Here is the shot of the view looking across Lake Tanganika to the Congo. A bit cloudy, but I think you can see the mountains which are not far off. I'm guessing 20km or so. An hour or so after this picture was taken, the lights of the town of Uvira, became visible. Went back to the same restaurant basically for the fish. And the view.

Tonight I had a meeting with 3 representatives of an education organization working in the Congo. We met appropriately, at a restaurant on the beach of Lake Tanganika where we could look across the lake to the mountains of South Kivu in the Congo itself. I am sorry I don't have a photo of this evening view of the mountains shrouded in haze. It is really quite a beautiful sight. As we talked about the needs in the Congo, the deforestation, the slash and burn, the conflicts in communities, I caught one of the Congolese staring wistfully across the lake. I am also sorry that I don't really have the right words to convey what a poignant moment it was. So I will just tell you that it was quite a poignant moment. Then we ate barbecued fish from the lake, Sangala, or Nile Perch. This I say again is the best fish I have ever had. There is also Nile Perch in Lake Victoria, but somehow it is not the same. Not sure what the explanation is, but I'm just happy that it exists. I should have taken a photo of this meal as well. And the mountains. I may still get a chance before this trip is over.

Today is Ascension Day, and a national holiday here in Burundi. Most have the day off and many go to church in the morning. We worked anyway, at least til mid afternoon. The streets were very quiet, little traffic, either on foot or wheels. The whole situation is very peaceful, idyllic even, almost surrealistically so. At a dinner I attended yesterday evening, a prayer was given asking that God would continue to protect the country during the election campaign. Everyone, I think must be feeling this. It would surely be a major turning point if things could remain as they are throughout the next 3 months.

Today's Lunch

I know what you are thinking: "does Bob really think we care what he ate for lunch?" I don't blame you, but please wait for the explanation. If you look at the photo you will see a green sauce on the left and a white cake like thing on the right. Both of these are from cassava (or manioc). The sauce is made from the leaves, and the cake, called ugali is made from the root. Both are quite tasty by the way, and a mainstay of the diet here. The organization I work for is helping farmers to obtain disease resistant varieties of cassava, since the older varieties have become susceptible to a mosaic virus which seriously reduces productivity. Farmers in our target communities are not only producing more cassava for themselves, they are also able to sell to the local market for a profit, and sell cuttings of the resistant varieties to other farmers and organizations. The other day I was in a meeting of community leaders and listened to them talking about how they are making money, and investing in rental and purchase of new fields to expand production. They were talking proudly of how they are contributing and will contribute to the food security of their communities and even the nation. It was one of those moments for me that makes this job worthwhile. On top of that I get to eat cassava in its many delicious forms.

I have been in a rural area several hours from the capital for 2 days which is my excuse for not blogging. On the return trip this afternoon, we pulled over for a bathroom break and this older gentleman walking along the shoulder of the road held up his hand to us with 3 fingers and shook them. This apparently is the sign of one of the political parties, and then he asked me in Kirundi if I could give him money (btw, I don't understand a word of Kirundi). After a bit when I didn't respond, he started waving another sign, more like a closed fist. Turns out this is the sign of another party. One of my travelling companions told him that we could not give him anything for making that sign. He then went back to the 3 fingers signal in a last ditch attempt to get something from me. I am not sure why he would think I was allied with any party, but I was amused to learn that at least one Burundian is as cynical about politics as I am.

This morning I went to a Congolese church here in Bujumbura. Many of the members at this church are either refugees, or young people who have left the Congo to study in Burundi. I learned that dancing is a big part of Congolese church services. I don't have a photo or video of this, but basically at one point during the service, the front of the church turned into something pretty close to a mosh pit. A lot of people jumping, and some running back and forth while the keyboardist played this rapid percussive riff for what must have been 15 minutes or so. I myself did not participate in said dancing, but it was pretty fun to be there. I was told (by a Congolese) that this is pretty much a fixture of most Congo churches across the board, and that they are influencing Burundian churches as well.

If we measured currency in terms of musical expression, instead of money, Africa would be a world superpower; think about all the musical styles, so influential today, rock, jazz, blues, motown, R&B, hip hop, rap, that have their roots in Africa. Paul Simon's album Graceland is like thousands, or maybe millions of churches here every Sunday. Really, if you only visited Africa on a Sunday morning (or afternoon for that matter), you might think that this was the happiest place on earth. Rhythms so uplifting, and harmonies so moving, it is almost like you leave this world for a while and go to a place where there is only perfection.

The service during one of the more sedate moments

The election campaign opened officially here in Burundi 4 days ago. Over the next 3 months or so, a series of votes will take place for various posts from local commune level leaders up to the president. Although I don't entirely understand the schedule of polls, it seems that there will be a series of votes for president, ending in a final vote in August. So far, the process has been reportedly peaceful. As I came from the airport to my hotel last, night, at 2 am, I saw very little other than the occasional scattering of bleary eyed soldiers along the main road. Of course at that time of night one wouldn't expect to see much anyways, and I noted only one other vehicle on the road, a fast-moving white SUV with tinted windows and multiple antennae sticking out in various directions. The only other thing I saw was a bunch of people clustered out in front of a bar, which didn't seem anything other than normal for a Saturday night.

I am told that, the pattern is that campaigns tend to get more heated as they progress. Obviously we are all hoping that they won't. This is Burundi's first election after a decade and a half of violent internal conflict.

You can read the news for yourself. I will try to keep you posted as to what I see, over the brief time that I will be here.

It's almost 3 am in Bujumbura, but I feel like making an entry, so may as well go with that. Just got in from Toronto, which depending on how you do your counting was either a 24 hour trip or a 30 hour trip (point to point, or airport to airport).

On the Nairobi-Bujumbura leg, the flight attendant was offering what sounded like salmon-chicken. "Salmon-Chicken?" she would say, to every passenger, and then proceed to hand them their tray. At first I thought maybe she was offering salmon or chicken, but when she got to me it sounded pretty much like "salmon-chicken". Which I accepted. Now it did seem to be a piece of chicken meat wrapped around a sort of filling, which could have been, but didn't seem much like salmon, but I thought, maybe. Anything is possible. Seemed like a pretty ambitious culinary venture for airline food, especially in these economic times, and especially between Nairobi and Bujumbura. Still it was tasty, and I was prepared to believe that their might have been a trace of fish in there somewhere.

The mystery was cleared up when the same attendant came around later offering salmon-tea. At that point I realized that the combination of her heavy Kenyan accent, the background noise of an ageing 737, and possibly my ageing ears, had remodulated her, "serving tea" to sound like salmon.

How is Haiti doing?

People ask me how Haiti is doing? And it is a good question. First, I'm always glad to hear the question itself, because I hope it means people are interested in Haiti. You know I think that Bill Clinton has said, not in so many words exactly, that Haiti is a chance for himself personally and maybe the international community to make up for past sins. In particular Rwanda. Of course the circumstances of Rwanda and Haiti are dramatically different, but whereas we as a world community turned a blind eye to Rwanda, we are so far, not doing this in the earthquake response in Haiti. So I'm glad for the question.

However, it is not an easy question to answer. In someways, I don't even think that any answer will do. Not for several years. It may be a bit like asking how a complicated surgery is going. One could say it is going well, but until the patient is out of the operating theatre, and off the anesthetics, and up and walking around, any answer one might give will not really answer the question. Still, the question is worth asking, even if only as an expression of concern.

So to answer the question for now, I think it is going pretty well. Really well in someways. It is just that the scale of the situation is so mind-boggling that going-pretty-well still means we have miles to go before we sleep.

I had the stereotypical foreigner moment recently. A few days ago, I had been talking with the neighbours about their mango tree. I learned that the variety is Rosalie and we talked about how it compared to the variety Fransique which is more or less considered the standard for export here. Anyhow, a couple days later one of the neighbour's sons, maybe 5 or 6 years old, called out to me saying,"Mon Blanc, here's a mango.", and then stood there in the middle of the street, tentatively holding a mango out to me. I wasn't exactly sure if he was just showing me the mango and then was going to eat it himself or if he was actually offering it to me. So I just said,"Thank you", at which point he ran over, handed the mango to me, and then quickly scurried away, almost like he was feeding an animal at the zoo. I could see some of the other kids peering out from the yard, looking to see, I suppose, what the white guy might do with a mango.

The neighbours' mango tree.

You would think distributing seed would be relatively straightforward. You buy 1 tonne of seed and if you give 10kg to each farmer than you give seed to 100 farmers. Well, not exactly. First, a couple of those bags of seed are bound to get caught on the corner of the truck somewhere and start hemorrhaging slowly. Next, once the bag is open and the seed is being portioned out there is bound to be some spillage there. Third, and perhaps most importantly, the standard measure in rural Haiti is the marmite, not the kilogram. One marmite is approximately equal to 5 lbs. Unless you are in Fonds Verrettes where a marmite is equal to 6 lbs. Or in certain markets where a marmite is 7lbs. Plus a marmite is typically a recycled metal can of a standard size as pictured below. You can see that depending on who is filling the marmite, that the final seed weight could easily vary by 5 or 10%.

None of this is so big a deal until you start dealing in several tonnes of seed (35 tonnes and counting in our case). By the time you add up those little losses here and there, it ends up being hundreds of kgs. The photo below should explain.

I should acknowledge the possibility for the doubters (myself included) that the seed loss might be explained by a few bags 'escaping' from the back of the delivery truck and falling into the hands of not-quite-so-honest community leaders or other individuals of dubious distinction. Although this is not totally out of the question, the probability is low, since so many people are involved in the delivery process from beginning to end, that it would be extremely difficult for someone to walk away with a 50 kg bag without being noticed. Numerous other shady scenarios are possible: it is known that in some countries, emergency aid has been diverted by armed groups and sold to buy weapons for example. Helping people is just so complicated...

It's raining in Port au Prince. Which I have mixed feelings about. To be honest when it first started raining this evening I was relieved, because so many farmers have planted crops which are just in the first throes of drying up and a few days from now will be lost. So farmer need the rain. On the other hand, all those folks living in provisional or no shelter in ravines in Port au Prince definitely do not need this rain. So what to do? A quick call to one of our project areas indicates that it is not raining out there. How sad is that?

A picture of a bean field in our project area taken a week ago.

Our country director here in Haiti just set his cell phone ring to 'Mission Impossible'. This strikes me as hilarious in more ways than one.

The shape of things to come in Haiti

Below you will see a photo of a mass of rebar extracted from a building or possibly several buildings. You may recall that people are taking down damaged houses chunk by chunk, using mallets. What you see below is the results of their labours. Such piles of metal are being re-used wherever possible. Nowadays you see people going over damaged sites looking for whatever scraps of rebar, metal sheeting, hardware, etc that might be in good enough shape to re-incorporate into a repair or a new building somewhere else. Technically, no one is supposed to do any rebuilding until the government has presented an updated building code. In the second photo you will see concrete being poured bucket by bucket for some new, but unauthorized construction going on at an undisclosed location...

Yesterday I was coming in from work around 8:30 pm, driving along the dirt road to the house where I am staying, kind of thinking about what a long day I had had. Then in the dark beside me, appeared a woman walking, carrying her empty baskets which during the day had probably been full of whatever merchandise she was selling. She had clearly had an even longer day, and walking in the hot sun instead of driving. She was also probably heading to the nearby tent city and instead of being able to sleep in a safe and dry tent like myself, she would be sleeping under a tarp wrapped provisionally around some wooden poles, or worse under cotton sheets. This made my tired long day suddenly seem like an absurd joke. The whole situation just underscored for me yet again the unbelievable enormity of what has happened here. In spite of all our best efforts. I don't mean to downgrade in any way the relief efforts that are going on. In many ways they have been heroic. But we should all be humbled by vastness of this, whatever it is. In a strange kind of way it is sort of like looking up at the stars at night and realizing what a tiny speck we are in this great big universe.

So are my stomach problems blog-worthy? Yesterday they seemed pretty important. You know when you get that ominous gurgling that seems to move at will between various parts of the digestive tract, rendering you physically and emotionally incapable of thinking about anything else? Anyhow last night one of the neighbours brewed up some tea with various leaves (mango and cherimoya, I think). It was a darkish orange colour and was mixed with salt, which did not really cut the powerful bitter flavour. Nevertheless, I drank the whole thing, and guess what? Today although still not 100%, I am feeling much better. This is not the first time I've accepted a local remedy for various illness I've picked up in my travels. Maybe it's just coincidence, or mind over matter, but I find the efficacy to be quite high. I'm pretty convinced in any case, and have gotten to the point where I would probably try just about any local remedy if it was offered to me by someone I trusted.

Here's another picture of folks working on anti-erosion barriers. The benefits are two fold, as I think I've explained: people get paid, which gives them short term income, and the soil conservation slows the soil loss, providing a longer term benefit. Normally we don't pay people to do work; everything is done through community groups and the incentives are things like credit. This is our next big challenge since we want to provide short term relief for the urgent needs but we are also looking to the longer term, and transitioning back to more sustainable approaches.

One has to be careful about complaining since there are always people nearby who are in much worse shape. That being said, our office is getting low on water these days, and since we have been staying there the past few days, all the staff and ourselves are relying on the few gallons that are left for everything from cooking to bathing. Below is my boss scooping a bucket of water one pitcher at a time.

So our soil conservation/tree planting program is in full swing in Haiti. Over 600 people are working everyday and have planted thousands of trees and dug many contour canals. Besides the obvious benefits of improving soil and tree cover, this project is also providing much needed emergency cash to families overwhelmed by relatives fleeing the city.

After getting past my initial gaff (by way of Chicago, California, Dallas, Miami), I finally arrived in Costa Rica. I had a thoroughly good time teaching and am hoping the students got at least something out of it. In addition the country itself lived up to its reputation and was full of pleasant surprises. Eg. the sign below, in a rural community, says that they have a committee for the protection of natural resources. How great is that?