Mai Mai (water, water)

There is a traditional people who live throughout eastern DR Congo called the Mai Mai. As many of the various militias roaming throughout the jungles of eastern DR Congo are not well paid, fed or supplied, and with the terrible habit of attacking villages without warning, stealing food and committing atrocities, the Mai Mai realized they had no one to defend them. Thus, the Mai Mai took up arms and have become local security forces for their own villages.

The Mai Mai (corruption of the Swahili term for ‘water water’) sprinkle themselves with water that has been endued by sorcerers’ powers. The Mai Mai believe that when attacked and shot at, this magical water makes bullets fall harmlessly to the ground. There is enough evidence, at least locally, that Mai Mai fighters are invincible in battle, only if they’ve doused themselves with this water. As you can imagine these beliefs make the Mai Mai an especially fearless, and according to some sources, vicious fighters. In fact, the Mai Mai have secured mining areas for illegal extraction of gold and have committed many atrocities against civilians throughout the Kivus. Not the kind of people you want to run into in the forest.

Through a series of events that are beyond my understanding, there is a village not far from Bukavu which believes that there is a Mai Mai goat in their midst. Allegedly this Mai Mai goat roams freely throughout the village, eating people’s crops and other valuables, and is effectively invincible. The people in the village are afraid to slaughter it for food (the fate of many goats in the developing world) for fear that it would be impervious to bullet and blade, and somehow retaliate. Perhaps we’ve been misinformed, but this seems to be a regular sized goat, nothing especially large or intimidating about it. Perhaps its beard is longer than other village goats or it blankly stares with an exceptional intensity while it masticates its choix de la moment. Nothing too scary about any of that. One thing is for certain, by doing what goats do best – essentially eating everything within mouth and hoof distance, (and getting away with it) – this goat has become as bold as a lion. Who knows, maybe this goat actually is a Mai Mai and would liquefy any attempt to kill it. Or perhaps a local has had a bit too much to drink and fabricated this myth with enough gumption to convince others. Either way you look at it, this is one lucky goat.

Just a normal goat?

From DRC to Haiti

Even though we are now in DRC we have not forgotten about Haiti. It is curious to see the similarities found within both countries. One of Tearfund's partner organizations, Restored, just posted on their blog an article I wrote on Gender- based violence in Haiti. I have posted the article found from their website below. click here to see the Restored website. One countries response to gender-based violence maybe different then anothers. Yet at the heart of both is the power behind a restoration of relationships.


Responding to Gender-Based Violence in Haiti

Following the earthquake in Haiti in January 2010, sexual violence has emerged as a key issue for women living in camps. In this guest blog, Monica Verhaege, who works with Tearfund in DRC, describes how one community has demonstrated how women and men together can develop an effective response:

Tens of thousands of people died in the earthquake that rocked Haiti in January of 2010. Hundreds of thousands more were left displaced, with an estimated 1.2 million people in makeshift camps within Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. In one camp in the Darbonne region of Leogane, near the epicentre of the quake, gender-based violence issues came out of focus group discussions on hygiene and health. Women from this region reported that they were afraid to go outside their tents at night because rape was so common in their area. The women also reported that they had stopped using latrines after sunset. Sexual violence was a barrier to good health for this impromptu community, as well as many others like it.

One woman stated, (translated from Creole):

‘Gang rape is very common here because many men drink too much and then wander through the camps looking for women. The camps have no protection and security to offer. Sometimes you can hear women scream for help at night but no one comes, because everyone is afraid.’

The community themselves, men and women together, brainstormed about solutions to address this issue with the hygiene team. The first solution that came out was to form a security committee whose main role was to protect women and girl children throughout the day and night. However, the security committee suggested that they receive some form of self-defence and security training before they undertook this task. When the women from the community heard this request from the security committee they too wanted to have self-defence training for themselves. One teenage girl said, (translated),

‘We should all know how to defend ourselves. Security involves every person. We are all part of the security committee now.’

The hygiene team partnered with a security team from another NGO and trained the camp’s security committee in addition to the large group of women in the community who also wanted self-defence training. The training focused on how to reduce the risk of sexual violence, how to prevent violent situations from occurring, and the importance of walking with others, especially with members of the security teams, when going to the latrines at night. All of the female participants chose a partner in small groups and began learning and demonstrating their newfound self-defence techniques. The women laughed as they started actually practicing the self-defence moves. It was a huge success. Many women reported that the training gave them the knowledge they needed to keep them and their families safe. Within the camp, the training sparked healthier and more respectful relationships between men and the women as the community participated in their own solution to insecurity and sexual violence. This solution required both men and women to act together in order to prevent the violence and to achieve more harmonious and restored relationships.

Half the Sky

Considering that DR Congo is one of the most dangerous places to be a woman, I was completely floored by how many women walk the streets alone, at night. On our way into DR Congo from Rwanda the other night, there were women everywhere; loaded down with items from a day of buying and selling in the market or farming. Some were walking in small groups, others walked utterly alone. Often, even if a woman is attacked at night, she won’t tell her husband for fear of being banished from the household and larger community. There is such shame attached to rape, and it seems as though families abandon daughters and mothers in their time of greatest need. Despite the risks, life must continue – women and girls must perform their household and maternal duties; going to market, planting and harvesting crops, collecting firewood and water and often traveling great distances to do so.

Most recently in an area in South Kivu where we have been doing water and health projects, it has been reported that a large number of women have been attacked and raped during the night. Since we have been here the government military (FADRC) have been shifting their posts around and thus, leaving communities unprotected and exposed to other militia groups. Look at today's BBC news article on this far too common and devastating story in DRC -(Click here)

It is difficult to work in the Congo and not touch this issue. Both of us are working on sexual based violence issues since we have arrived. For instance, we will be supporting events with Silent No More project that Tearfund has helped launch out of a report they did on sexual violence. Out of this report launched an international pledge to end sexual violence. We will update you more on the Silent No More future events for DRC. Click here to find out more about the Silent No More Report.

Also, there is a wonderful book called ‘Half the Sky’ which highlights women’s issues in the developing word. Highly recommend this book. The book’s title refers to a traditional proverb that asserts ‘women hold up half the sky’ – basically highlighting the fact that women in the developing world (and indeed in the developed world) bear many burdens and perform duties that go largely unnoticed. If women were to not show up for work one day, for instance, the result would be that the sky would cave in. In DR Congo at least, women hold up more than half the sky.

First sleep in the Congo

Our first night in Bukavu we felt as if we were on vacation. We arrived to our new residence to find we have our own room with a bathroom – a far cry from tent and latrine life in Haiti. We explored the old Belgian maisonette that we would call home for the time being. Though it was dark, we could still make out the vibrant colors of the flowers outside our windows. We fell asleep under our mosquito net with the barred windows opened in hopes of siphoning la vent into our room. All was well.

At 7:30 the following morning we awoke to double prop UN helicopters flying overhead. We were awoken again by UN helicopters flying overhead at 8:30 and then again around 10am. The illusion of vacation passed away like a fleeting vapor.

We met different members of our Tearfund team on Friday night and throughout the day on Saturday. We spent time in the office, another Belgian maisonette about a ten-minute walk from our residence, and found that many of our colleagues are from other African nations – mainly Kenya and Ethiopia.

Our Program Director, a lovely Scottish lady with a great sense of humor, gave us a security briefing for our area of Bukavu. She gave us two documents, one being the security brief for the entire country of DR Congo, which was roughly a 15-page document, and a document for Bukavu, quite a bit shorter. For those of you reading this, you’ll be happy to know that we are relatively safe in Bukavu. Unlike the other Tearfund base in Goma, in North Kivu, Bukavu does not have a contingency plan if a volcano erupts – which happened not long ago in Goma. We are a 3-hour boat road south of Goma on Lake Kivu and will be traveling there over the next month or so.

We ventured out with our Program Director to the ‘PX’ shop, a shop run by the UN here in Bukavu. Basically it is a duty free shop for UN workers and Chefs de Mission (Senior NGO workers). Though the name confounds us, it is like a smaller version of a Wal-Mart (for our American readers) or ASDA (for our UK readers) where one can by everything ranging from canned goods, spices, curries, produce, frozen meats (including Halal meats) to flat-screen televisions, underwear, luggage, ‘executive’ button down shirts, trousers (perhaps we didn’t need to haul that 50 lbs sack of American goodies to the DR Congo after all). There is even a whole isle dedicated to the nominal aid worker’s coping mechanisms. In an effort to mitigate the effects of these coping mechanisms, the UN even have their own gym attached to the PX shop, equipped with free weights, treadmills, bench presses and the like. We bought some chocolates and pastis from PX, dropped them off at our house and walked to some of the more local markets further down the road, near the centre of town.

The fromage du Goma, or ‘Goma cheese’ is the only cheese that we know of that is actually produced regularly in Africa. There must be others, but in this case the Goma cheese’s reputation precedes our first taste. Just a week ago in London a French friend of ours who has spent time working in Congo-Brazzaville/ aka Republic of the Congo told us about a cheese produced in North Kivu, in the DR Congo. During his time in Congo-Brazzaville, he had heard rave reviews about it, though he had never tasted it himself. To us this cheese had an heir of mystery; something never seen or tried, something mentioned by a third-party who, for all intents and purposes, might not have even tasted it themselves. We are here to say that Goma cheese is real. It is delicious. It is a Gouda. We began our shopping excursion at high noon – a time I would not have expected considering the foretold heat and humidity. Au contraire. Even at high noon in May – and perhaps for much of the summer, Bukavu and Goma are pleasantly warm, perhaps hovering in the mid-to-upper 80’s for most of the year, with cool nights often worthy of a jumper. Today there is the faintest breeze, the air is unexpectedly light and the streets are alive with people walking the streets. I think we broke a little bit of a sweat, not much considering that we must have walked for about 2 hours. One of the items on our shopping list was this Goma cheese. We found one cylinder of it – old and frozen, placed into an empty freezer in a random shop. It displayed the beginnings of mold. Our program director insisted we could ‘do better than that!’ A little further on foot and we came to another local shop, in the basement of a tall building right off the street, adjacent to a buzzing roundabout. Past the smiles of the shop owners and their warm greetings of ‘bonjour et bienvenue’, we came to a fridge full of fresh Goma cheese. No mold in sight. Having had lunch and now dinner where the main ingredient was this cheese, we are wishing we had bought more than one.

Front of our house



Belgian style interior


Yay...we have a garden!


Garden flowers over our wall


Living Room

La foret qui parles (the forest that speaks)

To some of you, this may come as a bit of surprise - for others, perhaps not. We arrived in Bukavu, South Kivu, in eastern DR Congo last night after a couple of flights and a long drive through 'Nyungwe National Park' - or, in other words, the jungle.

It is our second day here and we have just finished a short security briefing for our area, and things are relatively safe. We are here in the DR Congo living and working with an ngo (non-governmental organization) called Tearfund (click here). Monica has taken up a 1 year post as the Public Health Promotion Advisor - working with local staff and communities on the subject of hygiene, sanitation, HIV/AIDS, and facilitating trainings on specific on health needs. Ian has taken up a 1 year post as a Grants and Information officer - meeting with donors, writing grants and working to secure funding, so that really important programs can continue to run. We will be traveling between Bukavu in South Kivu, Goma in the North Kivu and various project sites. This is such a beautiful country.

Anyways, the longest part of our journey which ended in crossing the Rwandan border into the Congo after dark was the long overland voyage from Kigali, Rwanda to Bukavu. On the way we took a rest in a town called 'Butare' - which, according to our driver was the site of Rwanda's 'first school', under the former colonizers. He also informed us that Butare was Rwanda's first city. It was a really lovely town, with boulevards (tree lined streets) lots of hotels, restaurants and shops, local fast food-type places - Butare even boasts national museums of culture and art. Brilliant.

Our drive through Rwanda was beautiful. Unlike Port-au-Prince, the overcrowded and polluted capital of Haiti, Kigali (the capital of Rwanda) is extremely clean and well-maintained. Sadly, it doesn't have a view of the ocean which is one of the many things Port-au-Prince has going for it, but the terraced nature of the city, the lush gardens, people walking and others riding pedal bikes, gave us the feeling that we had arrived in a sort of East African Shangri-la. And we weren't even in the Embassy district.

Some more prevalent things we saw during our drive through Rwanda:
- Tilapia stocked fish hatcheries with little chicken coops above the water to shower the fish with some organic fertilizer (if you know what we mean).

- Gridded rice patties with people dressed in orange working among the crops. The combination of orange and rice reminded us more of Nepal than anywhere else.

- Eucalyptus trees, evergreens, terraced hillside tea and coffee plantations - 'plantations' being used in the NOT south-eastern United States sense.

- Amazing roadside villages with lovely homes, power lines, maintained infrastructure.

One of the most memorable parts of our overland from Kigali to Bukavu was our trip through the national park, previously mentioned above. It took us something like 3 hours to drive through one end and come out the other, closer to the Congo border. As the sun began to set and the temperature dropped outside, along with the cool air came a distinct sound - like the squeal of trains breaking on railroad tracks. It was like a blue, metallic sound, not ear splitting, but peaceful. I figured it was the soft jabber of insects or some other thing. Perplexed, we asked our driver, a jolly guy called Justice, what the sound was. And, taking his eyes off the road for a short second to look at us directly, he said 'It is the trees themselves, who are speaking'.

Colobus Monkey


Tea Plantation through the trees

Haiti - stream of consciousness.

Well, our last month in Haiti has been quite eventful. We kicked off the New Year with a trip up to Fort Jacques, a 200 year old fort built by Haitians which overlooks Port-Au Prince. Ian cooked up a storm and threw a huge birthday party for me at a friend's house in Titanyen. It was awesome. Additionally, there has also been a political soap opera unfolding in Haiti since last month. On this note, it is as though Haiti is perpetually stuck in between its past and its future. We've done heaps of training and work in order to hand over WASH projects to National staff and communities. Needless to say we have 'lived up' our last month in Haiti.

I (Monica) have just finished reading this inspiring book called "When Helping Hurts: How to alleviate poverty without hurting the poor and yourself" by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert. It is a curious book to read in this ending season for us in Haiti. It helps rekindle the meaning for us of why one comes to Haiti in the first place. Why are we not just working back in our home country? - though we too seem to be perpetually stuck between where we come from and where we will end up. One of the major premises of the book is that "until we embrace our mutual brokenness (broken systems we live in & broken individuals), our work with the poor is likely to do far more harm than good." Perhaps I should flesh this out a bit, and even suggest that the word 'embrace' seems to paint a picture of acceptance. I would tend to use the word 'engage' when speaking about broken systems and broken processes because it paints a picture of not being OK with the way things are. Here is a key equation that the book highlights:

Material Definition of Poverty + God-complexes of Materially Non-Poor+ Feelings of Inferiority of Materially Poor = Harm to Both Materially Poor and Non-Poor

This equation captures what actually happens when we 'work' in another country and culture. If we have a strictly material definition of poverty and we add our God-complex (the idea that we can save everyone, and indeed the world), we will be surprised that when asked, people who are materially poor often say that they have feelings of inferiority when they receive 'stuff' from us. This = harm to both materially poor and non-poor people. We who are materially non-poor are hurt because all of our giving results in our suffering from 'compassion fatigue' - this phenomenon that comes from giving and giving and giving (often 'stuff') and not seeing a real, measurable or lasting change. Pretty hurtful for all involved.

It is about reconciliation. Poverty alleviation is the ministry of reconciliation: moving people closer to glorifying God by living in right relationship with God, with others, and the rest of creation. Yes, we must struggle to put people and processes before projects and products. And we must move forward in applying appropriate relief and development interventions that do not exacerbate poverty. I am reminded from our studies of a lecture about the golden rule of this work... is to 'do no harm.' I must admit, we have often wondered whether all the International NGOs and short term missions teams should be booted out of the country - primarily because our vision as a whole may be too small, and it is laughable that we should call most of our programming 'sustainable' in the greatest sense of the buzz word. Would it not be better for Haiti to solve its own problems or facilitate its own solutions? Are we doing more harm than good? When every Westerner comes to Haiti handing out old t-shirts, bags of rice, shoes and toys, how can one move away from the materialist perspective of the nature of poverty in Haiti?

If we see Haitians as only being materially poor, then the solution to this is to give them 'stuff.' If we see Haitians as being uneducated, our method is to educate them. If we see Haitians as being poor because they are suffering from their own sin, then we must evangelize them. We must truly understand what we believe is the root of poverty, and actually ask the Haitian people their opinion - varied it will be. Otherwise we as outsiders are doomed to the same conclusions as the thousands before us, who have since saturated Haiti with things that, frankly, it doesn't need or even want.

But this idea of reconciliation continues to nag me. Do we just give up on broken systems and broken individuals? Romans 7:21 says 'when I want to do good, evil is right there with me.' Reconciliation of relationships gives us hope. It's a perspective change, from asking 'how can I fix people' to asking 'how can I assist in empowerment?' People can feel empowered through healthy relationships - through connection with themselves, with God, with others, with the environment around them. Connection, however, is a choice. When I look back at this month and even this year in Haiti I look at those relationships of empowerment and respect. After all this is what development is about. Its a lifelong process. A process of reconciliation. Not a 2 week or 1 year project or product.

Frederick Buechner once said, "The place God calls you to is where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." Hunger is not just material, and neither are lasting interventions. The conclusion of the book?: 'Poverty is rooted in broken relationships, so the solution to poverty is rooted in the power of Jesus' death and resurrection to put all things into right relationship again.'

Fort Jacques
















Birthday Festivities














WASH Training






The Hygiene Team

Haitian Baroque

Can anyone say 'cheese'? Merry Christmas from Port-au-Prince! Wishing you all a warm, happy holiday where anything is possible - especially photos like this one. Peace on earth and goodwill towards man(kind). Thank you Jesus.