Dateline  Haiti. Feb 7, 2010

Michel drove us through the heart of downtown Haiti.  We were left reeling by the complete destruction.  CNN images only supply a small slice of the reality.  Through the busyness of our documenting, observing, and evaluation; we stopped in the realization that people lived here, died here and still remain under the concrete.  We paused for a moment.  A child’s photograph lay on top of the rubble outside of a broken prison wall.  A Christmas tree, white with dust, lay wedged under the weight of two floors collapse.

People pick up the pieces and move on.  Street vendors sit outside of what were once shops and businesses. Dazed, overwhelmed by loss and yet forced by the urgencies of hunger, thirst and shelter to continue moving.

We met with a number of the agencies that were first on the scene.  Our review of the efforts to this stage had us connecting with the Samaritan’s Purse relief team director; with CRI, the coordinator of the medical response facilities in the country; as well as our long-time partners at the Canadian Food Grains Bank.

We drove out of town to listen to rural community leaders describe their plight.  Large businesses have collapsed, not only burying buildings but also employment in the aftermath.  The nations flour-mill is gone, the flour for bread will now need to be imported.

We visited with David, who until a month ago was simply running a small orphanage of 50 children.  Today he was heading out for his second distribution as he attempted to feed the 5000 people who are calling for help.  The local mayor called and asked him to care for another 200 children.  David would like to say yes, but he is not sure if he has the supplies or the capacity.

Notions such as relief, recovery and rebuilding suddenly take on a depth of meaning beyond another headline.  These priorities may actually mean life and death for the hundreds of thousands who remain camped in the temporary shelters on any spare bit of rubble-strewn ground.

The government directive has asked the people to continue to sleep outside rather than go back inside of the listing walls of their homes.  Very few were inside anyways, fear rules here, wondering when the next shock will come.  For thousands there are no more homes only blue tarps and braided palm tree walls.

We are challenged but committed to simply walk forward into the next step.   This is what we know:  we need to pray, continue to listen, engage, and give.

It is 10:30 pm and the rain has just begun, the first since the quake.  It looks like the brief delay in the start of the rainy season is over; these temporary shelters won’t last long.

David Adcock and Mark Crocker

Nov 09 marked the end of a highly successful food aid response to 21 000 of the most vulnerable people in the war-affected areas of eastern DR Congo.

If you have read any of my previous posts on the subject, you have already heard of my first of three visits to the region, during a visit into Nindja, we spent 8 hours on the road. That got us to and from a one-and-a-half hour meeting.  The total distance we travelled was probably about 269 kilometers - 130 km each way, and about 9 in climbing in and out of potholes.

During our drive to the community, at first we passed other four-by-fours, large transport trucks with crowds seated on top of the mass of products, and small Toyotas with the suspension about to burst.  Eventually the vehicles dwindled down to the occasional motorcycle, until finally we met no other car on the road, no one passed by, except on foot.  Later we discovered that we were the fourth vehicle into the region that year.

We passed some of the most beautiful country in the world, gentle mountains, lush and green, gave way to groves of banana, tea, pine and countless small farms.  The hillsides were alive with countless women, men and children, each hard at work with worn shovels and smoothed hoes.  The observable evidence of a return to normal cultivation is on the rise.

Still, the problems of DR Congo are significant; the security situation is in constant flux.  While Kimya II, the recent military campaign to rout out the rebel forces has struck a significant blow at the leadership, in many cases the rebels have now decentralized and moved into the communities. While this is a positive reduction in the overall force of the rebels, it has also created a destabilizing influence at the local community level. Over the summer, I was able to interview several beneficiaries in Kaniola (one of the distribution sites), after asking what war meant to each of them, one woman clarified that this was not a philosophical exercise as she had been forced from her home by rebel combatants in the last week.

Other significant problems include the high prices for many goods, while payment for labour remains very low.  Corruption is endemic – border officials, unofficial road crews, numerous check stops, and army protection – all demand payment.   Government resources are limited and are not trusted by the majority of the population.  Even in the regional capital Bukavu, I found that the electricity, internet connection and water supply were infrequent at best.

For outlying areas, the situation is even more difficult.  As a region, Sud Kivu has borne more than its share of pain.  Constant war, subsequent displacement and numerous acts of violence and aggression have continually forced the population out of the normal routines of planting and harvest.  Food security is tenuous for most, and for those on the edges; the ill, elderly, widowed and orphaned, the situation is even worse.  As people have returned home, they have had to start over with nothing, for some, this displacement has happened numerous times.

Against these challenging circumstances, and ably mobilized by the local project manager, Pastor Raha Muzibao has gathered a capable and honest team to accomplish some substantial goals. 7000 families in five remote areas were identified to receive a substantial monthly food package.  The food would prove a decrease in malnutrition, allow people the time and energy to cultivate their own plots, free people to engage in psychosocial support and re-engage children back to school.  Pastor Raha’s nondescript office wall reveals the important results; during an informal poll review, the village leadership revealed a 98% success rate of the project for the 21 000 beneficiaries.

The project leaders respect and appreciation of the principles of good practice was obvious and enthusiastic.  Even where we found occasional misunderstanding, Raha’s collaborative process of learning and improving was not short-circuited.  There was no abandonment of project principle for expediency or personal advantage, instead integrity was rigorously maintained and consistent and significant advances forward were made in terms of capacity development.

For the most vulnerable, exhausted by the continual terror of displacement and war, this ERDO/CFGB feeding program was initiated and proven very successful.  The consistency and quality of the food package was often a source of pride by the participants.   I observed that beneficiaries showed a marked improvement in health.  Standards of impartiality were maintained and all partners unanimously reported a very high degree of satisfaction.  The only requests that remain are for future projects to new, even-more remote and impoverished communities, as well as the desire  for supplementary food security projects to the communities that the project had served.

Mark Crocker

>Along the way, we passed some of the most beautiful country in the world, gentle mountains, lush and green, gave way to groves of banana, tea, pine and countless small farms.  Most clung to the hillside, at times on a double black diamond slope, women, men and children advancing slowly with worn shovels and smoothed hoes.

The road was appropriately abominable, barely wide enough for us in parts, and deeply rutted with constantly eroding gullies.  Our way forward was bound by other four-by-fours, large transport trucks with the appropriate African cliche of crowds seated on top to cover the mass of products, small Toyotas with the suspension about to burst, motorcycles of all kinds, and of course people. Thousands and tens of thousands of people.

Today was market day, so everyone was out in full force.  The merchants and craftsmen carried their finished products along the long roads.  A carpenter walked along with the carefully balanced wooden framework for the couch on his head.

African heads, protected by a twist of cloth, are used to carry almost anything you can imagine.  They balance the large plastic water cans to and from home, children are often the ones sent running down to the well, to slowly and carefully picking their way home along the roadside, yellow jerry cans balanced high.  For everyone else, the black plastic bag full of the days shopping, countless bundles of firewood, long long lengths of lumber and bamboo, an unopened umbrella ready for the rain, ruddy woven baskets, trays of tiny fish, each sway perfectly balanced, atop men and women as they walk the red dust.  Even briefcases, suitcases and backpacks are commonly found on top rather than on the back of a pedestrian. In town, the budding entrepreneur places the metal pailful of coke and orange fanta bottles on his head, using the rhythmically ringing of the glass with a bit of stone or metal to advertise, although not quite the same as an ice-cream truck, it is as musical.

The number of objects that can be carried on your head is exponentially higher in Africa than home.  In fact, after a lifetime, I can’t think of anything that we carry on our heads in Canada. I suppose earmuffs and toques do not really count as they are not something you are carrying but are rather wearing.  Other than that, I think that leaves only headphones – the old-school kind,  not the more prevalent ipod buds – that we might carry on our head. But, even here i hesitate, I think we would say we wear headphones rather than carry them, what do you think?

Mark Crocker

Most peoples first thoughts of Rwanda must be of the genocide, particularly for Canadians who have listened to General Dallaire’s memories of his time here during the 100 days.  I suppose this is why my first stop today was at the genocide museum.   Situated on the side of a hill (like all buildings in Rwanda), the museum walked us through the history of the divide created between Hutu’s and Tutsi’s.  People formally known for their integration, were actively reruited by foreign government policy and interference to discover that which divided them.  Measurements of noses, and the amount of cattle were the defining differences.  With that, the minority Tutsi were elevated and the remaining 82% Hutu and 1%Twa were relegated to secondary citizenship.

Eventually the majority revolted, a new system of discrimination was instituted to replace the old.  The radio called for the cockroaches to be exterminated – dehumanizing the Tutsi.  Militias were trained, they practiced on smaller groups, killing a few dozen here, a hundred or so there.  Eventually you get good at what you practice, you don’t even need to think about it anymore.  The new 10 commandments of the Hutu were developed and promoted in 1990.  1. No Hutu should marry a Tutsi.  Then nine more of the same. This document seems strange to me, it resonates much more strongly than similar lists.   If I had first seen this list of rules in Auschwitz, I wouldn’t of blinked – the Nazi atrocities are so well known that it is easy to simply consign them to evil in the abstract. I can’t do this as easily with this document, it feels to immediate, too modern – I can’t ignore it as ancient since it was written so recently,

The video showed men, women and so many children brutalized and burnt.  the trace of a bullet across a child’s face, the grainy swarming and hacking death of men by neighbors who carried the machetes.  Yesterday, they had fed one anothers children, today they cut off their fingers.

After walking past the images, we heard the voices of survivors, wondering why they are still here?  Guilty somehow, as only a victim can comprehend.

The footage of the Gacaca, the traditional community court, is so unpretentious.  A man in a pink shirt stands and faces the community.  He recounts his story, of who and where he cut his neighbors daughters with his knife, he tells the names and is asked to slow so the official record-keeper can write everything down.  He speaks so matter-of-factly, listing the others who were with him, the people he collected, what they did.  The community listens, it seems to me impassively, perhaps the horror has been so common, too common.  Perhaps the silence is simply the best response to the unasked questions why?  Maybe they have learned that you cannot ask why, there is no rational reason.  Is evil rational?

The wall of photographs only carries the images of  2000 people, of the more than 1 000 000 who died. It seems a pitiful percentage, and yet their faces fill four walls.  They are similar in their commonality, these are not the mugshots of bureaucracy, not the efficient record of a system recording the inputs of the machinery of death such as Cambodian memorial walls.  Instead these are photo plucked from the albums of everyday life.  Young men standing outside a shop, a crate of bottles in the foreground.  A woman, obviously cropped from her wedding photo, the dislocated arm of her husband encircling her waist.  People smiling, posed and unposed, unaware that they were all soon to be images on a memorial of murder.

I pass through the children’ memorial garden and read their bewildered questions, we head towards the car, and as I am about to walk away, a final small wooden sculpture is revealed, the simple caption, “I did not make myself an orphan”

Mark Crocker

Today I was on the CDC site to check out what vaccines I might need to catch up on.  If you are a traveler, you should know the CDC site is a great resource, in fact i am adding it to my site now.  check it out.

So … how many of the above acronyms were you able to translate?  Send me a reply with your answers, i would love to hear from you. Get them right, and I will send you a dozen more to translate … Get them wrong, and you get the same prize!

Mark Crocker

The only way in which I feel I might truly face the realities of the AIDS pandemic across Africa is through some sort of participation. There are many ways to do so, but here is my favourite.

Hands at Work in Africa. The individuals that make up Hands work very hard at starting Home Based Care initiatives in the small communities across the continent. Home Based Care does what it says, it keeps orphans in their homes while mobilizing the community to care for their needs.

The incredible advantage to home-based care is that it does not further seperate orphans from extended family members – instead the children remain closer to their aunts and uncles, grandparents and friends. Secondly the cost to maintain a child in their home environment is far less than the cost to remove them to an orphanage. At present, Hands At Work is caring for over 14 000 children at a resource level that would not care for 1400 in an orphanage.

It does not hurt that George Snyman, the director of Hands at Work, is an inspiring fellow. A former IT guy, a white South African, he one day went for a walk – over the next few weeks and months he visited the mud huts of hundreds of individuals and faced the realities of AIDS not as a concept, but as individuals. If you watch this video you can hear the story for yourself. Heather Yourex, a Canadian Mid-Term Volunteer and Journalist recently put this together:

One by One from Heather Yourex on Vimeo.

____________________________________________________________

Arrived, safe and almost sound.

My appreciation for air travel was again diminished as I traveled from Calgary to Toronto, beginning with the surly Customer ‘Service’ Agents shouting at people lining up in the too small waiting area. Although I arrived 2 hours before the flight and was the second person in the lounge, I still had a crappy seat near the back (although I was able to change for a window – being a night flight) soon after we took off, I began coughing as a very sharp odor came wafting forward, I thought it was the disinfectant or something, but was soon proved wrong.

My seat companion also began coughing, and after a couple more episodes, I turned backward, to the woman behind me, and asked if she was spraying something. She told me that she needed to use these essential oils, but it was okay, because they were natural. I tried to reason with her, my seat companion joining in – natural or not, they were causing respiration failure – but she would have none of our reason – not for her.

I am not sure how to describe the stench, somewhere between sandalwood and methane … with notes of cat pee, vinegar, and pepper thrown in for good measure.

I tried to sleep, but I was soon brought to a full consciousness by the fine mist of spray as my row companion suddenly made a hurried exit. A fine mist and a few droplets had fallen on my exposed hand … yes … after sniffing; I recognized the sharp cut of bile. She had thrown up.

The scent of essential oils had finally proven too much.

The rest of the flight was a bit of a blur as several flight attendants expressed their displeasure at me standing at the back, annoyed that I would not sit back down in the ground zero my seat had become. After long persuasion they finally found me another seat, where although the head rest was broken (at one point coming off after crashing into my shoulder blades) at least I was sitting down and breathing.

The rest of the travel is anti-climatic by comparison. I finally slept on the 2-hour bus ride from Heathrow to Gatwick, as well as most of the flight from London to Sierra Leone – although I did catch “Charlie and the chocolate factory” (funny albeit very odd movie). The helicopter out from the airport and attempted extortion – normal.

I went out with the CAUSE staff for a couple of drinks at the local ex-pat watering hole, they were very welcoming. Went to bed around 2 and slept in until 10:30.

I just ate a cheese flatbread and hit up this net-cafe to chat with you.

We will be prepping a bit today for our trip up north tomorrow, once there we are out of communication entirely. No phone, Internet, cell, power etc. So this may be the last message to you before I get back to Freetown in about 2 weeks

Love you and miss you, wish you were here.

14 days later

…So far for me, no health issues to speak of: I smacked up my foot a little, had some stomach issues the day I was out in the sun for too long (a little heatstroke), my neck is still a little sore as I aggravated it a couple of days ago … but no big deal

It has been a very busy time, it will not surprise me if I host my own parasites after spending time in the villages. No running water (unless you count Boday’s legs), power for 4 hours an evening (when we put the generator on), and occasionally some rooms had lights! This was truly a remote area.

The workshops went really well, most schools were actively engaged and encouraging, although the hefty (and ironically named) Juliet in Faduga, was more actively engaged in stealing the cookies and cokes we brought her students, encouraging their fighting, and talking throughout the classroom time … of course, she was also the one teacher who demanded to be paid for our visit … ahhh!

The heat has been fairly intense, particularly as there is no shower … just some buckets and an open drain in the bathroom floor

Our night watchman and his friend killed a spitting cobra last night just after they turned off the generator. Lots of commotion. This morning I spotted the broken chair they used to beat the snake to death with last night … good men both…

We ate daily at the better of the two restaurants in town … “choices” … of which there were generally two. Rice with groundnut stew (peanut … no, not like satay … satay is delicious), or rice with a palm oil drenched green leafy stew … both usually with mystery meat (I had liver one night, I am not sure what animal). Although, to be fair, they mixed it up on us once, and served fried rice one afternoon.

The intern just got into their house; previously they had been in the guesthouse of the local bar. The novelty of “Choices” having long worn off … I enjoyed wandering the local open market with them in order to find some ingredients for a home-cooked meal. Rows of raw meat, stunted vegetables, and mysterious powders were spread out under the clouds of flies. After my attempt to determine what the various unlabeled ingredients, and spice choices were; I was soon appointed sous-chef, and that made for many an evening of trying to pull new dishes off with our limited resources, a single burner kerosene stove, and no recipes … Needless to say I went with Thai.

Otherwise life was very quiet and filled with the general activities of living without modern conveniences. We felt really, really good when simple things like the office administrator actually bought the pens and paper, or when we were able to use a printer at the local CARE office to print scripts rather than handwrite out 8 copies … achievements became much smaller and much more significant…

Anyways, i will have much more to report to you in a few more days! Looking forward to getting home and seeing your beautiful face!

Love you lots and lots

Day of departure for home
Wow this net connection is painfully slow … i have been sitting here for the last 10 minutes trying to get on…

I had Christophe call the airline this morning to confirm my flight and thus far I am the first person on the waiting list on the oversold flight …yay. I went in myself just a few minutes ago and they are telling me there is nothing I can do. So I still should be home on time, but there is an outside chance that I may have to spend the weekend in town

I will be heading to the airport in a couple of hours, I will have to get there early and sit around in the heat until 10:30 or so, what a great way to spend the first of the next 24 hours of travel! I am first on the standby list, so I expect I should get on the flight, I am definitely ready to leave the smell of diesel generators behind…

Not too much happened today, I met the country director as I went into the head office for the first time, nice guy…

Yesterday we eventually had some time off, traveled to a beach in the late afternoon where we swam ‘neath the palms for an hour or so … before the sunset. Then off to a nearby restaurant where I had a fantastic lobster pasta. Back home over the incredibly rough road in an hour or so, and read till bedtime.

Anyway, I probably will be out of touch for the next 30 hours or so, unless I do not catch this flight, then I will probably be able to get back on the computer tomorrow morning (it is almost 2 in the afternoon now … so about 7 am your time.)

Again, love and miss you. Look forward to seeing you!

For those who may be unfamiliar with Mohammed Yunus, he developed the Grameen (bank of the village) in Bangladesh in the 70′s. After obtaining his degree in Economics in a US university, he had moved back to his native Bangladesh to work with the government on billion dollar policy and five-year plans. Walking through a local village one day, he was struck by the discrepancy between his work and the realities of poverty in the community. After some investigation he realized the the grand total to relieve a couple of dozen people from an uneding cycle of poverty was about $40 … and that is when he made a chaoice that has made all of the difference. Rather than simple charity, he loaned the money out to this percieved ‘high-risk’ credit-starved group, at interest. They repaid.

Today, the bank that he began with that simple step, has billions of dollars in asset and has refused donations since the mid-90′s. Men and mostly women who take advantage of the loans have personally experienced a dramatic reduction in child mortality rates, improved housing as Grameen standard homes stand against huricanes, definite improvement due to personal economic choice and possibility. The rate of loan return is at 98.15%.

Yunus and the Grameen organization co-shared the Nobel prize a couple of years ago … evidentally they had their sights set on the poor in America as well …

here is the article …

Yunus sees big answers in microcredit

TAVIA GRANT
June 11, 2008

Muhammad Yunus, banker to the poor and winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, believes the best way to bring microfinance to the developed world lies in the heart of the banking world – New York City.

Bangladesh-based Grameen Bank opened its doors in Queens six months ago, distributing start-up business loans of $500 (U.S.) to $3,500 to women, many of them low-income Latin American immigrants. It’s early days, but repayment rates so far are 100 per cent and the number of clients has grown to 225 from 165.

The concept is simple – give those who wouldn’t otherwise have access to affordable credit a chance to start small businesses such as, in New York, child care or beauty salons. Groups of borrowers meet weekly and make regular repayments. The concept has mushroomed throughout the developing world, but is relatively untried in richer nations.

“New York is the world capital of banking, but it doesn’t do banking for its nearest neighbours – those who live under the shadow of the skyscrapers,” Mr. Yunus said in a wide-ranging interview with The Globe and Mail.

Grameen’s founder and managing director, Mr. Yunus is in Toronto to speak at a conference of top Canadian employers.

He moved into the New York market after watching the explosive growth of pricey payday loan companies, cheque cashers and pawn shops. “We wanted to address this head-on. So we created Grameen America … and it’s working beautifully.”

It’s the first time Grameen has operated in North America, and Mr. Yunus sees it as a possible springboard for the continent. Other cities, such as Los Angeles, Baltimore and New Orleans, are clamouring to launch similar projects – and officials in Toronto and Vancouver have also expressed interest, Mr. Yunus says.

The New York project will run for a several years, giving Grameen a chance to assess the challenges and degree of success before it branches into other cities. Grameen keeps the interest rate to 15 per cent, far below average payday loan rates, though it’s too early to assess how sustainable the model is.

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. If we can build up the volume of business enough – to $6-million in loans – then it works out.”

Half-a-million dollars has been distributed so far. Any lending project would need about a $10-million start-up base before eventually becoming self-sufficient, he adds.

“If it works in New York, I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t work in Toronto. You have lots of new immigrants here … all we need is someone to give the money to do it, and we can do it. Look at First Nations, why don’t you extend this to reserves? This is income-generating activity.”

It may not be easy, though. The idea has been tried in Canada, through the Calmeadow Foundation, which closed in 2000 because of what it said was a lack of economies of scale. Several credit unions have since started their own programs.

Mr. Yunus dismisses the notion microfinance may not work as well in Canada. “If we can do it in remote villages in Africa, why not here? People on Aboriginal reserves still have an economy.”

***

Dr. Muhammad Yunus on other topics:

FINANCIAL SERVICES IN NORTH AMERICA

Millions of people in the United States can’t open a bank account because banks don’t consider them worthy clients. So if they receive their salary cheque, they can’t cash it … so they go to the cheque-cashing companies, who chop off a good portion of that cheque for themselves. Or they go to the payday loans, where interest rates can be 1,000 per cent … And it’s not a few people. It’s millions of people. This is a thriving business of loan sharks. What kind of banking sector are we talking about where the loan sharks can thrive, like in a primitive age, and they’re the only source of money?

BANKS

I say to banks – don’t worry about your mainstream business. Why don’t you use your foundation window and create some microfinance as a social business? So it does the work that your mainstream business doesn’t touch.

The second proposal – many of these banks have their corporate social responsibility fund, which is a charity fund … Why don’t you use that corporate social responsibility money to create a subsidiary for a microfinance bank?

All that subsidiary does is lend money to the poor people. It doesn’t do the mainstream banking, it has a specialized banking to the poor. Then if you lose money, there’s nothing to worry about.

THE SUBPRIME MORTGAGE CRISIS

Subprime teaches us a very, very strong lesson. The banking system is not as strong as they were telling us. So the lesson is, we have to go back and fix it – not the hole, but the system of banking … One trillion dollars disappeared overnight. So we have to redesign it, because we don’t want to face similar problems down the line.

If, without collateral, without lawyers, microcredit loans can get back near 100 per cent – why don’t you learn from them?

MICROCREDITGiving these tiny loans [means] you can start digging into yourself, discovering yourself. It’s not just a loan with just money involved – it’s the fact that you’re discovering your own capability, you’re bringing out your entrepreneurial ability. So you become a contributor rather than being a burden on society. Because poor people are looked at as a burden on society. They’re not. They’re a burden because society never gave them an opportunity to be a creative contributor.

Ubuntu is one of these software groups.

The word Ubuntu comes from an Bantu (Southern African) language roughly meaning ‘belonging to the whole’. Nelson Mandella better explains the philosophy of the Ubuntu as follows;

A traveller through a country would stop at a village and he didn’t have to ask for food or for water. Once he stops, the people give him food, entertain him. That is one aspect of Ubuntu but it will have various aspects. Ubuntu does not mean that people should not address themselves. The question therefore is: Are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you be able to improve?

Now, not quite as articulate as Mandella (but who is), the Ubuntu website says … Ubuntu is a community developed, Linux-based operating system that is perfect for laptops, desktops and servers. It contains all the applications you need – a web browser, presentation, document and spreadsheet software, instant messaging and much more.

Now I am not sure what a Linux-based system is … although I think it has something to do with the stability of the background ‘surface’ on which the programs are built … but the rest of the stuff makes sense. Free browsers, free software to write documents (IE Word), and figure out numbers (IE excel) … plus all the esoteric stuff like ftp clients and torrent downloaders …

Interesting how this material is being developed for free, with regular updates, and fixes … brilliant!

check out the Ubuntu site here

After it was over, Elephant exclaimed, “Mouse, did you ever go to a better party?  What a blast!”
But Mouse didn’t answer.
“Where are you?” Elephant called.  Then he shrank back in horror.  There at his feet lay the Mouse, his body ground into the dirt — smashed by the exuberance of his friend, the Elephant.
“Sometimes that is what it is like to do mission with you North Americans,” the African storyteller concluded. “It is like dancing with an Elephant.”

by Miriam Adeney