KINSHASA - BACK HOME - VALENTINE'S DAY

Valentine's Day dinner at the Johnsons. Sue was ill so I went alone but didn't stay for dessert.

The surprise main dish is meatloaf with mashed potatoes.

Heart shaped were baked by the Mathesons.

Drinks were a concoction of three sodas. I drank water, thank you. The Sneddons brought fruit salad, and the Smiths brought a red cake.

Everyone got in the group photo.

The red cake.

A bouquet for Sue for Valentine's Day. I couldn't resist.

Sue resting while getting better. She had stomach flu evidently and once her stomach emptied she improved steadily, but didn't eat for over 24 hours.

Visiting with Church members who work in the media and want to make a video about the history of the Church in the Congo.

Newly hatched on the Chapel wall at GB.

I dropped in to see the remodel of the storage facility behind the GB chapel. Eloi and his crew are adding some steel doors and window grates for increased security so they can store equipment here for the temple construction I suspect. I was fascinated by the piece of junk on the floor, but was informed that it is their welder and it is better by far than the new ones on the market. Have a close look

The workers and Eloi.

Power to the welder was supplied by two wires running a hundred yards to a power pole across the chapel grounds. Bare wires everywhere carrying 220 volts. Watch out.

The wires ran off across the grass off into the distance.

Carpet the Gates were considering buying for their apartment.

The Collins, USAID employee, and LDS invited all the missionaries for dinner. This is the hardest duty they have had and Sister Collins feels a bit isolated so they love to have people over.

The Mission President and his wife made this activity. They are usually traveling.

Brother Collin's son trying to eat his cake.

In his bedroom.

Their living room. They live in a new villa because the original family for whom it was built didn't make it to the Congo so the Collins got it because they have the largest family. It is a beautiful home but when they moved in they had to deal with the local construction faults though most of the problems have been resolved. The home is located right on the Congo River near one of the government ministers offices.

Spider man.

Mardoché on the left in yellow and Jacques in the red shoes, waiting for Church to start. After the meetings we went to the prison to visit Mardoché's father, Didier, where we had a memorable experience. No photos are allowed at the prison. It is difficult to describe the feeling there. Lines of mostly women and children file in to visit family members incarcerated, often for little of nothing. Didier has been there for three months and not yet tried or sentenced.

A chapel where we attended church. These are often located in the middle of squalor. Here young men play soccer in the dirt street in front of the chapel.

Attending Priesthood meeting.

Bishop.

The Passion Fruit vine is blooming, and now has fruit.

A very strange flower blooming in the garden surrounding the Temporal Affairs offices.

A street vendor selling turtle on the hoof for dinner. You boil them and pry off the shell to eat it.

Turtles.

The flycatcher on our porch trying to dismember a dead gecko. He shook the thing for a long time and I didn't see him eat it if he did.

BURUNDI - HOSPITAL HUMANITARIAN HANDOVER - BANQUET AT THE CHURCH - MORE

On the plane to Burundi

Nairobi landing.

Elder Ngongo on his way to Burundi also. We met him in the airport and spent the seven hours together.

We had lunch, or whatever meal it was, together.

Rusama Palace Residence the first room. It leaked from the ceiling. The bathroom toilet leaked all over the floor which Sue discovered at 5h00 when she went to use the toilet. There were lots of mosquitoes. The electricity was off much of the time. The wireless internet did not work.

The sitting room was comfortable, but when a lamp was plugged in it tripped the breaker.

Vies of the sitting room in other direction.

The management placed a fruit plate on the table in the kitchenette. Local oranges are green skinned. The small purple fruit are eaten by cutting off an end to squeezing out the purple seed ridden contents. It is sweet but an acquired taste.

Kithenette.

The doors required a lot of carpentry.

View from the room into the courtyard.

The purple fruit cut and ready to eat.

The doves here are a chocolate color.

View across the roof tops.

Garden looking toward the entrance gates.

The resident feline.

View to the top floor where our rooms were located.

The tall columnar trees are Faux Mangier, I was told.

The dining area.

Omelets and fruit every day for the included breakfast.

Our friend Aloys who is the National Public Affairs Director.

Random view of downtown Bujumbura, Burundi.

The recently remodel structure that is now used for the chapel and multi-purpose ares.

The Chapel set up for Sacrament Meeting.

Elder Cahoon fixing the door handles that fall off because the set screws are not tight.

The sound system and keyboard.

Pulpit and chairs. The pulpit is removable.

Trying it out.

At the Taj Mahal Indian restaurant for dinner.

The food was great, fish, goat, chicken, rice, naan.

Branch President of Bujumbura 2, Frère Dieudonné.

Here I am with Président Dieudonné in front of the rented church building.

View down the street. Notice the boy with the wheel rim rolling toy on the left.

We love the kids and we always draw a crowd in the neighborhoods.

Peering into the truck.

Kids.

The crowd steadily grows. They love their pictures taken.

Little hands appear and they pull themselves up to peer in.

Often it is a child's first sighting of a white person.

They gather in ever more frenzied excitement.

There are numbers of these three wheeled moto cabs.

The children start young caring for siblings and helping with daily chores. I saw a little two year old carrying two liter containers of water to the living compound along with his older sister struggling along with two full bidons

Elder Kyungu along with President Dieudonné were visiting members. We were their chauffeurs. We did not go into the homes.

President Dieudonné invited is to his home and asked that I photograph his family.

Inside the President's home with his wife and child.

His wife and child.

The family portrait.

Here we are all together.

Baptismal font.

Elder Kyungu and Brother Monga instructing the Melchizedek Priesthood.

It was a tiring day.

Elder Ngongo needed a passport photo for his visa.

The assembled group of Melchizedek holders.

The group, I included.

Elder Kyungu and brother Monga stayed in the "Best Hotel", which was much better than the one we stayed in, never again.

Entrance to the Best Hotel.

At Church, elder Ngongo

Elder Kyungu and Sue. Elder Kyungu is a master teacher. We have enjoyed being with him and listening to him speaking. He spoke in both sacrament meetings, at two training meetings, at the Hospital handover, and a television interview.

Our friend Aloys and Sister Cahoon.

The missionaries.

The screen room looking out into the back yard of the Cahoon's villa.

Lunch, chicken, whipped potatoes with squash, cole slaw and green beans.

Bon appétit.

Elder Kyungu with the YSA groupl.

YSA at Elder Kyungu's feet. After one prospective missionary asked us why we can't multiply such occasions.

All the YSA together.

Caught the Baileys a bit off guard. They are the Humanitarian couple form Rwanda, just across the border from where they travel to service Burundi. They finish in about a month.

Brother of the owner of the Rusama Palace. He said to me one day that he had a little problem, only 2,000 Francs. His brother and sister-in-law have lived in Canada for many years where they fled during the "troubles" in the 1990s. They kept their house and converted it into a "hotel", bed and breakfast.

Our transportation for the day.

Guess who, in the transport.

Exiting and entering was a contortion. I hit my head the first time in.

Part of the hospital where we celebrated the equipment donation.

At the Hospital.

The covered walk to the operating rooms.

New mothers waiting along the covered walk on our way to the operating and sterilization rooms.

The autoclave donated by the Church.

The anesthetist by the anesthetic apparatus donated to the hospital. She is a member of the Church.

The lights, part of the donation.

Sister Bailey with the anesthetist.

On the entrance steps to the hospital.

Posing.

I was curious what the sticker said, but never found out.

We visited schools where the Church will install latrines. This latrine has been undermined by the river and is teetering on the edge of the cliff.

View of the undercut foundation.

Rocks exposed by the flood waters are carted off on the head for construction.

The local lawnmower wielded by a gardener. The end of the machete is bent so weeds can be whacked while the operator is standing.

The kids are happy to see visitors, especially white ones.

A collapsed latrine. They fall in when they get old because they are constructed over a pit.

Current latrine.

View inside the latrine flooded by recent rains.

A little boy in the village had a beetle attached to a stick. The beetle was madly trying to fly away. They find many ways to amuse themselves.

Playing with his captive beetle.

Getting a ride home. This is a land of bicycles.

Teacher with her class. We entered a couple of classes and spoke English with the students who responded to our simple greetings in unison with great pronunciation.

The leaves of the faux manguier trees.

Rusam Palace.

At dinner the second time at the Taj Mahal, because the Lake Tanganyika Hotel was unreachable because of a bridge washed away by the flood that occurred Sunday. Over 150 people died in the flooding. Seven LDS families lost all their possessions when their homes were washed away in the flood. The church will help them get new lodgings and replace clothes and food.

At dinner at the Taj Mahal.

Dignitaries at the donation handover at the hospital.

The operating table and lamps being demonstrated.

Sean, Sue and a nurse at the hospital.

President McMullin, Elder Kyungu, the Hospital director, and a representative of the Health Minister at the formal close of the donation handover ceremonies.

Sue, President Monga (Counselor to Pres. McMullen) and Sean Donnelly.

Elder Kyungu speaking to the audience at the donation closing ceremony.

Elder Kyungu writing in the formal ledger, Golden Book, for the hospital.

The text of Elder Kyungu's entry into the historical ledger.

Elder Kyungu, President McMullen, Kenneth and Phillip, two Humanitarian administrators from South Africa.

All the windows and the mirrors are etched with the license number of the vehicle to deter theft.

We visited the fish market. These are sold in great quantities and used in sauces or deep fried.

The crowds at the fish market.

Dried and salted fish.

There were numerous fish of this sort and I don't know the name. They are caught in varying sizes. There were only three or four different types of fish in the market.

Closeup of the fingerlings drying in the sun.

They call this fish Capitaine. They come in sizes up to 50 kilos I was told. These were about ten kilos or so I would estimate.

Tilapia I was told.

Some kind of Ciclid I suspect.

A man was dissecting the stomach of the fish for some reason.

Fish on display.

Sean savoring his strawberry milkshake at the Silhouette restaurant.

Aloys and Sean with milkshakes.

Setting up for the banquet at the Chapel. Local government guests and others were invited to celebrate the new Chapel and to begin to overcome some of the ethnic issues plaguing the Church and the community. The Church is trying to let those we collaborate with know that we are non-partisan, and ethnically blind. We do not favor the Tutsis or the Hutus. We serve our brothers and sisters irrespective of their tribal or ethnic background.

Sister Cahoon in her local dress.

Elder Kyungu in the media spotlight.

The banquet uncovered. Fish, chicken, beef, goat, vegetables, bananas, ratatouille. It was delicious.

The assemblage.

The salad table.

Honored guest, first in line, with his dinner plate.

My dinner plate.

Sue's dinner plate.

President and Sister McMullen and Elder Kyungu.

Flower center piece.

Some of the mud from the flood which prevented us from reaching our destination and required a significant detour.

Manioc drying and being milled to flour in the building behind.

This is one of the streams that over-topped the bridges and flooded, washing away the dwellings on its banks.

We reached Juvenal's home where the Cahoons are building an aquaponics system to help the members become self-sufficient.

The black tank is for the fish, the two wooden tanks will be lined with plastic, one filled with gravel, the other will be filled with water which will be pumped to circulate through the fish tank into the growing box that will empty into the reservoir beneath it. The two wood boxes will rest one atop the other. The top one filled with gravel for growing and the bottom one the water reservoir from which the water will be pumped through the system keeping the water level in the fish tank constant.

the three main elements of the system, not yet all finished or in place.

Bananas in Juvenal's front yard garden/

Elder Cahoon cutting out the panels in the top of the fish 1500 liter tank which will increase oxygen transfer and deter theft. The tank can't be sold if it is perforated.

Resting in the shade of the banana trees in the garden.

View into the tank. I recommended putting wire screen over the top.

Gravel waiting to be put into the grow box when all is finished and assembled.

Martyr's stadium at Kinshasa on our way into town from the airport.

View of traffic on our way "home" to the apartment.

A common sight, cars loaded with merchandise on the way to market.

Mall under construction.