Update from the Field April 16, 2014

As of today, April 16, I have been in the DRC for two and a half weeks and things continue to be quite interesting both at “work” and otherwise! This post will give you an idea of what Channel Initiative Field Support is up to when we are in Bukavu as opposed to out in the field.

What I’ve seen of Eastern Africa so far has been very lush and beautiful! Keep in mind, though, that I’ve only seen a very small part of it to date.

The food has also been a pleasant surprise. The fresh fruit and pure mango juice everywhere is fantastic. From the inexpensive sacs of “Belgian” waffles available absolutely anywhere on the street to the Tilapia fish that everyone, rich and poor, seem to be enjoying – the food has been just great.

All of the big NGOs around here seem to own a small fleet of these babies

At first I assumed it was because they were having a fire sale down at the Toyota dealership…but it seems that these vehicles are just plain necessary for the crazy roads out here. That isn’t to say that there aren’t plenty of tiny cars making the treks, but I have no idea how they are managing it.

Of course, being quite a small NGO, Channel Initiative relies a lot on lifts from our friends and plain old walking.

So that’s my little introduction to Bukavu. Now onto our work here in town.

This is Panzi Hospital

Last week we met with Dr. Imani who is a ob/gyn at the Panzi hospital but is also the head of an organization called MSD: “Médecins pour le Santé des Démunis” (i.e. Doctors for the Health of People in Need). MSD runs a clinic called Afya Bora that serves the area of Kavumu. Because Dr. Imani is familiar with the work that Channel Initiative does here in Sud-Kivu and since we have supplied MSD with some supplies in the past, Dr. Imani has approached Channel Initiative to see if we might be able to partner with MSD again in order to help them provide high quality emergency obstetric and prenatal care in their service area. Here is a picture I took of our meeting last week

I am drafting the Request for Proposals for MSD so that Dr. Imani can prepare a bid and we can see about possibly collaborating with MSD this year as part of our work.

A couple of days after the meeting, Dr. Imani invited Dominique and I to go to visit his actual clinic and see what they were doing there in the community. We asked him where it was located and he said “oh just over there…” pointing vaguely to the right…

…30 minutes or so later after walking some truly questionable pathways we arrived :) Here are some pictures of the trek but you can’t really see the crazy parts because I wasn’t able to take pictures of those parts and still stay upright!

This is Afya Bora, Dr. Imani’s clinic. It is tiny, but operating smoothly and providing dignified care to a small group of patients.

There is more that we’ve been up to these last two weeks, but that is probably enough info for you for now. Needless to say it’s been rather busy and interesting. There is a lot to do, but it’s nice to know that all of the work and hours being put in are going towards supporting and lifting up the dignity of the people here who need the help.

Til next time!