All This Time...: It's All Real.

Yesterday I drove with Raha and a few others up to the village of Katana and the surrounding regions. Here they will be doing a needs assessment for a food security program. Once again I feel overwhelmed by the rich diversity of experience that I have been offered while in the Congo, and I'm thankful for all those working hard to try and provide food and security of life for the people here.
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I was able to drive again on the country-side roads of the Congo and I must say I enjoyed it immensely. Did you ever sit in an old vehicle as a kid and imagine yourself as an adventurer driving a land cruiser through mountains, beside lakes and dodging craters in the road? Well I felt like I was that kid again in some old vehicle dreaming those old dreams. Except I wasn't imagining it anymore, its real life now; filled with sounds, smells, more beautiful scenery than I had imagined and with kids yelling to me from the side of the road one of my many names here such as 'Mzungu', 'MONUC', or 'Biscuite'.
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One of the regions we visited was a peninsula 5km wide and 10km long and hosted more than 7000 people. The main crops of the area are casava, beans, groundnuts and bananas. However both the bananas and casava are currently affected by disease, and this has taken an especially hard toll especially on the banana production.

A diseased banana.

Casava drying in the sun. These took about 10 months to grow, I was told.

Here are a few photos from the day.

A schoolyard. Sometimes when I'm standing in these places and my eyes are wandering through my surroundings I feel like I'm looking at a picture or painting; but then someone walks out of a door and I remind myself that its all real.