Dr. Livingston…

About 4 miles outside of Kigoma Town sits Ujiji. This little village is known as the place where Stanley met Dr. Livingston under the mango tree. Since we were so close to this famous site, we took a morning to travel to Ujiji to see it. At the Livingston compound there is a concrete block monument that marks where the original mango tree stood, two mango trees descended from the original, and a small museum.


Children who live near the museum—they are used to posing for photos ;-)

One of the two mangos descended from the original tree and Sarah, my friend from the IRC.

Michael, another PiAf fellow, and I pose in front of the monument.

Michael, the museum guide, and I pose for a picture with paper mache replicas of Stanley and Livingston.

Kigoma

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year ;-) It was great to be home for the holidays and to see so many family members and friends!

Right now I am spending most of my time in the office, so I do not have recent photos to post. I do, however, have old photos and the next several posts will contain these old photos.

At the beginning of December two frinds and I traveled to Kigoma, a town on the shore of Lake Tanganyika, the second deepest lake in the world. Here are a few shots from our hotel, The Aqua Lodge.

The view from the back of the Aqua Lodge. It cost about $20 a night to stay here. At night we could hear the water splashing against the shore--so peaceful!!

Another shot from the Lodge.

In the background, on the opposit side of the shore, you can see the hills of the DRC. This is the Eastern part of the country where there is currently fighting between the government and rebel groups. Though the fighting continues, many Congolese refugees are choosing to return.

To the left is a hillside that host the Hill-Top hotel. It is a luxury hotel with a great resturant and a swimming pool! To get to the Hill-Top from Aqua Lodge, you must pass through part of the town and the local prison. When we went past the prison, the prisoners were out working in the fields.

World AIDS Day

At the beginning of December, several went to the camp to take part in World AIDS Day activities. People in Nduta Camp martched from the hospital to the soccer field where they gathered for 3 hours of song, dance, music, drama, and AIDS messages. Overall, the event was a lot of fun. Hopefully audience members also learned more about the disease and how to prevent it.

These drummers started the event and periodically drummed between performances.

This is the shelter where the guests of honor sat, most of whom were NGO workers.

A shot of part of the crowd. There were probably 1,500 people there.

This group of women did a beautiful dance.

These men sang and danced. Their dance was supposed to teach others how to use condoms...

This is a close up of one of the guitars used. It is made from a metal can used to distribute oil.

Spectators who couldn't get close enough to see climbed trees to get a better view.

These kids did a really cute song and dance number.

Water Project

Below you will find photos from a TCRS water project in a village that is about 5 km/3.2 miles from Kanembwa Camp. Projects like this are intended to benefit the refugee host communities, which oftentimes have very underdeveloped infastructure.

TCRS is building one large collection tank to hold water. This is a view from the top of the tank.

In this photo you can see two of the men who are building the tank (right) and some of the villagers who will benefit from this project. The kids are collecting water from the pipe that will eventually feed water to the tank.

Another shot of the kids.

This is one of three collection chambers for water that will fill the tank. This chamber collects water from a spring. Water is then piped to the tank. It goes from the tank to tabs which are spread around the village. All water in this system is moved by gravity.

Mump III

And this is a shot of the Mump from the IRC compound which is where we start our run.

Mump I

In the next two posts, you can see pictures from a run I take most Sundays. We jog through part of Kibondo town and a villege called Nengo and then hike up a hill we call the Mump.

This is a group of kids who live in Nengo, which is at the base of the mump.

The kids on top of the hill. Cool karate poses must be universal for 7-12 year-olds ;-)

This is a photo of Gregor and his sister T-Zed. Gregor is the child who almost always asks about the time.

In this shot you can see Sarah (a friend of mine from the IRC) and more of the kids. Some of them painted their faces white. We're not sure why they did it. Any ideas?

Mump II

These are shots from the top of the Mump. They speak for themselves.