The Beauty of CAR

Last summer I received an e-mail from a gentleman in Poland. After reading our blog he wrote about his desire to travel there. He had a keen interest in the CAR and had a lot of questions about traveling logistics and safety. This spring, after many e-mails back and forth, he wrote to say that he had had a wonderful time in CAR and can see why the people and place is firmly rooted in our hearts. While I may have a knack for writing, my new Polish friend has the wonderful gift of photography. I just viewed his on-line gallery of photos and was compelled to share the link with you. It is well worth the 10 or 15 minutes it takes to view them all.

He travelled all the same paths we have and I recognize many of the Ba'aka women in his pictures from Bayanga. His route from Kentzou to Gamboula (our home town) up to Berberati, through Nola and on to Bayanga is one that we are very familiar with and it brought a smile to my face to see how other people view the places that I love.

You can find his gallery at: http://joasia.blogs.com/photos/republika_srodkowej_afryk/index.html

Enjoy the adventure.

The Global Village

I have been doing a tremendous amount of reading for my courses and wanted to share an interesting article with you.

But first...a quick update. I have purchased my tickets and will be leaving for Uganda April 13. I will be spending three weeks in Uganda participating in a consulting exercise which is the capstone/final project of my Masters degree. Following Uganda I will be flying across the Continent to Cameroon where I will hopefully meet up with Darren. We will make our way to CAR where I plan on conducting my thesis research on the nutrition garden. Darren will stay for three weeks and I will stay until the end of June. I have tons to do before then and just sent visa application number one away today. I am feeling swamped and always have that feeling like I should be reading something.

So, the following story has been copied from the UN Millennium Development Goals document "Freedom from Want" found at http://www.un.org/millennium/sg/report/ch2.pdf

I am sure you have heard similar stories in the past. This one distills the world's six billion people to one thousand and gives you a glimpse of how conflict arises out of poverty and as a result of poverty. I hope it helps you in understanding how conflict and food security are linked and why I, as an agriculturalist, am studying human security and peacebuilding.

"Some 150 of the inhabitants live in an affluent area of the village, about 780 in poorer districts. Another 70 or so live in a neighbourhood that is in transition. The average income per person is $6,000 a year, and there are more middle income families than in the past. But just 200 people dispose of 86 per cent of all the wealth, while nearly half of the villagers are eking out an existence on less than $2 per day. Men outnumber women by a small margin, but women make up a majority of those who live in poverty. Adult literacy has been increasing. Still, some 220 villagers— two thirds of them women—are illiterate. Of the 390 inhabitants under 20 years of age, three fourths live in the poorer districts, and many are looking desperately for jobs that do not exist. Fewer than 60 people own a computer and only 24 have access to the Internet. More than half have never made or received a telephone call.

Life expectancy in the affluent district is nearly 78 years, in the poorer areas 64 years—and in the very poorest neighbourhoods a mere 52 years. Each marks an improvement over previous generations, but why do the poorest lag so far behind? Because in their neighbourhoods there is a far higher incidence of infectious diseases and malnutrition, combined with an acute lack of access to safe water, sanitation, health care, adequate housing, education and work. There is no predictable way to keep the peace in this village. Some districts are relatively safe while others are wracked by organized violence.

The village has suffered a growing number of weather-related natural disasters in recent years, including unexpected and severe storms, as well as sudden swings from floods to droughts, while the average temperature is perceptibly warmer. More and more evidence suggests that there is a connection between these two trends, and that warming is related to the kind of fuel, and the quantities of it, that the people and businesses are using. Carbon emissions, the major cause of warming, have quadrupled in the last 50 years. The village’s water table is falling precipitously, and the livelihood of one sixth of the inhabitants is threatened by soil degradation in the surrounding countryside.

Who among us would not wonder how long a village in this state can survive without taking steps to ensure that all its inhabitants can live free from hunger and safe from violence, drinking clean water, breathing clean air, and knowing that their children will have real chances in life? That is the question we have to face in our real world of 6 billion inhabitants."