There’s not a lot to do in little village towns like Kananga. I think that’s why people work six days a week instead of five. So I found myself a new hobby to occupy my time on my one day off in the village. I went out to the villages and rounded up the malnourished …
“Isn’t it dangerous?” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked some variant of the above question. Especially while living and working in Congo, where decades of war and instability have wreaked havoc on millions. But worldwide, less than half a million people die from war and murder combined per year. Malaria? 429,000 …
I knew I had found the best job in the whole world when my country director, Larry, walked into my office and told me he wanted me to go on a trip with him and three DFID folks to check out some of the work ASSP had been doing around the country. They had chartered …
There is a lot of focus on women and girls in my line of work and for good reason. We should definitely keep focusing on women and children. But we need more programs that focus on men and boys. Maybe even more than the women and girls because in Congo, the men often make the …
This awesome lady was such a pleasure to spend the day with. She was one of the bright stars our nutrition team found in Kalonda West and trained to be a community relay. Long before our program began she took her love of gardening into her community and taught her neighbors how to grow their own …
Did you know that construction workers everywhere are all the same? I know that it’s not really PC to say such a thing these days, but seriously, for the most part, they are all the same. In Congo, in Costa Rica, in the US, construction workers will whistle and yell at any woman, and I …
In the United States, when you get a flat tire, it is quite possibly the worst possible thing that could happen to you. At least, that’s the way you often perceive it. But in Congo, flat tires happen so often that you just kind of let it roll off your back and you get out …
Health is a precursor to happiness, so I like to think that when we are out doing our public health work, we are out spreading happiness. And when I see faces like these in our health centers, I know we are getting the job done. Magic 298/365, Healthy Body, Happy Face, Kalonda West, Kasai, DRC
The mothers are always out and about making things happen and carrying things everywhere in Congo. I took this photo while we were trekking around in a field outside of a village where we were building a latrine out of local materials. Our project did a lot of really great work, but sometimes we had …
I hear a lot of negative opinions about aid work, but aid work WORKS. This is a photo of a severely malnourished girl that our nutrition team found six months before this photo was taken (see yesterday’s post). They taught her mother how to make a weaning food recipe out of locally available ingredients and …