Some D.R.C. Highlights

There are approximately 600 children attending the ELI school in Bukavu. The school is located in the heart of the slum of Keredi. Most of the families living in the slum were originally from villages. They fled to Bukavu for the safety of the city during the war. Due to overcrowding they have wound up in the slum. Every day lunch is served at the school. For many of these children this is the only meal they take for the entire day!

One day we made the two-and-a-half hour drive out to Mudakereza's home village of Chihonga. It was quite an experience!! We crossed dozens of bridges that looked like the one above. William was checking this one out before we attempted to cross.

William and I were both blown away by the village. Or maybe I should I say we were blown away by the needs in the village. One of the first things that we noticed was the lack of animals. Being from a village in Kenya we are used to seeing tons of cows, goats, sheep, chickens and dogs running around. We drove for two hours before we spotted our first cow; it was skin and bones. Mudakereza told us that most of the animals were taken during raids from rebel armies during the war. The villages are still trying desperately to recover. The cows that are still around only produce about 1 -2 liters of milk a day. (Our cows in Kenya typically produce 15 - 20 liters/day.)

We participated in a training session for delegates from surrounding communities. Each delegate represented a group of 100 to 150 people who are working on community development projects. The delegates collect the information from the training session then go back to their communities to hold their own training sessions.

William taught an agricultural session on planting beans. The audience was very receptive and had many questions for him. As I was sitting and preparing for my session I was honestly having a terrible time trying to figure out what to talk about. I kept asking Mudakereza questions like "Do you have problems with malaria here?" His answers were always "Yes! It's a huge problem!" He would then follow up with a comment like "But don't talk about using mosquito nets to prevent it because these people don't have access to nets." So my session turned into a Q&A with me doing my best to answer questions about low back pain, falling uterus's, arthritis, skin disorders and a host of other problems.

Then I began to ask some questions of my own:

"Where is the closest medical facility?"

"20 miles away. "

"How do you get there?"

"We walk."

"What if you are too sick to walk?"

"Someone carries you."

"Where do you buy your medicines?"

"We can get Tylenol at the clinic 20 miles away."

"How can I pray for you today?"

"Please pray that God sends someone to start a clinic in our community."

I'm currently uploading photos to my Flickr account that have stories and captions with them. So if you are interested in even more on our Congo trip click here to go check it out.