All Aboard!

This is what public transportation becomes when deregulation is taken to its logical extreme.

More bird songs

Another, longer, recording is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4MOR8X7GZU Enjoy!

Songbird

I'm taking advantage of a trip to the U.S. (and access to high-speed Internet) to upload videos of a bird that sings in our garden in Kinshas. He has a variety of melodies that are very musical!

I recorded this on my little digital camera one night. Sorry, the visual is not very interesting - it's what I see out my bedroom door at night: garden lights reflected in the pool. The interest is all in the bird's song: it has melody, rhythm, repeated phrases and variations.. amazing!

Botanical Garden of Kisantu

Tammy, Robert, Alphonse, Sam in the Kisantu Botanical Garden




On Sunday, Jan 13, Sam and I went with our gardener to the Botanical Garden of Kisantu. We also took Tammy, Sam's secretary, for the ride. We wanted to find citrus trees (lemon, lime, tangerine) for the DCR garden (Deputy Chief's Residence), dwarf coconuts, finger bananas and other uncommon plants. Most of these would not give fruit in our "lifetime" but one has to think of future generations of DCM's! So we also took our gardener, Alphonse. Robert is the driver.

Kisantu is on the road to Matadi, the Atlantic port city of DRCongo. The Congo River is 2720 miles long, navigable in sections separated by three series of rapids and falls: the "Gates of Hell", a 75-mile-long canyon of impassable rapids tumbling from the East African Rift (the river is called the Lualaba here); Stanley Falls, now Boyoma Falls, 60 miles long just beyond Kisangani, and finally, Livingstone (or Tembo or N'tombo) Falls, separating Matadi at the bottom and Kinshasa at the top. So the road we were on is Kinshasa's lifeline to the world, since the railroad barely functions now. It's been renovated and is now one of the best roads in the country. Certainly the best near Kinshasa. The road heads almost straight south, peeling away from the Congo river just outside the city. We passed the "Welcome to Bas-Congo" province line (my first time out of the Kinshasa province since we got here in August!), the towns of Kasangulu and Madimba, and arrived at Kisantu in just two hours, 120 km.






I was told the gardens had been destroyed during the wars (used as a military camp), so what we found was a pleasant surprise. A small well-kept museum exhibiting different woods of the world, the Botanical and Horticultural Institute, a knowledgeable and pleasant guide, and acres of strange, beautiful and exotic plants and trees, including the mysterious famous "Tacca" - now that I know how to spell it I've found it on the web. And it's not an orchid, either... And you can buy them at Amazon.com! hmf. Look for "Bat Plant."
This is the Tacca plant at the garden, growing a flower bulb.





The garden was founded over a hundred years ago by a Jesuit Brother, Justin Gillet. He was passionnate about plants and gardens. Like Mendel he experimented with cross-breeding. He developed varieties of tomatoes, lettuce, and other edible plants that were hardy here. He isolated a type of grass that is now used for lawns throughout this region.














This is called Nile Lettuce. It cleans the water in which it lives, said our guide. Indeed, I found an article in the Journal of Environmental Management that concludes that "Pistia Stratiotes" can be used for treating urban and agricultural sewage.







Another nearly black plant.







On the way home, we took a detour to see the Kisantu Catholic Cathedral. We were stunned, because this is the most beautiful building we've seen in DRCongo, by far. Apparently the first missionaries here preferred the climate, above the malaria-infested estuary.









(See how wide an angle my little camera can take?)

The cathedral is massive, intricately and well designed, well-proportioned, truly inspiring.


It was Sunday afternoon, but we were lucky: we were allowed inside, and it was just as stunning. Fantastic texture and color all done with bricks. The bricks, we were told, came from a "briquetterie", or brick factory, in the Botanical Gardens.

After this, we also saw the "Grand Seminaire" of Kisantu which is also built of bricks, quite beautiful and well-designed. Seminarians from six dioceses come to study here. They spend at least seven years here on their long road to priesthood. They're partly self-sustaining, with a garden, well, and generator that they turn on four hours every evening for study time.

Then it was time to go home with the usual roadside scenery of rolling hills and busy towns, and overloaded trucks...

La Grace de Dieu, 2

Thursday, I went back to La Grace de Dieu, with three other Foreign Service Spouses, Linda, Erika and Sonia. Erika had bags of clothes she'd brought back from her trip home, and she and Sonia had bought food in bulk; we also had five bags of groceries donated by Steve, a Foreign Service Officer, and I brought a large bag of breadfruit chips, remembering seeing a breadfruit tree over the wall of the orphanage. Our cook, André, has perfected the art of making breadfruit chips: they are completely addictive. We had received 4 huge breadfruits from the British Embassy just 2 days before.

This time I had my new camera, so you get to see pictures.


This is what you see when you step in from the street. It's already improved from my first visit, when the whole yard was strewn with large broken pieces of cement.





We arrived unannounced, despite days of dialing Sr. Victorine's number, but we were greeted warmly. I had expected to find few children there, thinking they'd be in school. But instead, I found all the children, plus a teacher. It must be less expensive to pay one teacher than to pay all the expenses of schooling three dozen children. And safer. But that means the children spend most of their 24/7 on this small compound... When I remember my childhood, going to the playground, museums, parks, etc., I just can't imagine what growing up in a place like this can do to a person.

We were treated to the usual songs and poems. I have a video but after several busts at uploading, in spite of cutting the video down to half a minute, I've given up. If there's a volunteer among my readers with DSL or cable hook-ups, I could try to email you the file, and you could upload it for me...? (assuming the email uploads...)

Sr. Victorine asked us to introduce ourselves. Erika started in Lingala: "Kombo na ngai Erika" (word for word, "name of me Erika" - "na ngai" is pronounced like "none guy" without a break). When I did the same, the teacher exclaimed, "We have an Odile too!" and a little girl ran to me and gave me a big hug. Linda announced her name in French, "Je m'appelle Linda", to great acclaim, and another little girl ran up to her. (I have this on video too, with the bongo drum beating in the background.)

Everyone cheered again when Sonia also found a namesake, then Erika, who hadn't had as much luck with her name, more than made up for it by pulling several bright green tennis balls from her bag, and throwing them to the kids.

While the happy children played and fought over the balls, I told Sr. Victorine about the Embassy project to renovate their toilets. She was elated. "Dieu vous bénisse!" (God bless you!).

For more about the project, please go to http://congoorphans.pledgepage.org/. This is a webpage I've created hoping to be able to raise funds for this effort. There are two consecutive national holidays next Wednesday and Thursday, and 14 embassy employees including masons, plumbers, electricians, etc have volunteered to spend that time completely overhauling the toilet, shower and septic tank. This is very generous of them, who certainly have their own homes and families to take care of.

...ALL I HAVE TO DO IS RAISE TWO OR THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS BY WEDNESDAY! <:o

This is the latrine (hope this photo doesn't violate blogspot rules about decency. In fact, it IS indecent that children have to live in such conditions. But they're still much better off here in this orphanage than on the street. This is what happens to countries after decades of plunder, pillaging, and war. Anyone tempted by the "less government" rhetoric I hear from some American politicians, please come for a visit. I'll give you a personal tour.)

Then we went to visit the babies, who live in "girls' dorm", door all the way to the left in the first picture. I was pleased to see that new bunks with mattresses AND SHEETS had been added in this room.

The inner rooms look much the same as before: as dark as caves, no mattresses on some of the beds, no linens, no pillows, no pictures on the walls...

A nice-looking young woman was taking care of the babies. The babies are both absolutely beautiful.

This is one of the two deaf sisters. They go to a school for the deaf, but it's far from the orphanage, and Thursday (maybe most days?), they didn't have the bus money. They proudly wrote their name for me, but when I wrote back in French, "Do you like reading?" thinking I could give them some of the books that illuminated my own childhood, it drew blank stares. Either they can't read, or don't know French. They both have striking, very light blue eyes.

Sr. Victorine gave the breadfruit chips out to the children by handfuls, to everyone's delight. She asked me what they were. MY CUE!

If you've read my previous posts, you know it's my personal mission to get all of Congo to love breadfruit as much as I do.

By then I had noted that there isn't just one, but there are FOUR breadfruit trees within sight of the orphanage. I pointed to them. "Momboya?" she said. Then her face lit up. Could I show her how to make momboya chips? I could see the small-business wheels spinning in her head. Remember, we had "discovered" La Grace de Dieu when she had submitted an application for Ambassador's Special Self-Helf funds, for seed money for a fish-salting business, with which she wanted to produce income for the orphanage.

"You bet!" I said. She gave me a high-five.

Please go to my snapfish album at the link below for more pictures.

http://www2.snapfish.com/share/p=557111200074894166/l=342532367/g=108896982/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

and don't forget to check out the Congo Orphans Pledgepage:

http://CongoOrphans.Pledgepage.org

Village Chief

January 3, 2008

The Sisters needed to talk to the village chief who sold them their 48 hectares at Menkao, so they invited me to come along. The delegation was Sr. Celestine, the Provincial Superior, Sr. Anita, the Superior of the Gombe house, Sr. Georgette, in charge of development projects, and Sr. Jacinthe, treasurer. Plus the driver, "Papa Nestor." He's been with them for many years, and he's the one who told them about the spring of pure, clear, POTABLE water that gushes out of the hillside a few kilometers from their land.

Our mission: to get the Chief to allow the sisters access to that water.

We covered the 100 km to Menkao in no time, because the Sisters have a 4-W drive (wing) mostly powered by angels (they say, the embassy driver was slow). We picked up one of the Chief's sons in one village, then drove some more, and picked up another son in another village. Then we angled off the paved road and after a few more bone-rattling, neck-cricking kilometers, we reached the End of the Road: the chief's house.

Houses. One for him, and one for each of his five wives.

Picture: the chief's children and grandchildren. Chief's house on the right. No running water or electricity. Drums and a half-length of bamboo collect water from the tin roof.

The chief wasn't there yet, so we waited and talked with the sons. One of them had an eye that closed all the time, and wore only one flip-flop, because his other foot was covered with sores. Diabetic? He was also wearing layers of clothes, a sweatshirt over a long sleeved shirt, and a cowboy hat. The other looked healthier and dressed more elegantly. At Georgette's question of how many villages he was chief of (each son managed part of the kingdom), he raised his eyes and counted out loud, "One, two, three...."... up to 43 houses. "About 300 families," he answered.

Finally, the chief arrived, walking up the path, and greeted us briefly without stopping or slowing down, heading straight for his house. He has twinkly eyes and smooth cheeks. We were allowed in the house. It was too dark to see at first, then we sat in the musty armchairs.

Since the conversation was in Lingala, I can only relate what Sr. Celestine whisper-interpreted to me. The only word of French the chief spoke was "reconnaissance" but I could tell it wasn't a feeling he himself was presently glowing with. No, according to Sr. Celestine, he was scolding the sisters, who "come and go like military, first I'm dealing with someone, then it's someone else," for their lack of gratitude. The previous sister, he assured them, came to see him all the time, and showed proper gratitued by bringing gifts. He had sold them good land. Why were they not grateful? And where were they when he was ill and needed to go to Kinshasa?

The conversation lasted well over an hour. Very formal, all deferring to the chief. The sons spoke, the sisters spoke. No one spoke when the chief was speaking, so he could go on and on for quite a while. No emotions on any of the faces, including the sons'. Only the chief, with his twinkly eyes. He smiled all the time, even when he was scolding. Why shouldn't he? He was so obviously in control here.

The chief's smile turned even brighter when they explained their project, which includes a school for the village children, a small pharmacy, agricultural projects. Development! His grandson had learned about it when he went away to go to school. His grandson is a schoolteacher now. Studied history.

Picture: Inside the chief's hut. Sr. Celestine and the chief's grandson and daughter (different wives). Note: it was much darker than the photo indicates.

Yes, development is good, but respect comes first. Gratitude. But the chief likes the sisters, and he knows the spring they are talking about. It is his own personal spring. He is a good chief to his people. He will let the sisters use this spring.

After the sisters had promised repeatedly to show plenty of gratitude (in cash), the meeting was over. I asked if I might take a few photos, and the chief said he must first change clothes. So we waited while he disappeared in the adjoining room, and reappeared with a robe, headdress and scepter. We went outside to take the photos.

Picture: the chief in front of his front door.

After the photo session, I took a few pictures of some of the wives and children. He only has 18 children.

In conclusion, on the way back (after we'd dropped the sons off in their respective villages), the sisters commented that not only we'd been spared the usual three hours of drumming and dancing in masks and feathers, we hadn't even been offered a glass of water! The chief must have been really mad at the sister's lack of gratitude. But in the end, he let them have the spring water, so it was a good day's work.

My own conclusion: no need to look any farther for an explanation of why "Africa" (gross generalization about to happen here!) hasn't made more progress. The village chiefs still "own" the land after selling it, and they'll skim any profit anyone makes right off the top. Where does the money go? Not for roads, wells, or electricity. Or schools. The money goes to More Wives for the Chief.

Sorry, not feeling very Politically Correct after this trip.

I love my new camera

It has a wider angle than my previous camera. It zooms. It has point-and-shoot image stabilization. It takes videos. It takes macros (close-ups). It's tiny. It's rechargeable (no batteries to buy/throw away). It took me days of research to decide on. If you ask me, and you eat all your veggies, I'll let you know which of the hundreds of models it is. It's perfect.

I woke up in the middle of the night, on Saturday morning, realizing that I needed to charge the battery before morning. We had a big day planned. We were going out in the country again! This time, we were going with one of the Marines, Sgt Aaron Beck, who's in charge of the missionwide "Toys for Tots" program. But mostly, we were going with the Sisters (Franciscan Missionaries of Mary) because I'd met someone that had something very interesting to show them, out on the Bateke Plateau, in the same area as their land with the non-functioning well (see The Sisters and the Well): a model/school farm, already in operation, teaching Kinshasa street boys how to live and work in the country. Just what the Sisters want to do with street girls. Immediately we had set up the visit, and since it was almost Christmas, it could be combined with the Toys for Tots program.

We had stocked up on food for the tots, too. Almost accidentally! Here's how it happened. A grocery store in Kinshasa circulated an ad offering gift packages of food for employers to buy for their employees. I asked my cook and two housecleaners if the prices were interesting, and not too surprisingly, they said the next to largest box was the best value for the money. So I put in an order. I also thought Sam's two drivers should be included, and the gardner, and the guards. We found out there are five guards. I put in the order for three large packages, each with a huge, 25 kg bag of rice, 10 kg bag of cornmeal, and large reusable grocery bag filled with cans, bags and bottles: oil, sugar, tomato paste, sardines, etc; and five smaller packages, including the bag of rice and some of the cans. PLUS, frozen chickens for everyone.

Well, when all this food arrived at my house, it became a problem for everyone: how to get it home? So I offered to buy it back from them all, and they were happy with the deal. And I was very happy, because grocery shopping is a major hassle here, and all this well-packaged food was ready to go to the orphanages: La Grace de Dieu, Becky's home for street boys and another orphanage in Masina, the FMM's orphanage in Kintambo, and now, Father Guido's "Boys Town". He doesn't call it that, but I have a hard time with African names.

I had met Father Guido at an International Women's Club meeting. He is an Italian priest, who was sent here by his order, alone, 13 years ago, to see what he could do, and what he found most appalling was the condition of the street children. He had very little funds, but he more than makes it up in energy and contagious enthusiasm. He now has brought three African priests into his order, mobilized funding and volunteers from all parts, mostly his Italian connections, and he has built a center for street children in Kinshasa. And 5 years ago, he bought land on a lake (or large pond) on the Bateke plateau, and built dorms, farm buildings, a meeting hall, a schoolhouse, a solar powerhouse, water tanks, all as if there hadn't been a civil war going on.

So that's how we spent our Saturday. The road was long and painful, but we were in good company. The dirt road part was just as bad as going to the Sisters' place at Menkao. But when we arrived there, what a difference! A tree-shaded avenue leads to a campus with many buildings, connected by paved paths lined with flowers and bushes. Cows graze in a well-enclosed pasture, next to the henhouse and pigsty. Every kind of fruit tree including, yes, a small breadfruit tree, a trellis heavy with passionfruit, vegetable plots, pineapples, and, he said, they've put fish in the new artificial lake. Potable water comes from a spring 500 meters away. That's a lot of plumbing, so we asked who had done the work. We were surprised to find out that it was the same company that had dug the well and built the installations at Menkao. Padre Guido recommended getting back in touch with them, that it was likely they'd fix it. Except, being nearly the only competent people in Kinshasa, they're overwhelmed with work.

You can see my photos of this trip on snapfish. Internet connection is bad, so bad that I lost my first draft of this post trying to upload a video.

P.S. Actually, it wasn't lost. So, if you want to read a different version of the same story, look at the post below, "Padre Guido." Also, it has the snapfish link to the photo album.