A week in the field

I have been working for awhile now on putting together a proposal for a grant from the European Commission. We are working in a consortium with 4 other organizations and since my organization is the Lead, it means a lot of the responsibility and organization has fallen on me. I've been learning a lot and have really enjoyed working with the team we've put together. We just hired a consultant to help us put together the final product and after several months of work things are finally coming together. It is exciting and tiring and stressful but as we move forward I am pretty confident that the proposal we are putting together has a really good chance of winning. I think I have mentioned here before that the funding climate in Burundi is difficult and that there aren't many grant opportunities compared to other countries. There are several other consortium competing for this same grant so there is no guarantee we will win, but I am hopeful.

In order to make sure that our proposal reflects what is actually going on in the communities where we will be working we've had a lot of discussions with our partners and staff working on the ground, but it is important to see these things for ourselves so last week the consultant we hired and I spent four days in the field talking to community members and doing an informal assessment. This is something I have not gotten to do enough of in my position so far. So much of my job has been dealing with donors and emails and reports and I have not been able to get out of the office nearly enough, so I was thrilled to have this opportunity. The organization of our schedule was a little hectic and at the last minute we were given the crappy land cruiser with the back seats that face the side instead of the normal one with the seats that face forwards. This meant I spent 4 days being thrown around the back of a land cruiser and I have the bruises to show for it, but all in all it was a successful trip. We got the information we needed, confirmed some of our hypothesis and found some important things that we would have missed otherwise. I got to spend 4 days getting sunburned while standing in fields talking to farmers. I got to walk through fields of banana trees, I learned about the mozaique virus that has had a huge negative impact on the manioc (cassava) crops here, and I got to talk to moms about what they feed their kids and how they are trying to make sure their kids are getting enough nutritious food. I love to be able to look beyond the statistics and reports into the eyes of these mothers as they talk about their struggles and their dreams for their children.

Now I am back in Bujumbura, exhausted, slightly sunburned and bruised, but looking forward to the next two weeks as I finish up various projects and get ready to come home. Apparently it snowed this week at home so I'll be greeted by the white stuff when I land in Toronto. I'll spend as much time in the sun as work and the rain allow me to and take advantage of the rest of my time here.

For now, here are some pictures of my week in the field.

Fields of Banana trees

One of the 'improved species' of cows which give more milk than the local breed

Talking to a community about their food security and nutrition concerns and needs
(photo is the property of World Vision)

The view from my guest house in Rutana

New experiments with terracing to help stop erosion

Had dinner with the hippos again when I returned to Bujumbura. 

Rainy season in Bujumbura

As I have mentioned before, it is currently the rainy season here in Burundi. This usually means about an hour of rain most days, but not every day. It is the same as the rainy season in Rwanda so although this is my first time experiencing it in Burundi, it isn't really new to me. Even so, there are always differences. For one, it is amazing how clear the air is here after it rains. During the dry season it gets very dusty and hazy. I didn't really notice the impact of that until the other day after it rained I looked up at the horizon as I was driving to work and I noticed the mountains of the DRC in the distance. I have always known that the mountains were there - you can usually see their outline across the lake, but this was the first time that I could clearly see the ridges and valleys, even the trees and houses on the mountains. Things are more crisp and more green and everything seems more clean. Except for the mud of course.

This year it is raining a lot more than normal. Instead of an hour of rain 3 out of 4 days we have had several days in a row where it rained all day. And this isn't a nice spring shower, we're talking serious downpour complete with thunder and wind. Not very pleasant. There are more accidents when it rains, the traffic is worse and I am more dependent on taxis since I can't walk into town or from place to place within town. I wished I had my camera with me on my way to work this morning so I could have pictures with this post. It has rained quite a bit this week so the ground is already very wet and what little drainage systems there are in the city are pretty overwhelmed. On my way to work this morning the roads were literally flooded with a foot of swirling red water dyed by the dark red mud.  Vehicles inched along spraying up waves of muddy water. Most of the water was low enough that it did little more than slow everyone down, but in a few low lying areas the water was deep enough to go over the hoods of small cars and I saw one stall and get stuck because of the water. Soon after the rain stops most of the streets go back to normal with only a few maintaining large puddles. It is raining again now and I think the road to my apartment will be washed out by the time I get back there tonight. I live on a hill and the road is only paved part way. Where the pavement stops the rain water pools and washes away the road so there is now a large drop off from the pavement to the dirt road.

The rain is normally good for the people of Burundi - as much as it is inconvenient it is necessary for this country that depends heavily on subsistence agriculture. However, this much rain has the potential to cause problems. Burundi is a very hilly country with people cultivating steep inclines as well as low laying valleys. Too much rain is potentially a threat to both. The low laying marshes are especially at risk of flooding with the potential for whole crops to be destroyed. With families farming only an average of 0.3 hectares of land loosing that land to flood is devastating. Hopefully the rains calm down and we get some nice sunny weather to dry things out. Not only do the crops desperately need this, but so do I. I only have one month left here in Burundi before I head back to December in Canada - the land of ice and snow. I want to soak up as much of the African sun as I can while I have the chance!

About A Good Day

I had a really good day today, and since those have been rare lately I thought I should record it for posterity and to remind me that they do happen. Actually, that makes it sound like I've had nothing but horrible days and that isn't really true. Things have been better lately but it has been awhile since I've left the office thinking "that was a good day".

My day started with a meeting with the consortium I'm working with for a really big grant proposal. The meeting is not held at my office and I usually go straight there on the mornings of our meetings instead of going all the way to my office and then turning around an hour later and coming back. So I work from their meeting room or from a cafe near by until it is time for our meeting to start. We started almost an hour late this morning but somehow that didn't bother me as much as it normally does. Nothing I had planned on finishing got finished but we had a good discussion and made important progress on other things. I had lunch with someone from one of the other organizations and we talked about our logframe and objectives as well as our organogram over brown rice salad with raisins and cashews and a cafe mocha. Work is more enjoyable over a good lunch.

Then I went back to the office and spent the afternoon in skype conversations realizing that no one was sure about what progress we had actually made this morning on those important things, and that somehow no decisions had actually been made. Again, somehow this did not bother me as much as it normally would have and I spent a couple of hours figuring things out and I think I made some progress and things will be fine by Monday.

So reading this, it sounds like I should have had a frustrating day brightened only by a yummy lunch with a nice colleague. But it was actually a really good day and I enjoyed working with interesting and smart people and problem solving obstacles and just doing my job. It has been awhile since I found these things enjoyable in themselves and it is a nice way to end the week. It is Friday and I am looking forward to the weekend but I am not as desperate for it as I was at the end of last week. Hopefully the rest of the five weeks (!? when did that happen...) I have left in Burundi are as pleasant as this one, although maybe a little more productive!

To finish off this happy post, here are a couple happy pictures from my trip to the beach last weekend.

Tanganyika Blue Bay Resort in Rumonge

My view for most of the afternoon

Sunset over the beach

You can't really tell here, but it rained on Sunday. Hung out and read on the beach anyway.

Sunset over Bujumbura

This week has been much better than the last couple of weeks. I still get frustrated with work sometimes and I had to work this morning even though it was a holiday, but in general it is better. My meeting today was with people I enjoy working with and I leave tomorrow for two days on the beach south of Bujumbura. It will be nice to get away and just relax. I am hoping it doesn't rain, but since it is the rainy season I think it might be more realistic to hope it doesn't rain much. The nice thing about the rains here is that while it rains almost every day, it usually only rains for an hour or two. Today was an exception and it rained almost all day. I'm hoping that means it won't rain at all tomorrow!

Last weekend a friend and I spent the evening at Belvedere Restaurant up on the hill overlooking Bujumbura. Here are a couple pictures of the sunset over the city.

Those are the mountains of the DRC in the distance

The sun setting over Lake Tanganika

Not a bad way to spend a Sunday evening. Heading south to Ramonge tomorrow. More pictures to come.