Category Archives: Africa
Duru, Province Orientale, DR Congo
After we finished our vaccination program in the area around Ndedu, we headed north of Dungu to a town called Duru. We then planned and organised to vaccinate all the villages from Duru south back to Dungu in a single day. The trip was 93km each way but it took us less than 3 hours to get to Duru, which means it’s an amazing road by Congolese standards!
The reason the road is so good is that the Indonesian military is on the ground as part of the United Nations (MONUSCO) mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo. They’re amazingly efficient at building and improving roads, and the quality of their work is really impressive.
I didn’t take too many photos on this day trip. This is the backside of the large Catholic church in the town of Duru:
This kid was staring at me when we tried to find the catechist to discuss placing a vaccination site beside the church, so I asked if I could take his photo:
Within seconds his friends or siblings showed up with their bricks, too, wanting their pictures taken. It’s always fun showing little children photos on a digital camera screen afterwards; they get a real kick out of it.
On the way back to Dungu one of the places we stopped was this monument to three FARDC soldiers killed by Joseph Kony’s LRA a couple years back:
Anyone looking for a map of the Dungu-Duru road with village names, distances, and motorcycle driving times, just contact me and I’ll send it all your way.
Also posted in Democratic Republic of Congo, Humanitarian
Tagged Dungu, Duru, LRA, MONUSCO, Motorcycles, MSF
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Ndedu, Province Orientale, DR Congo
In mid-February, a few of us went south from Dungu to Ndedu by motorcycle to plan, prepare, and run three days of measles vaccinations. In the planning phase our job was to try and figure out which vaccination teams would go to which villages at which times, how long they’d stay in each place, and how long it would take to get to the next one. This was all decided with the advice and help of the local chief in each location, as well as other important people like school principals, health centre staff, church pastors, and parents.
At the same time, I made simple maps using my GPS device, as the Google Earth and United Nations maps (which are almost identical) lack all the place names and include several locality names which they’ve mapped as villages. My maps and distance charts are free if you contact me.
The “roads” through the jungle in this area range from a fairly smooth and wide path in some places to very, very, very bumpy and overgrown in others. Suffice it to say that, at the end of the fourth full day bouncing up and down on the back of a motorcycle in the jungle, I was a bit tired. Here are two of my motorcycle drivers crossing a slippery log bridge:
Map of our second day based out of Ndedu:
On the second day we visited villages in the area around Kpekpere, and went as far as Bawaku. One motorcycle also got a flat tire, which was soon repaired.
On the way back from Bawaku to Kpekpere we got caught by heavy rains and had to hide in the nearest large hut we could find. We were there about an hour, of which I spent perhaps 20 minutes sleeping.
Map of our third day based out of Ndedu:
On the third day we went all the way to Libombi, a three and a half hour drive, meaning seven hours of motorcycle movement that day, plus all the time we had to spend in each place along the way! This was by far the longest and hardest day, but it was still really fun.
On the fourth day I supervised three vaccination teams. Children waiting to be vaccinated in Li-Lungbu:
Inside a vaccination site in Kpekpere:
Children waiting to be vaccinated in Kpekpere:
Motorcycling through the jungle south of Dungu:
Soon, we were back in Dungu for a much-needed day off work, followed by similar activities in the other direction: north! More on that later…
Also posted in Democratic Republic of Congo, Humanitarian
Tagged Bawaku, Dungu, Kpekpere, Libombi, Maps, Measles, Motorcycles, MSF, Ndedu, Vaccination Sites, Vaccinations
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A little math
Here’s a little story from the bishop of Arua, who was recently in Kampala, Uganda at the same time as me:
When I was a young boy, the men of the village used to hunt birds with guns. The guns would fire many bullets at once (he was referring to birdshot). One day, my father came upon a very large tree, and in that tree sat many, many birds – one hundred or so. He took aim, fired, and from the tree to the ground fell about forty birds.
Approximately how many birds remained in the tree?
Also posted in Uganda
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How-To: The Loopy Logistician’s Leatherman Haircut
One cool evening in Dungu, Democratic Republic of Congo, a colleague asked me to cut her hair. I was flattered that someone had seen in me the same natural artistic ability I had long seen in myself but which I failed to make noticed by those around me; at the same time, I must admit to feeling confused at the request, having never cut anyone’s hair in my life (unless you count shaving my own head, or snipping off locks of my at-the-time toddler sister’s hair, after we got chewing gum stuck in it).
Being a logistician, when in the field my Leatherman multi-tool is never far from reach. Scissors, on the other hand, were at least ten meters away (this is equivalent to about six seconds at my average walking speed, recorded on several occasions as 6 km/h). The mathematics of convenience (aka laziness) clearly dictate that the Leatherman was the correct choice to cut my colleague’s curls. Of the many options available to me, I chose to use the serrated saw blade, having as logic the basic idea that cutting a loaf of bread is far easier with a serrated bread knife than with a non-serrated meat knife. Whether hair is more similar in nature to bread or a roast was a question that only occurred to me later on.
Instructions: For the simplest and fastest Leatherman haircut, get your client’s hair in a ponytail, and ask him or her to hold around the base of the ponytail. You grab hold of the other end of the ponytail of hair with your non-Leatherman hand. While maintaining the ponytail fairly taut by pulling it away from your client’s head, begin sawing back and forth at a quick pace, without applying any downward pressure; the saw will carry itself downward as it cuts through. When finished, dispose of the newly shed locks or pass them on to someone in need.
It worked!
Not only did I manage, in less than ten seconds, to cut my colleague’s hair, but we were able to provide a hair piece for another colleague who, like me, no longer has a full head of his own hair.
Stay tuned for the next Loopy Logistician’s Leatherman how-to: the Loopy Logistician’s Leatherman Martini!
