Saturday, September 18, 2010
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Update from DRC - II
Hi Everyone,
A little late as usual in updating but blame it on the internet and crazy schedule. Its been little less crazy this past week after my birthday but yet hectic. Sleeping has been a very good activity all through this month and I am very happy about it. Sound Sleep, I repeat Sound Sleep. After all the mental toil, sleep has been so easy. As soon as I hit my pillow at around 9 pm, next thing I realise is dawn of the next day. Love it!
So let me give you some news from DRC, although its a bit late for some of the news.
1. DRC celebrated its 50th independence day on June 30th 2010. It was a fun celebration, there was a huge crowd on the street all dressed up traditionally and dancing to the Congolese music.
A little late as usual in updating but blame it on the internet and crazy schedule. Its been little less crazy this past week after my birthday but yet hectic. Sleeping has been a very good activity all through this month and I am very happy about it. Sound Sleep, I repeat Sound Sleep. After all the mental toil, sleep has been so easy. As soon as I hit my pillow at around 9 pm, next thing I realise is dawn of the next day. Love it!
So let me give you some news from DRC, although its a bit late for some of the news.
1. DRC celebrated its 50th independence day on June 30th 2010. It was a fun celebration, there was a huge crowd on the street all dressed up traditionally and dancing to the Congolese music.
2. MONUC turned MONUSCO on DRC's 50th birthday. I am not sure how things changed though with the name change. Oh yeah the boards and notice signs did change. Wonder what difference did the S and C made.
3. As I had written last time the UN vehicles still throttle at full speed. By the way not just UN but other organisations too drive at full speed. Sometimes they just have it all in them.. ;-)
4. Another thing that you'll find here in DRC is that the military practicing on the streets and moving around during the day with their guns, machine guns, rocket launchers (not kidding), hand grenades and lot of other things. So will you find the UN (MONUSCO) solidiers from different countries (Pakistan, Bangladesh, Belgiam, etc) shopping in the market with their guns. Not a bad idea I guess. What do you guys think.
5. What do you think you can carry on your head? Any guesses? Well let me tell you that you can carry a refrigerator, around 5-6 foam mattreses, a three seater sofa, huge hammer, pounds and pounds of charcoal, long stacks of Bamboo, stacks of firewood and endless other things. Don't underestimate your head, its very strong you only have to come to Congo to realise it.
6. I met more male victims sexual violence who refused to talk. I completely understand how difficult it is for a man in a patriarchal society to speak up of something like this. It is like reliving the trauma. The easiest way I think of destroying a man in a patriarchal society is to tell him that he is not a man. Here in this case they make him feel that he is not a man. There are many victims considering a holistic approach of being a direct and indirect victim, but they are so humiliated that they cannot speak up, they are made to leave the village or they themselves leave because of the shame and stigma or they are killed by the rebels. One of the major challenge is how do we identify and bring forward the male victims. There's more to come in my papers.
7. Completed my first phase of research with a total of 30 interviews and fgds with male victims of sexual violence, thier wives, community members and service providers.
8. Moved to Goma today for the next phase of research... Agenda will be developed tomorrow. From the initial talks today, it was known that the problems of rebel attacks in Goma is very serious. One of our community partners told us that there are a lot of victims of male sexual violence. Some of the examples of torture in general that she told us are very gruesome. Raping the men, torturing and then killing them, raping men and women with objects, squeezing the breasts of lactating mothers untill the blood starts flowing, tearing the stomachs of pregnant women and killing the foetus and so on...How can human beings do this to another human being. Some of this just shows how inhuman can humans be. Listening to all this makes me sad and also me angry at those sick f**ks. I cannot imagine this happening to anyone.
9. I celebrated my birthday on a new continent and it was fun dancing to the Indian songs sung by Congolese. The Congolese friends just made my day. It was one of the best birthdays ever. My birthday was shared with my colleague "Octav". We cut the cake together and danced together. A colleague of mine shot a video of my so called Indian dancing, believe me (and I'm sure you will) it's one of the most embarrasing videos ever. EVER. But guess what my dancing is too good here in Congo, as when they started singing and I started dancing there were whistles blowing and people giving a standing ovation. As Russell Peters would say the Indian way "Too Good, tooooo goooood, A1, Fantastic, Mind-BLASTIC..." Only if the Indians saw it! They would be so embarrased. "What a shame?" They would say.
10. The food over here is so natural. No mass production, no pesticides, no additional additions. Just Pure Food!
I have not tasted chicken so good, soooo gooood as I have tasted here. Guess why? Exactly, its natural or as in India we would call it "It's Desi", there is no poultry industry and it tastes so good. So does the egg tastes amazing. So does the beef and the fish and the veges and everything else. Its just so different. I had forgotten what the chicken or beef tastes like originally untill I had it over here. Its just amazing how I have realised that the food that we eat is so crappy. Although I would say, I am kind of bored of eggs since I have been having eggs for breakfast all through the last whole month every single day, not a single day was missed when I did not have eggs. Just wondering about the breakfast in Goma right now. I am hoping that it will be different. Not looking forward to having eggs tomorrow morning.
11. Congo is a beautiful country abused by many in the history and at present for its natural wealth of minerals, gold and diamonds, it has one of the largest and deepest natural lakes in the world "Lake Kivu" on whose banks I lived last month in Bukavu and live presently in Goma, it is home to the few remaining mountain Gorillas, it has the second longest river in Africa "Congo River" or "Zaire River" after the Nile and it is the deepest in the world, it has some of the world's most spectacular natural beauty with majestic mountains that are also home to many of the rebel groups that spread terror in the villages and go on a rampage of killings spreading fear and death to the innocent and wonderfu people.
12. As usual internet remains crazy, but I am trying to upload some images and if it works out you'll see them, it it doesn't ofcourse you wont see them..But all in all its all good. I Am Loving It!
(Pictures: 1. I just thought that the "Cow" picture was really good, 2. Interviewing a service provider, 3. ONE LOVE @ the 50th Independence Day of DRC)
Thats all for now folks!
Best,
Mervyn
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Update from DRC
Hi Everyone!
(There is no logical flow to this blog is what I realized after reading through it. I just wrote as I remembered things. Next time I will try hard and BTW this is the last sentence of this blog which I thought would be better if written first. Excuse me for any grammatical and spelling errors.)
Sorry that I have not been able to update you guys on a regular basis as things have been really intense and access to internet has been very limited. I have not had enough time to pen down my experiences and thoughts and so this comes as a quick update on what has been happening during the past 2 weeks.
First I guess most of you must be aware that I don’t know how to drive or maybe I should I didn’t know how to drive since I had my first driving lesson yesterday here in DR Congo and today I drove to the village out here right on the second day and it was fun driving on the dirt road with the dust surrounding. So now I know how to drive. It was just great.
Well regarding DRC, if anyone asked what would be something that you would notice being here that’s very vigilant? I would say you would notice the UN. Amazingly, lot of UN trucks and their brand new PRADOs with huge black “UN” signs cruising at full throttle. You will also see that all the organizations in the world are here, my only thought is that what are they doing here since you don’t see much happening in the villages out here. I could see the boards but when we asked people regarding services, it doesn’t seem like they are receiving services or care barring a couple that I have heard. Don’t know where all the money is flowing to…
People here are very warm and loving. The partners here that we are working with are full of ideas and understand the community very well. It’s a great learning experience. We work with two partners namely PAIDEK which does microfinance activities and Foundation Rama Levina (FORAL) that does health and development activities. They are empowering the communities through their activities.
Currently, I am here with Dr. Nancy Glass, who is a faculty at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and also an Associate Director at the Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health. She is running projects for victims of sexual violence and also implementing a project Pigs for Peace through the two organizations I mentioned earlier. It is interesting to know that Pigs as a microfinance activity to support the livelihoods of the people is changing the household economy and also improving the relationship between community. It is also helping people send their children to school.
There is another PhD student from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Anjalee Kohli who is conducting a research on familial mediation for women victims of sexual violence. She is looking at how familial mediation could help reintegrate women within the community and households. When we went to the villages we saw huge numbers of women who are victims of sexual violence. I have never in my life seen such a huge number and many of them who have never received any services even though all the world’s prestigious organizations are present here doing something GKW.
Another student that has accompanied us is from the School of Medicine, Megan Rebarczyk (I don’t know if I have spelled her last name correctly.) She is doing rotations at the General Hospital at Bukavu and also looking at what kind of medicines and resources are available within the village clinics and General Hospital to provide basic services for victims of sexual violence.
As for me you know that I am conducting research on sexual violence against men and its impact on the victims and their families. I have interviewed eight victims. There were 6 victims who refused to talk. It’s difficult to identify victims as putting in the words of one community member “We don’t want to talk about it, the victim also doesn’t want to talk about it. It is better that this remains within the family and doesn’t come out. We are sad that this is happening.” When the community members are interviewed it did not seem that they did not know that this existed. The community does know that this exists. I will not write about my research findings here may be some other blog or when I write my papers from the research. But it is clear that this issue exists and it’s really a big problem socially, physically, mentally and economically.
Its interesting how our studies though different are supporting each other. My French is improving slowly slowly but as soon as I think that I am understanding it, I fail and sometimes its like epic fail. For example, very recently while we were invited for dinner at one of our partner’s house I by mistake told our translator that “You are eating your husband” But I actually wanted to say that “You are eating with your husband.” I forgot the “With” Big Mistake :-O How bad can it get? :-D. My colleagues here call that I am speaking Mervynese or may be Franglish.
After the 3 weeks of intense field work, which has yet not ended, we were invited by our partners to their homes for lunch and dinner and that was some amazing food that we had. People here are amazing. I feel so much at home with our partners. Really nice people. They also took us for dancing and it was so much fun. Surprisingly, people here are fans of Indian movies and they know all the stars of Bollywood – Amitabh Bacchan, Dharmendra, Amjad Khan, Shashi Kapoor, Sharukh Khan, Dileep Kumar, Hema Malini, Rekha and the list goes on. I was like really? So we went to this place called Saint Laic and they played Hindi songs “Ye duniya hain dilwaalo ki”, “Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy, Aaja aaja aaja” and “KAAAAAANTA LAGAAAAAA” J and we danced to it. It was hilarious. I guess the overdose of wine was working for all of us. After we danced to these songs people around applauded and came to congratulate us J Oh it was so hilarious. Also, I would say I love Congolese music. The Congolese dance movements are more concentrated on the hips for both men and women, it’s fun watching people dance too.
I am tired of writing and will write again later. Take care all of you folks! Best wishes…
Love,
Mervyn
(There is no logical flow to this blog is what I realized after reading through it. I just wrote as I remembered things. Next time I will try hard and BTW this is the last sentence of this blog which I thought would be better if written first. Excuse me for any grammatical and spelling errors.)
Sorry that I have not been able to update you guys on a regular basis as things have been really intense and access to internet has been very limited. I have not had enough time to pen down my experiences and thoughts and so this comes as a quick update on what has been happening during the past 2 weeks.
First I guess most of you must be aware that I don’t know how to drive or maybe I should I didn’t know how to drive since I had my first driving lesson yesterday here in DR Congo and today I drove to the village out here right on the second day and it was fun driving on the dirt road with the dust surrounding. So now I know how to drive. It was just great.
Well regarding DRC, if anyone asked what would be something that you would notice being here that’s very vigilant? I would say you would notice the UN. Amazingly, lot of UN trucks and their brand new PRADOs with huge black “UN” signs cruising at full throttle. You will also see that all the organizations in the world are here, my only thought is that what are they doing here since you don’t see much happening in the villages out here. I could see the boards but when we asked people regarding services, it doesn’t seem like they are receiving services or care barring a couple that I have heard. Don’t know where all the money is flowing to…
People here are very warm and loving. The partners here that we are working with are full of ideas and understand the community very well. It’s a great learning experience. We work with two partners namely PAIDEK which does microfinance activities and Foundation Rama Levina (FORAL) that does health and development activities. They are empowering the communities through their activities.
Currently, I am here with Dr. Nancy Glass, who is a faculty at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and also an Associate Director at the Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health. She is running projects for victims of sexual violence and also implementing a project Pigs for Peace through the two organizations I mentioned earlier. It is interesting to know that Pigs as a microfinance activity to support the livelihoods of the people is changing the household economy and also improving the relationship between community. It is also helping people send their children to school.
There is another PhD student from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Anjalee Kohli who is conducting a research on familial mediation for women victims of sexual violence. She is looking at how familial mediation could help reintegrate women within the community and households. When we went to the villages we saw huge numbers of women who are victims of sexual violence. I have never in my life seen such a huge number and many of them who have never received any services even though all the world’s prestigious organizations are present here doing something GKW.
Another student that has accompanied us is from the School of Medicine, Megan Rebarczyk (I don’t know if I have spelled her last name correctly.) She is doing rotations at the General Hospital at Bukavu and also looking at what kind of medicines and resources are available within the village clinics and General Hospital to provide basic services for victims of sexual violence.
As for me you know that I am conducting research on sexual violence against men and its impact on the victims and their families. I have interviewed eight victims. There were 6 victims who refused to talk. It’s difficult to identify victims as putting in the words of one community member “We don’t want to talk about it, the victim also doesn’t want to talk about it. It is better that this remains within the family and doesn’t come out. We are sad that this is happening.” When the community members are interviewed it did not seem that they did not know that this existed. The community does know that this exists. I will not write about my research findings here may be some other blog or when I write my papers from the research. But it is clear that this issue exists and it’s really a big problem socially, physically, mentally and economically.
Its interesting how our studies though different are supporting each other. My French is improving slowly slowly but as soon as I think that I am understanding it, I fail and sometimes its like epic fail. For example, very recently while we were invited for dinner at one of our partner’s house I by mistake told our translator that “You are eating your husband” But I actually wanted to say that “You are eating with your husband.” I forgot the “With” Big Mistake :-O How bad can it get? :-D. My colleagues here call that I am speaking Mervynese or may be Franglish.
After the 3 weeks of intense field work, which has yet not ended, we were invited by our partners to their homes for lunch and dinner and that was some amazing food that we had. People here are amazing. I feel so much at home with our partners. Really nice people. They also took us for dancing and it was so much fun. Surprisingly, people here are fans of Indian movies and they know all the stars of Bollywood – Amitabh Bacchan, Dharmendra, Amjad Khan, Shashi Kapoor, Sharukh Khan, Dileep Kumar, Hema Malini, Rekha and the list goes on. I was like really? So we went to this place called Saint Laic and they played Hindi songs “Ye duniya hain dilwaalo ki”, “Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy, Aaja aaja aaja” and “KAAAAAANTA LAGAAAAAA” J and we danced to it. It was hilarious. I guess the overdose of wine was working for all of us. After we danced to these songs people around applauded and came to congratulate us J Oh it was so hilarious. Also, I would say I love Congolese music. The Congolese dance movements are more concentrated on the hips for both men and women, it’s fun watching people dance too.
I am tired of writing and will write again later. Take care all of you folks! Best wishes…
Love,
Mervyn
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