Experiencing cultural differences in DRC

Hi, my name is Brieuc Debontridder and I work for Tenke Fungurume Mining (TFM) in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I started working at TFM as a consultant from a social consultancy before joining the Resettlement Action Plan unit Management team as the survey team coordinator. I hold a MA of “Media Education, Culture and Society” with a specialization in “Communication for Development.” A travel lover, I did a six-month backpack trip in South America before moving out to the DRC. I’m a Belgian national and speak French, English, Spanish, Dutch and basic Swahili.

As a “Muzungu” (“white” in local language) expat in the DRC, I would like to share with you some thoughts about this intercultural experience. While we usually get a really stereotyped and unified picture of Africa, the reality is quite different.  There is a lot of variety from a region to another. To illustrate my words, here are a few anecdotes that – besides the language barrier and the related (amusing) misunderstandings that we challenge when travelling – I have had the chance to experience in Congo:

• In my early days in Congo, I saw two men knocking their foreheads several times, I first thought they were fighting until I was invited to do so by a local colleague and friend after coming back from my holidays. I then realized that it was a way to greet someone you appreciate and I now feel really honoured when someone greets me this way.

• Part of my job here is to take census of people’s assets and fields. This means that I sometimes need to walk to their field or identify them on a map. Easier said than done! What I didn’t expect is that when a farmer tells you that his field is really close, you actually might have to walk for two hours to get there. You could then try to identify the field on a map to gain time but you would be really naive imagining that local farmers use maps to locate their field. Moreover, if my local colleagues could recognize the exact itinerary we had taken six months before, I would not be able to distinguish a tree from another in the bush and would get lost in less than a minute!

• Calling someone on a telephone in another language has always been a challenge for me and, supposedly, for lots of people. It gets even more complicated when the communication standards are not the same. For instance, it is not common in Congo that people calling you introduce themselves with a “Hi, it’s Serge calling, how are you?” and concludes the call with an usual “OK, thank you, we talk later, Bye…”. They actually don’t use these formulas and would not hesitate to hang up when they assume the message has been given and without having introduced themselves; I’ll let you imagine how confusing it is. So if you ever go to Congo, don’t take it personally if someone hangs up on you.

• Despite these cultural differences, what surprised me the most is that we are fundamentally very similar. For instance, either in a village in the Congolese bush or in a neighbourhood in a Western big city, you find the same group dynamic and the same kind of personal characteristics.To conclude, I would say that though I arrived in Congo trying to remember as much as possible what I learned from my “Intercultural Communication” class, I realized that the most important method of communication is to act as naturally as possible, to be open-minded and to respect and avoid judgement on someone else’s behaviour and culture. It is then sometimes worth exposing your cultural differences to create a contact with the locals.

 

Civil Engineering Abroad

About the Blogger – Crispin Smith is the Deputy RAP Manager at Tenke Fungurume Mining. He is an engineer and planner with rePlan, a planning and architecture firm based in Toronto, Canada. He has been with TFM in the DRC since early 2013. His international experience includes missions in Ghana, the Philippines, Iran, Haiti, Mongolia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Tenke Fungurume mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Photo courtesy of Freeport McMoRan.

RAP stands for Resettlement Action Plan.  It is the unit responsible for dealing with displacement caused by the mine. The mine is constantly growing; pits are enlarged, new infrastructure is built, roads are widened and exploration cores are drilled. Every time the mine expands it creates impacts and the RAP unit is responsible for minimizing, mitigating and dealing with these impacts as they occur. In the simplest cases this requires compensation to project affected persons for lost assets such as trees and crops. In the most involved cases it includes the relocation of entire communities: the design and construction of new houses, schools and clinics; the development of community infrastructure including roads, water, latrines and drainage; the replacement of agricultural lands, the reestablishment (and enhancement) of people’s livelihoods and monitoring. All of this is done in a transparent, inclusive and equitable manner, requiring meaningful input from and ongoing dialogue with affected communities.

My interest in urban planning and engineering evolved from a love of sand castles and an early addiction to sim-city. Civil engineering combined a number of interests (structures, transportation, environment, city building), while planning added a social focus and design element to many of these same issues. The resettlement programs of the mine offer a unique opportunity to put these disciplines and talents to use, designing and implementing projects that will have a meaningful and lasting impact on people’s lives. By working with local contractors and entrepreneurs and hiring residents from the affected communities, the resettlement projects are able to maximize local benefit, providing opportunities for individuals to develop skills and gain income, and allow entrepreneurs to gain experience and practice. In hiring locals and selecting appropriate technologies (pit latrines, sourcing of locally available materials) the project is also increasing the ability of residents to better maintain and look after their future homes, increasing the durability and overall sustainability of the project.

An Expert’s Take: Part II

This is Part II of a continuing interview with Sakkie Hattingh, Manager of the TFM Malaria Control program. Click here to read Part I.

Shari and Sakkie in his live mosquito zoo

Shari Knoerzer: Do you think that malaria can be eradicated in Africa? And what will it take to do so?

Sakkie Hattingh: I’m sorry to say, but eradicating malaria from Africa is a very steep challenge. Elimination of malaria goes hand and hand with economic development. In fact, many people don’t realize that malaria used to be a problem all throughout Europe, but eventually the disease was eliminated with the implementation of rigid control measures and as the economy developed, environmental health standards rose, and infrastructure improved, such as water drainage systems, etc.

Italy is a good example where at the end of the 19^th Century malaria cases amounted to 2 million and 15,000 to 20,000 deaths were recorded per year. With robust control measures in place and economic development, malaria was eradicated in 1962.  It takes external funding and expertise to run a malaria control program, and the problem in many cases is that these efforts are not truly sustainable until the country becomes more developed. For malaria to be eradicated in Africa it will also require coordinated efforts by all countries that are affected and that will be very expensive and complicated to coordinate.

Despite the heavy burden of malaria worldwide, significant gains against this ancient disease are being made. Since 1945, 79 countries have successfully eliminated malaria from their borders, the latest being Turkmenistan, which attained World Health Organization malaria-free certification in 2010. Today, 99 malaria-endemic countries remain, and of those, 36 have embarked on the task of malaria elimination, of which four countries are in Africa.

SK: What is your proudest achievement?

SH: Establishing the first malaria control program in the DRC. I also served as a member of the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative, funded by the Global Fund, that worked to eradicate malaria via a multi-country approach between South Africa, Mozambique and Swaziland.

A proud moment for the whole TFM team was when TFM received an award from GBCHealth as the best corporate program on controlling and reducing malaria in 2012.

SK: What do you think is the most amazing fact about the mosquito that most people don’t know?

SH: Mosquitos have a great way of smelling and use their receptors to zone in on people. The antennae are important to detect host odors, as well as odors for breeding sites where females lay eggs.  There are certain smells that attract them more than others and that helps them to identify their target.

The female anopheles mosquito is not known as the silent killer for nothing. She does not buzz around your head at night, irritating you. You may not be aware of her presence at all. The reaction to her bite may also not be as pronounced as it is other bloodsucking insects and you may be unaware of having been bitten.

SK: I am the kind of person who gets bitten by mosquitos all the time (and I’ve had malaria), so I must be a good target.

SH:  Yes, you should visit my laboratory, the mosquitoes will love you. Mosquitoes do exhibit feeding preferences with carbon dioxide being very attractive.  Mosquitos are also extremely resilient and adapt well to external circumstances. They become resilient to new insecticides, which increases the challenge of controlling the spread of malaria. We have to continually monitor resistance levels and change insecticides when they become no longer effective.

SK: Before we go, I have one last question. What do you like best about your job?

SH: I love being outdoors and not restricted to an office, but the best thing about my job is that I get to help provide communities with a better quality of life.

SK: Agreed. I guess we both like the same things about our jobs. Thanks for your time Sakkie and keep fighting those smart, adaptive mosquitos! I don’t want any mosquito bites tonight…but I’m in good hands with your program and I’ve got a mosquito net over my bed here in the mine camp.

For more information on malaria, please see:

World Health Organization (WHO): http://www.who.int/topics/malaria/en/

Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold website: http://www.fcx.com/sd/community/pub_tenke.htm

An Expert’s Take on Fighting Malaria

One of the key people behind this program is Sakkie Hattingh, who works for International SOS, a medical services company contracted to TFM to manage employee and community health programs. Sakkie serves as the Manager of the TFM Malaria Control Program and I spent some time talking with him about the work he is doing to reduce and eradicate malaria in Africa.

SK: Sakkie, where are you from and how long have you worked in the DRC?

SH: I am from Richards Bay in Kwazulu-Natal Province in the northeastern South Africa. I have been working in the DRC for five and a half years.

SK: How did you get interested in malaria and find yourself working in this field?

SH: I have a  public health degree and was working for the government in South Africa and focused on environmental health issues. During that time I started working on malaria, which was also a problem in Kwazulu-Natal Province. I completed a number of World Health Organization (WHO) courses on malaria – learning both about the vectors and the parasite, and I soon became working full-time on malaria.

SK: How many times have you had malaria?

SH: Never actually. I guess I’m just lucky.

SK: You have to be kidding me! I thought all malaria experts have contracted the disease numerous times. That is amazing. What do you think some of the misperceptions are about malaria by people in the Congo?

SH: The majority of people don’t realize that malaria is a parasite spread by mosquitos, specifically the female Anopheles mosquito. Many people think you can get malaria from sleeping in a house with a grass roof, drinking dirty water, or living near a marsh. So we do a lot of work to create awareness and greater education about the disease and how it is spread. People who understand the disease and how it is transmitted are able to take better care of their own health to prevent the disease or to seek treatment in a timely manner.

It was only in 1897 that the mosquito was linked to the transmission of malaria with a publication of a research paper by Ronald Ross. Before that there were different theories about how people contract malaria, and it was once believed that infected mosquitoes die in water and are then ingested and cause the disease.

The origin of the word ‘malaria’ is also quite interesting. Initially some people believed that the disease was caused by inhalation of air from rotten swampy areas, therefore the Italian word ‘malaria’ – ‘mal’ = bad and ‘aria’ = air.

SK: Are there different types of malaria?

SH: Yes, there are four different parasites which can be transmitted by the female mosquito. In the DRC the dominant type of malaria is caused by Plasmodium Falciparum which is the most dangerous and can result in severe and complicated infections, even death.

Photo courtesy of NIAID

In the blood stream the parasites invade red blood cells, feeding on them as they grow and divide, and finally break free, destroying the cells. Each new parasite then invades another red blood cell and starts dividing. The maximum parasite density by P. Falciparum is 2,000,000 parasites per micro liter blood. On average there are 5,000,000 red blood cells per micro liter blood, so P. Falciparum can infect 40% of all red blood cells before death.

SK: So tell me, is it true that you have a mosquito zoo?

SH: Well, yes I do. Actually it is an entomology laboratory where we keep mosquitos for laboratory testing. We collect mosquito larvae in the field and raise them into adults in the laboratory and then test different insecticides on them to see if the mosquitos are resistant or not. We also have a colony of mosquitoes which has been bred and raised for many generations in the laboratory (note that the average lifespan of a mosquito is about 30 days). We run tests on both mosquitos we raise in the laboratory and those we catch in the wild.  The tests help us to evaluate and monitor our program. For example, if we find that mosquitos are becoming resistant to a certain insecticide, then we have to change the insecticide we are using in the field.

TFM on Curing Malaria

Hi! My name is Shari Knoerzer and I work as the Director for Social Responsibility and Community Development – Africa/Asia for Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold. I am based in Phoenix, Arizona at Freeport’s headquarters office and travel 3-4 times a year to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to support our community development programs at our Tenke Fungurume Mine (TFM) site. I have been with Freeport for 11 years and got my start working on community development projects at our mine site in Papua, Indonesia where I lived for five years.  I think I have a wonderful job, because I get to work in amazing places that not everyone gets to visit, such as Indonesia and the DRC, and help my company contribute to sustainable development and improve living standards for the communities near our operations.

Indoor Residual Spraying for Malaria

One of the projects I am very proud to work with in the DRC is our integrated malaria control program. The DRC is the second largest country in Africa and malaria is endemic there. In 2003, over 4 million cases of malaria were reported across the country and accounted for nearly 16,500 deaths. Katanga Province, where TFM is based, had the highest case load for any province in the DRC in 2003. In addition, malaria accounts for an estimated 25-30% of child mortality countrywide.

Before TFM started its operations in the area, malaria was the largest cause of morbidity and placed a significant economic burden on the wider community. When people are sick with malaria, they miss an average of three days of work and often times more. As part of the program, TFM conducts an indoor residual insecticide spraying program reaching more than 40,800 households in the neighboring community.  TFM has also provided support to distribute and install nearly 89,000 insecticide-treated bednets supported by international aid agencies.

Other program activities include efforts to improve malaria diagnosis and treatment, and TFM collaborates closely with the Congolese government in all of these activities. An annual malaria prevalence survey, among local school children, is conducted each year to monitor the impact of the implementation of the community malaria program. The October 2012 school survey results at the end of the dry season indicated an average malaria prevalence rate of 22% and a decrease of 71% compared to the 2007 baseline survey. It is truly a significant impact on the lives of the local community.

Part 2: Education in the DRC

About the blogger – Matthew Stroud is head of the Communications Department at Tenke Fungurume Mining, an affiliate of Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold. This is part II of his blog posts on education in the DRC.

After years of war and instability, many millions of families in the DRC have been left with nothing but the daily struggle for survival, where basic needs like food are their main priority. This means that many families are less concerned with education, which is often considered a luxury and not a necessity – only 67 percent of people are able to read and write and 51 percent of women between 15 and 24 years old are literate. According to a recent study by Save the Children DRC, over 7 million children in the DRC do not attend school.

With these thoughts in the back of my mind, I watched the big white school bus finally pull up in front of Kitoto School which was just one of the locations across the Province of Katanga where over 400 students would take the test that morning. The doors opened and the students quietly formed a line in front of the school. They all wore the typical uniform of a white button down shirt and navy blue shorts. One of the professors explained to me that many of the students came from tens of miles away and some had even left before dawn to walk to the bus stop along dirt roads. They lived in mud brick houses with tin roofs, often without electricity or running water. They didn’t have cell phones, calculators or TVs at home. The schools they attended had only the basics – simple classrooms with benches and a chalkboard for the professor.

Their names were called in alphabetical order as they were assigned a spot in the large classroom. There was no laughing or noise as might be expected by a group of 75 twelve year olds.

Everyone was solemn and serious, seeming to understand the importance of this day. At the end of roll call, one student remained. He was not on the list and was told to return home. He bowed his head and slowly walked off down the dirt road. No one made a sound. I was surprised and asked the professor what had happened. He said that the chance to get into Mutoshi was once in a lifetime and that some parents were willing to try anything. They would send their children on the bus to a testing school in the hopes that a spot would be free at the last minute and their child would be eligible to take the test. Even though the professor understood and sympathized, he said that those who were on an admissions test list had already passed a prequalification exam and it was not as simple as just giving away a vacant spot to another candidate.

I was curious about what was on the exam and went into the principal’s office to see if anyone was there. Inside I found the Principal and his team of two professors who were waiting to begin grading the tests. They showed me around their office which was full of old text books and colorful posters on the wall. Next to a map of the DRC was a dictum in perfectly written cursive which said in French, “the elite discuss ideas, average people discuss events and mediocre people talk about others.”  We all shook hands and they let me take a picture. They handed me a blank copy of the exam booklet, asking if I’d like to give it a shot.

About an hour later I handed in my test, having completed only the French language and grammar section. We all sat together as they graded my test on the spot. The questions were tough and I had struggled with some of the complicated grammar rules so I was a little nervous about the grade I would receive. After about ten minutes of discussion they smiled and said together, “Congratulations, you passed the test with flying colors!” We all laughed together and shook hands. I told them that I wasn’t ready to even attempt the mathematics and sciences portions of the test which the students were currently working on without calculators in the room next door.

I left Kitoto School in the early afternoon, after spending six hours with the professors and students.  A few weeks later I learned that 22 students had passed the exam and would be attending Mutoshi Technical Institute in the fall.  I felt a sense of profound respect for those sixth grade students and the professors, all of whom were trying to make a better future despite some of the toughest conditions that anyone outside the DRC could ever imagine.

Matthew Stroud: Education in the DRC (Part 1 of 2)

About the blogger – My name is Matthew Stroud and I am in charge of the Communications Department at Tenke Fungurume Mining, an affiliate of Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold. The Communications Department aims to promote the company to both employees and an outside audience, such as the media and the local community. In many ways our work is somewhat similar to a newspaper or TV show, in that we have reporters, writers and editors who are constantly on the lookout for new stories in order to relay news to our employees, the community and the media.

During my last trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), I had the opportunity to visit a school near our mining operations in Katanga Province. For our company newspaper we have a team of reporters who cover events in the community on a daily basis. On July 4^th, they asked me to come along to meet a group of teachers who were giving high school admissions tests to about 75 sixth grade students. The test would last about four hours and would determine which fortunate students would be selected to attend a prestigious high school called Mutoshi Technical Institute in the town of Kolwezi, about a two hour drive from where they lived. Mutoshi is a boarding school and has a history of producing many of the country’s future engineers.

Together with the team of high school teachers who would be administering the exam, we waited about an hour for the school bus to arrive. It was early morning and we stood in the dusty school yard as chickens raced back and forth. The teachers became impatient when the bus driver called to say he had made a wrong turn and would be about 30 minutes late. This day was decisive for the students and their families because those who passed the test would receive a full scholarship to Mutoshi and the chance for a brighter future. One of the teachers explained to me the challenges these students had to overcome, saying that to understand the importance of this day, it was also necessary to describe the education system in the DRC and a little bit of history.

As a former Belgian colony, many of the DRC’s institutions are similar to that of Belgium. This is the case for education. Primary education goes from the ages of six to twelve years old and is both free and compulsory. Students must then pass a test in order to go on to high school, as is the case for those applying for Mutoshi. High School or secondary school as it is called, lasts another six years and culminates in another exam. Passing this exam allows students to go on to university.

In a country with a population of over 71 million people where there are 700 languages and dialects, four national languages (Lingala, Kikongo, Tshiluba, Swahili) and over 250 ethnic groups, French is the language of instruction in schools and the ability to express oneself well in this language is the sign of a good education. The DRC has suffered from decades of civil war which has left millions of families displaced and children orphaned. During the years of conflict in the DRC many social services, including education had been slowed or even stopped. The result is that schools are not organized by the government; instead they are run by various missionaries, religious associations or international organizations who have taken over day to day education.

*To be continued…

Bérengère: Do’s and Do Not’s in the DRC

Name three things you know about Congo, the three first words that come to mind.  All set?  Do you have your three words?

Chances are, in your list, you probably wrote at least one of the following: War, Rape, Child Soldiers?  That is indeed almost all the press or the NGOs write about on the Congo.  I would bet most of you have heard of Joseph Kony.  I would bet twice as much that none of you have heard of Prime Minister Matata Ponyo, or Katanga Governor Moise Katumbi.

Photo by Marie Cacace, Oxfam International

Yes, the atrocities that you read about in the US are mostly true, and even I who live here cannot imagine what they represent for the victims any more than you do in the US.

That is because the Congo is a gigantic country, the size of Western Europe, and my daily life is as far removed from these “war zones” as a Michigan resident is removed from the violence at the US-Mexican border.  We all worry about how to help the victims.  Here are some suggestions.

DO NOT: send them your little sister’s old T-shirts via some local NGO fundraiser.  Forget that.  Please.  The region is full of old Chicago Bulls and Georgetown University T-shirts.  Wearing them does not protect you from machete blows; receiving them does not allow a mother to sustainably feed her children.

DO: go to websites like Kiva.org and invest $20 in a local entrepreneur’s tailor shop.  What’s the difference?  With the former, you teach the recipient to expect everything from others, you teach him to beg instead of teaching him to earn.

Photo by Maria Cacace, Oxfam International

DO NOT: put a Google Alert for “Congo” and think you know what life is like here.

DO: learn foreign languages and become a reporter on the ground, covering the stories you won’t see from a regional office or a three-day visit to the country.  That’s how you will hear about the Western fashion industry’s growing investments in African fabrics and fashions, about the new investment in a dam that could power much of the southern African continent, about how the components of your cell phones are made, or about how a home team from a town in central Africa rose to the top of the soccer world, beating the best Latin American and European squads along the way.

DO NOT: think that a town that does not have a Hilton does not have an economy.

DO: be the man or woman who will open the next construction materials company or Home Depot outlet in Lubumbashi or Mombasa, while living in a local B&B for a few months at first aid does not anchor men or give them a stake in a stable future, having a job or a shop do

A Lawyer Abroad: Meet Bérengère

Hi, my name is Bérengère.  I am 34 years old, and I am a lawyer.  I live in a town called Fungurume, in the southern province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where most of the country’s economic activity takes place.

Courtesy of sec.go

For anything the company does, whether it is digging for copper, or buying the machines to do it, or hiring the staff to operate them, or building new homes for the residents who lived on the mine, you can be sure someone somewhere has written rules on how to do it.  The lawyers’ job is to find out which of these rules apply and to make sure the company follows the instructions when they do.

You might ask why an American lawyer gets to have this role in a foreign company, since the local law is by definition entirely different from the one I learned.  The Congolese company is majority owned by a US mining company.  As such, it is subject to a number of US laws, particularly laws that tell you how to keep your books and records, and forbid you from engaging in unethical business practices.  (As an American, you can be prosecuted in US courts and sentenced to prison terms in US jails for bribing or attempting to bribe a foreign officials.)

 It is also a big part of my role to explain what legal issues affect the Congolese subsidiary to the US parent company, its management, its auditors, who are not trained in DRC law or may not know the local business environment in detail; conversely, I convey to the Congolese company’s legal department the orientations and policies of the parent company.  I was chosen for this role largely because I am both French and American, and I speak, read and write French fluently, so the company felt that I would be a good person to act as a bridge between the Congolese company and its US parent.

Caitlin Hamill: Interview with a coworker

For my second blog post, I thought it would be fun to interview my friend and coworker Debra. Debra is also an intern with Tenke Fungurume Mining, and she is from Lubumbashi, the closest major city to the mining concession (about a 3-hour drive away) and the second-largest city in the DRC. Debra is interning with the Resettlement Action Plan team in the Community Development department, and we have been working together on a project over the past few weeks.

Debra and I in front of a Tenke Fungurume Mining vehicle before going to the field for the day, in front of the RAP (Resettlement Action Plan) office at Base Camp

One day at the office I was struggling to say something in French, and Debra responded in perfect English — “I didn’t know you spoke English!” I said, surprised, and she explained that she actually attends university classes in English, because she is a student at Mindolo Ecumenical Foundation, a university just across the border from Congo in Kitwe, Zambia where English is the official language. Her mother is Zambian and her father is Congolese, and Debra has attended school in both French and English. She speaks five languages (Chokwe, Bemba, Swahili, French, and English), and she is studying social work at university. Next year she is considering starting another concentration in management to gain another set of skills.

When I asked Debra about gender roles in DRC, she told me that girls and women in DRC today have more choices and more opportunity when it comes to schooling, sports, careers, and marriage. Debra plays soccer every Tuesday and Thursday with a women’s team here, and she told me that girls sports programs have generally become stronger in schools in DRC, although it depends on the size and funding of the school. Debra told me that in the past, some tribes would not allow women to marry outside of their own tribe, but that is changing. For her ethnic group, the Chokwe, it is not uncommon for women to marry outside of the tribe and like in the United States, women are getting married later.

In DRC, women can become doctors, lawyers, and really anything else that they set their sights on, but limited economic opportunity and quality of education can prevent both boys and girls from achieving their goals. Growing up, Debra saw a need to help young people—she told me that too many young people drop out of school because they cannot pay for it, or because they are not motivated, and this is why she chose to study social work. After she graduates, Debra wants to work with youth and girls in particular, helping them stay in school and lead healthy, successful lives.