Hello everyone! It has been quite some time since I last updated you with everything that’s going on. Since my last post AZUR Développement put together in the month of April a couple workshops, one in Kinkala and another in Brazzaville. I’ll put together separate blog posts for those events as soon as I can. For now I wanted to let you all know that I’ve been away from Brazzaville since the end of April and in Congo’s main coastal town of Pointe-Noire. I left Brazzaville with my boss Sylvie with the intention of working on some local projects as well as taking time off on vacation. Several times a year AZUR organizes workshops or other events in the area, and we have a permanent, part-time local coordinator in the area. What was intended to be a two-week stay is now pushing four; I’m truly enjoying my time on the coast.
The heart of Congo’s oil industry and the majority of the country’s economic activity is found here on the coast, and yet despite all the supposed wealth there is next to nothing to show for it in terms of any improvement of the standard of living for the general population. As in Brazzaville water and electricity are spotty or simply absent; all side streets and even some main thoroughfares are unpaved. Even worse, there is no sewer or drainage system in the city to deal with the torrential rains during the wet season, where streets become canals and cars are rendered useless.
While in Pointe-Noire I have been staying with my Sylvie’s family. Her younger sisters and their children have a tiny three-bedroom home in the growing Ngoyo quarter pretty far removed from downtown Pointe-Noire. It takes ten minutes to walk to the bus stop on the nearest main road and another forty-five minutes to an hour to before arriving downtown or at the central market. We are fortunate here to have a power transformer several blocks away, so the electricity is rather constant. There is also running water – that is, there is an outdoor pump with a single spigot. Bucket showers are still the reality.
Most of my free time is spent around Ngoyo at the house or at the local market. On the weekend the family and I spend an afternoon at the beach or several hours at the central market downtown. One of Sylvie’s sisters is an talented seamstress, and I’ve asked her to make me several shirts from some African fabric that I purchased at the market.
Despite all the fun I’m having in Pointe-Noire, it will soon be time to move on to another locale. My boss is currently in Brazzaville, and early next week I will meet up with her in Dolisie for an extended stay further inland for an experience of rural Congolese life. AZUR has two regional offices in the countryside, one in Nkayi and the other in Sibiti. Once we’ve finished the tour of those offices it will most likely be time for me to return to Brazzaville and stay there for the remainder of the internship.
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