Hallo there,

 

Think I’m still in time for keeping one of my new year’s resolutions, just (today 31^st of Jan) – that of writing a monthly blog of my activities here in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

 

(For those of you interested, or maybe not, the other resolutions included taking more regular exercise to avoid those growing ‘love-handles’; more regular flossing (sounds a bit twee, but believe me, best to avoid any oral hygiene problems and avoid going to a local dentist here!) ; and managing, finally, to get to the end of my ‘Teach yourself Swahili’ book (have managed, after 2 years!, to get to chapter 8, just under half-way, and would be good to finish by the end of the year, if poss, perhaps a big ask, we’ll see……)

 

So first an explanation of why keeping a blog of my activities? Well, in response to the odd question or two from family, (both in UK and abroad), friends and former work colleagues, “Where are you?!” and “What are you doing?”, and in light of the fact that my letter-writing / emails are admittedly somewhat infrequent (apologies to those of you who I haven’t written to for a wee while!), I thought that this blog would be an interesting way of keeping everyone informed, not just about my personal life-story, but also provide an insight into an international NGO’s (non-governmental organization) activities in the field, direct from the coal face as it were. Finally, DRC will be celebrating its 50^th anniversary of Independence later on this year (30^th June) and will be definitely making the head-lines, one way or another, and perhaps this blog can shed some light on the daily way of life of ordinary Congolese, who are trying to cope with what life throws at them, sometimes in a positive and resourceful manner, amidst all the ‘doom-and-gloom’ stories which come out in the international media whenever DRC is mentioned.

 

And I thought that I might make a start on it this morning (4.45 am), as am feeling a bit insomniacal (?), well, having trouble sleeping (probably due to a combination of rich food – BBQ pork accompanied with guacamole and boiled aubergine, followed by chocolate fudge cake AND apple and raisin crumble, all very delicious and hard to resist), that I had for dinner at a small expat gathering last night at French friend Jerome’s place, washed down with liberal quantities of red wine and Ricky’s home-made concoction of rum with vanilla from Madagascar and coco (Ricky is an ebulliant expat from Madagascar, so the vanilla pods are authentic and fresh, and the rum was pretty powerful stuff). As I say, all very delicious but a bit hard to digest all mixed together. Also, the muezzin has just been making the early call from the local mosque (which I usually manage to sleep through, not on this occasion though), so might as well make use of those small night hours and get this blog on the road.

 

 

So a brief introduction: In answer to that perennial question, “Where are you?”, I am living in a large commercial town called Butembo in North Kivu province, eastern DRC. The population is approximately 800,000, weather is temperate with more or less continual rainfall throughout the year, surrounded by green and fertile countryside, at an altitude of 1,800 masl, lying just above the equator. We are around 350 kms by road from Goma (famous provincial capital of North Kivu, historically linked with the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, and also a devastating volcanic explosion from the nearby Nyiragongo volcano in January 2002) and the journey takes around 10 hours (although I personally haven’t travelled by road, for security reasons, but would love to as the countryside is reputed to be very picturesque), or 50 minutes by small plane (distance of 150 kms as the crow flies).

 

It’s a surprisingly pretty town, with lots of banana and eucalyptus trees and bushes dotted around on the hillsides, although when it rains the roads often get converted into thick rust-coloured mud, which created problems for vehicles, hence our project 4 x 4 pick-ups, and when dry there is lots of dust blowing around, which predispose to illnesses among the local population.

 

I live in a large house 2-storey house accompanied by Pico (my gorgeous, if somewhat whiney, grey Congolese cat), and Christian, the project veterinarian from Benin, recently arrived (last November) and soon to be posted to our new office that we’ll be opening next week in Beni (next territory northwards). The house also doubles as our office: I occupy the top floor and all the offices of my local colleagues are on the ground floor.

 

I have been here for just over 2 ½ years now, a reasonable time to be in a foreign posting, and for this place pretty unprecedented; after Ricky (who I mentioned above), I am now probably the longest-serving expatriate here! The mostly unaccompanied work contracts offered with the various NGOs usually range from 6 months to a year (renewable), so a contract of 2 years is quite a long-term placement.

 

I work as programme manager (Chef de projet) for the Belgian NGO ‘Vets without borders) implementing the projet LUVUPEL (Lutte contre la vulnerabilite par le petit elevage), loosely translated as ‘Combat – or struggle – against vulnerability through small livestock’.

 

Our main objectives are poverty alleviation and reduction for the local vulnerable populations, and our beneficiaries are mainly women (women-headed households, whose husbands were either killed in the fighting, or who have migrated to city areas to find work, leaving their wives and families behind); young single mothers; malnourished children; handicapped and HIV/AIDS affected people; former military combatants; and unemployed animal livestock technicians. We do this through our activities linked to small-livestock, by distributing rabbits, goats, guinea pigs (and later this year, poultry) to the project beneficiaries, accompanied by basic training in animal production and health, and regular monitoring of their livestock and house-hold situation.

 

 

(You can read more about our project on the web-site: www.veterinairessansfrontieres.be )

 

These vulnerable people don’t have the means to support themselves completely, and are unassisted by the state. Here there are no state welfare programmes or benefits, it’s all a very sad situation that has been exacerbated by the many conflicts in the past, and which is still on-going due to the presence of rebels (Mayi mayi, plus the Interhamwe or Rwandan Hutus - responsible for the genocide in 1994 – local armed bandits, and even the local Congolese military, supposedly present to assist the local population, but who are also involved in the pillage, rape and killing prevalent in certain areas).

 

However, we (along with the other international aid agencies), hope that we can, in some small measure, contribute to the development of the local population: and sometimes we do manage to bring some relief to the daily struggle here, and at other times it does seem a futile exercise when you hear of local civilians being killed, or raped, or having their villages burned down.

 

Anyway the whole situation is pretty complicated, politically, socially, culturally and even environmentally (the export of prized natural resources including diamonds, gold, cobalt, cassiterite has been well-documented) and I don’t have the space to discuss all the factors and underlying problematic that the original ‘heart of darkness’ has fostered (you can read more on the BBC’s country profile, and Wikipedia if interested).

 

What is for certain that there aren’t many dull moments here, and work-wise it’s an interesting challenge to try and actually implement a project with all the limitations that working in this country offers (bad roads, infrequent communications – internet, mobile telephone, no official postal service), adverse weather conditions, insecurity and instability created by the local militia forces etc. etc.

 

Admittedly, leisure and recreational opportunities are limited, although we offset the potential boredom by organizing regular parties amongst our small expat community (around 10 of us now, and likely to change, with various departures and arrivals forecast for the coming months), and the occasional gathering with local colleagues. For instance, we’ll all be gathered around the TV tonight to watch the final of the African cup between Ghana and Egypt, and our friendship and solidarity helps to pass the time away as we all strive to cope with the demands of our various projects here.

 

Well that’s 3 pages written already!, and the birds are twittering outside. Time to grab a couple of hours sleep before the local church-bells ring and wake-me up again (religion is big here, and another interesting issue that deserves to be covered in more detail in a future blog).

 

Hope you enjoyed reading this first contribution. I look forward to receiving any comments, observations etc., and will keep you all up-dated on our big office move to Beni and other activities in next months’ blog.

 

Martin

(written at 4.50 am, way too early on a Sunday morning!)

Trouble in Kinshasa the last few days, with fighting between President Kabila's troops and the former warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba who lost to him in the presidential elections last year. Probably always on the cards, since Bemba's been smarting from his loss and Kabila wanted him to 'down-size' his private army which protects him. BBC reports today around 150 deaths counted so far, including civilians, from the fighting which started on Thursday and involved rifle-fire and mortars (see accompanying photos, c. AFP; there were even mortar shells raining down on the capital of Congo Brazzaville, just across the river Congo from Kinshasa and damage caused to the town hall there.

 

Real tragedy and just goes to show that you can never take anything for granted here, including peace and stability; at least here in South Kivu things are calm, although we have had a new brigade of 'integrated' troops (comprising former rebel soldiers and military troops) stationed here recently to ensure the peace. The handful of existing Mai Mai rebels are supposed to group together and leave for the provincial capital Bukavu and be 'brasseed' (integrated) within the national army following a period of training, but they are proving suprisingly stubborn to leave, or rather their leader, Colonel A. is. Will be a big change from being the 'big shots' (pardon pun!) in the area once they form part of a regular army and are treated like regular troops.

 

So my team here is anxiously awaiting the arrival of the General of 10th Military Region based in Bukavu for discussions with Clnl. A. which will hopefully result in his brigades departure, which could happen anytime this side of Christmas, although the General was supposed to have arrived here last week.

 

On a coincidental note, today is the 200th bicentenniel anniversary of the passing of the Abolition of Slave Trade Act in the British parliament, which started the process of bringing to an end the slavery of millions of Africans by the colonial powers, including Britain. Perhaps it was slavery that put the 'Great' into Great Britain, but there's no doubt that the slave trade and the resulting economic boom generated by this trade certainly paid for a lot of economic development there.

 

For more interesting background information to slavery, click on the following link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/abolition/

 

Well here we are, New Years Day in Congo and I'm sitting typing this in the office in the field base with Vaughn Williams 'Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis' playing on my lap-top to remind me of home. I spent Christmas here accompanied by a few  expat and inpat colleagues whilst most of the local staff were celebrating during their annual holidays – our organisation has a policy that all field bases be manned at all times, so we alI decided to stay and oversee the base during the holiday period.

 

A skeleton staff of locals has been working here on the base, mostly the guards as well as the cooks, and during this quiet period of the year we have carried out the annual stock take of all our items in the various depots scattered around the base - medicines and medical equipment, engineering items (gutters, pipes, tools, cement), fuel, vehicle parts etc. It took over four days, with the help of the local depot manager, financial assistant and expat heads of departments, and it's a relief that it's finally over. Now I just have to look forward to the annual donor reports, which I'll start on tomorrow.

 

Christmas was quiet here in the field, and we did our best to enjoy ourselves despite being in the bush miles from 'civilisation'. Ben, our community development officer from Jersey had bought some coloured tinsel, a Father Christmas hat and furry reindeer antlers when he was recently in Kampala on R&R to liven things up a bit, and we certainly created a stir when we wore the decorative headgear on our base the other day.

 

On Christmas day itself I popped into the local Catholic church in the morning for the Christmas service, which was conducted in Swahili, so obviously I understood very little. It was interesting being there though and seeing how enthusiastically the locals participated, singing animatedly and swaying in the pews in time to the loud drum beats – they were practically dancing down the main aisle when we queued for the money offering and I wondered how such a service would go down back home in the UK.

 

Afterwards along with my expat and inpat colleagues, we visited the local hospital in town and handed-out sweets and biscuits to the children in the TFC (therapeutic feeding centre) and paediatric ward. Some of the children in the TFC were severely malnourished, so I guess that feeding them biscuits might not be the recommended thing to do; however, it was a festive gesture on our part which I hope went down well with them. Some of the children were so ill though that it looked as though they really weren’t bothered one way or the other, including one little girl who had been brought in with severe anaemia, and a 2-day old baby with suspected tetanus. Serge, our local staff member, has been looking after the TFC in the absence of our team nutritionist (spending Christmas and New Year in Goma with his family) and distributing the UNICEF rations for the children – hopefully they will make a recovery, but malnutrition is pretty prevalent in the area, and the only TFC is here in our town. We have a plan to set-up ‘mini-TFCs’ in the health centres all around the area in the New Year, equipped with UNICEF feed rations specially formulated for malnourished children – we’ll see how feasible this will be in practice.

 

You wouldn't really know it was Christmas here in our town last week as it was pretty quiet in the town itself, and on the base we had a delicious Christmas lunch of BBQd pork marinaded in a special mixture of honey, soya sauce, crushed garlic and local chillies, accompanied with a nice bottle of red wine, Cotes du Rhone, especially flown in from Goma at our request.

 

Yesterday to celebrate New Years Eve we again had a BBQ lunch, with chicken marinated instead of pork, however it didn’t really come off since the chicken was a bit rubbery. And in the evening we sat around chatting in the lounge by candle-light, discussing the highs (and lows) of the year gone by, whilst outside a strong storm ravaged, the rain lashing against the veranda and punctuated by sudden flashes of lightning, which had forced us indoors to the relative dryness of the lounge in the main house in the first place.

 

It was a shame that the bad weather put an untimely end to celebrations here in town: throughout the day and especially in the evening the local people had been chanting and singing to celebrate the New Year. However, this morning we awoke to the singing again and the throbbing of drums as the locals moved around town proclaiming the New Year to all and sundry.

 

Our new midwife Lysan (Congolese recruited from Goma to replace the Angolan mid-wife who finished her contract at the beginning of December) informed us that her highlight of the year was the holding of democratic elections and her hope was that peace and stability would return to the DRC.

 

I’d written in a previous blog of the first round of elections held at the end of July; the result was a large vote in favour of the presidential incumbent Joseph Kabila, with 45% of the vote, whilst his main rival, Jean Pierre Bemba, had polled only 20% of the vote. This meant that a second round of elections would be held to decide the victor, and this was duly held at the end of October. Despite the considerable logistical difficulties which presented themselves to holding elections in this war-torn country, and despite fighting between rival supporters of the two candidates in the capital Kinshasa which led to several deaths, the second round passed off reasonably quietly in the rest of the country all things considered.

 

To all intents and purposes it looked as if Kabila had won – he certainly had won the votes in the east of the country, his power-base, although Mr. Bemba had won the vote in the capital. Despite claims of vote-rigging by both sides (which were subsequently found to be true by independent voting observers, although to a much lesser extent than had originally been claimed), Kabila was adjudged to have won the second round by the margin of 16% (he gained 58.05% of the vote compared to Bemba’s 41.95%). Of course Bemba and his supporters contested the result in the official court, and so some time elapsed whilst the court considered his appeal before eventually dismissing it; Joseph Kabila was subsequently declared President in November, and he was officially sworn-in on Wednesday 6^th December, a day which was declared a national holiday.

 

Last Saturday Kabila appointed the Prime Minister, who just happened to be none other than Mr. Gizenga, who came third in the first round of presidential elections in July. It’s clear that some sort of deal was agreed between the two men since Gizenga officially supported Kabila during the second round of elections. Anyway, now the dust has settled on the elections everyone has high expectations that peace and stability will return to the country.

 

Here on our base we too sincerely hope that this will be the case and that the on-going fighting in the east of the country will subsequently come to a halt so that ordinary Congolese can start afresh. The new president has the mandate from the people who have voted in the first ever democratic elections held to make a huge difference to their lives, it just remains to be seen whether he will have the courage and motivation to push forward the many reforms that are necessary for peace to return to this troubled country.

 

Hopefully the year 2007 will finally see an end to the bloodshed that has dominated Congo’s recent history and the turning of a new page in its history.

 

 

It’s difficult to really put into words what life is like here without actually being here to appreciate first-hand the terrain, the climate, the people or the general working environment, but I’ll try……

 

First the work – there’s a lot to do where we are, in South Kivu, stuck out miles in the Congolese jungle. In our area of operation, with a population of approximately 135,000 inhabitants, we have four main axes or access routes, to the east, west, south, with our base located fairly centrally. It was originally chosen since there was a (disused) airfield nearby (later rehabilitated by us) and also because the main reference hospital, BCZ (Bureau Central de Zone) is located in the village. The BCZ is the principal local partner with whom we work, since the Primary Healthcare Programme (PHC) is the main focus of our activities here. A protocol (or convention) has been drawn-up with clauses relating to tasks and responsibilities which both partners agree to carry out.

 

Secondly, the logistics side of things is quite a challenge here. Our principal port of entry / exit is the airstrip in which we fly into on small planes, along with the cargo. EVERYTHING is flown in – food supplies for us (including meat, vegetables, eggs, crates of drinks all sourced in the provincial capital Goma); medical supplies for the health centres that we support here (including medicines, mattresses, blankets, UNICEF milk powder for malnourished infants, boxes of condoms); all engineering and water sanitation equipment (bags of cement, 1,000 litre plastic water tanks, tubes and piping); communications equipment (satellite telephones, satellite dish, PCs, printers etc.); even the transport that we use here (motorbikes, quad bikes, bicycles and, incredibly, the landcruiser – shipped in two parts and then re-assembled on the air-field and driven back to the base) has all had to come by air.

 

It’s quite an administrative nightmare each week trying to get the PAOs (Purchase Acquisition Orders) sent up from the field to the logistics department in Goma, who then have to source the equipment there, buy it, store it at the country office depot before filling up the plane and sending it down to us the following week.

 

There are regular weekly flights from the provincial capital to our field-base, with two different air companies. They can load up 2 tonnes and 1 tonne respectively (including passengers), and they usually arrive at the airstrip on alternate Wednesdays. The airstrip incidentally was rehabilitated by our organisation: originally part of the jungle, it was miraculously cleared of vegetation, flattened, compacted, drained and covered with sand and pebbles along its few hundred metres length. It is, as I say, the main port of entry and exit for us (and escape route in the case of emergency evacuation), but has also had an important additional impact on the local community, as small commercial planes coming from Bukavu use it too (Bukavu is the other main provincial city on the south side of Lake Kivu). This has opened up all sorts of commercial possibilities for the local population, and apart from bringing-in much needed supplies, also serves as a conduit for ‘exporting’ mineral resources (in particular, cassiterite), which are mined locally and which provide an important source of revenue for the villagers. I will talk more about this mineral as well as other mineral resources (including ‘conflict diamonds’), in future blogs.

I was at the local hospital recently, walking around the TFC (therapeutic feeding centre or nutritional centre), where malnourished children are taken in and cared for. They usually follow a prescribed dietary regime and are fed in order to rebuild their strength. Phase 1 is really acute malnutrition and they are fed UNICEF milk powder (special concentrate C-75 for those affected by ‘kwashiorkor’ or protein deficiency) for up to a week if necessary, according to how their condition progresses. They then pass to another ward in the hospital (phase 2), and they are given UNICEF milk powder C-100 to help fortify them, over a period of 20 days to a month, depending on the severity of the initial state of malnutrition. Interestingly, they’ll actually start to lose weight when they’re put on the initial milk powder (which I confirmed on looking at some weight charts), as opposed to gaining weight which you might expect; however, this weight loss is due principally to the re-absorption of fluid (oedema) which has built up in their bodies during the period when they have been underfed.

 

This chronic malnutrition is, unfortunately, rather common here, and there are always cases coming in. Last month there were 37 new admissions at the TFC, which added with the 25 existing patients made a total of 62 cases. Of these, 33 were treated and left the centre. How long they stay depends on the severity of their malnutrition, but I saw one child who was extremely thin, disturbingly reminiscent of the photos of Ethiopian babies that were seen during the ‘80s famines. Chronic cases of malnutrition exist here in the jungle because the diet is very monotonous and not very nutritionally rich, consisting mostly of carbohydrate and little in the way of protein or minerals; fufu (made from cassava powder), and some boiled vegetables (cassava leaves) constitutes the basic diet for most of the local population. Protein in the form of milk or eggs is pretty much non-existent, and as for meat, chicken is probably the most likely source: beef or pork is pretty scarce, and even though there are cattle that occasionally come up the road, probably too expensive to buy. As for chicken, not everyone has them: you see the occasional chicken scavenging by the side of the paths, but they are not raised in a suitable manner and are prone to dying easily. There are rivers that criss-cross the area, and people do go fishing; perhaps there are not enough fish to feed a whole family though, and the fish that I have seen caught and brought up to town are quite small; they are of the Tilapia variety, and in fact one of the activities in our Food Security programme involves the introduction of fish-farming to the local communities.

 

We offer a dietary ‘package’ for the affected children at the end of the course of treatment to help them continue with progress in recovery: they receive a month’s supply of oil, corn-soya mixture and sugar, which is made up into a specifically calculated ration according to WFP (World Food Programme) requirements. This is given to their mothers and signed off on registers. The mothers are also given packets of vegetable seeds (aubergine, tomato, cabbage, onion, spinach) and taught how to grow these vegetables by our resident local Food Security technician, Miss Gillette. She is very dynamic and speaks to them in their local language, showing them how to sow seeds in the vegetable plot attached to the hospital; the idea is to help the mothers improve their families’ diet on a long-term basis. We will supervise the families to see if what success they have with growing the vegetables in their villages.

 

Here in Goma exciting happenings the other night, my first night here on R&R after spending five very busy weeks in the field – I was woken up at 3 am by the security guards at the base because of a volcano alert! There is a volcano just outside town, the Nyiragongo volcano, which erupted in January 2002. It was following the eruption that the humanitarian organisation that I work for decided to start a programme to help the victims here in Goma; at the end of the Goma programme, it commenced work in the south-eastern province of Katanga in July 2002, and in South-Kivu (where I am based) in May 2004.

 

Today the volcano is still simmering, although is quiet enough and there were no signs of impending activity. It is actually the nearest thing there is to a ‘tourist attraction’ in this neck of the woods, and quite a few expatriates have climbed it and camped overnight on the rim, overlooking the bubbling lava. I have yet to do the trip, but I will one of these days, when I can persuade a couple of colleagues to accompany me that is.

 

Anyway, I was woken up by the guards at 3 am, calling out something just outside my bedroom door. I was cross enough at being woken at this unseemly hour, but when they mentioned ‘volcan’ and ‘eruption’ I became suddenly wide-awake, hurriedly threw on my clothes and rushed outside. The air was muggy, smokey, and there was a strange smell in the air, which I later assumed to be sulphur. There was also the sound of human voices babbling away in the distance, quite unusual at that hour of the morning. Occasionally the babbling would rise to a crescendo and then die down again to a quieter level, but it was there all the time in the background.

 

I tried to make sense of the guards and driver’s claims about the volcano, and they were talking of an impending eruption, which had been provoked by the glow of fire coming from the general direction of the volcano, and also the smoke and odour hanging in the air. People had been collecting their belongings and passing by outside, and there was also a lot of movement of vehicles passing outside the base gate.

 

The guards had contacted their bosses and were remaining on stand-by; however, in light of all the commotion, they had decided to wake me, just in case. I asked if the Country Director had been woken, and they said that they had not called him. They were loathe to wake him up, also because he is recently arrived in DRC, so they lacked that confidence. Also he doesn’t speak any French and the guards were worried about the language barrier and communication. In the end they persuaded me to call him on his mobile, and I explained the story. It was just as well that I did call him, as coincidentally at the very moment that I called, the security guard at the base where he was living had been tapping on his bedroom window and trying to explain, in French, the general situation about the volcano. I was able to explain what I had heard my end of town, and he confirmed that he could hear the general babble of voices nearby.

 

He contacted the other humanitarian agencies and the UN based in town for further information, and I remained on stand-by. When it became obvious that, in fact, the volcano was not going to blow immediately, I went back to bed, not a little shaken by all the fuss.

 

The following day I was requested by the CD to attend the weekly Heads of Mission meeting (of all the humanitarian associations based in Goma), given in French, and to obtain feed-back on the previous night’s activities. It was the guy from the UN OCHA office (Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affaires), who gave the explanation for last night’s general commotion.

 

Apparently the whole thing started when a woman living near the airport (at the far end of town, in the general direction of the volcano) raised a fuss about vampires ‘stealing her blood’; apparently this is a recent phenomenon that has been occurring in the province for the past two months, starting up in Beni in the north and coming down, affecting each city on the way, until finally arriving at Goma. Locals have been claiming that there are vampires or spirits that are taking their blood, and this has resulted in a lot of mass hysteria, especially at night-time when the supposed vampires come out. People light fires to ward off the vampires, which apparently don’t like light; would that things stayed like that. However, things have evolved on a different level, since there have been accusations of people being vampires, resulting in violence and, incredibly, their deaths. To date, about fifteen people have been killed, about twelve were killed in one town alone, for their supposed connection with the evil spirits.

 

To us Westerners living outside, the whole thing seems incredible, that people should take so seriously such ideas that they would be capable of lynching suspected ‘witches’ and killing them in an orgy of mass violence, without so much as even a judicial trial. But then again, we also have our own superstitions – rituals are carried out on mid-summers night day in certain spots back home (Stonehenge, Edinburgh); we also ‘celebrate’ (if that’s the right word), the coming-out of spirits at the annual Halloween parties; and we certainly take an interest in witchcraft and sorcery in our popular entertainment – witness how popular Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter films have been. So it’s easy to scoff, but here sorcery and all things mystic take on an even greater significance and may push the locals to believe things that they wouldn’t normally believe and commit acts that they wouldn’t normally do. It seems quite easy for people here to get whipped-up into a wave of mass hysteria and panic, especially with the general tension that exists in the zone, exacerbated by the presence of militia rebels in surrounding areas, and the fact that the presidential elections have just taken place.

 

Anyway, this woman’s declarations were the cue for much movement of people in the streets and lighting of fires (including old tyres) to ward off the vampires – and people further downtown had mistaken the smoke and fires for signs of volcano activity! The smell of burning tyres – sulphur is produced from volcanoes – and the general smoke in the air had also contributed to this general perception. At least no violence was reported last night, and hopefully things will pass quietly now that it’s obvious that the volcano isn’t on the verge of erupting. We shall see…….

 

One of the base drivers later confided in me that it was all just political, that the accusations and provoked mass hysteria were an excuse to get rid of certain people who were political opponents of certain candidates in the recent elections. This may be true too, but whatever the facts of the case, one thing is for certain: sorcery, witchcraft and stories of evil spirits are still very much alive and present in this part of the world. Good-night and pleasant dreams!