I came back from R&R a few weeks ago ready to go—well almost! I admit that it was a bit difficult to face coming back to a remote area after a lovely week in Kenya. I armed myself with a supply of chocolate to ease the transition and returned to the field.
I stopped in Dubie on route to Shamwana because the program team was completing the distribution of household kits there. Dubie is a logistical hub for our operations in Katanga—we store most of our program inputs (food, household kits, etc.) until we are ready or able to distribute them. Dubie is a large town (population 12,000) by local standards, but is still very, very rural. Our house and office are in separate locations there, so we walk to work through various people’s gardens, much to the amusement of all the kids in the area. It seems that the constant stream of Concern staff in the area in the last few months has not reduced our sense of novelty to the people, so we are accompanied by a posse every morning. I haven’t spent much time in Dubie since the first couple weeks after I arrived in DRC, but the kids still all remembered me and were calling my name as I walked around. It’s useful for when I get lost; I have an appalling sense of direction, and it’s no help that every little road here looks the same. I got lost the other evening, and a little boy took me by the hand and led me home!
A six-year civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) killed more than three million people and displaced another two million. Eighty percent of the nation’s population struggles to survive on less than a dollar a day. For many of the people with whom Concern works, that can be a little as 25 cents a day.
