Jan 2008

These stories are all completely unrelated for the most part, but very interesting just the same.

Picturing Congo in National Geographic
When eating dinner at a friend’s house here in town, I was telling everyone about our trip to Lefini to see the gorillas. After dinner, we went into the family room to watch a movie. One of my friends picks a National Geographic out of a pile from the end table and starts flipping through it. She leans over to me and says “look, Congo gorillas.” It turned out to be the exact place I was describing to them earlier in the night. WOW. The pictures in the magazine look similar to the one’s I had taken. If anyone has the February 2000 edition of National Geographic I would gladly take it from you!

Road blocks to Church
In the US, road blocks are put up by the police to check insurance, id, sobriety, etc. In the Congo, anyone can set up a road block. One Sunday morning we were on the way to church and we had to go through two road blocks. Each of these road blocks consisted of three little boys, two fuel drums, and a long bamboo stick….ha. I think they actually made some money. Anyone want to try that on I-75?

Raining like Pooh
Rainy season in Congo started last October and will rain on and off until next summer. The rain in Brazzaville is very different from the rain at home. It rains really hard out of the blue, and then stops out of the blue. However, on some occasions we have torrential rains. It rains so loudly that you can not hear anyone talking inside our office building (tin roofs). One day, I was sitting at my computer and it started to pour. As I was looking out the window, sweet tea (honey pot) in hand, the song from Winnie-the-Pooh came to my mind… “oh the rain rain rain came down down down”. It made me smile and think of my crazy group of friends from Auburn.

Halloween Pumpkins
Halloween was a very fun time in Brazzaville. In preparation for Halloween, I searched all over the city looking for pumpkins, oversized squash, or anything of the sort. When the search came up empty, I tried to think of another approach. I came up with the idea of carving watermelons. I got some small round watermelons. Everyone came over to my house, and we have a watermelon carve. It was super fun. The watermelons ended up looking really good and scary, glowing red.

Chinese = Brain
Chinese people are everywhere. They are even working in Congo Brazzaville. They hold most of the government contracts for the railroad, and they are building the new airport. They are also building the minister of constructions house for free, showing gratitude for awarding them so many contracts. Seeing them around town, I began to wonder what good they are getting out of investing in a place like this (besides the obvious harvesting of the rainforest and oil). I came to the conclusion that they are trying to take over the world (hence the reference in the title of this section to Pinky and the Brain cartoon character).

Chinese = Bad Quality Around the Globe
How hard would you laugh to hear Congolese people in the middle of Africa curse the Chinese for their poor quality products? One worker was hammering something when his hammer fell apart. Someone heard him cursing the Chinese under his breath... everyone was laughing so hard that no one told the guy that the hammer was made in the USA.

Tennis Club
The tennis club has been a great source of joy. Nights are spent playing tennis, and Sundays are spent layout out at the pool with friends. However, the French people didn’t really want us in their club and have started denying American applications. Their hostilities don’t really bother me, though. They refuse to speak English so anything they say to me sounds like gibberish.

Marine Ball, Kinshasa
The marine ball in Kinshasa was really great overall. It was difficult to get to Kinshasa this time, because we did not take the Embassy boat. The trip is miserable without Embassy escort because you have to wait in line for a boat and then be hassled by everyone around. However, upon arrival at the beach in Kinshasa, I went through with my official passport and Gebran tagged along as my translator (ha). The hotel was relatively nice, and over priced at $250/night. The city itself was a breath of fresh air (so to speak, the air is actually dirty). We got to shop at a decent grocery store and eat real food. At the ball, everyone danced all night (after the formal presentations, of course). I met a lot of interesting and important people at the ball. It was a blast. It was a wonderful excuse to get dressed up.

Handicap People
On the return trip from Kinshasa, I saw some very interesting things. Apparently, if you are handicapped in Congo you do not pay customs fees for importing and exporting goods. You can not imagine what people do to take advantage of this. I saw a wheel chair being pushing down the street by two large men. It required two large men to push because on it was a two meter high stack of goods and sitting on top of that was the handicapped guy.

Street Walkers
If you order rebar in Brazzaville, it will not be delivered on a truck. It will be delivered by hand and foot. When driving down the road in town, you must be careful not to hit these guys on the side of the road. Congolese pile supplies of every kind on these rolling metal carts and they proceed to push them down the side of the streets. Often times, you do not even see the guy pushing, you only see the rolling cart. Supplies seen rolling down the street include: a stack of 5 meter high mattresses, bails of hay, bundles of rebar, and live animals.

Military Road Blocks & guns
Real road blocks are placed around town whenever the president travels. All the military police carry big guns. Whenever they get tired of carrying their guns, they prop them up on the ground pointing in the direction oncoming traffic. What a wonderful feeling to drive towards a loaded gun…

Cook
I am not sure if I told everyone that I got a cook. He used to work at a restaurant in town, so he is pretty good. He chooses what to cook everyday, and he is doing a great job so far. Charlie is definitely enjoying the leftover benefits of having a cook.

Football and Keith at Villa Washington
In the fall, we watched football games late at night at Villa Washington. One night we were watching the Auburn game, and all of the sudden… there is Keith Beard. It was such a pleasant surprise to see him on the field during the football game. It made my week. I have a semi-famous friend.

Car Trouble
My car is constant drama. This time, my mirror fell off and I had to tape it back on with clear packing tape. That was very effective.

Drugs and Charlie
Apparently my guard or neighbor smokes illegal drugs at night near the back of my house. I came home one night and Charlie was STONED. Yikes.

Voodoo
I think I have seen the Skeleton Key one to many times. My upstairs neighbor’s girlfriend got kicked out of the house and I thought she put a voodoo spell on our house. I woke up in the middle of the night to take Charlie out and I saw a skinned cat hanging from the back fence. I flipped out. I could not sleep, but kept walking to the window to look at it. I called someone to come over in the morning to look at it. The skinned cat turned out to be a clump of leaves caught on the fence. Hmm. No more scary movies for me.

Taxi driver
When making a U-turn on day on the main street in town, we cut off a taxi driver who was trying to turn in the opposite direction. It should have been courtesy for him to stop for us to pass. Well, he wasn’t happy. He leaned out the window and started yelling and flailing his arms. He got what he deserved when his watch went flying into the intersection.

Christmas Tree and Ornaments
For Christmas, I bought a tree and ornaments from the Asian store in town. The tree was a great addition to the house, but I wasn’t able to buy a star. In the Asian store, they had stars made for other trees but not for mine. I kept trying to buy one of the other ones, but every time I would put the star into my cart, a lady from the store would come behind me and take it out. After several episodes of trying to buy (or steal the star at last resort), I gave up and bought an ugly ball for the tree top.

Christmas Party
I held a Christmas party at my house. All the expats in town (that I know) where invited to the party. We played Dirty Santa where we stole each others gifts and we had delicious food contributed by all.

Being home
Being home was fun, but entirely too short. I enjoyed hanging out with all my friends and family. So many things got packing into twelve days that I could rewrite the song “twelve days of Christmas”. I returned to Congo with wonderful memories, presents, and pneumonia.

Bugs
Upon returning from Christmas holiday, I found my house was infested with these little white bugs. They were eating everything in my house, including the furniture and the packaging for my food. I had to throw everything away and blast my house. It spelt so bad that I could not enter for three day sand Charlie had to stay outside. If anyone wants to send me a care package, now would be a perfect time. I almost cried throwing away all of Charlie’s dog food.

Total Market
I finally got to go to the market and look around the Sunday before last. It was similar to the market in Uganda, but much smaller. I got some fabric for making a few skirts and a ball for the kids who live across the street from me. Gebran could have gotten some amazing pictures, but the people were unwilling to be photographed. Next time we will start with the camera out and shoot as fast as possible.

Dinner with the SIL girls and Dinner at the Bills
For the past two weeks, I have been invited to Monday night dinners. The girls at SIL cooked quesadillas last week and another lady made dessert. It was fun to hang out with them because we had a lot to catch up on. This past Monday night, dinner was at the Bill’s house (CMA missionary family). It was a big group including: the SIL group, some missionaries from Pointe Noire, and also a doctor from the missionary hospital in Enfondo. The Bill’s house is so neat, because they have been working in Africa for over 20 years and have collected a lot of cool artifacts (animal skins and tails, a turtle shell, a snake skin, various animal skulls, etc.)

New people in Congo
This month is bringing many new people to Congo. Thankfully, it has brought a new couple for us to hang out with. The guy works for our owner and his wife is hoping to work at the embassy. They are from Washington and North Dakota, and they have been living in China. That makes for some interesting conversation. I am just happy to add to the list of expats.

Ok, I am exhausted after writing all of that. I have to energy for proof reading, so please excuse me if there are mistakes.

I can’t promise to write again soon (as I didn’t write for many months prior to this), but I will try. Thanks for reading. I love and miss you all,
Allie