The DRC

I am now in the DRC and things are going great here. The craziness of it all is that I am more hooked up technologically here in Uvira than I have been at any other point in Africa. I have met up with a friend of a friend, Rolphe, who has started and runs an NGO that works with youths and part of his project is to teach them about computer’s and give them access to technology. He runs an internet center here that he charges a small fee for some people to use, but lets others (especially the kids he works with) use for free. He uses the profits from the internet center to pay for operational costs of the place. I am staying right here at the facility where the internet center is and he has even hooked me up with my own private internet access since I have my computer here. His brother Willy lives here with a couple of the youths. We eat meals here together…but I haven’t figured out how to make them let me help with cooking and cleaning…they just tell me to rest. I feel a bit useless. I just haven’t figured out exactly what I should be doing with my free time here and when and where it is ok for me to go wandering around by myself. Other than the internet center, they teach classes on IT here and run a soccer league among various other youth activities. Tomorrow I am going to watch a soccer match being played between the older students here and a team of Pakistani soldiers who work with MONUC (the UN mission here). Should be fun to watch. They are also in the process of putting together a library...which will be filled with books that came from, of all places, an NGO in St. Paul called Books for Africa that is located right across the street from the PBS building I used to work it.

Research is coming along. I've been working hard on making contacts with people. Today I got to have a conversation with a leader of a Kitawalist church (the very same church featured in my MA thesis)..which was pretty awesome. I am going to meet with him again the day after tomorrow to ask more questions. I did not really have many questions planned when I met with him today because I didn’t know we were going to see him until I had already left. I did find out, however, that they now name Patrice Lumumba as the profit who founded their religion. So interesting. My good friend Clavert (19 year-old, one of the students, lives in the center) showed me around the city today and took me to talk to the Kitawalist guy. He helped me a lot with translating (into Swahili) bits of the convo that I didn’t quite catch. I still can’t get used to the way they mix Swahili and French together…it gets me every time. Anyway this kid is cool as hell and has been unbelievably helpful. I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to thank him for his help...how I'm going to thank anyone here for their help, for that matter. Another one of the guys living here (they’re pretty much all young guys…the gender dynamic is a bit strange, though not in a bad way) wrote a history of the violence in Burundi that he wants me to read. Very interesting.

Anyway, I am about done being a computer hermit for the day so I will wrap this up. But, I just wanted to let everyone know that things are going great. Will write more soon....and with pictures.