Monday, May 26, 2014
This is only Monday of our second week and it seems like we are already somewhat in the saddle. I realize it will get busier but busy is what I like. Let me explain the content of our day. Previous missionaries have used a translator by the name of Flavien Kot. We contacted him and met for the first time this morning. He had already made contacts for us to visit prior projects to assess their pros and cons and what could be done differently in the future to ensure successful projects.
We had been advised to use a pool of translators rather than a single source. The church is worried about creating an employee relationship where benefits are owed but not paid or accrued. We mentioned this to the 3 stake presidencies we had met with and they each wanted input into the process of selecting a translator. We decided to use Flavien as the mentor and use an additional translator from each of the three stakes. One of the area goals is to focus on skills development for returned missionaries, so they can develop job skills for employment and providing for a family. We felt this would be an opportunity to support this area goal. He seemed agreeable to the suggestion.
Flavien first took us to the Notre Dame School for girls run by Therese. She seemed like a modern Oprah or Mother Teressa. Her school is for girls who can’t afford to attend public school or private schools. She has 250-370 students during the year depending on who can afford the modest tuition. A precious humanitarian project was to give 10 sewing machines to the school. The girls have two contact hours with sewing each week. Their purpose is to gain marketable skills to support themselves after graduation. The school has a full curriculum but focuses on skills development. They use the machines to make clothing for themselves and their families.
We asked Therese what her greatest needs were and her reply was “a cooking classroom”. They don’t have clean water at the school. They have a hand-dug well 7 meters deep with just surface water that is not clean. She is adding onto her school with two new classrooms and wants to house a sewing lab in one room and a cooking lab in the other. She needs to outfit the cooking lab with appliances, tools and materials. Mom suggested clean water would be the most important ingredient for cooking safety.
We also observed the latrine facilities. They have 4 latrines, 2 for the faculty and 2 for 250-370 girls. They had a 50 gallon drum of water outside to dip a bucket to flush the latrine. The latrines were basically the squatter type mounted on a hole in the ground. Mom asked about the possibility of using the sewing machines to make sanitary napkin kits for the girls, but was told the type of fabric needed is not available locally. Theresse said they used diapers instead.
There are so many needs that we could flush a lot of money away and still not make dent in the problems. At least we felt this woman was trying to make a difference in the lives of these girls and she has minimal resources to accomplish her goals. She has a little cinder block home about the size of Butler’s storage shed on the school property. One problem is you want to help everyone.
The next project we visited was the Sendwe Hospital where humanitarian had drilled a well to supply clean water to the hospital. The project was marginally successful. The hospital looked like something out of the 1700’s with lines of people outside waiting to be seen and primitive facilities with garbage everywhere. I’m convinced cleanliness is an issue. They had a previous well and pump that was leaking oil and contaminating the water. The church agreed to drill a new well and pump the water to a large tower or cistern outside the hospital. The hospital agreed to fix the leakage problem within the hospital but failed to live up to their end of the bargain. The humanitarian couple that started the project was moved to Zambia and didn’t monitor the progress or lack thereof by the contractor. The contractor didn’t finish the project on time and when they were finished, the pump was either undersized or over utilized because the internal leakage problems that it quickly burned out with no one to repair or replace it. The church humanitarian does not fund on-going maintenance and repairs. Their attitude is that once the project is finished, it belongs to the beneficiaries and they have all future ownership costs to bear. The problem is that once the pump failed, another charitable organization (NGO) came in and replaced the pump and now they get the credit for any success the project has.
This concept of setting aside a future reserve of repairs and maintenance is not working well in the Congo or other African countries. They use a completely cash society here and the water committee on water projects usually spends the money on themselves or it disappears. There never seems to be any thought for the future maintenance commitment. In many cases, they will allow a drilled well to fail because it is not maintained and allow the women and children to walk miles round trip to secure unclean water. It has been done this way for centuries and is tradition. The men deem this work to be below their status. The society is very patriarchal and women are not treated well or revered.
We spent the afternoon documenting our morning travels and negotiating contract terms with Flavien. We agreed upon a rate of $5 per hour. He also has a car and we are using him as a driver. He asked us a funny question, “Have you ever seen so many black people in one place?”
We had an enjoyable evening going to dinner with President McMullin and the office staff. The restaurant was called latte-licious. The pricing was in US dollars and was around $20-30 per entrée, but very good quality. We enjoyed the evening and people are doing everything possible to make us feel welcome and appreciated.
President McMullin has arranged for us to tour the mission. We are visiting Likasi and Kowezi which are 3 hours away. We are supposed to work from centers of strength but here it is more about road access. Most places don’t have reliable road transportation and so there is a lot of air travel. We will stay overnight and make our humanitarian pitch to the District Presidents in those two towns. In June from the 13-24 we are going to travel with the Mission President and we’re visiting another center of strength in Mbushi Mayi, Tshitanga, and Laputa. Laputa is the location of the largest humanitarian project ever completed by the church. It cost 3.5-4.0 million. The problem is that they have no funds to pay for any major repairs and the system is already failing. The quality of the construction is being questioned. Laputa had already submitted a request for phase II that has been denied. No official notification has been given yet but the church has lost faith in the contractor and Laputa is very difficult to access by road, there is none. Although it is only 35 miles, it takes 4-6 hours because of the lack of road.
To make a long story short, President McMullin has spoken with Phillip, the Area Welfare Manager and received his blessing to be more proactive in identifying what needs to be done in both Tshitanga and Laputa. President told us to pretend we have $1 million to spend and figure out to best spend the money. We’re somewhat conflicted from the 3 weeks of training we have received, but President McMullin has a way of pushing his agenda. We look forward to the challenge.
It has been a bitter sweet day with the family celebrating Memorial Day without us. We received some pictures that reminded us of family and home. We appreciate seeing the family traditions being preserved and we look forward to skyping with them this evening. With the 8 hour time difference, it is a challenge to match up schedules.
Tomorrow we will be introduced to the Minister of Health and plan a meeting with the Director of Catholic Schools in Lubumbashi. I’ve been able to sleep much better since hearing from the mission president that he doesn’t use his mosquito net. It feels like you’re in a cage. When the mosquitos show up I’ll start using it again. Another thing that is constant is the noise. We live close to another church that seems to always be having a revival at all hours of the night and day. We also live within a block of a couple of bars that play their music through the night. All the noises are starting to blend together. It reminds us of the railroad noises at home. Newcomers always notice but we seem to have tuned them out entirely. We are surviving and this has definitely brought the two of us much closer together.
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