SUNGLASSES ANYONE - MONDAY

Street vendors sell everything. We see sunglasses salesmen everywhere. The display is a large sheet of foam into which the glasses are stuck and carried about the city. Just before this man a man with a live snake passed our window, but we did not have the camera at the ready. They often sell puppies which they hold out as the cars pass. Rumor has it that they are taken from stray females around the city. We have purchased maps, pillows, and fruit from these vendors. They watch carefully, and if your eyes stray toward their merchandise they see it instantly and approach with intensity. So keep your eyes forward unless you are in the market. The street is you mall, especially during rush hour when you are at a standstill, or creeping along. We see them running beside slow moving cars conducting business. 

CONFERENCE SUNDAY

A young bird fledged today. The birds nest in the plants hanging from the planters on the apartment balconies above us. The wind occasionally blows a nest from above to our roof deck. We hope a crow doesn't get this one as was the fate of another chick a few weeks ago.

The baked bread brick from flour we bought. Sue threw together a loaf of bread and put it in the bread-maker. It came out like a brick doorstop. We bought new flour last week. Because the last batch of flour seemed like it was unbleached, not whole wheat, Elder Moon told the miller he wanted flour with more bran. I think his request lost something in the translation, speaking English to a native Lebanese who supposedly speaks English, he relaying the request to a Lingala speaking African in non-native French, the result being what looks to me to be about 75 percent bran, hence the baked brick. It tastes good slathered with butter and honey. But what do you do with 100 lbs of bran flour? I will be there next time to clarify what we want, whole grain, nothing added, nothing taken away!

Take a look at that mie, umbilical still in place. We tasted it straight, toasted it, baked it at low temp to dry it to see if it was better as a cracker, broke it up and threw it on the deck for the crows to see if they will eat it.

PASTRIES AND COOKIES

The locals. You should be familiar with them all by now. L-R, Bybees, Moons, Billings, Smiths.

Cookies Sue baked for the cookie gathering. We forgot to photograph each batch of cookies which others brought. They were all delicious.

French pastries purchased to day at two different Patisserie shops. L-R, Couque Suisse (raison roll), Apple turnover, apple tarte, oval apple tarte, coconut tartelette.

Boxes from the two patisserie shops.

We have cards, so we exist. It is a miracle that only one typo exists, but it is sad it is in the second email address, only one "f" where there should be two.

FLOUR MILL AND MICRO FINANCE

Tow truck picking up illegally parked car blocking traffic. I don't know how they decide who is or is not parked illegally. Cars park anywhere they please, it appears to me.

Elder Moon ordering flour from the Lebanese manager at the entrance to the warehouse where the flour is milled.

Iphone photo, we were in a rainstorm and I bobbled the phone. This is a very narrow spiral staircase leading to one of the micro-finance offices. Sue was very silent and cautious because open rail and stairs giver her vertigo. We descended by a different non-spiral staircase. 

Director of MUFESAKIN micro-finance company and Sue and I.

Entrance to the micro-finance offices. The acronym is expanded below it. Savings and Credit Union of the Wise Women of  Kinshasa.

This is a large institutional bank that has a micro-credit department. It was very crowded inside. We gave the armed guards our ID in exchange for a visitor tag to enter. We met with the manager in charge of Micro-Credit. At each of the three stops we took a moment to explain the humanitarian projects of the Church in the area and that we will be building a temple here. We left a copy of the Liahona Temple issue so they could read about our temples around the world. We left a B of M also at two of the places and a brochure on the family.

Semi-truck being loaded with 100 lb flour sacks for delivery at the mill where we purchased ours.

HOSPITAL

We visited the Military Hospital today. This is the only photo. It is in the middle of a military base. The narrow halls were dark and  dirty, the rooms, cramped and crowded. The patients, mostly women and children, sat on the concrete floors, in the entryway, and in a large area resembling a poorly lit underground parking lot, where a single table with an attendant who appeared to be an intake nurse was sitting. Outside in a dirt courtyard, shaded by a single tree, pregnant women and family members lay on blankets in its shade, awaiting delivery in the rooms bordering the courtyard. As we were in the blue truck, about to leave, a man hailed us from the window and signaled us inside. We spent a delight few minutes visiting with the hospital chief administrator, and heart specialist, and gave him a book of Mormon and Joseph Smith, and Family brochure. The base is a complete village with housing for high and low officers in housing meriting their high or low status. It was a very instructive experience.

SUNDAY 2013 04 21 NGALIEMA STAKE

After Church in Ngaliema. Everyone loves a photo.

Brother Billings talking with a ward member.

Jean Pierre, one of Brother Billings students who will go with him to Likasi to help train new students and to support the new couple  that is coming to teach construction when the Billings move to Kananga for the last six months of their mission.

These women wanted a picture with Sister Bybee. We love the beautiful dresses. See the light in their faces.

View of the Chapel.

Wall around the dwelling on the other side of the street from the Chapel.

Closeup of the tile pattern on the wall.

AMERICAN EAGLE

The Moons in front of American Eagle, a variety store owned by a Lebanese American family from New Jersey for twenty years. We have made friends with the two brothers who run it. One is a non-practicing family doctor, and the younger brother is a business management graduate. We enjoy conversation with the older brother who does not speak any of the local languages and so seems eager to converse when we come in. Their inventory is diverse, ranging from home decor, to tools, office furniture, and home furnishings of all sorts, plus fabric and some toys. 

Here is how you fix a broken plastic chair leg.

The old Belgian era building in the background.

Returning to our apartment, approaching 30th of June Plaza.

Rounding the Plaza, the green building is the Gare Central (Central Train Station).

Building second from right is our apartment building. The first two floors are occupied by USAID.. White office building to the right was built bu the Chinese. We look right into it from our office and kitchen. It is not fully occupied yet.

A closer view of our building dead center.

We returned at about 13h00, end of the Saturday school day and the students are leaving.

MICRO FINANCE -- FOOD, ODD COMBINATION

In the office of the National Director of Micro-Finance, Thierry Ngoy on the left, and Olivier Tshimanga on the right. You should know the two in the middle.

This relief is in the entrance of the building which used to be owned by an American petroleum refinery company. I don't know which one.

This is the only head of cauliflower I will eat in the two years we are here. It cost $26.00, $14.00 per kilo. We will eat it slowly and with great relish.

The pot of lentil potato curry, with peas, tomato, and some of the pricey cauliflower. It tasted VERY good.

MICRO FINANCE MEETING

We met with the National Director of the Ministry of Micro-Credit for the DRC. He is at the head ot the table. Left to right: Sue, Elder Moon, Moi, Olivier, the Director Thierry, His associate, Rodrick. The Ministry was created in 20ll by the President to promote "autonomie" self-sufficiency among the disadvantaged class in the DRC. Two thousand women from the four divisions of Kinshasa, plus three thousand young people of promise, will be trained and assisted in establishing small business with the end result to become self sustaining. The program will be rolled out across the DRC in collaboration with religious, NGOs, and other capable groups that strive to improve living conditions for the people of the DRC. The Church will collaborate by expanding the Interweave program that teaches good business practices, and living standards that create a well rounded individual bound for success. The Interweave program has been in operation for awhile and has graduated many students, many to successful small enterprises. We will publicize the effort. Rodrick is our main local media person who helps spread the word. http://www.digitalcongo.net/This is the URL for the digital journal where Rodrick is employed.

HOME ALONE

Figs are very ripe now. They attract some unusual birds that I tried to photograph without success, but will try again. There are also flying beetles.

Fig clusters.

Closeup of figs.

The leaves are not the shape we have on the fig trees at home, but they have the same tacky feel. 

WELL EXCAVATION -- AGED WOMAN

Courtyard of home where well number 5 is being excavated. The bucket frame and pulley for removing dirt stands over the well where a digger works and men empty buckets of sand as the digging progresses.

View of the courtyard and new well lining rings with the forms still attached stand to the left.

Far left, supervisor from the NGO, a worker, the Moons, the woman who owns the property, workers, and family members looking on.

Newly cast well lining rings, worker emptying a bucket in the background.

The Moons watching the digging.

Worker digging. The lining round is attached to a base ring slightly larger than the liner, barely visible at the bottom edge of the liner, As the liner sinks into the hole, gravel is packed around the shaft to ease the descent, and to assure that the tube remains vertical.

Worker digging.

Moving a second liner into place. All is manual labor.

Positioning the second well liner ring. A worker has entered the well to prepare to make a hole in each ring in three places so that an iron rod can be added to attach the segments so they don't separate during the descent.

This is how they descend and ascend, even when the well reaches sixty feet deep, or more.

Worker punching hole for the attachment rods.

We talked with the landowner who has been a widow for twenty years, and found that her 95 year old mother lived with the extended family in the compound, in an adjacent room, and were invited to meet this delightful, blind, woman, who was happy to meet Mundeles (white people) and she sang a song of thanks. She attributes her longevity to the Grace of God. Their faith is evident by the images on the wall.

Mother, daughter, Sister Moon, Elder Bybee. The daughter was in her sixties. She has six children and 15 grandchildren. We did not ascertain the posterity of the aged lady.