Malnutrition- Protein Deficiency (5 of 5)

Without a trained eye, malnutrition can be easily overlooked, especially in North Kivu. Caloric intake is not the most pressing nutritional concern here; instead persistent protein deficiency causes many children to develop and often die from kwashiorkor, otherwise known as oedematous malnutrition. 

Kwashiorkor is a confounding factor in nutritional surveys because it causes a child to retain fluids throughout the body leading to deceiving weight-for-height and weight-for age results. Leading the fight against malnutrition in Butembo are two hospitals-  Katawa Hospital and  Université Catholique du Graben’s (UCG) hospital. Both provide three-week rehabilitation to children and mothers but the hospitals limited capacity cannot address Butembo’s nutritional nightmare.

The struggle to acquire sufficient nutrition is faced by a vast majority of Congolese in North Kivu. The diets of many Congolese here rely heavily on cassava, bananas and fruit.

 UCG’s agricultural department is attempting to address one of the roots of malnutrition by developing protein rich varieties of soya and improving breeding techniques for rabbits and guinea pigs but this research is still in early stages. The immediate future looks bleak but researchers, NGO’s and mothers remain hopeful.  

Graft (4 of 5)

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Sample of Monthly Salaries in Butembo
Position	Salary
Primary School Teacher	$47
Immigration Office, Director	$50
Road Maintenance Personnel	$20
Police Officer	$40
Airport Passport Processor	> $50
Gasoline Stand Operator	$80

To be clear, I'm not negatively portraying the government or any public officials. I'm grateful for their public service and the security they provide me. 

Struggling Education System (3 of 5)

Each school day Shakes, a 12 year old boy in Butembo, arrives to school before any other children and is the last to leave. Like many children in his situation, Shakes isn’t going to school to learn, he goes to school to earn money for his family. Shakes sells sugarcane and bananas, earning roughly 75 cents a day. With four brothers and sisters, the income Shakes earns is likely necessary for survival.

Shakes selling bananas to students

Though attending school is constitutionally compulsory and free, in reality even the price of public education is at least $20 and many children are not registered to attend. The argument to send a child to school isn’t always convincing when the cost of school means having to sacrifice somewhere else like food, clothing or shelter.

The low benchmarks of standardized education found during the Buffett survey clearly manifest themselves in the markets in North Kivu where women and children peddling produce don’t understand more than a few words of French.  French is the primary language used in schools so it’s clear these hard working individuals did not receive a standardized education.

Surprisingly, staggering levels of truancy do not correlate with low number of universities in Butembo, North Kivu. Butembo recently shut down nearly half of its 23 universities and colleges for not registering with the ministry of education. There’s a high demand from parents and children for higher education but there’s also a growing concern within the local community that many of the universities are scamming their students by providing educations without providing valuable skills.  

Reputable universities such as Université Catholique du Graben (UCG) struggle to address concerns within their student body about rising tuition (currently $243 a semester). UCG students have demonstrated their concerns in the form of three walkouts within the past year.

While many children’s parents can’t afford sending their children to school, some universities are scams and others are struggling to keep costs down.  Aat least the streets of Butembo are safe enough for the children to go to school. It’s a start.

The Price of Communication (2 of 5)

In an age where telecommunications has been taken for granted throughout the majority of the world for at least a decade, North Kivu struggles to maintain basic contact with the outside world and according to a few benchmarks of communication, North Kivu is regressing. 

In 1930, Butembo, North Kivu opened it’s first and only post office. Today a dilapidated building with hundreds of unused mailboxes remains. With unreliable dirt roads that are prone to rebel attacks connecting major cities, international mail handlers DHL Express and Express Mail Service (EMS) must use expensive air transport for their limited operations. According to the EMS office in Butembo, the minimum shipping rate for a package weighing up to 1.1 pounds being sent from Butembo to the Goma is $62- a price that limits it’s operations to only two packages being sent out of the EMS office per week to Goma. Instead, the merchants of Butembo use a decentralized network of baggage handlers utilizing large cargo trucks and cell phones.

Development of the DRC's internet and broadband market has been held back by the poorly developed national and international infrastructure. Exasperating the scarcity of communication, the three telecommunication providers Airtel, Vodacom and Orange routinely experience outages lasting for days, and because the DRC doesn’t have a fiber optic cable, internet must pass through these sluggish and expensive telecommunication providers. Only one hotel and two or three internet cafes in the entire city of Butembo, population roughly eight hundred thousand, have internet capabilities that allow a user to stream a low resolution video with frequent re-buffering. 

Estimated market penetration rates in the DRC’s telecoms sector – end 2013

Market	Penetration rate
Mobile	35%
Fixed	0.1%
Internet	2.3%

(Source: BuddeComm based on various sources)

When a Plague of Locusts is a Blessing (1 of 5)

From Mid-November to late December swarms of long-horned grasshoppers descend on North Kivu. Instead of fearing these green invaders, children, parents and grandparents alike search every nook and cranny to collect and then devour them. 

Mouths, caterpillars and larva are also consumed in North Kivu. Because of the high protein of insects in this protein deficient region of the world, insects provide a recess from chronic hunger faced by the majority of the local population.

Some ingenious Congolese erect large aluminum sheets with extremely bright lights that attract the insects and then funnel them into baskets where they are collected throughout the night.  In Butembo, North Kivu, a single trap can gather as many as 50 – 400 – 15,000 kilograms of grasshoppers in a single night. At $2 USD per kilogram this is a substantial income.