There Was No WiFi

Up early one morning in Nyanzale, I found the hot water for showers (the "hot water heater" is at the left in this photo) had not been "turned on", and after I rousted Prometheus, I decided to edit some photos while waiting for the water to heat up.

I then decided to take a photo of myself in rustic surroundings, so I propped my camera on a box, set the timer, and ... was surprised by Dr. Andre Kambale Kisula, emerging from his room for his own shower. [The green buckets are for mixing cold with the hot, and the sandbags behind me are shielding the "panic room", into which everyone in the compound crowds in case the bullets start flying.]

Andre, who specializes in pediatrics and nutrition, had worked in Nyanzale for two years, after a stint in Goma, which he said was relatively easy doctoring by comparison.

In Nyanzale, he said, children arrive for treatment at the Centre de Santé much further along in the development of their pathologies, and often exhibit multiple pathologies as well as malnutrition (which is also often the cause of their other problems).

It's almost enough to make you forget the frustration of being hundreds of kilometers from a WiFi signal. Or any non-satphone Internet connection at all, for that matter.