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Bridget's Bunia Blog 62 | In praise of the humble ditch

Bridget's Bunia Blog 62 | In praise of the humble ditch

"a ditch: a long narrow cut in the earth" Webster's New World Dictionary

Most roads in Bunia have some kind of ditch cut along their edges. It's the unspoken rule that the proprietor has to keep his stretch of ditch clean and in good order. If the ditch is quite deep, then a brick-and-cement culvert is constructed at the entrance way of the property.

With the new wave of construction taking place in town, there's a new design in ditches. They are cut deep and straight aided by a plumb line. They are bricked and cemented as beautifully as the house itself. However, these beautiful new ditches only extend the length of the property and then they peter out into the rough, sandy gutter of the poor next-door neighbour.

What are ditches for?

Primarily to collect and carry away rain water from the path of pedestrians. But there are many more uses for ditches.

To collect garbage. Beware the time when this is being shovelled out into the middle of the road as you are passing by. You might get hit by a shovelful of gunky sand full of old batteries, odd shoes, corncobs, black plastic bags...
Unfortunately, to serve as a breeding ground for mosquito larvae in those stretches where the grass and weeds aren’t cut and the water collects.
To be a play-ground where children can sit, roll, and play hide-and-seek.
To provide a place of delight for children after a rain storm

where they can wade in bare feet.
where they can float pretend boats which are no more than empty sardine tins or flip-flops.
where they can construct dams and bridges in the damp sand.

To be a place of calm for a mother dog playing with her shaggy pup.
To act as a bike-rack. (All good university towns must have bike-racks!)
To function as an escape lane for a truck that loses its brakes.
To be a means of protecting your 'quartier' from unwanted through traffic. Like the barons of yore who withdrew the drawbridge from across the moat, local people dig a ditch and remove the planks and/or tree trunks when the need arises or the mood takes them. However, the dogged determination of the vehicle drivers, the process of erosion of the planks, and the re-channelling of sand and mud after the rain eventually lead to the flattening of the ditch and the way is opened up for vehicles to pass.

But I haven’t observed any blind men in a ditch. Matthew 15:14

Blessings,

Bridget

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About Bridget Howard

Bridget Howard’s first recollection of Africa is being shown slides of termite hills in the Belgian Congo during a Sunday school class. “From a young age I had a sense of purpose from God that I would one day teach in Africa”.

Bridget is not one to freely give out her age but it occasionally does slip out that she first went to Congo to work 26 years ago when the country was still called Zaïre. Her first assignment was as a teacher at Rethy Academy, the Mission’s school for children of its members. Her next assignment was as a school inspector in Zandeland where, as she puts it, she: “cycled around inspecting teachers and outside toilets of the church schools!”

Following evacuation from Congo as a result of the fighting that errupted around the Great Lakes in the wake of the Rwandan genocide, Bridget worked at Aim’s International Office in Bristol. She returned to Congo in 2005 to teach English at the Institut Supérieur Pédagogique in Bunia. The ISP exists to prepare students to teach at secondary schools run by the CECA-20, Aim’s partner church in Congo.

Since her return Bridget has been sending her ‘blog’. She admits that ‘composition’ was not a favourite lesson when at secondary school but writing has become less of a chore as she told friends back in the UK of her daily experiences of life in Africa. “Maybe it’s an exalted sense of my own importance as being ‘From Our Own Correspondent-like’ I can pretend to be Aim’s very own Kate Adie!”