Congo Part 2

After we entered Congo, I sent a text to someone at our office in Kampala letting them know we had made across the border. She had gone on the master planning trip to UCBC in 2012, so she responded asking if I had brought some motion sickness medication. I thought to myself how bad could it be. It was bad, probably the worst road I have driven on. Our 80km trip from the Kasindi to Beni took us two and a half hours. Once we crossed from Uganda to Congo the road changed from asphalt to dirt. It was so bumpy. Although this was a dirt road, it was also the major highway leading out of this area of eastern Congo. There was not a lot of traffic, but most of the traffic was large trucks. Some were transport trucks pulling two trailers. Most were large trucks packed full of stuff with about 50 people sitting on top of the stuff, and a bunch of water jugs tied to the back. Many of the vehicles we saw we stopped as they needed to reattached their cargo. One truck we saw was full of goats, there were two dead goats tied to the back. The truck was stopped as a goat had gotten loose and they were trying to catch it. Although it was a bumpy ride it was quite scenic. Congo is a beautiful and lush country. It was a clear day and we could see the Rwenzori mountains in the distance. Finally, 11 hours after we left Kampala, we arrived in Beni, Congo. Beni is a town of about 100,000 people in eastern Congo.

Congo countryside

Congo countryside

A herd of cows on the road

Congo countryside

Rwenzori Mountains

Large, overpacked truck on the dirt highway

We first went to UCBC to meet some of the staff and leadership. Then we took a quick look around the community center to get a feel for what was there. The building was in worse shape than we thought, and we would spend the next three days evaluating and recording what was there. We left from the university and went the guesthouse. While in Beni we stayed at the university’s guesthouse. It was much nicer than I thought it would be. It was a three storey house, I had my own room, there was running water, a shower but no hot water, electricity for about three hours each night, intermittent cell phone reception. Paul and Cullen were staying at the same guesthouse so it was interesting to hear more stories about UCBC and some of the history of that area of Congo.

UCBC's guesthouse where we stayed during our visit

On Wednesday we began our work of looking at the community center. This building has been under construction for a couple of years now as money has been available. There had been some issues with construction. Before continuing with construction they wanted us to come evaluate the building and give recommendation of how they should proceed. We took motorcycle taxis, motos in Congo or bodas in Uganda, to the university as the leadership team had to meet the mayor of Beni. Over the next three days we looked at the community center to see what had been built, what issues we could see with the construction, taking pictures to document the conditions. It was not very exciting work nor was it fun. In the back of our minds as we were looking through the building was how can they fix what is here and what needs to be done to complete the construction. There is no easy or clear answer which was a bit discouraging.

Community center building we came to inspect

Community center

Community center

UCBC's undeveloped land.

 Each day we ate lunch with the board members on their break from meetings. On Wednesday they invited some of the graduating students to come have lunch with us and share some of their experiences while at UCBC. It was encouraging to hear some of the stories of how attending UCBC has changed them. I could get a real sense from the students who got up and shared that after graduating they want to make a difference in their community and their country. They want to see change come to Congo and they want to be part of it. Lunch and sharing lasted for two hours, but it was good to get a glimpse of why we came to Congo. Not just to look at a building, but to partner with and organization and university that God is using to transform Congo.

Thursday was not too different from Wednesday. We spent most of the day evaluating the building. There was a huge storm, it rained hard for an hour and a half and it was hailing. We didn’t eat lunch until 3pm as they could bring the food from the kitchen because it was raining too hard.

Heavy rainstorm

On Friday we finished up the site portion of our evaluation. We still need to go back to the office to discuss with some colleagues and write a report summarizing our findings.