Coding in the Congo

How to build a house.

2012-02-06T14:21:00.003-05:00

Once in a new village many displaced stay in a host family. When it's clear - after several weeks or even months - that the security situation does not improve at home, they often build their own houses. You want to know how? There we go:

1. Find long, thick tree branches;
2. With your machete make holes in the ground - often in the form of a circle or a rectangle;
3. Put the tree branches inside the holes and fill the holes;
4. Find long but thinner tree branches, and banana skin (not the leaf);
5. Create the wall-frame by connecting horizontally the thinner branches to the vertical thicker branches by making use of the banana skin;
6. In a similar way create the frame of the roof;
7. Now fill up the walls. Create something cement-y by mixing sand plus water plus clay plus small rocks;
8. Find straw (or banana leafs) to cover the roof-frame.

And done!

Building a house like this can take as little as several days. The picture below is one of these houses - built by a displaced family from Bunyakiri on a piece of land the village chief gave them for rent. As you can see, it's located on the very outskirts of the village.

Random pics 1/6

2012-02-05T02:01:00.017-05:00

There is too much to tell and too little time - I'm leaving tomorrow morning again for the field. So hereby 10 random remarks and three pictures, and in the next five posts another 25 pictures with brief notes. Ready?

1. It doesn't happen often that a white person stays in the village so when we arrived in Cibandja the chief of the village and the chief of the sous-village in which we would work started arguing where the muzungu with his team would sleep. In the end we slept in the house of the chief of Cibandja, but as a compromise we would eat at least one night at the other chief's house. Let's just say we ate very well as each chief tried to outdo the other.

2. The chief and his wife talk with each other at night when they are in bed (we slept in the living room which was separated from the bedroom with a sheet of plastic, so we could hear everything). Why did this caught my attention (I would do the same)? The reason is that in the Congo relations between man and women are a bit different then we are used to, and I've never seen a sign of affection between man and wife in public here. To put it bluntly, men sit in front of their hut or drink if they have money, and the women work. [Btw. The third evening the chief wasn't there. So I asked his wife: "Where is the chief?" Answer: "Oh, he is with his other wife."]

3. Fun. I'm a white guy and to a villager whatever the white guy does is interesting. Now I'm a rather particular guy because it happens once in a while that in the afternoon I just stare in front of me for 10 minutes contemplating my research. So imagine this. After those 10 minutes there is a group of maybe 20 villagers standing next to me all looking in front of them, being completely curious where the muzungu is looking at. It's a lovely sight. [It reminds me of a Donald Duck comic in which a group of people are all looking up into the sky, only to have a person leaving the group that has his neck in bandages (and therefore can't look down).]

4. All mothers all over the world are the same. Just before leaving Cibandja the wife of the chief quickly put a large amount of peanuts in our pockets. "For on the road", she said. [She, btw, was very happy we were staying in her house because it meant that the chief (who has three wifes) was spending more time in her house.]

5. When in the Congo don’t leave clothes on the floor. You think your sweater is warm and comfortable, so do animals.

6. And don’t clean your shoes by kicking it against a wall. It's very well possible you shoe goes through the wall.

7. There are bird of prey here in the Congo (not sure exactly which one). At a certain point we heard a chicken making a lot of noise, we then saw it dissappearing into the air. Caught by a bird. Awesome.

8. Do your interviews while cleaning peanuts! People feel much more comfortable.

9. How to define a household? An often used definition is "People that share the same cooking pot in the last month". However, this doesn't really work in polygamous societies. For example the head of the household has three wifes, each living in a different house. If you visit one of these wifes, the household would be that wife with her kids and the head of the household. But actually the household as a unit is more likely to be the head of the household with all his three wifes and the kids of each of these wifes. So for our work in the Congo we adjusted the definition to take this into account. Now it is "people that share the same cooking pot with the head of the household in the last month". From UNHCR and other reports I know that in the Congo hosting relationships are important - i.e. displaced people living in host families. However, in our data we find remarkably little hosting families. It took a few days in the field to find out why, but the reason is that often the displaced do not share the cooking pot with the head of the (hosting) household. Now our definition of a household also takes this into account. I love research.

10. So Neelan left a week or two ago and being a proper academic he did not only take the key to his hotelroom with him, he also left his trousers and a sweater. Neelan argues that it is "something to remember me by". I think it is to get back at me for him having to carry my luggage from Kigali to Bukavu. :)

For our game day we need accomodation. Strategy: Occupy a church for a day. Use plastic covers (we bought them) to create three isolated areas where the games can be played in private. And we're ready to go. In the picture the players are to the right.

During the afternoon we have a brief lunch. Desire and me with the important people (among others the chief) of the village.

Aahh!

Random pics 2/6

2012-02-05T02:01:00.014-05:00

There is too much to tell and too little time - I'm leaving tomorrow morning again for the field. So hereby a lot of random pictures with brief notes.

And the start of another game day. Introducing the team, and explaining to the players what my disseration is about (of course not in such a way that it will influence their behaviour during the games).

Eustache at work.

Desire at work.

And Freddy at work. A super team!

Very interesting. Around 2pm we take some time off to have lunch. Earlier that morning we gave money to the wife of the chief and then she and two or three more women prepare food (often foufou and sambaza - small fish from Lake Kivu) for around twenty to thirty people. As you might know, for our games we try to understand clustering: do some people cooperate more with some than with others - for example, natives versus displaced, one ethnic group versus another, etc. When it comes to eating there clearly is clustering taking place: the group on the far-right are all natives, the four on the left and front-right are displaced people.

Random pics 3/6

2012-02-05T02:01:00.011-05:00

There is too much to tell and too little time - I'm leaving tomorrow morning again for the field. So hereby a lot of random pictures with brief notes.

Eustache doing an interview.

Freddy doing an interview. Ali: This picture is for you. Do you see the kitten on the right?!

And collecting more data. No worries, most interviews are done in private - I just liked the colors in this picture.

The Luzira river marking the boundary of the village. It's nice, but not the Congo river.

Soccerfield. Only problem is that if you hit the ball too hard you have to walk twenty minutes down the mountain (and more up) to pick up the ball.

Random pics 4/6

2012-02-05T01:40:00.003-05:00

There is too much to tell and too little time - I'm leaving tomorrow morning again for the field. So hereby a lot of random pictures with brief notes.

Much of my research is about displacement and thus I spent a lot of time in villages that are especially affected by displacement (read: in-migration). This picture tells a lot. Many displaced people first stay for a month or two with a host family in the receiving village. However, when it becomes clear that the security situation at home is unlikely to improve the displaced want to build their own homes. So either the chief assigns a piece of land for the displaced to build their house (exactly how to build one of these houses is an upcoming post), or the host family gives a small piece of land where the displaced can build their house. The host family owns the building on the left and right, but in the space between the displaced family was allowed to build their house.

A common sight. Most motorbike-drivers only have a little petrol in their bikes because patrol is expensive ($2 a litre here, and quickly a multiple of that in more remote areas of Congo). And as a result they often run out of patrol. This was my driver trying to use his very last bit of petrol to get the motor going. I decided to walk.

Wanna play ball?

So the idea was that I would teach them how to count from 1 to 10 in English. However they taught me how to count from 1 to 10 in Swahili. I am studying Swahili at the moment and thought that I knew how to do that. Not really, because my books are Tanzanian Swahili. The number "9" is "tisa" in Tanzanian Swahili but "kenda" here in Congo (which has a Bantu origin).

Pygmees are discriminated against in the Congo. We worked in a village that was close to a Pygmee village (a village of displaced Pygmees actually) and the guys, when seeing this, were joking that "this is to keep Pygmees from running away". It actually is for porks.

Random pics 5/6

2012-02-05T01:16:00.006-05:00

There is too much to tell and too little time - I'm leaving tomorrow morning again for the field. So hereby a lot of random pictures with brief notes.

Waking up at 6am to go to work is really not that bad when the views are like this.

A good night of rain often transforms a village in a muddy mess; we are prepared.

Comment sava. I am not sure you want to send your children to this school.

At these moments I wish that I had a proper camera and knew how to use it.

In Congo there is something that is called "salongo". This is obligatory public work: villagers working together on constructing a road, etc. This often takes place on saturday morning, and is organized by the chef of the village or one of the chiefs some levels higher. For my disseration I'm very interested in why people cooperate, who cooperates and for what. So, next to surveys and all that, last week I joined the villagers in Luzira for salongo. They were digging holes and collecting stones in the mountains to create places for utility poles - the village wants electricity. This is a picture of the chief of Luzira: with his whistle he lets people know that salongo starts and where it will take place (this was around 7am).

Random pics 6/6

2012-02-05T00:45:00.007-05:00

There is too much to tell and too little time - I'm leaving tomorrow morning again for the field. So hereby a lot of random pictures with brief notes.

We stayed at the house of the chief of Cibandja for six days. There were too few utensils and pots, so hands and plates it was. For our team of four we give $15 per evening to the chief's wife, who then prepares food for the evening: often a subset of foufou, beans, fish (from Lake Kivu), sambaza (small fish from Lake Kivu), bananas and rice. During the day we - once in a while - buy Kasigsi (local banana liquor).

A workday starts around 630am (sun comes up at 6am). Before starting the village mapping we discuss the best way to visit all the households. Also an aide of the chief and a displaced person is allocated to each of my team members. The aide of the chief is necessary because it indicates the chief's approval of our presence. The displaced person is necessary to make sure that the (native) aide of the chief does not 'by accident' forget to pass by displaced households - lists are seen here as distribution (NGOs that distribute in these areas often first make a list) and we want to avoid capture by the local leaders in any way possible.

Story. My first night in Cibandja. House of the chief where we slept on the dirt floor. No problem. We had 2 mattresses with us. Place some straw and a plastic sheet below it and you sleep like a king. Not that first night. It started raining hard, which I normally enjoy to fall asleep. Here however it means that animals go inside: including rats. I had animals run over me before while asleep (often chickens), but this night was different. A rat fall from a wood beam (to keep the house and roof together) two meters down right on top of me. While I was sleeping. I was wide awake that night listening to the noise of the rats. Lovely. Even my bottle of whisky didn't help.

And another picture for all the women out there that read this blog. Aahh!

This is very common. Villagers work hard to get a dirt road flat so that cars can reach the village. A few good nights of rain and you can start all over again.

I'm sorry.

2012-02-04T00:26:00.006-05:00

Dear parents of Luzira,

Via this post I would like to sincerely apologize. Last week, being very naive, I showed four children how, by placing a leaf between two fingers, a whistle can be created. I should have known better. The next day that idea had spread. I apologize for all the children that do now keep you awake at night.

Check the guy with his arms folded. Brilliant.

Again, I'm sorry.

Yesterday afternoon.

2012-02-03T06:01:00.004-05:00

I am back in Bukavu after two weeks in Buloho, Bugalika and Luzira (small villages in Sud Kivu, all inside the locality Cibandja). It was fantastic, and there is - again - so much to tell.

Let me start with our afternoon yesterday. We are here with a team of four (Eustache, Desire, Freddy and me), and I push the guys hard. Each morning we wake up when the sun rises (6am) to start work at 630am, and we continue until 5-6pm. Normally we eat around 9pm. This doesn't mean that between 6 and 9pm the guys have a few hours off. No. We check the collected data, and I bother them with tens of questions (there is still so much for me to learn about the Congo).

In the villages we stay over with the chief, and we have dinner with him in the evening. However, this still often means work. Either the chief invites people ("There is a white guy staying in my house") or we do - for example, a few days ago we invited the president of the displaced-people committee of the Luzira entity for dinner. The guys know what I'm interested in, so they now often ask more and better questions then I do.

Yesterday, however, was different. We finished work early (around 3pm) and after two weeks of hard work we had the feeling of deserving an afternoon off. So we walked to Lake Kivu, stole a piroque (one of those boats cut out of a tree) and had several hours of great fun in the water. Then on our way back we got ourselves a case of Primus beer, had a lady literally taking her living room outside of her house so that we could enjoye a beer with the chief. Next to Lake Kivu, in the sun. Fantastic!

Team in Lake Kivu.

Muzungu hanging on the bow.

Back from Kalehe 3: Network Field-experiment

2012-01-20T01:14:00.009-05:00

In addition to the village mapping and the in-depth interviews (see the previous post), we also conduct a field-experiment. Actually this is the biggest of our three undertakings – we received a grant for this from Columbia’s Center for the Study of Development Studies to do this.

In brief, Neelan and I are interested in how Congolese villagers behave towards each other. How much trust do people have in each other? How benevolent are people towards each other? For my dissertation I am particularly interested in this for migrant populations. The big problem here of course is that if you ask for example the question “Do you like your migrant neighbor?” to an native villager, he/she is likely to say ‘yes’ – even if this is not the truth. In other words, it’s cheap to lie with a survey. One way to get around this problem is to do a field experiment – making sure that it becomes costly to lie (so that they don’t).

We therefore play two well-know types of field experiments: trust games and so-called dictator games. In brief, in a trust game a player makes the following decision: For each other player that plays I receive (for example) $1. I can keep this money, and then I have $1. However, I can also contribute this to the other player. If the other player (when he/she plays) also contributes back, my contribution is doubled and I received $2. If he/she doesn’t contribute back, I receive nothing. Thus you only contribute to another person if you trust this other person to contribute back to you as well. The second type of game (the dictator game) is much easier and doesn’t have this strategic component. You receive (for example) four quarters and you have to decide how much you want to give to the other player. If you give 1 quarter to the other player, you thus have $0.75; and the other player receives $0.25. This will get at benevolence. Interesting is that following theoretical work the best strategy in this game is of course to give nothing to the other player; so that you receive $1 each time. However field-work has shown that throughout the word people contribute between 20-40% (with some differences across cultures). I'm quite sure we'll find something similar in East Congo.

Just playing these two types of games would not be that interesting – thousands of studies have already done this. Our only contribution would be that we are crazy enough to do this in the Congo. No, we do something extra. These games are normally played specifically with people that have not had previous interaction. Often these experiments are played at universities and students are recruited via posters. But this is in many cases not how the world works! People often base their decisions regarding other people on experiences that they have had with them. For example, trusting a person depends on previous interaction - on networks between people that are already in place. So instead of recruiting subjects via posters at universities we go to places where people specifically know each other: Congolese villages. By doing this we will be able to find out what specific characteristics or what relationship between villagers are important in society.

So what do we expect to obtain? Playing these games will give us trust and benevolence networks. That is, we will obtain dots (indicating people) and lines between those dots (indicating contribution). But that's not all we'll do. Let’s say that we find clustering. That is, let’s say that 8 people all contribute to each other and another 8 are left out. The big question then is: why? What determines this? So we also obtain information about each player (ethnicity, migration status, etc.) and each player’s relationship to all the other players: Family? Work together? Same political party? Etc. Once we lay this information (what we call latent networks) over our trust and benevolence networks we will know what cleavages are important in Congolese villages.

There is so much more to tell (this not even half the story). Let’s see, four more things quickly. First, because of our interest in migrants we stratify our sample by migrant status. This is a difficult way of saying that we make sure that when selecting players we make sure that a certain amount is migrant (in our case half) and the others are natives.

Second, another interesting thing is that we take pictures of the players. A player of course has to make his/her decisions in private and working by name only would be difficult. We therefore make pictures and show the player that is playing the pictures of the other players, so that he/she can make a decision for each other player. This works well. It’s also great fun to be printing pictures of people in these Congolese villages - and having the people keep the picture afterwards.

Third, people that know the Congo and its people much better than we do strongly suggested not to play the games directly with money. So we needed something else to play with - something that is durable and looks like something you want to earn a lot of. We now play with colorful pins ("epingle" in french): each is a point in a lottery that we play at the end, so people want to earn a lot of them. Let's just say that it was fun running around Bukavu trying to find a substitute for money.

Fourth, we do a solid de-briefing with each player after the games to not only understand whether the player really understood the games, but also to learn why they contributed to some players and not to others. Yes, some people reply things such as “He is a witch-doctor, and has poisened somebody from my family”.

We play the games in several variations to learn even more. One variation in the dictator (the benevolence) game is the following: Players play the dictator game twice, once in public and once in private. The top picture shows Desire playing the game in private: it’s played in a schoolroom with only the player and the enumerator present. The bottom picture shows Eustache. It’s not too clear, but this is the public dictator game: the player sits in a room filled with the other players and several important people from the village. Needless to say we expect that all players will contribute more in the public game (all the other people are there present so you definitely want to show yourself from your good side). However, and this is because of our interest in migrants, we expect this change in increased benevolence to be bigger for migrants than for natives. The reason is that migrants are new in the villages and are not yet integrated, and we posit that one way of integrating is to be overly cooperative: overly benevolent towards other people. The migrants wants to signal that they are good and friendly people so that they can become members of the village – in the private game being benevolent is not a signal because it is played in private, but in the public game it is.

Last week we played our first game in Kabumbiro during a whole day. It was a lot of fun, and I think the villagers enjoyed it even more than Neelan and I did. We compensated the people for spending their whole day away from the fields (with an amount of money sufficient to buy some food for that evening). And at the end of day we have a lottery in which one person wins that same amount one more time, and also receives a Columbia University pen. We wrote a computer program in R that quickly calculates the game play of the people, and then the people who played better during the game have a higher chance of winning the lottery. In the picture we thank the players for their participation and explain one more time what we are going to do with the data.

Btw, there is reason we do a lottery and that we do not tell the people what total amount of points they scored. The reason is to avoid creating bad feelings among the players. Let’s take an extreme case: you play the trust game and contribute to all the other players. Then in the end you find out that you received a total of $0. In other words, you know that nobody contributed to you while you did contribute to the other ones. I wouldn't be very happy to figure out that my fellow villagers do not trust me. By doing this lottery we avoid these problems.

Villager, Neelan and villager. Houses are often tens of meters apart (if not more). Given several hundreds of houses to visit we’ll get our fair share of exercise. I haven’t touched my jumping rope yet.

These are women preparing cassix (not sure if I write it correctly). It’s a liquor made out of banana, water, sorghum. Put them together, then place it in jerry-cans and let it ferment for two days. Before placing it in a jerry-can it is more like banana-liquor. Better drink this without seeing how it is made; or more specifically, how many flies are on top of what you’ll be drinking.

Back from Kalehe 2

2012-01-19T00:16:00.004-05:00

From the Earth Institute at Columbia I received a grant to do “village mapping”. In brief, one of the things I’m interested in is how migrants settle in a village. Do they now live throughout the village? Do they cluster together? And if so how? We know very little about this but theoretical work suggest clustering is important for things such as cooperation. We therefore go around the village and take the gps-location of all the households. And while doing this we also do a short survey to learn about a household’s migration history and things like their ethnicity, age, etc. We also collect gps-coordinates and information of public goods (projects).

The plan was to do this with a “normal” short survey. And not to waste paper I programmed the survey in four PDAs. Well; that did not work. The reason is that most Congolese prefer to tell a story instead of briefly answering a question. For example, to the question "In how many villages did you live?" a respondent would not answer “4”. No. The person would reply “Well. I was born in Nyamotwe. Then in 1997 I left to Goma for work. Then I lived there for 3 years, but in 2003 due to fighting I was forced to leave to Bunyakiri, etc. etc." You see my point. The respondent tells a long and we would only write down "4". BUT it's exactly this story - with all its rich information - that we're interested in! So: the Migration Game to the rescue.

This is me explaining the Migration Game. In brief, migration is a difficult topic to study. It is difficult to define because people move for different reasons (motivation-dimension), at different times (time-dimension) and to different places (location-dimension). Cutting each of these dimensions at a different place gives very different definitions. So to do it properly (in my opinion) one needs the whole story - the whole migration history. But to do a "normal" survey to obtain that information is time-consuming and flat-out boring. Not so with the Migration Game!

The Game is nothing more than a large game-board with codes and several pawns, on which you place a blank A4-paper that is to be filled out. This Game Board was designed together with my little brother when I was in the Netherlands last time - he is great in designing and now the board has an Okapi and all on it (the pdf is over 4mb big so I can’t upload it. I will do this when back). The point is that the surveyor draws the whole migration history of the respondent while the respondent is telling his/her story. A circle is a village. Inside those circles we have the name of the village and the Chefferie. Then between villages we have arrows indicating displacement. And next to these arrows we write why the person moved, with how many people and in what year. Then at the end when we have the whole migration history drawn we ask in which villages the person has fields and we place the pawns on the game-board as well. After also getting ethnicity information and the gps-location of the household, we’re done. We noticed that this doesn’t only give us much richer information; it's also much faster and more fun.

Another reason for me to be in the Congo (beyond the village mapping) is to sit down with people (especially migrants) and talk to them to learn about their experiences. Why did they move? Why did they choose this village? How were they received? What are the things necessary to integrate? Over the last years – especially with the large Tuungane evaluation – we have collected piles of data. I feel very comfortable with that – doing statistical regressions to obtain correlations between variables. However, this often leaves the mechanisms as a black box. Why are X and Y related to each other? Thus before leaving I met several anthropologists for tips and the weeks to come I’ll be sitting down with migrants. This work is not easy though and I have a lot of respect for people who do this kind of qualitative work. One problem particularly for us is that we’re staying only a maximum of a week in one village so it is difficult to build up a trust-relationship with a few respondents.

Let me give another example. On the picture above you see 4/5 of our team (fltr: Neelan, me, Eustache and Desire). The other people are friends of the chief. In a Congolese village it is difficult to just walk up to a household and expect the person to give information. He/she will want to know whether the chief is ok with it. In order to help us the chief sends a few of his aides with us. This helps a lot and people are willing to give a lot of information. The problem of course is that the people are very unlikely to give information about sensitive things that involve these aides or the chief. For example, one question that I’m interested in is whether NGO projects are captured. That is, "Who benefits the most from NGO projects?" And, "Who are the ones who generally implement the NGO projects?" Well these are very likely exactly the people that are present with us during the interview (the aides of the chief). And if this is the case, the respondent is very likely to give the party line “the whole village helps and implements” instead of telling the truth.

So our enumerator team (Desire on the first picture, and Jean-Jacques on the next one) is being trained to get around these things. One thing they could do is to send the aide away for an errand when they feel the respondent has a story to tell. Another thing they now do is to note down on the survey that they have the feeling that the respondent has more to tell, and then we come back later without the aide. Eustache, Desire and Jean-Jacques are not just enumerators blindly asking the questions of the survey but we really want them to be researchers. They know what we are interested in and they are now just as investigative as we are - if not more.

Btw, there is lots and lots of coffee around, but nowhere to get a proper cup of coffee (it’s wise to take Nescafe along when going to the DRC. Of course I forgot to include that in my bag as well). The reason is that while during Belgian times the DRC used to process raw coffee beans, they don’t do that any longer and most is exported raw to Rwanda.

Back from Kalehe 1

2012-01-18T12:00:00.004-05:00

After ten days I am back for a day or two in Bukavu: saying goodbye to Neelan who leaves for NYC, meeting people, sending out emails, and updating the material and off we’ll go again. Many interesting things happened! And I have lots of pictures. But because of too little time, this and upcoming posts will mainly be pictures with comments.

We left Sunday early by public transport from Bukavu to Kalehe Centre – the capital "city" of the territoire Kalehe (Kalehe is sub-unit of Congo’s Sud Kivu province. The territoire is bordered on the east by Lake Kivu). Btw, with public transport I mean one of those small busses that is made to carry 12 people. Needless to say, we were with at least twice that number in the bus. Great fun though! It’s not only much cheaper than renting a car ($100 p/d) or bike ($25 p/d), it’s also much more fun.

We spent the first night in Kalehe Centre with brothers of the local Catholic Church. And Neelan, for the first time in his life, ate the Eastern Congolese staple food: foufou. Let’s just say his body didn’t like it too much.

This is the office of the Buhavu Chefferie. Monday morning we spent most of our time visiting the different levels of Congolese administration. The leader of the territoire has to see and sign your “Ordre de Mission”. And so does the chief of the Chefferie – this is a traditional unit with a king and one main ethnic group. Each territoire has several chefferies. And so do all the other administrative levels want to see and sign your documents: groupement, localite, village, sousvillage, etc.

In the afternoon we arrived in Kasheke - a localite on top of a mountain in which we have worked these last few days. Eustache still knew the chief from a survey he did in 2007, and I still knew the chief from the summer 2009 when we introduced the Voix des Kivus project in his village; so the reception was warm. The picture above is the team with the chief and his wife.

Neelan and I only stayed for three days at the chief’s house. Kasheke is close to the forest from which Interhamwe makes incursions into the village and the word that two white guys were staying at the chief’s house had spread to the forest. So it was wiser for us to stay somewhere else. So after three nights we moved to the bottom of the mountain where the Catholic Church has accomodations and we spent the last 6 nights together with Church's brothers there. This meant that every day started with a 30-40 minute walk up the mountain to reach the village (picture above), and down again at the end of the day. It was fantastic: gorgeous views over Lake Kivu!

A nice story. It's four in the morning. "Knock!" "Knock!" Neelan: “Peter are you awake?” Me: “Actually yes. I can’t sleep: I have diarrhea and had to throw up a few times.” Neelan: “Oh shit man. Sorry. He, the battery of the computer is dead. Could you charge it?” Me: “Sure. Btw, why on earth do you notice the battery is dead at 4am!?” Neelan: “Oh I just woke up as well to throw up.”

PS: And less than two hours later we left the pariosh to walk up the mountain to go back to work again. We really needed the computer that day to do a randomization.

And a cute picture for all the ladies that read this blog. :). Btw, I was doing the same while taking this picture.

Finally into the field again.

2012-01-07T17:16:00.003-05:00

Tomorrow morning very early we are finally going to the field - territoire Kalehe in the province South Kivu. We won't go very far - maybe 90 kilometers away from Bukavu. Its already passed midnight, but we are (of course) still preparing. So no long post. I hope to be back online in a day or 10 - when Neelan heads back to New York City, and we will be in Bukavu to update our material with what we will learn in the days to come.

First few days in Bukavu.

2012-01-06T11:51:00.011-05:00

Since four days I'm in the Congo and - as expected - they have been busy. Together with Neelan we hired three enumerators and we have been in training for the last four days - discussing the material, doing simulations, etc. We did the necessary printing and paperwork (contracts, survey material, ordre de mission, etc.). I opened a bank-account so that we don't have to carry 1000s of dollars around in the field. We met security folks in order to stay up-to-date (we about the situation, they about us) in the weeks to come. I met lots of people that I hadn't seen for a while (the last time in the Congo was eight months ago). And we did a million other small things.

Neelan!? Indeed, last Wednesday friend and colleague Neelan arrived - in one piece - from India via Nairobi and Kigali. It is his first time in Africa, so he choose the easiest African country to work in. :). And... he took my bag with him! So all those people who bet against me: pay up. We plan to leave for the field this Sunday; while several days later than expected, I'm much looking forward!

Yesterday evening we had a get-together with part of the Sud Kivu and Maniema enumerators of our TUUNGANE evaluation (the other part is still in the field). One of the things I still had to do (see picture) was distributing certificates of the training we did in the summer of 2010. Needless to say, we also had our fair share of Primus beer. It was good being together again.

Primus. Neelan is integrating well.

This is how we have spent most of the last four days. Training, training, training. From left to right: Desire, Jean-Jacques and Eustache: a power-team!

Fieldwork: What to pack.

2012-01-04T14:40:00.007-05:00

I’m heading to the Congo for two months of fieldwork – I expect to be in the field for say 90% of those two months. What do I have in my backpack (21.5kg) and hand-bag (given the pain in my shoulder definitely more than 10kg)? Also what is missing that I would like to have in my backpag for two months of fieldwork. Here we go:

Authorizations:
In Congo people love official looking pieces of paper; this unfortunately includes authorities that can give you a hard-time if you don’t have these (folks at road blocks, security agents, etc.). So I have a letter saying that I am from Columbia University and doing fieldwork for my doctoral degree signed by Macartan and with Columbia University letterhead and fancy stamps on it. Another piece of paper to take along is an “Ordre de Mission” – an otherwise completely useless piece of paper that says where you go, for how long, why, and how. Again I have one on fancy Columbia University letterhead and signed by Macartan. Also for the enumerators that we will be hiring in the weeks to come I will have to make several. At the Columbia University bookstore I got myself some horrible-looking golden stickers saying “Columbia University”: I’m sure the authorities here will love them though.

VISA:
Of course one needs the necessary visas in the passport. The one for the Congo I arranged via their Mission at the United Nations: $300 for a multiple entry VISA for 3 months. The transit VISA for Uganda I obtained –without any hassle – at Entebbe Aiport (another $50). And for Rwanda’s transit VISA Dutch people (this is not for Americans) need to apply online first, and then take the confirmation - which will be send via email - to the border-crossing (another $30 when crossing by buss from Uganda. At Kigali Aiport, if I remember correctly, its $50).

Phone:
I have a fantastic Samsung B2100 phone that one can throw in a river or drive over with a car and it still works. It also has a strong flashlight, which is important in Africa where electricity is often off or non-existent. The battery life is a week with normal to heavy use. To be sure though I also have an extra two fully-charged batteries with me. Because during the trip quite a few frontiers will be crossed the phone is unlocked, quad-band, and I have sim-cards from Uganda (Airtel), Rwanda (MTN), and two from Congo (Zain/Airtel and Vodacom).

Money:
There is an ATM in Bukavu (yes really, see here) but it often doesn’t work. Fieldwork in the Congo (and everywhere else I expect) is expensive. For example, I plan to hire several enumerators for which one then has to pay salary, accommodation, food, transport. Renting a motorbike, for example, costs $25 a day without petrol. And this is only the enumerators. So I have 1,000s of dollars in cash on me. I also have Ugandan Schillings, and Rwandan and Congolese Francs on me. Because I will not stay at IRC accommodation I plan to open a bank account so that I do not have to carry around all the money.

Clothes:
Being a guy I probably spent too little time on this. Let’s see: three old blue jeans (of which I expect one or two not to survive the full two months), one Indiana Jones-y type of pants with those pockets at the side. Five or six shirts. I like taking shirts with me. They do not weigh a lot, they’re cheap (for the Dutch readers: I buy them at the Hema) and very useful: one can pull up your sleeves when it is warm, and pull them down when there are mosquitoes. Do make sure you buy them with a pocket at the front: good for the Moleskine and pen in the field and passport at the airport. It also comes in handy when having more formal occasions. I also have a rain jacket with me (it’s rainy season in the Congo), and also one of those jackets without sleeves but with a lot of pockets: great to carry the camera, GPS device, etc. when in the field. I also have two fleece jackets with me that will also be used as pillow and blanket.

Shoes:
I have a pair of Converse shoes with me, flip-flops and field shoes. I have two types of field shoes: “normal ones” that I also wear once in a while in the States and ones that are used by the Dutch Army in Afghanistan. The first time in the DRC (in 2009) I was wearing the latter with the Indiana Jones trousers and jacket and thinking that I was all field-y. Then Macartan joined me in the field in his Converse shoes, jeans and t-shirt: much more comfortable, and you look less like military. The latter is important in the Congo: gives you less trouble on the road and villagers are more talkative.

Polaroid stuff:
For the field experiments we will take pictures of randomly selected villagers. My bag therefore contains two Polaroid Pogo printers – with these one can print pictures on the spot from phone or camera. We plan to make a total of 80 pictures per village. So – given we expect to work in 30 villages – I also carry 2,500 Polariod Zinc sheets. To give you an idea these come in packs of 30 or 70; each being quite expensive.

Laptop:
I have one of those $300 Asus netbooks: they’re small, they’re light, and they have an amazing battery life (8-14 hours). My laptop now also contains all my emails, documents and programs that I need. I also have an extra battery, and a charger so that I can charge from a car’s cigarette lighter. In Congo one should take every possibility to charge your equipment. I also have Dropbox in which all my documents are stored, so even if I lose my laptop the documents can be accessed from anywhere online. I also carry a second laptop. This laptop is destined for JP’s family: JP is a friend in the Congo and he children are at secondary school and they should learn how to use the basic computer programs such as Word and Excel.

Columbia stuff:
My bag contains a Columbia flag, a Columbia cap, Columbia pens, and a Columbia t-shirt. I do like my university, but this serves a different purpose: Because I will not work with the IRC in upcoming months my modes of transport will not be decorated by big yellow IRC stickers or IRC flags. This ‘decoration’ is important though for safety reasons and also gives you an easier time at check points and the like. Thus: I have Columbia things for decorating myself and my modes of transport when necessary. Congolese in general like universities and the idea of research so let’s see how this works – I’m quite confident.

Headlight:
In places where light often doesn’t work, one can’t do without.

External hard-drive:
Congo is a rough environment and it would not be that strange if my laptop breaks down or its gets stolen. So it’s all about the back-ups – the last thing I want to lose is carefully collected data. So my computer’s hard-drive is empty and my bag contains a 320GB external harddrive so that there will always be at least two copies of everything. I also have a USB stick with me to use for file transfer or to print from Congolese printers.

Spare batteries:
In upcoming weeks it is likely that we’ll be away from electricity for days (if not weeks) at a time, so spare AA and AAA batteries are a must have for the cameras, the GPS devices, the headlight, etc.

Cables:
Try to get cables so that you can charge equipment from different electricity sources. My phone, PDAs, Kindles, etc can be charge from the wall, my laptop, the car, etc.

GPS:
I’m a big fan of maps, and I am thus one of those nerdy guys that carries a GARMIN around when in the field (a few years ago I treated myself for my birthday on one of those solid GARMIN 60CSx GPS devices: so cool!) Also, in upcoming weeks –for one of the field-projects –we will geo-map several complete villages – that is, we will take the location of each household within these villages – and for that these are of course necessary.

Other equipment:
I also have two cameras (just those small cheap, digital cameras) and one Flip video-camera with me. One camera is for a friend in Bukavu. The other machines are to make lots of pictures and movies. The reason is that while this is my fifth time in the Congo, I never really made a lot of pictures of doing fieldwork. However for marketing purposes (I’m getting on the job-market somewhere in the years to come) it is probably good to have a few cool Indiana Jones-y style pictures.

Toiletry:
Of course I forgot my toilet-bag in NYC, so I’ll be growing a beard in the weeks to come (I’ll promise to post a picture but don’t expect too much).

Medicines:
I don’t have any anti-malaria medicines (Malarone or Doxycycline) with me. I used it the first time in the DRC and then stopped: it’s expensive, I forget it most of the time anyway and mosquitos don’t seem to like me. And it also gives me a reason to drink gin and tonics (tonic contains quinine). However, I did do my preparations. A friend is professor of medicines in the DRC and he gave me the contact information for hospitals in the area. I also forgot my Cipro. I do have soluble hydration powder, which is great.

Moleskine:
Ideas come up randomly, and because that is how I should earn my money, a pen and a Moleskine notebook is ready at all times. This time I also took a bigger notebook with me knowing that I’ll be away from electricity a lot and expect there to be periods where neither my laptop nor my Kindle works. For the Dutch people, Hema has a Moleskine-type of books for a quarter of the price.

Kindle:
Get one! They are light, can handle so many books, and you can still underline and write notes. I downloaded several fiction books (some books of Robert Jordan’s “Wheel of Times” series), a Swahili course (yes, I’ll be studying), and some more serious books, among others: Autessere’s ”The Trouble with the Congo”, Dufflo’s “Poor Economics”, and Ostrom’s “Governing the Commons”.

Migration Game:
I also carry the world famous Migration Game with me. :). This is a game (including game-board) that I created in order to make interviewing migrants more fun (for them) and to obtain better information (for me) about their migration history. More about this soon.

Sleeping stuff:
The first few days in the field we plan to sleep in churches to see how the security situation is. Here you need to hire a room (often around $10) and then you receive a bed, dinner and breakfast. I have a thin sleeping bag with me that I cover myself with before heading into one of those beds. This blanket is super-thin, very light, but it gives you a clean feeling and can cover your whole body. In the evenings it can be quite cold so next to covering oneself with sweaters, this time I also took one of those heat blankets with me: let’s see. Most of the time, though, we stay over in the villages and then one sleeps on the floor in a villager’s house. My bag therefore also contains a small mattress – weighing only a few 100s grams. Ha! I’ll be sleeping like a king in the weeks to come.

Pocket knife:
One can’t do without. Opening tin cans, cleaning vegetables, and a million small other things.

Glasses:
Because I have a tendency to step on my glasses, a second set of glasses has been packed. My bag contains also sun glasses: let’s stay optimistic!

Jumping rope:
Last semester I rowed with Massimo and have the feeling that after many years I am finally (but very slowly) getting in shape again. Rowing in Eastern Congo is very unlikely to take place. And although I know the MONUSCO base in Bukavu has a gym that can be used, most of the time we will spend out of town. Also running is not an option for security reasons: the government soldiers wouldn’t know what to think if a nutty white guy would be running by. So jump-roping and push-ups it is (Friend and colleague Grant gave me the idea: in the summer of 2010 in Congo he was jumping up and down each morning).

Certificates:
For the TUUNGANE evaluation Raul and me trained around 100 enumerators in the summer of 2010. The enumerators still need to receive their certificates. So a few days ago I printer some fancy-looking certificates of participation with the color logos of the IRC, Columbia’s CSDS and UOB, put a large number of signatures on it, etc. and we’re ready to go.

Business cards:
Take them with you and give them to people and tell them they can keep it – people will like you.

Plastic file folder:
If you want your documents to survive...

What I wish I had in my bag but forgot:

Vitamins:
My food intake in upcoming months is likely to be very monotonic. The staple is going to be foufou with – when lucky – goat or fish, and pondu (vegetables). And then some peanuts and bananas during the day. I have never done this before but while writing this I was thinking taking some vitamin pills along wouldn’t have been a bad idea.

Anti-bacterial liquid:
Also one of those must haves. I forgot it. If it can’t be found anymore along the way, find I’ll try to figure out something with soap and water.

Tape:
Always useful.

Cliffbars:
When doing fieldwork it often happens that at around 5pm you find out you haven’t eaten yet that day. Good to have some power-bars with you. In the summer of 2009 I was in the Congo with friend and colleague Simon and he had lots of cliffbars with him – these work very well.

MP3 player:
I deleted all my music from my laptop, I lost my Ipod on a plane from Lyon to Bordeaux last year, and my fancy smart-phone is safely in the Netherlands. I am not a big fan of music but after two days I already miss it.

What is waiting there or can be purchased that I otherwise would have packed:

Lots of equipment:
We will use quite a bit of equipment, but luckily a lot of it is already in-country because of the TUUNGANE evaluation. We will use four PDAs to save on printing. Four Garmin GPS devices for geo-locating. Four solar chargers to have extra energy. Four photo-cameras. And a satellite phone. The latter again for security reasons: it is likely that we’ll be in areas without normal phone coverage and it is good to stay in touch with folks.

Money:
I already sent some dollars via Western Union to some friends in Bukavu (as back-up). That will be waiting there for me. Otherwise there is always Western Union.

Plastic bags:
I’ll be travelling via Rwanda and that means handing over all plastic bags at the border (in Rwanda they really dislike plastic bags). Unfortunately I’m not rich enough to buy proper anti-water bags so when arriving in the Congo I’ll be looking for plastic bags to wrap equipment.

Whiskey:
I often have problems falling asleep when staying over in villages: animals are running around when you try to sleep (among others over you when you sleep on the floor) and it can be very cold. The solution is alcohol: take a few good sips of whisky before going to bed. I did not drink whiskey before doing work in the Congo, but after spending months with Johny Walker Red out of necessity in the Congo...

Water:
In Congo one should not drink water from rivers and lakes for obvious reasons. I have doubted about buying one of those UV-light sticks that kills bacteria in water. But I haven’t yet, so when heading into the field I’ll be carrying lots of water bottles. While water is often difficult to find, do note that beer can be found anywhere.

Printing and plastifying:
While we try to use PDAs as much as possible to save on printing (better for Mother Nature and there is to carry around) there are still 100s of pages that will be printed in the days to come.

Finally my bag itself is a 60 Liter bag-pack of good quality – my parents bought it 10 years ago for my little brother but I have stolen it since. My hand-luggage is actually a sporting-bag: the same bag I use for the gym in New York. This one is not very solid and is actually falling apart – I wish I had invested in a proper bag.

Hello from... the Congo.

2012-01-03T03:49:00.010-05:00

After a six hour bus-ride, and a taxi-motor from Rusisi town to the Rwanda-Congo border, I am now in Bukavu (one of the major cities in Eastern Congo). Jean Paul - a friend and colleague - met me at the Congo side of the border and we talked until late in a local bar about the TUUNGANE evaluation, the weeks ahead, and his new girlfriend.

My phone-number for the weeks to come: +243 998 399 330 or (between 5-6pm GMT+2 when I'm in the field and there is no reception): +88 21 643 340 520.

Comfortable ride from Kigali. A new bus, no animals inside the bus, and not too crowded. FYI: Kampala Express, $9 for a ticket, and the busses leave from Nyabugogo market in Kigali.

You're hungry? Go to a "RESTAURENT".

Beautiful views of Lake Kivu (picture taken from the back of a motorbike).

Random notes:

* The motor-ride from Rusisi town to the border was fantastic. To get to the border from Rwanda you go downhill from the mountain and that combined with the fact that it was 5pm, so the sun was going down, gave breathtaking views over Lake Kivu (picture above).

* It's my fifth time I cross the same frontier from Rwanda but only yesterday - for the first time ever - I was forced into the "Controle de Sante"-office. People wanted to check my vaccination documents. Instead of it being a time-consuming "lets-try-to-get-money-out-of-this-white-guy"-experience, it was fun with me ending up sharing a bottle of banana-liqour with the officer on duty. Also arriving at migration proper was good fun because I remembered one of the customs officials. I usually write in my notebook how they look like and their name so that when I meet them again I say their name and immediately move to BFF-status; which is great as it gives much less hassle.

* Because my bag got lost 3 days ago in Uganda this morning it was time for shopping. This is much more fun when you're not under IRC's security umbrella. Also, within an hour I met two people I knew: one is a Congolese IRC staff (all IRC's expats are still out of the country), the other was a driver I once spent time with for fieldwork years ago. It's really nice to be back.

* Shopping in Congo, btw, means that I'm now wearing a wife-beater with "50 Cent" on my chest, I am the proud owner of the ugliest La Coste polo ever made, and my Tommy Hilfiger underwear is now drying outside in the sun (no, I won't be uploading pictures). Oh, and also my trousers are about to pass away (see picture below).

* Just read my email and Macartan and Raul started a bet thinking my bag will never reach me. Raul even put a semester stipend on it. I just called Uganda airport and the back arrived from Turkey earlier this morning, and they'll put the bag on the plane today. It actually seems my plan might work.

* And I have internet at the place where I stay: "Auberge La Soif". And yesterday and this morning I even had running water. Ha!

I really would like my bag (with ao extra trousers) to be back.

A quick 'hi' from Rwanda.

2012-01-02T01:32:00.005-05:00

After a not too uncomfortable 11 hours ride by bus from Kampala, I just arrived in Kigali (the capital of Rwanda). To be more precise, at the moment I'm at the airport. Because my bag got lost somewhere on the way to Entebbe and I'm on transit to Congo, I arranged for the bag to be send from Entebbe to Kigali Aiport - so that Neelan can pick it up when he arrives here this Wednesday. To be better safe than sorry I took a taxi-motorbike from the bus-station to the aiport and talked with the lost luggage-folks to make sure that Neelan can pick up my bag without problems. After some paperwork, all is good. Actually things are really good given that I haven't been carrying my heavy bag around. :). The bus to Congo leaves in a bit: another 7 hours in a bus and we're back in the DRC!

Random things:
1. Yesterday in Kampala was great. Sitting on the back of taxi-motorbikes and crossing through town: Fantastic!
2. During the bus-ride from Kampala to Kigali I met Amiina - he is a statistician for the Rwandan government and works at their statistics office. He said he could give me access to datasets: Awesome!
3. I might be evil. Yesterday at the Kampala Coach Office I had to wait for an hour or so before boarding the bus. While buying a bottle of water an overweight lady pushed herself in front of me and gave me a very arrogant look. A little later after buying the bottle of water and sat down to wait for the bus the legs of a chair of a man who was sitting in front of me bended and he fell (the legs were plastic and the floor was very slippery so the legs gave way). Several minutes later the overweight lady arrived. Not having seen the man falling she took the chair to sit in it. Instead of saying something, I leaned back, crossed my arms and with an enormous smile on my face I saw her go down and even taking the whole table with her. :). That was fantastic! I have a smile on my face while writing this.
4. Eleven hours in a bus is boring and given the quality of the roads I also couldn't fall asleep. So I wrote a post on what is in my bag with the idea of having a post on "What to Pack When Doing Fieldwork". Soon to be posted.

FYI: My phone here: +250782110197

Happy New Year from Uganda!

2012-01-01T06:33:00.008-05:00

After a stop-over in Istanbul I arrived this morning at 2am at Entebbe Airport in Uganda only to find that my bag was lost - and the airport folks not having a clue where it is. Lovely start of the year. The plan was to continue directly by bus to Kigali in Rwanda (11 hours in a bus if all goes well) and from there to Congo (another 7 hours or so).

But I don't know Kampala (the capital of Uganda) very well, so let's enjoy this. After the necessary paperwork I passed by the bus company (Kampala Coach) and around 5am I got myself a cheap hotel and a bottle of water. After a few hours of sleep I am now enjoying the city! And as you can see having a really tough time writing this post (you can't see this but I also have my shoes and socks off):

FYI: I just heard from Entebbe Airport that my bag will arrive on Tuesday (Jan3). I now have the bag delivered to Rwanda (Neelan should arrive there January 4 so he can pick it up), and I take a bus leaving Kampala this evening at 10.30pm. 18 hours or so of bus-ing ahead, but almost in the Congo. And maybe even with a bag in due time!

From Uganda: A Happy New Year!

FYI: my number here: +256752893702.

Heading back to Eastern DRC 1/2

2011-12-30T17:12:00.004-05:00

The last few days (weeks) a lot of running around took place, but now my bag is almost packed and I think I'm quite well-prepared. Between Dec31 and Mar4 I'll be in the DRC for fieldwork, and expect to be away from internet for maybe two to three weeks at a time. I was hoping to upload posts via SMS (see here) but the service doesn't work for Congolese networks. So expect posts in bursts upcoming weeks.

If you want to get in contact. My phone-number is +243 998 399 330 or (between 5-6pm GMT+2) +88 2164 3340 723.

Tomorrow morning I fly first to Turkey and then to Uganda, from where I hope to take a buss to Congo via Rwanda... I see many hours ahead in which I will have time to write about what the plans are for the weeks to come. Thus more soon!

40 Best Protest Signs of 2011.

2011-12-26T03:00:00.005-05:00

Saw these some time ago. They're fantastic. My three favorites:

Thank you Earth Institute.

2011-12-25T04:37:00.007-05:00

Spread over four trips I have lived in East Congo for over a year now. However, my role has always been that of a designer of the evaluation and trainer of the enumerator teams or, once in the field, as team leader to either implement the evaluation or check on its quality. I thus have had only very limited time in the field to actually work on my own disseration. Therefore, at the end of this month, I'll head to the Congo again, until March, and work solely on my disseration. Over the last months I have done a lot of preparation and everything seems to be set up for village mapping, field experiments and indepth interviews. On purpose I will thus not be connected with the IRC - our implementing partner there. Another reason is that now it is possible to stay overnight in the villages - something that is important for a researcher (I have done it before in Congo) but also something that the security rules of the IRC explicitely forbid.

One big drawback of all this is that I have to pay for everything myself: flights to the DRC and back, the enumerators, accomodation, in-country transport, etc. And Congo is everything but a cheap country for fieldwork. While the Center for the Study of Development Strategies provided funding to conduct fieldwork, I've saved money over the months to be able to add several thousand dollar out of my own pocket. However, last Tuesday I heard that I will be a 2011-2012 Graduate Fellow at the Earth Institute's Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity, which comes with $3,000 for this fieldwork. Woah! Thank you Earth Institute!

Merry Christmas!

And we're back.

2011-12-21T08:45:00.004-05:00

I know; there hasn’t been a single post since I arrived in New York City last September (the start of the Fall 2011 semester). Now the semester is over and I left NYC again... and I am on my way to the DR Congo.

Last semester

Although short (around three months), it was a fantastic semester. You’re ready for a summary? I got three (!) field-projects approved by Columbia’s IRB. I worked on my dissertation (migration, cooperation, the impact of NGOs, etc.). Several papers were sent to conferences that will take place next year. With Macartan and Raul an R&R at a good journal was re-submitted (hopefully more on this in a future post). I presented my dissertation work at Columbia's CP workshop, and was discussant at CAPERS for a paper presented by Leonard Wantchekon. Together with colleague Neelan we worked out our network field experiment. An application for a bursary was sent out (I should hear from them soon so I’m keeping my fingers crossed). Today it was confirmed that I’ll be consulting for an evaluation undertaken by Wageningen University and the Dutch government in Congo. And it seems a book for which we are writing a chapter about Voix des Kivus is going to get published at Oxford University Press. I spent several days consulting for the IRC, and also worked with the IRC on a to-be project in Sierra Leone. I visited several of Columbia University's CP seminars, CP workshops and Political Economy breakfasts. Also, together with Massimo Morelli the last months I spent 3 times a week 2.5 hours in the gym. And I finally had a longer period of time in NYC so was able to see more of the city (for example the disappointing dinosaur exhibition in the Natural History Museum), and I had some fantastic weekends out of the city with friends. Oh and I even tried dating this semester (although little luck there). Thus a fantastic and busy semester, but I do feel that I didn't do enough. The reason is that I spent too little time on my dissertation proper. I’m a fifth year student and really should have a paper or three specifically on my dissertation finished by now. My thing for next semester!

Back to the Congo

So I’m heading back to the DRC? Yes. I’m now in Berlin at the Freie Universitaet to present our Voix des Kivus project and I’ll be in the Netherlands and London for a few days, but then the 31st of December I’m flying to the Congo. Actually I’m flying to Uganda; I didn’t have a lot of money so I'll try to find a bus from there to Bukavu. I will be in Sud Kivu for two months to do fieldwork specifically for my dissertation. More in the next posts! It's good to be back though.

A weekend in Massachusetts

The Trap.

2011-08-17T04:59:00.010-04:00

"The Wire" is a great HBO series about the Baltimore Police. One topic throughout the series is the importance of "numbers" to the Police Department: the amount of arrests made, number of homicides that took place in Baltimore, etc. It are these number that are used to promote majors to colonels and that make mayors win their elections. It's not about the quality of the police work, but about these numbers (and as a result they are jigged). This reminded me of a great BBC documentary that a friend suggested when in the Congo last year: "The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom". The documentary, made by Adam Curtis, consist out of three one-hour parts that explore the concept and definition of freedom. The documentary is an absolute must-watch! (Something you can do here).

The documentary shows how "a simplistic model of human beings as self-seeking, almost robotic, creatures led to today's idea of freedom." By making use of contributions by people such as (this is just a selection of what I remember): Frantz Fanon, James Buchanan, Thomas Schelling, John Maynard Smith, Richard Dawkins, John Nash, and Isaiah Berlin, the documentary start by describing how the individualistic, "robotic" description of human kind has its roots in the Cold War with it's use in game theory, and then how it was validated by fields such as psychology and biology (think for example of Dawkins’s "The Selfish Gene"). Curtis continues by conjecturing that this zeitgeist combined with Berlin's concept of negative libery (freedom from coercion) was taken up by the public sector. The state was nothing more than a mechanism of social control and in order to create a stable society and true freedom it had to embraze a free-market economy: social safety nets were thus torn down, subsidies decreased, and state-owned enterprises had to be sold. Curtis argues that by doing so these governments (Blair specifically) had created the opposite of freedom. We now live in a society without meaning, populated only by selfish automatons. People have become slaves of numbers (e.g. output targets). Curtis argues that there is value in positive liberty (the opportunity to strive to fulfill one's potential) in that it allowed people to strive to better themselves.

I enjoyed this documentary a lot. First, it placed connections between readings that I had not yet seen myself (e.g. Hayek and Hawkins). Second, I just can't get this feeling away that there is much truth in the main point of the documentary - and about how society has changed over time; with the decrease of social bonds and the increase of the individual and the importance of numbers. I recently read two books by Geert Mak (here and here) about how Dutch society changed over the last century and that has only deepened this feeling. Also, I am sure that people who have ever shopped in New York's Century 21 (or any big US shop for that matter), or has tried to get internet for his/her apartment understands me. People are no longer given responsibilities. More and more, people receive a screenplay about how they have to behave and an output target to know what they have to achieve. Welcome to society.

Machine delivered to South Africa without instructions.

2011-08-15T17:36:00.005-04:00

Just received a link from a friend to the video below. It's hilarious! (after the laughing do read the comments to this video on YouTube - there is a good chance they are not that dumb).

Humans are SuperCooperators.

2011-08-14T13:34:00.013-04:00

A few months ago the book "SuperCooperators: Altruism, Evolution and Why We Need Each Other to Succeed" came out. I just finished reading it. The book is written by Martin Nowak - the director of the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics at Harvard University. He combines evolutionary biology and mathematics and is an extraordinary researcher. I was looking forward reading the book having read all of Nowak's work on cooperation. I am a big fan of his work. To give an idea: he is the only author that has a separate folder on my computer (called "nowak”) in which his publications are listed. His work has been groundbreaking, and for me eye-opening and motivating in a number of cases.

In brief, the book singles out five mechanisms to understand why we cooperate (which in this case means how we can get people to cooperate in Prisoner's Dillema-type of situations):

Direct Reciprocity: I scratch your back and you scratch mine the next time (repeated play);
Indirect Reciprocity: I scratch your back, others see it, and they scratch my back (so reputation);
Spatial Games: We do not meet each other randomly. Populations are structured which promotes cooperation;
Kin selection (nepotism): Haldane's famous "I jump in the water to save 2 brothers or eight cousins"; and
Group (or multilevel) selection: I cooperate because it is beneficial for my group.

After discussing these five mechanisms the book continues and discusses important and interesting topics such as cancer, language, and networks.

So, am I enthousiastic about the book? Unfortunately not that much. I agree with Nowak's main argument, which is that cooperation should be placed together with selection and mutation as one the fundamental parts of evolution to create complex entities. It is cooperation that made us humans (aka SuperCooperators) so successful. Moreover, I also think this book gives a good summary of the work he has done on the topic of cooperation. However the way he gets this message across I do not like. Firstly, there is not a clear red thread in the book. For example, after listing the five mechanisms my Kindle indicated we were at 40% of the book. The book then continued with topics (cancer, networks, language, etc.) that seemed to be only weakly related to the rest of the book. The reason for this is that the book is more like an autobiography of Nowak - discussing his research over the last decades. Nowak definitely deserves an autobiography, but I did not expect this and thus did not enjoy a lot of paragraphs with not-useful information like the following two:

“We discussed the Dilemma as we drove back the next day in the same VW that my father still uses today to putter around Austria.”

“The next day, once the cross-Channel ferry had set us down, I caught my first glimpse of Britain. It was not William Blake’s green and pleasant land. The soil was cracked and dry. The grass and foliage were brown and the country was in the grip of drought.”

Secondly, the way it was written I did not like. This could be a cultural thing, though. In the Netherlands we have a saying that translates to something like this: “Do normal and you already do crazy enough”. So, even if you are amazing and do great work, there is no need to keep on pointing this out. Let's just say that this book could have been written more humble. Nowak, for example, moves without hesitation from Michelangelo and Mahler to himself and his own work.

Overall, the book is about a very important topic. Moreover, it is a summary of impressive work Nowak has done on the topic cooperation, which he has covered from a lot of different angles and that definitely deserves a book. Also, it is written in an easier and more accessible way then his academic articles. So, if don't mind reading paragraphs like the two above and the one below (to give an indication), this book might be something. However, if you already know Nowak's research this book adds little and the reference I give below (one of his 4-page articles in Science) sums up the most important part this book quite well - then from there keep on reading his other academic papers.

“I was fascinated and wanted to formulate a language game around this idea, one that could shed light on the origins of language. I had the same visceral feeling I’d had when Karl mentioned indirect reciprocity in the Wienerwald. I felt something new and great would come out of this idea. In fact I felt it was inevitable. But before I could make a start, my career path in academia would undergo an extraordinary change.”

Reference

Nowak, Martin A. "Five Rules for the Evolution of Cooperation". Science, 2006, Vol. 314, 1560-1563.

Applying for funding?

2011-08-11T13:17:00.005-04:00

Research is often expensive and thus many academics apply for grants. The National Science Foundation is the place to get it. In four days (15th of August) the political science funding proposals are due, which made me think about following article. To quote part of it:

"According to the scientists, the electromagnetic science-maker will make atoms move and spin around very quickly, though spectators at the hearing said afterward they could not account for how one could get some atoms to move around faster than other ones if everything is made of atoms anyway. In addition, the scientists said that the device would be several miles in circumference, which puzzled onlookers who had long assumed that atoms were tiny. Despite these apparent inconsistencies, the scientists, in Rep. Gordon's words, appeared "very smart-sounding" and confident that their big spinner would solve some kind of problem they described."

Fig 1. This is a big expensive science-thing.

Now I that I' m taking material from the Onion anyway, please also see the following video:

How God Left Jorwerd.

2011-08-10T12:01:00.004-04:00

I just finished “Hoe God Verdween uit Jorwerd” (“How God Left Jorwerd”) by Geert Mak. The book is an autobiography (1945-1995) about Jorwerd – a small, rural Dutch village. The village is representative for much of rural north and east of the Netherlands over the last decades. (The west of the Netherlands, which includes the provinces of Holland, had already undergone modernization for centuries).

As with a previous book by Mak (blogpost here) I was struck by how a large part of the Netherlands only a few decades ago is so similar to the Congo now. Mak discusses how just a few decades ago Dutch farmers did not specialize. Families would make their own bread, milk, butter, potatoes, and even furniture. Only soap, sugar and coffee and those type of products would come from outside the family. At public gatherings there would be a separation of men and women at public gatherings – something that we look at strange now when we see it happening in the Congo. A large part of the Dutch population just a few decades ago lived of the land and often on the edge of survival. I notice that we (including me) quickly judge Congo as backward – thinking that we, people from the West, lived like that in the medieval period. But take the fighting and minerals away and there are many things really not too different between the Congo now and a large part of the Netherlands just a few decades back.

The most interesting part of the book, though, is Mak’s discussion of why and how things changed in Jorwerd from 1945-1995. In a fantastic way, Mak discusses the influences that modernization had on the village. How this led to urban-rural tensions (an important topic in the developing world literature) and how things changed from a production to a consumption society. Most interesting is how Mak discusses how over time there was a decrease of "community". The emphasize went from qualitative to quantitative. There was a move away from the community and towards the individual, and towards numbers. For example, he discusses in much detail the importance and role of mechanization for the farmer. Farms, for example. were no longer a place were many people would work together. Mak discusses how in order for the farmers to stay competitive they had to scale up, mechanize and decrease labor costs.

A very impressive read.

Why We Cooperate. Michael Tomasello.

2011-08-08T08:03:00.008-04:00

“Why We Cooperate” is a book by Michael Tomasello – co-director at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. It’s a thin book, but full with interesting result from years of top-notch research by Tomasello himself and his colleagues.

Tomasello tries to answer whether humans are born cooperatively and society corrupts them (Rousseau), or born selfish but society teaches them better (Hobbes). He distinguishes three types of altruism: 1. with regards to food: sharing, with regards to services: helpful, with regards to information: informative. Over time Tomasello and colleagues have conducted many (very interesting!) behavioral games with young children (around one year old) along these three dimensions. Based on this work he argues for what he calls the “Early Spelke, Late Dweck” hypothesis. In brief, young children are from a very early age cooperative. They do not learn this from adults, it comes naturally. It’s only later on in life that this indiscriminate cooperativeness becomes mediated by people’s judgement of likely reciprocity and concerns about reputation.

Tomasello and colleagues also worked with non-human primates and found that humans are more cooperative. Why? Behavioral games indicate that humans alone humans alone have "joint attention" for altruistic communicative purposes (joint attention = something that is interactionally-achieved when one person, animal or agent alerts another to a stimulus by means of eye-gazing, finger-pointing or other verbal or non-verbal indication). Also, apes do group activities in the "I"-mode, not "We"-mode. While humans can form a joint goal with a partner and see this from a births-eye-view, non-human primates understand their own action only from a first-person perspective and that of the partner from a third person perspective. Compared to their fellow primates, humans are therefore more likely to undertake mutualistic activates (for example, Rousseau’s staghunt). Tomasello argues that theses mutualistic activities - because in these type of activities helping you means helping me - provide a protected environment for the initial steps in the evolution of altruistic motives.

At the end of the book Carol Dweck, Joan Silk, Brian Skyrms and Elizabeth Spelke also write each several pages in reaction to Tomasello’s argument. All in all, a very good read with much more interesting (and worked-out) information than what I just wrote above.

My 250th blogpost - some reflections on 2 years blogging

2011-08-05T05:06:00.014-04:00

This is my 250th blogpost. Wooh! This blog was launched in May 2009 just before me leaving for the first time to Congo for fieldwork (first post here), and I definitely did not expect to write this many posts. I've come to enjoy blogging, though. The benefit of this particular blog (at least for me) is that it is "A not-really academic blog for family, friends and others". In contrast to a "real" blog I therefore do not feel obliged to upload things regularly or keep the posts to a certain high (academic) standard. Moreover, I often give my own, Dutch opinion. As a result this is frequently (and without meaning to) blunt, and over time I have received several upset emails. Several of them, however, have lead to debate - something I (and I hope the other) enjoyed a lot. The approach of this blog also gives me the liberty to post about a large set of different things:

Experiences during my PhD period at Columbia such as travelling, training and other fieldwork experiences in Africa, but also completely different ones such as visiting the world cup soccer or missing planes when going to conferences;
Fun things that have little to do with my dissertation but that I happen to come across such as dinosaurs in the DRC, Monthy Python, Dirk Jan or smart moves to ruin a passport;
Comments on the news (for example this one);
Summaries or comments on books (Purity and Exile) and papers;
But also frustrations. Whether about inequality in the world, doubting the value of academics or politics in the Netherlands, this blog is a great way to write these frustrations away, or at least express them.

The biggest benefit of the blog, though, is that it often forces me to think a bit more about issues and to learn just a bit more about a subject I want to write about. A post often starts by me thinking "I will post X", often followed with me noticing that I know too little about X to write an interesting post. Or that in order for X to come across properly also Y and Z have to be discussed, or X has to be properly worked out. Whether it is about things that strike me as strange or experiences during fieldwork, conferences, etc..

I am very (happily) surprised of the traffic received over the last two years. My expectation was that mom, dad and maybe one or two friends would occasionaly visit the blog to see what I was up to. However - I just checked Blogspot's statistics - the blog has received 14,540 unique visitors! And the Flagcounter that I installed on July 18 2010 indicates that these visitors have been from 123 different countries! I really don't have that many family or friends. :) Moreover, some blogposts were mentioned on several well-established, "real" blogs: Mo'dernity Mo'problems, Wronging Rights, and Texas in Africa. Although I mainly blog for myself, family and friends, knowing that more people read the blogposts really gives a kick.

So, what about the future? I'll keep on blogging. However, when looking back at the first set of posts I am afraid that my posts are becoming less 'nice'. For example, at first every new activity in the Congo was a new experience: visiting villages, sitting in a 4x4, etc. I seem to write differently about that now (if at all) than back then. Things are no longer new; I do not want to upload yet again a Dutch white guy in an African village. I seem to have lost part of the naivity; probably at the expense of the posts being interesting or at least written in an exited and ethousiastic way. But! I'm now starting my fifth year at Columbia University. And this is going to be a very interesting year: with projects in the Congo and Sierra Leone, visiting conferences to present work, a ton of work on the dissertation ahead, and a lot of ideas on migration, cooperation, networks and natural resources to be worked with Macartan Humphreys, Massimo Morelli, and colleagues Raul and Neelan. There are definitely more posts ahead.

Causal inference in the Dutch Parliament.

2011-08-03T05:57:00.006-04:00

A friend recently sent me the video below. Its a discussion taking place in the Dutch Parliament about what works better to avoid backsliding: community service or a prison sentence. One MP notes that recent reports show that community service works better - compared to somebody with community service, a person with a prison sentence is twice as likely to backslide. The MP at the stand (Lilian Helder from the PVV) doesn't belief this. She keeps on saying "You can't compare person A with person B. They are different."

This video received a lot of attention. Up to now, it has already received more than 300,000 views, 2,000 comments and almost a 1,000 "likes". Moreover, the reactions to this video are all of a particular kind, nicely reflected in the title "PVV lady doesn't understand statistics".

Lilian Helder is an MP from the Partij Voor de Vrijheid (PVV) - indeed, the infamous Dutch right-wing party of Geert Wilders. The people that read this blog know that I'm against almost all that this party stands for: anti-Islam, anti-immigration, anti-development aid, anti-Europe, etc. As a result, any possibility to take a shot at the PVV I take - even cheap ones. However, Lilian Helder - probably without knowing it herself - touches on a fundamental issue in statistics.

Person A is indeed different than person B. In order to make a proper causal claim one would have to compare the occurence of backsliding by person A that has community service with the occurance of backsliding of exactly that same person A that has a prison sentence. Of course this is not possible - we only live one life. This problem is so important in statistics that it is called "the fundamental problem of causal inference".

Comparing person A with a community service and person B with a prison sentence does indeed not make sense because they are different people. Any difference in occurence of backsliding between these two might very well be because of individual characteristics. Maybe person A is well-educated and quickly finds a job, while person B is not and thus might backslide. It is true that one can use statistical regression techniques to control for these factors. However, not all variables can be measured (psychological variables for example), and one can never be sure that all the necessary variables are included in the regression. These are very important problems in causal inference.

In order to make a correct causal claim one has to make sure to find a correct comparison. One way to do this is by a so-called Randomized Control Trail (RCT). Under this technique instead of individuals one compares groups. In our case above it would look as follows (I'll keep it brief). Let's say we have 10,000 people that have to be punished. We then randomly select 5,000 people for community service and 5,000 people for a prison sentence. Because these two groups have been selected randomly, the groups will have the same characteristics. For example the number of people that backslide in each of these two groups (community service vs prison sentence) can then be compared. While this technique has been used in bio-medical sciences for decades they have only recently been introduced in the social sciences. For a more complete discussion (with development aid as an example) please see here (in English) or here (in Dutch).

I haven't read the studies that the MPs refer to but it is very well possible that they did not make use of an RCT or a related strategy to make these causal claims. I have difficulties writing this, but Lilian Helder's remarks might not have been that dumb.

Back online & Pillars of the Earth.

2011-08-02T11:02:00.019-04:00

After two weeks in Martignas sur Jalle (close to Bordeaux) and three in Sauveterre de Béarn (in the Pyrenees), I'm back online. Short summary? Well, I gained 5 kilograms. This is not that strange with French wine and cheese around. Also, with pâté and foie gras, and more than half a baquette per day, I think I ate more than 20 meters of baguette and probably a duck or two. ;)

During the last three of those five weeks we didn't have internet so I got a lot of dissertation work done (that was the goal of being away). I probably read close to every paper in economics, political science and evolutionary biology on "cooperation" (more on this in future blogposts). Raul - a colleague from Columbia - joined the last week in Sauveterre so we could work together. Did you know that by putting white paper behind a window, the window becomes a perfectly good whiteboard?

Fig 1. This was day 1. On day 2 the paper touched
the floor, and on day 3 we had also paper on
the wall. On Day 4 Raul was writing on the fridge.

I also read the first two books in the series "Wheel of Time" by Robert Jordan. But I'm not that enthousiastic about it. The book is well written, but it was difficult getting into the story. "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. Martin was much better. The book is the fourth in the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series. However, the big suprise was a book that was partly related to my dissertation. I am fascinated by cathedrals and castles. One of the reasons for this, and also one of the reasons for my disseration's topic, comes from a question (maybe more a frustration) that I have had for years now: "Why are there villages now that can't get their act together and build a simple school, while hundreds of years ago people build enormous cathedrals and castles that still stand today?"

The book is "The Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follett - a (thank you Wikipedia): "historical novel about the building of a cathedral in the fictional town of Kingsbridge, England. It is set in the middle of the 12th century, primarily during the Anarchy, between the time of the sinking of the White Ship and the murder of Thomas Becket. The book traces the development of Gothic architecture out of the preceding Romanesque architecture and the fortunes of the Kingsbridge priory against the backdrop of actual historical events of the time." It is informative and very well written. Thanks Ali for recommending it! (she's another colleague and survived a full five weeks with me).

Fig 2. The Pillars of the Earth

To keep you happy while I'm away.

2011-06-28T06:26:00.002-04:00

Fig. Kids in Maniema.

Away from blogging for most of June and July.

2011-06-23T05:16:00.004-04:00

A few days ago I arrived in "Martignas sur Jalle" a small town close to Bordeaux where I will stay for two weeks. After that I'll be in "Sauveterre de Béarn" an even smaller town close to the Pyrenees. Why? Well, over the last years I've spend a lot of time on fieldwork and preparing for it. However, I've only spent little time on developing my thoughts - in words and equations. So, in upcoming weeks I'll be in isolation; with a white board and very limited internet connection. Blogging will therefore be much less. I'll be back in August!

My staple food for the weeks to come. :)

Fellow Dutchmen: please do solid evaluations.

2011-06-14T05:54:00.005-04:00

The randomized control trail (RCT) is the golden standard for impact evaluations but largely unknown in the Netherlands. This bothered me as we are one of the world's biggest donors. Over the last two years I have learned quite a bit about doing evaluations: lots from Macartan, lots from my own two years plus experiences in the Congo, and of course lots from collegues at workshops or via their research papers. So over the last year I wrote four posts (in Dutch) on the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs's website about how to undertake solid evaluations:

In the first post I explain the concept of an RCT;

the second (including a discussion with a reader) discusses the importance of behavioral measures;

Alternatives to the RCT are discussed in the third post;

and the the final post gives techniques to get at sensitive information and tips for a solid evaluation.

Back (then) in the Netherlands.

2011-06-12T15:51:00.008-04:00

Since two weeks I'm back in the Netherlands. Two days ago I visited my grandma and we started chatting about the Netherlands decades ago. So interesting! History has always had my interest. For example, when studying economics at Tilburg University I travelled once a week to Utrecht University to take evening courses at their History department. However it was only this week that I noticed how many things that happen now in the Congo and are completely strange to the Netherlands, were not strange in the Netherlands not too long ago.

Fig 1. Geert Mak's "De eeuw van mijn vader"

Our of curiosity (and because my knowledge of Dutch history and Dutch literature is appalling) I am now reading Geert Mak's "De eeuw van mijn vader". This is a book in which Mak discusses - in an autobiographical way - about the century in which his dad lived - so starting at the turn of the previous century (19 to 20th). I've read about 100 of the 523 pages now and am surpised how many things are similar to the Congo at the moment. The level of development: at the end of the 19th century a shower was a cold bucket of water, health conditions were horrible (a third of the children died at birth), there was no electricity and most people washed their laundry in the river. But also how society was organized: people hardly travelled beyond the borders of the village (railways were build after 1880), village committees were very important, and the priest had a central role in society. Of course many of the reasons for these similarities are different, and I know that I'm reading this book through Congo glasses and also that many more things are completely different between Congo now and the Netherlands then. But still. It's incredible how many of the things that I know only from the DRC and are otherwise completely strange to me, were very normal in Netherlands. Even during my grandma's time!

Btw, my granny is awesome. Not only do we send emails back and forth when I'm not in Oudewater, she also handmade Escher pillows for the whole family. Here is one in my apartment in New York.

Fig 2. Granny's pillow in NYC.

And here is one in Schoorl (the Netherlands):

Fig 3. Awesome cousin Noortje with granny's pillow.

The Diceman.

2011-06-04T06:40:00.004-04:00

Only few books have made a lasting impression on me. However, I think I just finished one that did: "The Diceman" written by George Cockcroft (alias Luke Rhinehart) in 1971. In brief, Luke Rhinehart is a successful psychiatrist who feels bored and unsuccessful, and begins making life decisions based on the casting of dice. While at times a bit vulgar (rape and sex are very present throughout the book), this is a very impressive book. Rhinehard's new method of live puts in questions the one most of us are living at the moment - one where we are slaves to rules, customs, and often our own grown-into set of habits.

Fig 1. The Diceman

Btw, I recently received an email from Tim Butcher - the author of "Blood River". At the right of this blog one finds my reviews of several books. This included a review on his book: "[Not a good book]". In the email to me he wrote (paraphrased): "Unfortunately you did not like the book, but it's always good to get reviews. Good luck with your future work." That's good sport, and so I was planned to write a more complete review. However, the dice told me not to. :). Also, I also recently finished a new book by Jason Stearns - a PhD collegue at Yale and a real expert on the Congo. Of course, a large, well-structured review about this book has been added to the right of this blog as well.

Debating heaven.

2011-05-28T11:57:00.003-04:00

From two churches that face each other in the street. Brilliant debate!

Toy Peacekeepers.

2011-05-21T16:22:00.006-04:00

"Miniscule Blue Helmets on a Massive Quest" is a project from fellow-country man and graphic artist Pierre Derks to distribute tens-of-thousands of blue-helmeted toy soldiers around the world. The Hague (Holland) functions as their forward operating base from where they take off. Eyewitnesses of the quest have submitted hundreds of photos taken on nearly all continents - photos of their new patrols can be seen on the website. (Thanks Simon for letting me know about this project!).

Fig1. Blue helmets in Berlin.

Field Experimentation in Political Economy.

2011-05-21T15:07:00.007-04:00

Last week I spent my Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at a workshop on Field Experimentation in Political Economy, organized by Columbia University's CSDS. In brief, this was great!

In a bit less brief, during these three days most things necessary for good field experimentation were covered (for the complete agenda see here):

The first day was theory-based and discussed the theory behind causal inference (the fundamental problem of causal inference, randomization, instrumental variables, etc.), issues of analysis (estimators, missing data, spillovers), etc.
The second day was more design-oriented and discussed differences in data-collection techniques (survey, lab, lab-in-the-field, etc.), how to get at sensitive information, etc.
The last day discussed practical issues (forging partnerships with implementing partners, ethics, etc.) and several design-in-progress field experiments were presented and discussed.

This was a very useful three days. Not only because some of the top people from the field were present (Don Green, Chris Blattman, Becky Morton, Macartan Humphreys, etc.), but also because it was a small crowd (maybe twenty people), the discussions were lively and close to all topics on field experiments were covered. Moreover, what I know about field experiments I learned from our work in the Congo. We would have for example X that had to be done and we would ask Macartan "How to do X?". He would then give us an explanation, an example and some papers to read and we would figure it out (and if we didn't he would do it and explain it in detail). As a result we learned about field experiments bit by bit. Now for the first time I saw all bits together as one coherent whole. Very useful!

Together with Raul we gave two presentations ourselves: During the round table we discussed ex ante analysis plans and the benefits of behavioral measures over for example surveys or lab-in-the-fields. The last day we discussed the design of an evaluation that we will be undertaking in Eastern Congo from 2011 to 2014 with the International Rescue Committee and CARE International. More on the latter soon!

Fig1. To sex-up our presentation a bit we
added a picture - made in Haut
Katanga - of a lovely DRC bridge. In the
end it was about field experiments.

Voix des Kivus @ FrontlineSMS.

2011-05-19T00:12:00.003-04:00

The Ushahidi blogpost (see previous post) was also posted on the FrontlineSMS blog. FrontlineSMS is a great (and free!) software program that allows you to do great things with the combination phone and computer. We have been using it for almost two years now. Find the post HERE.

Voix des Kivus @ Ushahidi.

2011-05-16T20:55:00.006-04:00

Since the ICCM Conference on Conflict Mapping in Cleveland in 2009 I've been in contact with Patrick Meier; one of the founders of Ushahidi and a Ph.D. Candidate at Tufts. He does some truly incredible work. We recently met each other again in Berlin, and he invited Macartan and me to write a blog post about Voix des Kivus for the Ushahidi Blog.

Of course, we were very willing to do so. You can find the blog post about Voix des Kivus here.

An informative four-pager with information about Voix des Kivus can be found here.

Fig1. Introducing Voix des Kivus in a
village. Due to the sensitive nature
of the project I never blogged much
about it.

Breakfast in Maniema.

2011-05-08T02:04:00.007-04:00

Today I came across several pictures made while visiting an enumerator team in Kibombo - a city about 200 kilometers from Maniema's capital Kindu. We had not seen each other since October 2010. As a celebration we had a fantastic breakfast. Note: when the teams are in the field they often do not eat for breakfast or only eat left-overs from the evening before.

Fig1. Me getting water. Thank you USA?

Fig2. The superassistant preparing eggs. We
also got some onions locally. Great!

Fig3. Pascaline got bananas. The latter
have to be cooked for a long time before
they can be consumed.

Fig4. Preparation of foufou [1] is hard work.
These are the superassistant's and my feet. :)

Fig5. Great breakfast. F.l.t.r.: Luc (supervisor Maniema),
Alain and Pascaline (enumerators), Emmanuel
(superassistant), and me. Our bikes in the background.

Fig6. Of course after breakfast the laptop came
out. There is always work when I'm around. ;)

[1] Foufou is the staple food of the DR Congo. You take manioc (cassava) roots, cut this in pieces, leave it out to dry and then grind/smash it until it is powder. Then mix this with hot water and you get a dough-like ball.

Fun.

2011-05-06T10:45:00.002-04:00

I know. This is not very substantive. It is fun though. Last week I had two good friends from the Netherlands in town and we spent quite a bit of time in the metro.

Fig. "WET PAINT"

Back in the US of A.

2011-05-02T17:30:00.006-04:00

After several days with mom and dad in the Netherlands, several days at a conference in Berlin on "Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood", and three weeks of field work in the Eastern Congo, I am back in New York City.

Let's start with some true American patriotism. While waiting for the Western Union employee to send money to the Congo, I noticed the flag below hanging on the wall. Indeed it has some seriously patriotic words written on the flag.

But since when does the United States have 87 States!? Hehe!

Fig. America patriotism.

Bukavu architecture.

2011-04-28T04:11:00.003-04:00

Fig. A tree trunk, two births and an elephant head.
If you are rich and want to show off, this is how you
decorate your house. Several building in Bukavu
already have this and their number is growing because
this of course looks ... . :)

Random things.

2011-04-27T15:30:00.003-04:00

After a seven-hour bus ride from Bukavu to Kigali I am now in Shocolate: a very romantic place to drink a good cup of coffee in Rwanda’s capital. Of course, I’m sitting alone and behind my laptop. ;)
What is development? Answer: An IRC expat helping a local employee with uploading a picture to Facebook.
When you ask a Congolese “Comment allez-vous?” you will consistently get back “Une peu bien”. In the Netherlands people say by default “I’m good”. Here by default people say “I’m a little bit ok”. Interesting! Why? Is this because conditions are so much different in the Netherlands and Congo? Is this cultural?
When you are a white and in the Congo expect to hear people scream “muzungu” at you many times a day – especially when in the field. Both children and adults will shout this at you. Muzungu means ‘white person’ in Swahili – a word that is now also related to having a wealthy status. It gets annoying to hear people shout the same thing at you tens of times a day. Several MONUSCO soldiers in Maniema got so tired of it that they created t-shirts saying “My name is NOT muzungu”. Nice!
Another thing you have to get used to when you are white and in the Congo is the famous words “Donnez-moi…!” (“Give me…!”). People consistently use these words. For example, last Friday I came back from Kalehe Centre and police officers stopped me to check the motorbike’s insurance. I think I was using one of the few bikes in the Congo that is actually properly insured, and thus after the five police officers sequentially looked with stern faces at the documents (surprisingly, this time they did not held my passport upside down), they knew they had nothing they could do with me. So: “Give us a Primus!” It seems these words are completely ingrained in Congolese society now: children, police officers, random people on the street will use these words. Why this culture of asking? Is it the NGOs that have created a culture like this?
As you know, religion (and especially the Catholic Church) is hyper important in Africa. However, a friend of mine recently got married and his wife was clearly visibly pregnant. I asked him how this is possible because the Church forbids intercourse before marriage. He told that in his tribe (the Mashi), but also many other tribes in Congo, it is normal to first make sure that she can get pregnant because this would avoid that you would have to split later. Interesting! This seems a clear case where local customs beats the Church customs. Of course being a (read: try to be) proper academic, I asked a bit further around and this isn't necessarily the case. Some argued this was not true and that the story only nicely fitted my friend because he got his wife pregnant before marriage. Anyhow, interesting!
A long time ago I posted a blog asking why including "security" in the name of MONUC lead to the name MONUSCO and not MONUSC. See among others the reaction by Alex Engewete here. Of course, I wasn’t very serious with this post. I know it is quite common to have “CO” in abbreviations in the Congo. Also, I actually don’t care too much about the name, but more about what they do. But well, when on the bike in Maniema it occured to me. When in the field people often shout “MONUC” because for many villagers very much everything that looks foreign or is in a white car is MONUC. However, in Maniema when children were shooting at me I was not able to distinguish whether they were screaming: “Mo-ney”, “Mor-ning”, or “MO-NUC”. So, did the Security Council move on purpose from a two to a three syllables word. Are they trying to make life more complicated for Congolese villagers?
I’m not sure I ever told this story, but it’s a fun one. About a year ago I was with one of our evaluation teams in Katudu – a small village in the territoire Walungu of Sud Kivu. We would sleep that night in the village so before going to bed we were invited by the chief to drink a beer. I wanted to show off that I could count to ten in Swahili and started: “moja, mbili, tatu, ine, tano, sita, saba, munane, kenda, kuma”. After people making fun of me, the evening continued fantastically with lots of beer. The next morning one of the evaluators told me “Peter you still owe me $20”. I seemed that everybody had understood I wanted to have ten beers! I am happy I can’t count to more in Swahili! :)

A high-tech Saturday with the counterparts.

2011-04-24T15:37:00.003-04:00

Raul and me were present in the DRC from July to December to train the teams, and prepare and launch the evaluation. However, with almost 100 people in the field for over a year continued supervision and technical support is necessary. Unfortunately, it is difficult to do this properly all the way from New York City. We therefore introduced 'counterparts' to replace Raul and me when we left in December. These counterparts had to be graduate students, interested in development, interested in doing a PhD, and a million other criteria. We found Deo for Raul's southern provinces (Haut Katanga and Tanganyika) and JP for my northern provinces (Sud Kivu and Maniema). In the months before our departure Raul worked closely with Deo in Lubumbashi and I did with JP in Bukavu. Raul and me learned a lot from them, and we thaught them about statistics, causal inference, how to use particular computer programs, how to manage teams, etc. JP and Deo are now an indispensable part of the evaluation, and Columbia University's ears and eyes on the ground.

The evaluation is technologically very heavy. In each province we at least two laptops, tens of PDAs, tens of solar chargers, satellite phones, GPS devices, cameras, etc. The surveys are conducted on PDAs for four reasons:

Data is immediately saved to a database which allows us - with computer code that we wrote - to check the whether enumerators are doing all the surveys, but also whether they are filling out the questions correctly or not;
There is a higher quality of survey filling out by the enumerators because we can restrict enumerators' options in a PDA;
It avoids carrying around piles of paper by the enumators;
We save part mother nature by not having to print (literally!) 100,000s of pages.

Because I am only for three weeks in the DRC only two provinces were visited: Maniema and Sud Kivu. As a result, Deo from Lubumbashi joined JP and me in Bukavu to work together. Also last Saturday we worked together. We spent a day checking all the laptops and PDAs. It was a fun sight. At a certain point we had 11 computers up and running: some checking virus definitions, other defragmenting, others downloading forms to PDAs, etc.

Fig 1. JP and me together in the TUUNGANE office.

Fig 2. Deo working on three laptops at the same time (he did not
do this for the picture).

Happy for the rest of the day.

2011-04-21T03:45:00.003-04:00

Fig 1. A picture I shot last year in the village Muhembe (Sud Kivu).

Living in History: Kibombo and Kindu’s Train Station. 1/2

2011-04-19T15:45:00.005-04:00

After a five-hour wait at Kindu’s airport and a two-hour flight with UNHAS, I just arrived back in Goma - capital of North Kivu. However, there is one post regarding Maniema that I still want to share.

Both Arabs and Belgians were present in Maniema. During the nineteenth century this was an important area for Arabs for ivory, gold and slaves which were sent overland to Zanzibar. Also Belgians were here until independence fifty years ago. Arab and Belgian constructions are still very much present. In Kibombo, with a little imagination, you see a Belgian colonial family walking through the street. It seems as if time has stand still ever since independence. The Congolese have not maintained the buildings since the Belgians left. People camp inside them. And what is newly build are wooden sheds or half-build adobe houses. Even after more than fifty years the colonial constructions by far outbeat the newly build constructions in both grandeur and quality. It is a really strange (and frustrating) feeling when walking through either Kibombo or Kindu. Why were people able to build houses, roads, trainstations, ports, etc. a million times better fifty years ago then they do now? Why don't people get their act together now?

Fig 1. Made from the motorbike. Arab castle?

Fig 2. City center Kibombo.

Fig 3. More city center Kibombo.

Fig 4. Ruin.

While it doesn't answer the questions raised above directly, I think there are two important reasons why Congolese have a tendency not to maintain nor renovate buildings. First, the colonial buildings are often for government employees. The government is responsible for their upkeep. Moreover, government employees often haven't been paid in many months. And if they get paid it is close to nothing. Second, even if they have money to do maintenance, there is no system of property rights or enforcement of them. As a result, if you would invest in your house and make it nice, a more powerful person would take it from you. As an indication of the lack of property rights, see the picture below that I shot in Bukavu. This is quite a common sight in Bukavu and other cities. People write on the building « Cette parcelle n’est pas a vendre », or "This is not for sale". All because there are no clear ownership rights in the Congo.

Fig 5. « Cette parcelle n’est pas a vendre »

Living in History: Kibombo and Kindu’s Train Station. 2/2

2011-04-19T14:42:00.006-04:00

Also Kindu has beautiful old Belgian buildings. See for example this picture I shot about half a year ago when in Kindu. The city also has a train station. And yes, the trains still operate. For $50 you have a first-class ticket to Lubumbashi. I checked the price last week at the station; I did not check the 'first-class'. For more info about Congos's railroad system please see this. The only problem is that the train arrives and leaves rather irregularly: maybe once or twice a month a train arrives at the station. In addition, it's very likely you get stuck for a few weeks during the trip because the trains have a tendency to break down.

Fig 6. Kindu's train station. If you look carefully in the back you see
cranes. The Congo river is there and it used to be a port. Now there
are piroques and carcasses of Belgian-time boats.

Fig 7. More train station.

Fig 8. And more train station.

Fig 9. Belgian-constructed houses. These are currently occupied by
people working for the national railroad.

Monkeys in Maniema.

2011-04-19T03:16:00.004-04:00

Large parts of Maniema are covered in rainforest. As a result, most villagers do not live from agriculture but from the hunt. With rifles from the Belgian period they hunt especially monkeys which they then eat or sell to the few people that pass by. The latter is important because although these villages are isolated and often days walking from 'bigger cities' they are aware of the existence of, for example, soap and hospitals.

Fig 1. Live from the hunt. Picture: enumerators.

Fig 2. Wanna buy? They recently shot two.

The monkey we bought (in the picture below on our motorbike) costed 7,000 Congolese Francs (around $8). Although, I am quite sure that the villagers increased the price because I am white.

Fig 3. For $8 you have one for evening dinner.

For the ladies that are reading this post. Hereby two more pictures: one of a baby chimpanzee and one of a baby monkey. The difference between a monkey and an ape is that a monkey often has a tale. And a chimpanzee; well they look just different. Each of them could be bought for 1,500 Congolese Francs (around $2). I'm quite sure US Customs will not allow me in though.

Fig 4. Baby chimpanzee?

Fig 5. And a baby monkey. Each $2.

The field in Maniema. Incredible enumerators!

2011-04-18T05:26:00.003-04:00

It’s Sunday evening. I’m writing this post by candle light, while drinking a very cheap whiskey from a plastic bottle, being eaten alive by mosquitoes, sweating a lot from the heat and having pain in my butt from spending two full days on a motorbike driving a bad quality road. Last Wednesday I arrived by MONUSCO plane in Maniema. After several days at Care International’s HQ in Kindu, this weekend I went out into the field to visit part of the enumerator teams in Kibombo. The latter is the capital city of the territory (an administrative unit below the province) with the same name. Kibombo city is located around 170 kilometers from Kindu. The road to get there though is horrible. Bridges are missing, there are big holes spanning meters and the whole road, many parts of the road are flooded during the rainy season (which it is 9 out of the 12 months), etc. Often one has to walk and push the bike to make progress. As a result, I was planning to post the three pictures below and write something how cool I am and how much it was like being Indiana Jones, etc.

Fig 1.

Fig 2.

Fig 3.

But whom am I kidding. From the pictures above, for example, it is clear I am little more than a muzungu tourist. First, I am wearing the wrong shoes. You need those plastic boots. Not only because you get often stuck in water, they also protect better against biting snakes. Second, I am wearing a shirt. Nobody does that – and definitely not with sleeves up given the sun that burns heavily for most of the day. Third, there is a full 25 liter jerry can on the back of the bike. With petrol prices at over $7 per liter, few of our enumerators have a full 25 liter can on their bike. Fourth, in the evening you sleep with your bike (picture 3). But notice that the place where I slept actually had proper walls. Although molt is literally drooping down, the enumerators sleep most of the time on the floor in villagers’ half-finished adobe houses. It was good luck that the teams were in Kibombo when I had time to go into the field. Kibombo is only 170 kilometers away. Most places where the enumerator teams work are over 400 kilometers away. After arriving in Kibombo I told the teams that the road was horrible. Their reaction: they laughed at me! The road Kindu-Kibombo is by far the best road in Maniema! Also, for me these difficult conditions are like an adventure holiday; Indiana Jones-y. I know that in some days I would be back in Kindu and could have a cold coke again – something you won’t find in Kibombo let alone in other villages. These guys, on the other hand, will be in the field for almost a year! It is their reality every day.

However, despite all this, the enumerators keep on going and doing excellent work. They are really very impressive! As an indication what these guys are going through I have posted the following 4 posts for them called “Maniema: bridges and water”. We gave the teams digital cameras and writing pads to document their experiences during the evaluation. Below is a sample of the many pictures they have made about the conditions on the road – specifically focusing on bridges and water because they are the main obstacles faced on the road. I post these pictures without additional comments because I think they speak quite well for themselves.

Maniema: bridges and water. 1/4

2011-04-18T05:19:00.002-04:00

Fig 1.

Fig 2.

Fig 3.

Fig 4.

Fig 5.

Maniema: bridges and water. 2/4

2011-04-18T05:13:00.001-04:00

Fig 6.

Fig 7.

Fig 8.

Fig 9.

Fig 10.

Maniema: bridges and water. 3/4

2011-04-18T05:06:00.003-04:00

Fig 11.

Fig 12.

Fig 13.

Fig 14.

Fig 15.

Maniema: bridges and water. 4/4

2011-04-18T04:57:00.003-04:00

Fig 16.

Fig 17.

Fig 18.

Fig 19.

Fig 20.

MONUSCO helicopter flight.

2011-04-12T05:21:00.005-04:00

The evaluation works in four different provinces in Eastern Congo. Going from one province to another is only possible via the air. The provinces are 100s of kilometers away from each other: for example Bukavu (our HQ in Sud Kivu) is more than 1,800 kilometers away from Lubumbashi (our HQ in Haut Katanga). Also, even if you wouldn't mind the distance, the roads would not exist and it would be too dangerous because of the presence of so many different rebel groups. Thus, when in the Congo, I fly around a lot. However, I had never been in a helicopter. This changed yesterday when I flew from Bukavu to Goma! Really cool.

Fig. Peter being badass. :)

Fig. Beautiful views, and passing mountains and going over fields
so close that you want to reach out your hands and pick flowers.

Fig. We flew a Russian-designed MI 171A (more here). Because it is
strictily prohibited to take pictures at the airport, I took this picture
from the internet. Just imagine it being white with "UN" written on it.

Dining in Eastern Congo. A Guide to Bukavu’s Restaurants.

2011-04-11T06:15:00.006-04:00

General remarks:

Overall, restaurant staff is bad. It is not uncommon that twenty minutes after ordering the waiter asks “What was it that you want?” and then twenty minutes after that “We don’t have that.” Tip: after placing an order, make sure the waiter repeats your order.
Local Bukavu food is characterized by meat (especially goat), fish, fried bananas and foufou (balls of grounded and cooked manioc root). Tip: do not order foufou.
Beers are always available – especially Primus, Amstel and Mutzig that are brewed by Bralima – Bukavu’s Heineken-owned brewing company. And by default they are 0.7 liters.
The list below is not exhaustive. Although I hangout a lot with non-expats, I am sure restaurants are missing. Suggestions welcome!
The keywords below each restaurant in the list go from 1 (bad/ low/ few) to 10 (great/ high/ many).

List of restaurants (alphabetically):

Bellevederre
Here you will find a large tiled, white floor with tables randomly spread out. For more privacy you can place a Japanese-style movable wall around your seating place. You won’t find expats here. I like to meet the enumerator teams here. In Bellevederre we have had both meetings, and evenings of drinking and dancing. Service is bad. Make sure you keep all your bottles on the table so that you can count them afterwards and verify the cheque – they have a tendency to add nonexistent bottles.
Staff: 3, Speed of delivery: 3, Internet: 0, Price: 7, Food: 5, Ambiance: Expat level: 0, Directions: Close to place Mulamba.
Coco Lodge
This restaurant is very much an expat place. It has both a restaurant and several bedrooms. The owner is a Swiss expat and friendly. Do make sure to eat the pizza here because they make them themselves and taste great (my preference is the “pizza jambon”). Also, on a lucky day you have live music when the owner performs with a Swiss friend of his – although I haven’t seen them doing it in the last year. I’ve had good experiences recently with the speed of delivery but it used to be horrendously slow; making the special section on the menu called “slow food” seem like a bad joke. There is internet but the connection is spotty.All in all, this is a very nice place with good food.
Staff: 6, Speed of delivery: 6, Internet: 4, Price: 7, Food: 9, Ambiance: 9, Expat level: 9, Directions: Just ask for Coco Lodge.
Chez Victoria
This is a restaurant, but also has three bedrooms. And since about 6 months it has a cocktail bar and dance section that makes Chez Victoria the place to be on a Friday or Saturday evening from 11pm onwards when it will be swarming with young expats. Tip: try the escalope cordon blue.
Staff: 6, Speed of delivery: 7, Internet: 2, Price: 7, Food: 7, Ambiance: 8, Expat level: 8, Directions: Just ask for Chez Victoria.
Dallas
This is more a discotheque then a place to eat, but there is a restaurant. Needless to say, it’s dark and the music is loud. This is not a place that I highly recommend for dinner, but do go here after 10pm when Congo beats are pumping out of the speakers and mainly locals will be dancing.
Staff: 6, Speed of delivery: 6, Internet: 0, Price: 6, Food: 6, Ambiance: 6, Expat level: 1, Directions: Close to feu rouge.
Delicious
A restaurant in Bukavu's city center with local food. The service is slow, not professional and the main things on the menu is foufou, fried bananas and goat: so the perfect Congo experience. Do check it out once. The goat brochettes are actually quite good. This was the first ever restaurant in Bukavu I went to and where I eat foufou for the first time.
Staff: 4, Speed of delivery: 4, Internet: 0, Price: 7, Food: 6, Ambiance: 6, Expat level: 1, Directions: city center.
Gerda’s
This place doesn’t exist anymore since about a year, but it was nice. It had a pool table and it was the only place in Bukavu to eat Indian food.
Staff: 7, Speed of delivery: 7, Internet: 0, Price: 7, Food: 8, Ambiance: 8, Expat level: 8, Directions: close to the MONUSCO South Kivu headquarters.
IRC houses
This is not a joke. The IRC has several houses spread throughout the city and each house has its own cook that prepares breakfast, lunch and dinner for the IRC staff living in that house. Befriend an IRC expat and join him/her once for lunch or dinner. Do note that most of the IRC expats still each in out in the evening.
Hotel La Roche
Situated right next to Lake Kivu. Hotel La Roche is a hotel but it also has two restaurants. A large restaurant, and a smaller one that is situated on a wooden platform on top of Lake Kivu. Gorgeous environment! Go here if you have a boy or girlfriend. Btw, they also have conference facilities here.
Staff: 4, Speed of delivery: 7, Internet: 6 (in the hotel), Price: 7, Food: 7, Ambiance: 8, Expat level: 6, Directions: Just ask for Hotel La Roche.
Lute Contra la Soif
As the name suggests (“battle against the thirst”) this is more a drinking place than a restaurant. I've had a fair share of beers here (read meetings with Congolese), but haven't tried the food yet.
Staff: 4, Speed of delivery: ?, Internet: 0, Price: 7, Food: ?, Ambiance: 8, Expat level: 0, Directions: on the main road, close to Nyawera market.
Mama Kinja’s
The place where expats go if they want to do local. They have small rooms here that provide privacy. The food is Congolese and very variable in quality: from being great, to people being sick the next day.
Staff: 4, Speed of delivery: 7, Internet: 0, Price: 7, Food: 5, Ambiance: 6, Expat level: 4, Directions: Right at Place Mulamba.
Meridien
A restaurant located above a grocery shop and reachable by a wooden stairs. The food is good and the place has a cozy atmopshere. Do not be surprised if you hear 70s and 80s music. If you don’t go for the food, at least visit Meridien to look at the menu. Some of the more legendary dishes: Concert de chèvre $10, Soupe Obama $5, Ordinateur de chèvre $7, et Riz financière (unfortunately no longer on the menu).
Staff: 7, Speed of delivery: 7, Internet: 0, Price: 7, Food: 8, Ambiance: 7, Expat level: 4, Directions: Next to Bellevedere.

Fig: "COMPUTER FROM GOAT". Brilliant!
Negrita
Tucked away in Bukavu's city center, also upstairs, but this is a nice restaurant with good food. Delivery is slow but also here the atmosphere is good. Notable experience: Raul and me were here with some more folks for dinner when at a certain point the staff turned on a porn movie on the restaurant’s big screen.
Staff: 7, Speed of delivery: 7, Internet: 0, Price: 7, Food: 7, Ambiance: 7, Expat level: 7, Directions: City Center
l’Orchid
This is the absolute expat place. L’Orchid is both a restaurant and a hotel. It’s situation next to Lake Kivu and not only overlooks the lake but also its own beautiful garden – Bukavu used to have many. This is the place where you can eat mussels, fresh salmon, go for gourmet, etc. This is the place where you will run into guys like George Clooney, top UN and government people visiting, but also NGO folks and expat employees from mining companies. The owner is a friendly Belgium that has lived his whole live in the Congo. If he is willing to make time for you, talk with him. Too many notable experiences here. Raul and me spent lots of time here because there was good internet connection and we could thus work. Also, once I thought that a sweater was lost after I couldn't find it for several days. When I asked the l'Orchid's reception for it, they asked me "is it this one, this one, or this one?" I had lost three sweaters!
Staff: 7, Speed of delivery: 7, Internet: 10, Price: 4, Food: 9, Ambiance: 9, Expat level: 10, Directions: Just ask for L’Orchid.

There are two more places that I know of but I don't know their names:

There is a restaurant about 20 minutes drive out of Bukavu (towards Kalehe centre) right next to Lake Kivu. I haven't been there yet because IRC doesn't allow us to leave the city in the evening. I heard it is great though.
There is a restaurant that I have been only once, but that had a balcony with a great view over Lake Kivu. It's on La Botte: coming from Feu Rouge take a right when you're at the Ministry of Mining.

Comment!

Most of the places above I have visisted tens of times. However, this still gives a very small sample. If you want to comment please do! Also, I am sure lots of places are still missing. Please let me know about others!

Wanna Jerrycan?

2011-04-08T15:19:00.003-04:00

Fig 1. And this is not even that uncommon!

Jerrycan fun facts:

Did you know that the jerrycan was reverse engineered during World War II from the Germans. The name reveals its German origins: "jerry" was a disparaging wartime name for Germany and Germans.

The Germans called it the Wehrmachtskanister. Ha!

The jerrycans color often indicates its content. NATO's color coding: red for gasoline (leaded), green for gasoline (unleaded), yellow for diesel, blue for kerosine, and tan or light blue for water.

Question:

So where are the above (diesel?) jerrycans coming from? If they were NGO-provided they are probably more likely to be light blue colored no? Also in villages I have seen a few blue ones, but the vast majority were yellow.

Back in the Congo,

2011-04-07T01:53:00.003-04:00

After arriving yesterday evening, today I had my first day back in the Congo. Why am here this time?

There are three main reasons. First and most important is the evaluation of TUUNGANE. Raul and me left the country more than three months ago, so it was time for one of us to go back to make sure the quality is high and stays high. Second, TUUNGANE 2 is about to start and our Columbia University team is leading the evaluation again. As a result we are now building the research design. Third, after 1.5 years, Voix des Kivus is coming to an end – at least on the grant that we received from USAID. In upcoming days we’ll launch a final evaluation, and of course there are still a million of small things that have to be rounded up.

Random things:

I’m back for only three weeks so my schedule is completely overloaded. And because I want to visit all four evaluation sites (only reachable by plane), I have a very tight (and completely unrealistic) flight schedule. To illustrate this, my first flight (this Friday from Bukavu to Kindu with a World Food Program’s UNHAS plane) was just cancelled. Of course.

About a month ago IRC’s TUUNGANE team moved to another bigger office. They now have a complete house just for themselves. Inside the evaluation team now has its own office. Lovely! Next time I’m taking Columbia University’s “Go Lions!” flags along from to decorate the walls.

I wasn’t much in the mood to go back to the DRC. Due to other trips – Netherlands Ireland, San Francisco, Germany – I spent less than two months in New York City. After being gone from home for nine months, this was too short! However, once I was in the buss heading to the Congolese border with people shooting at each other and Congolese music booming out of the speakers, I got a smile on my face again. I’m back!

So I gained weight over the last three months – bit too much work, bad eating habits, etc. You know it. The fun thing in the Congo is that it is a compliment to make this very clear to you. So today the cleaning lady said “You gained weight”, the professor we work with here (he himself has quite the belly) said “You start looking like a professor”, and one of the drivers said “you look like a person from there (meaning people are fat in the United States)”. This time I will not spend much time in the field. This used to be my panacea: fat-up in NYC and then go into the field and live off foufou. Unfortunately, this time will mainly be eating in big cities in those ex-pat places: so, more bad food. Also, those 0.7 liter Primus bottles do not help.

Question: How do you know you’re back in Africa? Answer: If you ask the driver of the buss going from Kigali to the Congo border how much longer it still is, and he replies “twenty more minutes” for two hours!

MONUSCO plane crash.

2011-04-05T04:55:00.008-04:00

A MONUSCO plane on route from Kisangani to Kinshasa crashed near the Airport of Kinshasa (here). A total of 32 people are dead. People that were trying to build the Congo, and do good!

First MONUSCO plane to crash.

These planes are used by UN peacekeepers and staff of humanitarian agencies (and once in a while a PhD student from Columbia University), to get around the country. They are often used because Congolese airline companies are unsafe - the IRC and CARE International, for example, doesn't allow its staff to use them. And there are at the moment only two main other providers: WFP's UNHAS and the European Union's ECHO. One of my first thoughts when reading about the crash was "Those Russian Antonovs!"; but this was actually a Dutch Fokker 100.

After leaving my folks' home yesterday afternoon, I just arrived in Kigali, Rwanda and could finally check email and cellphone. I haven't heard yet from anyone in my circle to have been in the plane - I keep my fingers crossed!

Am now about to start the last part of the trip: a 6 hours busride to the Congo border (where hopefully a 4x4 is waiting for me).

Threshold Models of Collective Behavior (Granovetter. 1978)

2011-04-03T17:33:00.011-04:00

The previous post made me think of a great paper on threshold models that I read some years ago. In very brief, a person's decision whether to riot or not (for example in Egypt) depends on what everyone else is doing. Some will start even if there is no one else, other need a critical number - a theshold. This threshold is assumed to be distributed to some probability distribution; it is thus different for different people. Interestingly, the outcomes may diverge largely even if the initial condition of threshold may only differ very slightly. I think this is still the best summary of his argument though:

Please watch this. This is absolutely brilliant!

Reference:
Mark Granovetter. 1978. Threshold models of collective behavior. The American Journal of Sociology.

Using new technology for development – Back from Berlin

2011-04-03T16:41:00.005-04:00

This morning I came back from a two day workshop in Berlin – organized by the Center for “Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood” of the Free University of Berlin (here). It was a gathering of twelve people flown in from around the world to discuss the use of new technologies in areas of limited statehood. Day 1: The professors introduced the theoretical framework. Day 2: Three prominent projects were presented. Voix des Kivus was one of these three. The other two were Ushahidi and Helpmap Russia:

Ushahidi: Patrick discussed how the operating platform was used, for example, to coordinate relief efforts after Haiti's earthquake, the uprisings in Egypt, and currently in Libya.

Helpmap Russia: Gregory discussed how making use of new technology made it possible for people to organize and fight Russia's wildfires - something the government was unable to do.

It was impressive. There are three main things I took out of this workshop:

It's incredible how new technology empowers people, and thereby makes it more difficult for authoritarian regimes to stay in power. If information is power, then it is now in the hands of the people. With increased access, freely available programs and contact to millions of people, it is impossible to stop information flows. In Egypt, for example, when the government decided to shot down the internet, a system was quickly set up that made it possible for people to leave a voicemail on an international phone that was then made a tweet (voice-2-tweet).

New technologies decrease transactions costs and reduces the threshold problem for collective action ("I only go to protest if at least x others go as well, but I don't know the latter so I don't go to the street). Currently there are applications that make it possible to have maps that indicate in real-time who is where, with how many, etc.

I am optimistic about the future. All this great work is done by hundreds of idealistic volunteers around the world with software that is available freely online. It is incredible to see how social networks are used, activited quickly, and how many people stand ready to help - wherever in the world. Moreover, in times of disaster we are less and less reliable upon big, slow moving and expensive government/international agencies. E.g. after the Japan disaster people want to know about radiation levels. An application was created (in minutes) where people could measure radation and send their information to a central phonenumber. Thousands of messages are being received that are uploaded unto a real-time maps exactly what levels are where at what time throughout Japan; informing the public to an extent no government agency would have been able to pull off.

Fig1: Uniquely Getting at Causality

Really 21 flights in a month?

2011-03-26T12:30:00.004-04:00

This morning I arrived at Schiphol Airport. I am on transit to a conference in Berlin, and after that the Congo. This the first flight in a rather (completely) nuts flight schedule this month:

New York City -> Amsterdam -> Berlin -> Amsterdam -> Nairobi -> Kigali -> Kamembe/Bukavu -> [Goma ->] Kindu -> [Punia -> Kibombe ->] Bukavu -> [Kalemie -> Moba ->] Lubumbashi -> Kalemie [-> Moba] -> Bukavu/Kamembe -> Kigali -> Nairobi -> Amsterdam -> New York City.

In square brackets are flights where the plane lands for just for several hours, and the flights in between Kamembe/Bukavu and Bukavu/Kamembe are made within the DRC. Exactly. Let's see how many of these 21 flights I will actually be on.

Btw, the sun was shining when I picked up my visa at the DRC Mission at the UN yesterday so I went for a walk downtown. Not far from the UN an artist (I don't know who) had placed statutes in a park - very nice effect.

Figure: The UN General Assembly building in the back.

Evolutionary Games and Spatial Chaos (Nowak & May. 1992).

2011-03-23T14:06:00.005-04:00

For my dissertation I recently have been reading a lot from the evolutionary biology literature. These guys have done much very interesting work on cooperation.

Martin Nowak and Robert May wrote an interesting paper in 1992. What they did is to play the famous Prisoners’ Dilemma spatially. Yep, indeed interesting, because my dissertation is about migration and cooperation. In brief, they put the players on a lattice; assign different starting conditions (different payoffs, different number of cooperators and defectors in society, etc.), run the computer software and see what happens from one generation to the next when the players interact with each other. What they get is chaotically changing spatial patterns!

The figures below are not Persian rugs, but illustrate the presence of cooperators and defectors in a society for one generation, and the change from one generation to the next. Blue is a cooperator that was also a cooperator the preceding generation, Red is a defector that was also a defector, Yellow is a defector that was a cooperator, and Green is a defector that was a defector.

Figures 1 and 2 are societies on a 200x200 lattice after 200 generations that started with 10% cooperators, 90% defectors. The difference in starting conditions is the advantage for defectors over cooperators.

Fig 1.

Fig 2.

Figure 3 and 4 are societies on a 99x99 lattice that started with a single defector at the center. The difference is that the snapshot of society is taken at different points in time. Nowak and May show that one gets an almost infinite sequence of different patterns. Also, because the rules of the game are symmetrical, the symmetry is maintained.

Fig 3. After 219 generations.

Fig 4. After 221 generations.

Reference:
Martin A. Nowak. Robert M. May. Evolutionary Games and Spatial Chaos. Nature. Vol. 359. 29 October 1992.

The Eastern Congo First Letter Mystery.

2011-03-12T15:03:00.014-05:00

I've been working for over two years on Eastern Congo now, visited the area three times (a fourth time starts in three weeks), and all-together lived there for more than a year. Throughout this time something has been bothering me:

Why do so many (place)names start with the letter "K"?

Let me illustrate this. The work that we do in the DRC, next to the Voix des Kivus project, is an evaluation of a large CDR development project (more here). The project (and the evaluation) takes place in four provinces in Eastern Congo (Sud Kivu, Haut Katanga, Maniema and Tanganyika) and are highlighted below:

Fig. 1: Map.

For the CDR project and the evaluation our implementing partners (the IRC and CARE International) together with local governments constructed a large database with information on over 8,000 so-called LLUs in these four provinces. The term "LLU" we invented and is a "Lowest Level Unit". Some villages consist out of "sousvillages", some "sousvillages" consist out of "quartiers", some "quartiers" consist out of "avenues", etc. An LLU is the lowest of these natural units present.

Let's have a look at what the data says regarding first letters of these units. Ready? Hereby a straightforward pie-chart:

Fig. 2: The first letters K + L + M is more than half of all villages.

Indeed: wooh! Each letter in the alphabet probably doesn't have a 1/26th chance of being selected, but just the three letters K + L + M take up well over 50% of all the first letters! This seems nuts. And this seems to be the case across the four different provinces (the K is number 11):

Fig. 3: And it seems kind of similar for all four provinces.

To emphasize this point, within the four provinces we work in particular territories. Here is the list:

Haut Katanga: Kipushi, Kasenga, Mitwaba and Kambove
Tanganyika: Kalemie, Kongolo and Kabalo
Maniema: Kailo, Kabambare, Pangi and Kibombo
Sud Kivu: Uvira, Walungu, Kalehe, Mwenga

You see my point, or better the lines underneath the letters K? 2/3rd of all the territories start with a "K"! This is substantially more than (a likely prior of) 1/26; 2/3 is the same as 17 one-third over 26! So, what's going? I don't know the distribution in other countries, but this doesn't seem to be very normal. Two thoughts (please suggest other ones!):

The Belgian Colonialist. Shame on me that I don't know this, but did the Congolese have a written language when the Belgians arrived (or probably the Arabs is more appropriate knowing they were in the east much earlier)? And (if so) the same one? Maybe the local languages had many sounds that sound like a "k", so when the Belgians visited far-away villages and documented their names they heard and thus wrote down "k"s. Or, Another reason would be that the "K" on the typewriter got stuck back then.
The Language Origin. In Swahili one of the uses for the prefix "ki" is to indicate that the stem that follows is a language (Kifaransa is for example french, Kirega is the language of the Rega tribe, etc.). I know that "ki" is not the same as a "k", and that Swahili is not the same as the local languages spoken in Eastern Congo, but could it be that the natural units started of as mainly language units?

But I don't know. And am curious. Any anthropologist an idea?

Buying flowers for one's thesis.

2011-02-15T07:57:00.002-05:00

We’re growing up.

2011-01-25T08:40:00.005-05:00

The phone just rang: my flight to New York has been cancelled for the second time. Thank you Aerlingus! Last December I had to leave Congo two weeks earlier than expected for security reasons. So, completely unplanned, I have been in the Netherlands for more than a month. Not only gave this time to enjoy the exquisite Dutch cuisine, it was possible to meet up with friends. And something struck me: we’re getting older.

In Oudewater - the town where my parents live - people I went to primary school with are now taking over the bakeries and grocery stores, are the town's constructionbuilders, etc. In London I met a friend with whom I did my MPhil in Tilburg: he is done, works at the LSE, and I have to call him "dr". Another with whom I was on exchange in South Africa got married over the summer. Another friend whom I know since primary school bought a house and he was talking about children. And this is only a sample. It seems we are settling down: we finish studying, get jobs, get married, and become 'real people'. I am not ready for that!

Life is too much fun at the moment: to study and learn whatever I want and have the possibilities to travel where and whenever I want. The idea of being stuck in one city, to have a proper job, etc. sounds horrible. But why? My friends seem to be completely happy. Is it New York City? The city and its people never seem to settle down. Or is it the PhD? It seems most of my collegues have the same. Or is it just that a particular type of people start a PhD? Anyhow, after being away for almost nine months I can't wait to go back to New York.

Now I'm flying this Friday. Aer Lingus: You hear me? This Friday!

I visited some friends in Ireland. Beautiful country!

2011-01-06T04:25:00.003-05:00

Some months ago when in the DR Congo I wrote why I didn't like crows: see "Crows in the Congo" here. On crows; Wired Science just posted something very interesting here:

With the simple act of using twigs to poke a rubber spider, New Caledonian crows may have become the first birds to join an exclusive cognitive class.

Check out the video:

Asus Eee PC 1015. Notepad++, Dropbox, and iDrive.

2010-12-31T13:21:00.013-05:00

My laptop is still in Eastern Congo. I left it in Bukavu with my counterpart. Thus a new one was bought when I arrived in the Netherlands (I can't do a day without), and I installed all the necessary documents and programs yesterday. The laptop is an Asus Eee PC 1015, which I upgraded to 2gb working memory. I had the same one in Eastern Congo over the last seven months and was very happy with it:

It survived. In very hard conditions. Jumping up and down in 4x4s. Dust; so much dust! And I used it very intensively: over the last seven months I maybe turned it off ten times maximum.
It is powerful. Without problems it ran all my computer programs and simulations.
It's cheap. I just bought this new one for less than 300 euro (the 2gb RAM is an extra 50).
Its battery. One battery last for around ten hours. I also have a second battery. So longer periods without electricity are no problem.
It's small and light. 10 inch and around 1kg. Great for when one travels a lot. And belief me, you get used to the small keyboard.

My new friend for upcoming months.

Yesterday, after receiving the laptop, I spent most of my day installing programs and downloading my documents unto the laptop and emails into Outlook. I am using the following programs:

Stata SE: An expensive, but an easy to use and powerful computer program for statistical analysis. Very necessary to analyse data, but also to build, clean and edit databases. Luckily I can get it via Columbia for free.
MS Office: A necessary evil. Luckily, again for free via Columbia.
Skype: I have to stay in contact with mom and dad, friends, and very important for work.
R and packages: A completely free program that can do almost anything you want it to do: statistical analysis, building maps, solving equations, etc. All done in the R language - a language that I am still not very comfortable with after using the program for a year. However, a crucial, fantastic, and very powerful program. Download the program and packages here.
ArcGIS: Way too expensive program for making maps. But used by everybody in the GIS world. Luckily, again for free via Columbia.
TeXnicCenter, MikTex and packages: This is my default program for word processing. It's fantastic. You have to learn the language LaTeX but it's not difficult, and the software is for free, it is much faster than Word if many equations are used, the output documents look so much better, and you can do much more with this program than, for example, with MS Word. See here for a video on how to install.
Pendragon: A computer program we use to create surveys so that they can be put on PDAs and used in the field.
CutePDF: A free PDF converter. See here.

TeXnicCenter. Great free software.

Three computer programs I want to discuss in particular:

Notepad++: For Stata and R I often write so-called do-files. These are documents with code that tell the program exactly what to do. I use Notepad++ to write these do-files. It's great. First, others have written free so-called 'language-packs' (here) so that different commands get different coloring. Secondly, from within the program it is possible to immediately run script (how to get this working look here). Also, this program is completely free and since yesterday I know they have an awesome shop.
Dropbox: This is likely the most amazing program ever. If you don't have it get it (here)! In brief, Dropbox is a folder on your laptop and on the internet. It is great for two reasons. First, if you work together with others it is possible to share (part) of your Dropbox-folder. For example, in my Dropbox-folder I have a folder called "Congo" that I share with Macartan and Raul. If I change something in this folder it is automatically changed in the same folder on Macartan and Raul's computer. Fantastic! Secondly, Dropbox is great when you use different laptops or when you often have a new laptop. All my documents are in Dropbox (around 40gb). Just before leaving the Congo and giving my counterpart my old laptop I "unlinked" the Dropbox-folder and I deleted it. Yesterday I installed Dropbox on my new laptop and I linked it to my Dropbox-folder. It immediately started downloading my 40gb+ of files. It's great! You get 2gb for free and for a 100$ per year you get 50gb.
iDrive: My program that back-ups files. Every 3am - automatically - iDrive makes a complete scan of my computer and back-ups all the documents that changed during the day before and saves this new version online. Thus, if I have a document X that I worked on for over 10 days I thus have 10 different versions of that document online. "I should never have deleted that chapter. Where is it?" will thus never happen. See here to download it (5gb for free and 100gb [500gb] for 5$ [15$] per month.)

Notepad++. Again, completely free.

Back in the Netherlands.

2010-12-30T12:09:00.008-05:00

After a busride from the border of Eastern Congo to Kigali (Rwanda) to Kampala (Uganda) to Nairobi (Kenya), and a flight from Nairobi to Istanbul to Amsterdam, I am back in the Netherlands.

Mom, dad and both brothers picking me up at Schiphol. Mom...

and dad.

First impressions back in the Netherlands:

It is not necessary to copy&paste an email before sending it (being afraid that the internet breaks down while sending). Fantastic!
While on the road: "Where are all the 4x4s?" , "There are no holes in the road?", "Where is the CODAN?", and "What!? People stay on their side of the road?".
KLM does not mean "Kilo, Lima, Mike" and stop thinking like that.
A working shower! Even better: with warm water! And I can keep my mouth open. Ha!
When leaving the house I feel empty without a backup phone, GPS device, satellite phone, pocket knife, etc.
Here when things are written on walls it is graffiti, not information about vaccinations that took place.

More serious. There is so much abundance. I know that it is now the year's worst moment (Christmas and New Year), but still. Breakfast, then coffee with a slice of apple pie, then it's time for lunch, after that it tea with chocolate, etc.
So many serious things are going on in the world. What are the Dutch people busy with? The yearly top-2000 best songs, what to wear during New Year, etc. The scariest thing, though, is that in a matter of days I'll be used to all of the above again.

Back home. My town (Oudewater) covered in snow. Gorgeous!

Upcoming months

January 24th: flight back to New York. Then about two months after that I hope to be back in Africa. So now until the 24th it is holiday?
Not really. The evaluation continues. Raul and me have daily contact with the teams in the field,
Raul (in Spain), Macartan (in Ireland) and me
did two all-nighters in row; so the work continues.
I do hope to finally get some time for my dissertation. Scary! The second semester of my fourth year is about to start. Maybe I should start writing something.

Training in Bukavu.

2010-11-28T05:06:00.002-05:00

In total the evaluation consist out of four steps (A to D) and takes place in four provinces (Maniema, Sud Kivu, Haut Katanga and Tanganyika). Step A, B and C teams have been trained and in the field for over two months now. Yesterday we finished the training of the step D teams for Maniema and Sud Kivu.

For two weeks Raul and me trained 30 people of which in the end 24 were selected. How to conduct focus groups and general assemblies. How to audit a development project. How to conduct a myriad of different surveys. How to take GPS locations and use a PDA. Etc. It was much fun. The students are intelligent and very participatory; by default 1/3rd of the room had their hands raised.

Teaching 30 people.

A great group of students.

And many simulations to understand the survey's questions.

Step A, B and C teams visited during the training.
A, B, C and D: one big Tuungane evaluation team!

The Congo River.

2010-11-15T08:51:00.008-05:00

In the previous post (or actually the previous 4 posts) something was missing. Something big. From October 28 to October 8 I was in Kindu; the capital of Maniema and a city build next to... the Congo River. Over the last years I have read so many books about this River. Books such as Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Crichton's Congo, Hochchild's King Leopold's Ghost, Butcher's (horribly bad) Blood River, Naipaul's A Bend in the River, Roberts' A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State, etc. had created an image in my mind of the Congo River - or "La Fleuve" ("The Source" as they call it in Kindu) as this big, mystical river. A river that in reality could never surpass the expectations I had of it. How wrong was I:

I flew with a MONUSCO plane from Bukavu to Kindu: only about a two
hour flight. After about an hour the rainforest started. I thought I knew what
to expect. When I finally saw a big river running like a snake through
the forest, I felt... nothing. Dissappointing! Was this what I read about.
Was this the magical Congo River?! But we kept on flying. After thirty more
minutes a new river could be seen snaking through the rainforest far
away. As we neared the River I got a chill on my back: This was the Congo River!
So beautiful and so big. On the picture: A first glimpse of "La Fleuve".

There is a reason why the people call the River "La Fleuve". First, Kindu
is completely isolated; a city hidden in the rainforest. Everything is either
flown in from Bukavu, or (mainly) brought from Kinsangani via the River: a
5-day trip in a piroque to get from Kindu to Kisangani (back to Kindu
takes longer as it is against the River's current). Second, people wash their
food, themselves, their clothes, etc. in the River. People use it as a big toilet
and use it as drinking water. On the picture: Close to Kindu there are not
too many crocodilles and hippos so children play in the River.

On the picture: As soon as the River stops. The rainforest starts.

The mode of transportation on the River is the
piroque. These are boats cut out from a tree (yes in
one piece) and can be as long as fifteen meter. They are
really impressive. On this picture: We often had to cross the
River with our motorbikes to reach a new village. Thus:
motorbikes in the piroque.

The Congo River is the deepest river in the world with depths in
excess of 230 meter and the second largest river in the world by
volume of water discharged (yes, Wikipedia). It is a river you do

not want to see angry. On the picture: This was shortly before a storm.
For one hour: strong winds, heavy rain and waves that made me think
I was in the Netherlands looking at the North Sea. One hour later
the sun was shining again as if nothing happened. So impressive!

Back. 1/4

2010-11-14T07:57:00.005-05:00

Back. A very appropriate word. After weeks hereby another blogpost. After weeks I am also back from the field. The last month I spent my time throughout Sud Kivu: in piroques, on motorbikes, and many hours of walking. From end October I did the same in Congo's province Maniema. The first part of the evaluation has started and the teams are deployed. I arrived back in Bukavu a few days ago. A break? Definitely not. Tomorrow Raul and I start the training of the Sud Kivu and Maniema teams for the second part of the evaluation. Needless to say, there is so much to tell - I have had so many great experiences over the last weeks. Hereby four brief posts with several pictures to give at last some idea.

October 18. With the Sud Kivu team to the first village. In South Kivu

there are three teams of two for the first part of the evaluation. On this

picture: Because it is the first village we went all together: one car and

two motorbikes.

Most of the times villages are not reachable by road.
On the picture: walking for two hours to reach the
village. The views are gorgeous though.

One of the things the evaluation teams do in a village is to conduct a
large meeting with the villagers to inform them about Project RAPID. We
require that at least 25% of the villagers are present. On the picture:
One of the team members conducting a general assembly.

On the picture: And the views! Amazing!

Because the teams work often for 2 days in a village
at arrival we ask whether there is a place where we
could sleep in the village. This is never a problem. On
this picture: In this village in Sud Kivu's territoire
Kalehe we were especially lucky. Not only was there
a hospital with beds (and no patients) where we could
sleep. In the evening the village offered us rice and a
living chicken. The chicken tasted great.

Back. 2/4

2010-11-14T07:39:00.003-05:00

Heading towards another village. On the picture: the
provincial supervisor for Sud Kivu on the motorbike.
The road you see is a really really good road. Most
roads - if existant at all - are not doable by 4x4s and
often also not by motorbikes. The teams often walk
hours to reach a village.

Several of the villages that have to be visisted are on
islands. On the picture: our transport to the village.
These boats are piroques: boats often cut out of a tree.

On the picture: heading to the next village. The team together in a
piroque.

The first few villages still need a lot of oversight. Thus, every evening
- even after a long day of work in the field - more work. On the
picture: debriefing of a trip to a village in Sud Kivu's terroire Kalehe.

On the picture: the tough life!

Back. 3/4

2010-11-14T07:16:00.003-05:00

With the team in Sud Kivu's territoire of Walungu where we stayed in
in a paroish with nuns (who make amazing liquor from fruit). Important
when using motorbikes is maintenance. On the picture: At 6am in the
morning, before leaving to the next village, the team cleaning and
verifying the motorbikes.

Much time of the teams is spend on obtaining information: socio-

economic indicators, information on displacement and conflict, etc. On
the picture: interview with randomly selected villager.

Every evening the data collected that day has to be checked and

entered into PDAs. On the picture: Late in the evening by candelight

working with the teams.

The teams, including me, sleep most of the time in the villages where we
work: most of the time in the house of the chief or in another house or
building in the village. On the picture: Beds are a rarity and most of the
times we sleep on the ground.

Congo is a beautiful country. Plagued by povery and conflict, but
gorgeous. On the picture: The view when waking up early in the
morning. Try to beat that!

Back. 4/4

2010-11-14T05:41:00.008-05:00

From October 28 to November 8 I was in Maniema to launch the
evaluation there. In Sud Kivu, Haut Katanga and Tanganyika we work with
the IRC. In Maniema we work with CARE International. On the picture:
briefing the CARE staff about the evaluation and introducing the
evaluation team (not on the picture).

The teams make very long days. During the day they introduce project
RAPID: conduct interviews, do general assemblies, focus groups, etc.
In the evening they verify the collected data and enter it into PDAs.
On the picture: In one of the village chef's house (where we all slept in
the evening on the ground) the team is filling out the PDAs.

In Maniema the security rules are substantially less
strict. It is, for example, allowed for me to drive a
motorbike and thus I made many many kilometers. Such
a sense of freedom. On the picture: My Yamaha bike,
sun going down and the Congo river. Truly amazing!

All decent buildings in Kindu (the capital of Maniema) are still from the
Belgian period. The building ares thus decades old but have not been
maintained. People do live there. On the picture: "La Roche" a former
Belgian dancing club.

On my flight back to Goma (where I would stay one evening to take the
boat to Bukavu the next day) I also landed in Punia and Kasongo. On
the picture: the awesome aiport of Punia. In the middle of the rainforest.

The evaluation has started.

2010-10-17T06:59:00.003-04:00

After months of preparation here in the Congo, and over one and a half year in New York City with some several-month long trips to the Congo, the evaluation started! Raul had the honor to start with his Haut Katanga team yesterday. I leave tomorrow morning for the field with my Sud Kivu team. It is a very special feeling. After so much work, ups and downs, it is really going to start!

The last two weeks were nuts regarding work. Therefore the absence of posts. Given the absence of internet and for large part phonecoverage in the days and weeks to come, don't expect many posts. If you want to get in contact:

Phone with Zain-coverage: +243998399330
Phone with Vodacom-coverage: +243810930927
Satelite phone (always on from 8-820am and 6-620pm): +8821643340723

All alone in Bukavu.

2010-10-02T05:18:00.004-04:00

After living together, working together, and sharing lots of ups and downs together for almost three months, Raul left me last week. I am all alone in Bukavu. In the months to come Raul will be responsible for the evaluation in the provinces Haut Katanga and Tanganyika; me for the provinces Maniema and Sud Kivu.

Before leaving however, the Sud Kivu and Maniema team that we trained the week before invited us for a goodbye-Raul drink. We had (yet again) a great evening together, which ended with them giving us two wooden carvings. The first is a hunter that carries a prey; the second a hunter that carries a wounded collegue. The first symbolizes how we have a job to do, the second how we will have to work together in the months to come.

Getting the work done, ...

by working together and helping each other.

Motorbike training.

2010-09-28T10:48:00.006-04:00

For the evaluation we were planning to buy 16 motorbikes - those nice big 125CC Yamaha DTs. First, this would make logistics easier in the field; 4x4s can't get to most of our villages, and try to find a mode of transport different than walking when you are in the middle of nowhere. Second, after some engineering on the motorbike it would be possible to charge the GPS devices, PDA, laptops, etc. Anyhow, this sounded great in New York.

Once here our implementing partners told us it would be difficult to find more than eight people that would be both good for the evaluation and can drive a motorbike. So, we bought only eight motorbikes and during the training we assigned people to position taking into account whether they could or could not drive a motorbike. Knowing this is the Congo we were very explicit during the training. In one-to-one conversation we asked them "Can you drive a motobike?" and asked them explicitely about their level of experience, whether they had a driver's permit, etc. After the training we had our eight drivers. At least, that's what we thought.

Yesterday, just to be sure, I asked the IRC whether we could borrow a motorbike for several hours to check the guys for their driving abilities... You're ready? Of course within five minutes the first person was lying in a ditch next to the road with the motor on top of him. With the exception of two of them, none of the eight could decently drive a motorbike. So yesterday we arranged two motorbikes and two instructors for several days and thus today and the days to come it is... motorbike training.

This time the Sud Kivu supervisor not falling.

Two motorbikes, and

a lot of tests.

We're working very hard...

2010-09-21T15:45:00.002-04:00

but still enjoying.

Training in Eastern Congo.

2010-09-15T16:16:00.012-04:00

For the evaluation 560 randomly selected villages in Eastern Congo will be visited 3 times (step A-C) to implement a development project. After that 1,120 villages (including the 560) will be visited for a survey (step D). In total around 90 people will work on this for a year; we have to train all of them in the months to come. Raul and I trained the first 14 - the teams for step A and B for the provinces Maniema and Sud Kivu - last week; 7 will go to Maniema with me next Monday, the other 7 will start in three weeks in Sud Kivu. Raul heads to Haut Katanga next Monday to train the next 14.

During the training we covered a lot of material. You're ready?

We discussed the idea behind the evaluation, including the importance of randomization; both for selecting the 1,120 villages and for selecting the treatment and control villages of the program we're evaluating;
How to conduct and take measures during general assemblies;
How to conduct and take measures during focus groups;

Raul...

and Peter teaching.

During step A and B a lot measures are taken along the way, so we had to go over all these different forms, which includes several different types of surveys (the chief, households, different types of general assembly participants, committee members, etc.);
There were also practical things that had to be discussed: 1. When and how to go to which village (there is a schedule to follow); 2. language to be used in the field (we worked on the protocol and scripts for over a year); 3. how to take GPS coordinates (in each villages more than 10 coordinates will be taken); 4. How to randomly select households, people within household, and people from general assemblies; 5. how to use PDAs (all forms will have to be filled out on PDAs); 6. how to charge PDAs with solar panels; 7. how to upload data from PDAs to laptops; 8. how to drive a motorbike, etc.;
All these things had to be practiced, so we created games, exercises and played a lot (a lot!) of simulations;
And because only a sample would be selected from all the people present, we also created exams - as an extra measure - to get at people's quality level.

More on training

Training is so important. We have been working on this final part of the evaluation (step A-D) for over a year (the evaluation itself started in 2007); creating surveys, protocols, scripts, etc. When all combined this document is over 200 pages big. Needless to say, while we can discuss language for days, think carefully about which questions to ask, etc. if the people in the field do not understand things, we could just as well throw away those 200+ pages. This is quite a scary thought;
In total, professor Chimanuka - the implementing partner for Sud Kivu and Maniema - had brought 25 people to the training; this so that we could select the best 14. This was not an easy thing to do at all. Most of them were older than Raul and me, some were doctors, lawyers, etc. and above all many were unemployed but with a family and there were some that had left their job for this; all to get this job with one-year job security;
Raul had been sick-ish in the two weeks running up to the training. On Monday he got really sick and Professor Chimanuka - a specialist on malaria - tested him for malaria: he tested positive. Despite the fact that he looked and felt horrible last week, he kept on teaching - and very impressively;
We noticed that Congo seems to have a very different teaching-style than Raul and me are used to. Here students seem to listen and frantically try to copy whatever the professor says into their notebooks. We quickly got rid of that and moved to simulations, exercises and them teaching each other. People really seemd to enjoy this and, we hope, learned much more as a result.

Professor Chimanuka playing the chief of a village.

And another simulation: Tshimanuka doing step B.

Luc (the provincial supervisor for Maniema) teaching.

When do you know that people start applying what you taught them? Well, during lunch we walked around the room with a bunch of bananas for the people to take. One student replied: "I will choose my banana randomly." HA!
Then on Saturday evening it was over. After a very intense week it was finally time to relax and get to know each other socially. We first went to a local restaurant where we ate and drank until late in the evening. After that we visited "Parc au Prince" and danced until early in the morning. We not only have 14 very smart people, they are also a great group socially - something that is going to be important when in the field together for a year.

Marline, Pascal, Raul and Chris. Check out the latter two: that's team building.

FLTR: Peter, Sylvie, Alain, Marline, Pascal.

The teacher is going strong.

Eggs. Anybody?

2010-09-14T15:18:00.003-04:00

Next to DRC - Rwanda border (Congo side).

Object #4.

2010-09-13T12:21:00.004-04:00

Warning: object 4 is big. Raul and I had a seminar at the Official University of Bukavu (OUB) last Saturday (see previous post). OUB is since recently at the campus of the Institut Supérieur des Techniques Médicales (ISTM), which is located just a few minutes out of Bukavu, on top of a mountain and with an incredible view over Bukavu and Lake Kivu. ISTM is basically one big building; and a building Congo-style. It was constructed by the Belgians, but has not been maintained or renovated since. Actually, when the Belgians were thrown out of the country in 1960, ISTM was still in the process of constructing the back part of the building. The latter has never been finished.

The front.

The back (the guy standing there is not photoshopped in).

The back part of the university is now university housing. Tilburg and Columbia University, I promise, I will never again complain about your university's housing.

Oeps! Did I leave my pants?

Seminar at the Official University of Bukavu.

2010-09-12T05:28:00.007-04:00

Yesterday Raul and I had organized a several-hour seminar with Congolese professors and Doctoral students at the Official University of Bukavu (OUB) at the ISTM campus in Bukavu. The seminar was organized for two reasons:

Raul and I will split up in a week; I will be responsible for and living in the provinces Maniema and Sud Kivu; Raul has the provinces Tanganyika and Haut Katanga. The idea is that each of us will have a 'counterpart' with whom we will work closely together and train along the way for two reasons. 1. While we will leave the Congo in January, the evaluation continues for another half a year; the counterparts can take over from us. 2. It's a perfect knowledge-sharing opportunity. Raul and I will learn a lot about the Congo, and we can learn them about statistics, computer programs, etc. We want this counterpart to be a Doctoral student. So, Raul and I first presented the development project (Tuungane), which was then followed by a discussion about how the best evaluation would look like - in the meantime Raul and I checked carefully what they were saying and whether there was somebody that could be a counterpart.

Raul...

and Peter presenting the evaluation.

Needless to say, Raul and I also wanted to get to know Congolese academics - for us to see what they are working on and vice versa. So we had brief presentations of our research topics and after each we had several minutes of discussion. Raul and I presented our dissertation topics; Raul discussed the institution of the dowry, and I talked about migration and public good provision.

Peter's migration puzzle.