Home, Sweet Home

Before I came to the Democratic Republic of Congo, a refugee camp, in my mind's eye, comprised orderly rows of blue United Nations-supplied tents, perhaps even including an Internet cafe tent, and Silvio Berlusconi wandering around in expensive loafers, an expensive sweater draped over his shoulders and a fake look of concern pasted onto his face.

The Congolese reality is somewhat different. "Camp" simply means "place where people have started to live together, for (often illusory) security and because aid (food/medical) distribution more easily finds large groups of refugees".

Refugees/IDPs build their own huts, from sticks and grass and mud, and hope that aid organizations will eventually build toilets and water sanitation facilities (and distribute food). The plastic sheeting that covers some huts is (as far as I heard and could see) no longer distributed by the U.N. (perhaps this distribution is done only during "emergencies" ... not sure) – those who have plastic sheeting were given it years ago, or bought it from others.

The huts are tiny, only a few square meters (in which it is impossible to stand upright), sometimes divided into two sections, one for "living" (cooking/eating) and one for sleeping. Families of up to half a dozen (and sometimes more) adults and children live in these huts, and when you look inside, you can understand why the MSF medical teams encounter so many burn victims; cooking is done inside the huts as well, either over a small open stove (rocks on which a pot can be rested over charcoal) or a small oven (sculpted from mud).

Not a pair of Ferragamo loafers in sight ...