The sad reality

Brazzaville has inconsistent water and electricity services. The sad reality is that sometimes we, as well as everyone in Brazzaville and Congo at large, I believe, only have tap water on occasion.

For example, we do not have any fresh water today with which to cook, bathe, wash out clothes, and so on.

Also, power outages are quite frequent here. One has to save one’s work frequently, because one never knows when a power ou*



(Three hours later)

*tage will occur. Although we cannot really do anything about the electricity, we have to go retrieve water when we completely run out and there is no water from the tap. Once after a full day of work at a conference about the rights of women and children living with HIV/AIDS, we had to rent a (not uncostly) taxi and travel around Brazzaville looking for water.

Challenges

This is challenging as it is, because water is heavy and difficult to move, but when you are already exhausted from a full day of work, going all over the city just to find water sounds like an even-less-fun prospect. When we were in the midst of the Getting Water Ordeal, Sylvie and another colleague at AZUR said to me, “That’s Africa!”

“That’s Africa!”

This is a phrase that numerous different people have said to me under numerous different challenging conditions; “That’s Africa!” seems to be the way of making a joke out of the very poor sanitation and nutrition conditions of the continent. People do not say “That’s Congo!”, but rather, “That’s Africa!” seemingly indicating that this is an Africa-wide problem, not just something confined to one country or city.

I think in the States this is similar to the sort of funny, sort of tragic saying “That’s so ghetto.” When you have to eat your cereal, without milk, with a fork, that’s so ghetto.

When you have to drive all over your city just looking for water, when you have to build your house out of materials you’ve scavenged from junk piles, when you only eat one meal a day, That’s Africa!

Everyone is a family member

But don’t get me wrong; good things about Africa abound. By far the best thing about Africa has been the people. I seriously don’t think I’ve met one mean-spirited person in all my time here. Everyone seems to be very generous and open-minded, and of the highest personal caliber that one could hope to encounter.

People here have a tradition of thinking of their friends as their family members. So Sylvie is my sister, Ben and Georges are my brothers. Older men are my Papa, older women are Mama. The reason behind this is that one does not want to create a feeling of separation between close friends and family members. Even, say, your cousin would be your sister here, your nieces and nephews are your children. This is probably my favorite thing about Africa – the lack of separation, the great closeness between family, friends, and colleagues here. This tradition, the colors, the richness of the music, my students, my friends and co-workers, these too are Africa, and they are worth a million journeys to this life-changing continent.


I just want to close by saying that AZUR Development is fantastic organization. If you are considering doing so, please allow me to remove all doubt: yes, you should fund them. They run a very tight ship here, and execute their many projects with professionalism and a deep concern for the Congolese and African people they serve.

A significant impact in the lives of poor People

Their training involves up-to-date information and techniques that generate quality-of-life-improving practices that lead to significant changes for Congolese people, from English courses to computer training to HIV/AIDS education to the issuance of community-generated policy recommendations to the government of Congo to address gender inequities in the legal and cultural systems.

Their work is as high-quality as it is comprehensive, and it makes a significant impact in the lives of poor people. It is an honor to work with and for AZUR Development.

Please let me know if you have any questions or require any further information; I can be reached at info@azurdev.org .

Thanks for reading!

Very best,

Brendan C. Snow
ESL Volunteer Teacher
AZUR Development