Toto au Congo

A few quick posts with an hour of Internet time following four days of no Internet, no phone, and for the past two days, no electricity ...

Interviewed and shot "Toto" the (Japanese) logistician in Kabizo the other day, and he told some good stories about logistical "challenges", and his travels along the logistician-in-the-Congo learning curve. Which of course made sense to turn into comics ...

Condition: Critical

Hundreds of thousands of people are on the run, fleeing a war raging in eastern Congo in the provinces of North and South Kivu, and in the northern Oriental province. In both areas the civilian populations have become the victims of an escalating conflict.

People are frightened. Many are sick or wounded. Others have been harassed or raped, or have had everything they own stolen. For more than a decade, several armed groups and the army have been fighting each other. The conflicts in Ituri and Haut Uélé, both in the Oriental province, are less known to the outside world, as the situation is not yet as critical as in the Kivus. But at the same time the violence has made it impossible for people to lead normal lives. Life isn’t just hard in eastern Congo: this region is in critical condition. And things aren’t getting any better. The destiny of everyone in this region is shaped by war and violence. The story of their struggle to survive needs to be told.

Condition: Critical is regularly updated by MSF with new eyewitness accounts, photos and video from the people living through the crisis in eastern Congo.

http://www.condition-critical.org/feature/

Ayako, photographe

"We'll be fine!"

Lions and Cannibals

In case of death or dismemberment ...

Ayako Reviews the Visa Paperwork ...

Going to the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...

From July 19-August 4, I'll be in the Democratic Republic of Congo, shooting photographs for a project I am undertaking with Medecins Sans Frontieres Japan (www.msf.or.jp/).

The project arose from a couple of efforts I made to create "comic books" from photographs of 1) HIV/AIDS victims in Cambodia, shot by Bangkok-based photographer Masaru Goto (www.masarugoto.com), which can be seen here: http://urgentactionneeded.blogspot.com/, and 2) malnutrition sufferers in Niger, developed from images I selected from the Medecins Sans Frontieres database. That "comic" can be seen here: http://msfhelpingthehungry.blogspot.com/.

I'll be traveling (with Ayako Tsujisaka, of Medecins Sans Frontieres Japan) to Kinshasa, and then up country, to Goma, Rutshuru, Kabizo, Nyanzale, Bunia and Gety. Ayako-san and I will be visiting a number of Medecins Sans Frontieres programs that deal with a wide range of health issues, ranging from sexual violence to malnutrition to general hospital medical care and more.

Depending on the availability of electricity and an Internet connection, I'll be posting to this blog as often as I can. Some images, some text, and as many "comics" as I can. I put "comics" in quotes because I don't expect many of them to be too humorous ... the comic book medium will be a storytelling medium.

More from ... the heart of darkness.