mid-December and lasts through to the end of March or so. Then comes the rainy season. Then the next dry spell. Then the next rainy season. When I arrived in late October, the rainy season was in full swing. It rained a lot. Two of the pictures attached are the view of the river from the HQ. They are from the same vantage point, taken minutes apart. Notice the river. Now you see it, now you don’t. That’s how much it can rain.

Now you don't.

It rained so much that we were very concerned that some of our installations were going to get flooded. As an indicator of the rise and fall of the mighty Congo, I have included two other pictures taken by others. They were taken from different angles about one month apart. Take a good look at the pier in front of the old factory.

Now let’s talk about city water. Kisangani, unlike most other places in the Congo has a water filtration plant and does provide water to most residents. Now we, the international community, do not drink the water but we use it for washing and such. It is not dangerous per se, but like many places in the world, it takes quite a while to get used to the local bacteria. The provision of water, as with electricity, can be patchy. Naturally the water plant needs electricity to run so when the power goes out so does the water. Also, like most other government employees, the waterworks employees have just started getting paid again but they have years of back wages owed to them. Last week they went on strike to demand their arrears. The flow of water in the town stopped for two days. There are a handful of natural springs in Kisangani, but with well over half a million people in town, you can imagine they got very busy very quickly. There were reports of fights with injuries at one of the springs. People also die when the water stops, but not from what you think. There have been numerous cases in the past of people, mostly kids drowning. Yes drowning. The people go down to the river to wash but most Congolese can’t swim. So they walk out into the river to wash, or they lather up their young children, and then they slip in, or drop the soapy child, and they get swept away by the strong current and drown. As far as I know, there were no reported cases of drowning this time.

Water level during the rainy season

Finally drinking water. As I mentioned above, we do not drink the local tap water. The UN provides bottled water produced by its own military water filtration plant. So we drink that though we were recently admonished not to take the UN water home as it is provided for consumption in the office only. We receive a daily subsistence allowance with which we should buy our water for home use. Yeah right. There is no way the local economy could supply the necessary volume of bottled water given the number of internationals here.

There is apparently a black market for UN water. A number of the local staff have been caught selling the UN bottled later. The chief administrator told me of going to a restaurant and asking for a bottle of water. Lo and behold what does appear on the table but a bottle of UN water, label and all. He drank the water but refused to pay for it.

Water level during the dry season

This will be last missive for a few weeks. I am going on leave to South Africa. I will resume my missives on or about the 12th of February. Thanks and keep the comments coming.

John

Missive from the Congo 012

Originally posted on Tue, 09 Jan 2007 07:41:21 +0200

This week's topic is electricity. It is something we generally take for granted. Usually there's plenty to go around. Occasionally there is a blackout but it is usually short-lived. Electricity here is another story. There is a power generating facility on the Tschopo River but the generators are over forty years old. Needless to say they require a great deal of TLC to keep them running. That is not always enough. There have been numerous instances of blackouts though it has pretty steady lately.

Canada House electical panel

The real trick is in managing the power. Power here is three-phase power. I’m not sure exactly what it means but for more info see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-phase_electric_power. Apparently power in North America is transmitted this way but transformers convert the power to a single phase at 110 volts. Domestic power here is 220 volts and all three phases come to the main panel. We then manually select the phase that provides the best power.

This usually means the most power but not always. We frequently have brownouts where the voltage is very low; sometimes 112 volts instead of 220 volts. Needless to say not much works with only half of the necessary voltage. However the real problems happen when we get too much voltage. We have burned out circuits and appliances because of too much voltage. We use voltage regulators which display the input and output voltages, which is how I know what quality power we are getting. But sometimes there is too much power for the regulators and we have burned one of those.

The other major issue we have with power here is people tampering with the central electrical junction boxes. Most of the electrical cables here are buried. The lines to the various houses go to central boxes that receive power from the city grid. People here routinely open these boxes and make changes to "solve" their electrical problems. They also routinely take the wires from one house to connect another, and so on. It's got to be damn dangerous but as far as I know, no one had died because of it since I arrived. There is just such a box in front of our property and I am convinced that at least some of our electrical problems are related to this tampering. For this reason, aerial power lines are the "modern" solution. Since the wires are out of reach, people don't mess with them.

Utility junction box in front of Canada House

To deal with these issues we have a generator, which we use when there is no or too little power. We use it sparingly both because of the noise but also because gas is quite expensive.

The other thing that is happening relatively frequently around here is the theft of electrical cabling. I'm not talking a few yards here or there but kilometres of it. And I don't mean spools of it stored in a warehouse somewhere. No, thieves have been digging it out of the ground for kilometres. How they manage without someone noticing and telling the authorities is beyond me. I assume it's a combination of fear and corruption but who knows. I gather the copper is quite valuable these days.

Just one more part of the experience.

Have a good week.

John

Missive from the Congo 011

Originally posted on Tue, 02 Jan 2007 18:25:10 +0200

Well, it is now 2007 and I would like to wish you all a very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year. I hope that you had a pleasant holiday seasons.


For my part, I had a very interesting weekend. It actually started on Friday the 29th of December. Friday was a holiday for the UN. It was Eid El Adha, a Muslim holiday of sacrifice.

New Year's supper at Canada House

So Friday being a holiday I only went in to the office for two hours and spent a good part of the afternoon at the pool, relaxing and drinking beer. Not a bad job if you can get it. Saturday was a normal work day, which means 7 AM to 1 PM. We cut out early on Saturday. I spent the afternoon tidying up the house and preparing for Sunday. As with the Christmas weekend, we continued taking turns receiving and being received by different houses. Canada House had the honour of hosting the New Year’s Eve supper. On the menu we had a fairly typical French Canadian meal. It consisted of:

Appetizer
Onion soup

Main course
Sheppard’s pie
Carrots
Bread

Dessert
Shortbread cookies
Tim Horton’s coffee

I did all of the cooking, hence the very simple fare. It was well received though I suspect they would be too polite to complain even if it was awful.

There were seven of us for supper. The same five as the previous weekend plus two additions who had returned from leave in the meantime (one South African and one Dutch).

After supper we went to the all-ranks mess to ring in the New Year. It was a little underwhelming as parties go. For whatever reason the crowd, such as it was, was subdued. Perhaps the truly lousy music had something to do with it. It certainly didn’t inspire me to get up off my chair. We ended up on the upper deck playing Pigs, as game which involves rolling little rubber pigs like dice. We toasted the New Year with some South African bubbly and by 1AM were back at our pads.

Clearly Christina sets a much better table than I

On Monday we went to the second South African house. They have a small pool so we went early. Again to sit by the pool, relax and drink beer. At this point I think it is important to note that this is not my typical routine. It just worked out nicely that way.

The supper on Monday was much more elaborate owing, no doubt, to the much greater culinary skills of our host Christina. She offered us:

Appetizer
Home made vegetable soup (not like the packaged stuff I made)

Main course
Salad

Beef stew

Rice

Green beans
Eggplant in a tomato sauce with grated cheese

Dessert
Crepes with maple syrup

"Sabrering" bubbly Congo style

For the record, I ate my entire meal including the eggplant even though it is clearly food for food.

We finished the meal off with a second bottle of bubbly. I didn’t bring my sabre to the Congo but I did manage to find a local expedient for the task of opening the bottle. Which just goes to show that even in the middle of the jungle, it is possible to inject a little bit of class.

Once again I want to wish you all a very happy and fruitful 2007. Happy New Year.

John

Missive from the Congo 010

Originally posted on Mon, 25 Dec 2006 16:18:17 +0200

Decorations at Canada House.
Note the special wrapping paper for the gift under the tree.

Well, today is Christmas but certainly not a typical Christmas for me. First it’s green, though I understand that a green Christmas will be a reality for most people in Quebec and Ontario. It is, however, warm. We went to the pool yesterday PM to catch some rays and relax. The last time I spent time in the pool on Christmas Eve was in 1984. So it’s been a while. Also, while approximately 80% is Christian, and Christmas is celebrated here, you just don’t get the feeling it is Christmas because there are very few decorations. Quite understandable really, Christmas decorations take a back seat to eating and paying rent for just about everybody. Having said that, we decorated a little at Canada House. We took out the small, fake, Christmas trees as well as the snowman and Santa Claus. I also put out the inflatable Snowman that the ladies from work sent me.

A few of us will be hosting holiday meals on a rotating basis. Last night was the turn of a South African lieutenant-colonel named Herman Claasens. He served a large plate of biltong (dried meat like beef jerky) as a snack. The main course was ox tail stew. Very tasty indeed. Tonight we go the British house. Lord only knows what John Kerwin will be serving. Our turn is next weekend.

My Christmas tie from the girls
at my office back in Canada

I went to midnight mass at the cathedral with my boss, colonel Mbengue. He had spoken to the bishop and got us some reserved seating near the front of the church. It was a very interesting service. I did not really understand much of what was going on since most of the service was in Swahili though I knew in general terms what the flow ought to be. There was quite a bit of singing with a large choir taking the lead. Not as energetic as a church service I attended in Bermuda but certainly a little more so than your typical Canadian service. One thing for sure, it was long. Mass started at 11:15 PM and finished at 2:15 AM. So a three hour mass and we arrived 45 minutes early to make sure we found our place. Still, it was an interesting experience. I didn’t understand any more of the mass this time than I did 22 years ago when we went to mass in Cancun but at least this time I got to sit.

As a closing I would like to wish all of you a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

John

Missive from the Congo 009

Originally posted on Mon, 18 Dec 2006 08:16:25 +0200

Today’s missive will be a short one since I have chosen to talk about rest and relaxation in Kisangani. Simply put, there isn’t much. There are no movie theatres, no golf courses or sports centers, no bike paths or skating rinks. There is not even a mall to walk through. Having said that, there are some things we can do as a R&R activity. Chief among these is O’Donnell’s. This a UN club within the logistics “base”, right next to the river. The really nice thing about O’Donnell’s is that it is within a secure perimeter and only UN staff can go there. Therefore you can really relax. You don’t have to worry about being attacked or have to fend off beggars. Service is Congolese however, but you just learn to order things earlier than you might otherwise and it works. Despite being right by the river, there are no bugs to speak of at nice. That too is nice.

The pool at the Palm Beach Hotel in Kisangani

There are two tennis courts at the Hawaii restaurant. Don’t ask me why but they are there. I haven’t played tennis since my first semester in CEGEP and don’t care to brush up but it is a recreation facility of sorts.


There is also an outdoor pool at the Palm Beach Hotel. They charge $5 USD to go swimming but it is money well spent. It feels so good to jump in there. It is a facility that is open to the public but given the cost, it is not affordable for most residents. Though I suspect there is a Congolese price and a “mosungu” (white man) price. Nonetheless, you see a fair number of Congolese families there enjoying the water and sun. You can order drinks and they cook some goat brochette on a fire pit. Ummm… goat.

Finally, we have satellite TV at the house. It is a South African service provide so the selection is interesting. There are about 150 channels though we watch about seven (CNN, BBC, Discovery, National Geographic, History, MTV and sports). There are about ten sports channel with all the soccer, rugby and cricket you can handle. We don’t watch that much but it is nice to know what is going on in the outside world. I might even figure out how rugby is played by the time I leave but I’m not even going to bother with cricket.


Anyways, have a good week. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.


John

Missive from the Congo 008

Originally posted on Mon, 11 Dec 2006 08:15:02 +0200

Since I spoke to grocery shopping last week, this week I will cover dining out. This will be a short missive because there isn’t much to talk about. In Kisangani there are exactly four restaurants that we go to. There are others but they are either out of bounds, usually because of criminality (drugs and prostitution) or of dubious quality (and hence a health risk).

The four restaurants we do go to are:

• O’Donnell’s which is the UN welfare club. It is inside the UN logistics compound by the river. I try to get there every Friday night for happy hour. It’s a good place to meet the personnel from other sections.
• The Hawaii is our local pizza joint. The pizza is ok but just ok. Nothing to write home about so to speak. This missive notwithstanding. The place also doubles as a sports facility during the day inasmuch as there are two clay tennis courts. They are not lit at night so patio table are setup for evening meals.
• The Hellenic is the “Greek” restaurant but the only “Greek” thing about it is the name. The name comes from the fact that it is part of the Greek community center, next to the Greek Orthodox Church.
• The Pssteria is the best of the four restaurants. It has a covered patio and an air-conditioned dining room. They also have the distinction of being the only place in town where you can buy “Tembo” which a brand of beer brewed in Lubumbashi (about 1200 km south of here). I prefer Tembo to Primus though it is much more expensive ($5 vs $1.50).

O'Donnell's - The UN Social Club in Kisangani

With the exception of the pizza at Hawaii, the menus are remarkably similar. Chicken, goat, fish and some beef. There are also samosas which are a kind of deep frying pastry filled with ground beef (or at least ground meat). In terms of sides, they make very good French fries here. It must be the Belgian legacy. You can also get rice. Vegetables are hard to come by and when served come in very small portions. Not that I mind too much personally. They are what food eat after all.

Prices are generally similar with a main course costing between $10-25 USD. The Pssteria is the most expensive and O’Donnell’s the least. Pssteria has the most extensive menu (such as it is) and O’Donnell’s the least. The other two restaurants are in the middle. Needless to say that, with those prices, the only patrons are internationals such as the UN employees and well-to-do Congolese.

So I won’t starve to death but I won’t be getting very fat either. Quality and variety of meals is definitely one this I miss. I’m looking forward to some good cuisine during our holidays in January and I have already chosen the location for the first restaurant meal on my return to Canada.

Have a good week,

John