Megan in Africa!

By popular demand, this post will feature mostly pictures of Megan. 

Megan's first night in Africa: at Chez Lando in Kigali after a long flight from Amsterdam to Istanbul to Kigali.

 

Megan and my colleague, Koen, as we depart from Day 1 of our workshop at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture just outside of Bukavu.

Sorry, no Megan in the next picture. During the workshop representatives from each of the six Congolese agriculture-focused NGOs who distribute improved seeds, fertilizer and inoculants as part of N2Africa were asked to describe their theory of change as to what results such distribution would produce, and how. I'm holding one group's description while the NGO rep explains. Koen is taking notes on the projected screen.

The crossover: Cambridge to Bukavu

It's been six years since I lived in Entebbe and posted on this blog. Megan and I have been in Bukavu for six days now and, since we'll be here for the next year, insh'Allah, (and because we just had lunch at a fancy hotel with relatively fast internet) I decided to resuscitate it. 

We're here because I just started as a research fellow with the Development Economics Group at Wageningen University (WU). Megan's looking for work in environmental policy research or university-level math teaching (so please holler if you have any leads). While we look for an apartment we're staying at Chez Mundi, a large house, really a complex, in the middle of Bukavu. Mundi coordinates the Universite' Catholique de Bukavu's collaborations with several Belgian and Dutch universities. His home has at least eight bedrooms, a backup generator, reliable (albeit slow) internet, and, until a truck ran into a water main two days ago, running water. His wife, mother, and seven beautiful children ranging in age from around 3 to 21 live at the house. The kids are usually on their laptops. When Megan and I arrived we were with two profs and a PhD student from WU. In addition to our squad, two Belgian profs, a Congolese prof, and a Belgian med student were also staying at Chez Mundi. Over dinner the first night one of the Belgian profs claimed that half of DRC prefers dry sex while the other half prefers wet sex, and that there are herbs, "easy to find", to facilitate either style.   

On a completely different note, here's the view from our bedroom:

We spent the first two days in meetings with directors or agronomists from the six Congolese agricultural NGOs with whom we're working, through the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, on a DFID-funded, ESRC-coordinated, RCT to test the effectiveness of a package of seeds, fertilizer and inoculants as part of the Gates-funded N2Africa project. Megan valiantly took minutes of the proceedings, which were almost entirely in French. I understood about 50%.

On the fourth day, after Janneke and Lonneke went back to Holland, Koen showed us around town. When we found AI on the wall of a barbershop, I had to get a photo:

Ballin is universal.