Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo

            On Sunday Oct 12, we flew to Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (a French speaking country).  At the moment there isn't a senior couple serving there. It is very difficult to find senior couples who are willing to serve in Africa.
In Kinshasa, there is a Church Service Center.  It is similar to an Area Office except on a much smaller scale.  There are only about 10 church employees there.  The wives of two church employees there in Kinshasa had asked if they could help with the projects.  Manon Delisle and Nilza Grana had spent time with the previous couples and so they knew quite a bit about the projects.  They are teaching French in one of the schools, as part of a Humanitarian project created by Elder & Sister Van Wagoner before they left for home.  Walt and I went there to meet them and do some training.  The office had arranged with a company, Jeffrey Travel, to pick us up at the airport.  I am so grateful that we don’t have to arrange our own transportation.

HOLD ON!  Many of the taxis had guys holding on to the sides or standing on the back bumpers

 The drive from the airport to our hotel was incredible.  It was Sunday afternoon and the traffic was very light and it only took us about 30 minutes but still, we couldn’t believe how many people we saw on the sides of the road.  There were many, many booths set up under umbrellas.  As we would drive past side streets and alleys, there were umbrellas down them also as far as you could see.  We asked the driver how many people lived in Kinshasa and he said 12 million, which is twice as many as live in Johannesburg.

                        This main highway from the airport to downtown Kinshasa is about the only                                         nice road in the whole city.

 Phillip told us that we would see LOTS of people and he was right.  The office arranged for us to stay at the Memling Hotel and it was very nice.

GET OUT OF MY WAY!!

 We saw hundreds of these hand-drawn carts built on an automobile axle and wheels.

 Nilza and Manon picked us up at 5 o’clock at the hotel and drove us to Manon’s apartment for dinner.  We were surprised to see they both had children with them. Manon and John are from Quebec, Canada, and Nilza and Eduardo are from Portugal and Spain.  John Delisle is in the Physical facilities department and Eduardo Grana is in the finance department.  They said they would be through with their Kinshasa assignments in June and then would be sent somewhere else for their next rotation.  I can’t imagine living someplace for three years and then moving again.  I thought it would be hard on their kids but they seemed to love it there.  The Delisle’s had one daughter with them and the Grana’s had two daughters (they were all about 13 or 14 and seemed to have a lot of fun together).   The Delisle's also have a married daughter in Canada.  We had a very nice dinner and it was fun to visit with them.

            The driving there is crazy but I don’t think it was as bad as some of the other countries we have been to.  The intersections were congested but there seemed to be more order to them.

IN SOUTH AFRICA THE TRAFFIC LIGHTS ARE CALLED IN ROBOTS.
IN KINSHASA THEY ARE ROBOTS!

THERE ARE ABOUT 4 OF THESE GUYS IN KINSHASA.  THEY ROTATE WITH THE TRAFFIC AND THEIR HANDS AND CHESTS SHOW GREEN OR RED LIGHTS.

  I was impressed at how well Manon and Nilza drove.   I was talking to Thabo (in our office) and he asked how our trip was.  He said that the road from the airport to downtown was much worse a few years ago.  Instead of a four lane road, it was only one lane each way.  He said it used to take almost three hours to drive into town and one time it was four hours.

LITTLE SHOPS OR STALLS FROM ONE END TO THE OTHER

THE TAXIS WERE VERY OLD AND INCREDIBLY BEAT UP

WHEN YOU GET OFF THE MAIN HIGHWAY, THE ROADS WERE MOSTLY DIRT WITH A LOT OF POTHOLES

They picked us up at 9 o'clock and drove us to their office, which is in the Service Center, and so we were able to meet some of the employees.   Nilza had previously worked for the church and knew a lot of the financial part.  I was also surprised that they knew so much about the projects.

They had visited some of the water projects and knew quite a bit about them.  So, part of the time, they were teaching us. We took them out for lunch and it was nice to have a break.  We finished around 5 o’clock and went back to our hotel.  We had dinner in the hotel restaurant and were about the only ones there.


            The next morning we went to visit one of the water projects that had been done by the Van Wagoner's.  We picked up Eddy, one of the site monitors that works with the missionaries there.  He knew where we needed to go and so he was our guide.

"HONEY, WOULD YOU PICK UP SOME WOOD ON YOUR WAY HOME?"

THE LITTLE STREAM BELOW WAS LITTERED WITH GARBAGE

STAY CLOSE TO THE SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN!

 Nilza said she had been there before and didn’t think it was a hard walk.  We drove up in to this little village and parked the truck.

"I HOPE THIS DOESN'T FALL OFF!"

HAS EVERYONE GOT THEIR WATER?

EXCUSE ME, MAY I PASS?

SO MANY WOMEN WITH SUCH BIG BUNDLES ON THEIR HEADS

 The first thing we did was walk down some steep steps.  Part of the steps were made with tires.  After we got down the steps, we walked along a narrow path for almost a mile.  It was on the side of the mountain, above the village and it was hot and humid.

THIS CUTIE WANTED TO POSE

MOST PEOPLE LOVED GETTING THEIR PICTURES TAKEN

YOU HAVE TO PAY A LITTLE MONEY IN ORDER TO ATTEND SCHOOL

SOME OF THE VERY FEW CHILDREN WHO ARE ABLE TO GO TO SCHOOL

 From the beginning of our trek, we had children following us.  We stopped several times and took pictures.  Everyone was excited to see themselves in the camera.

PLEASE TAKE MY PICTURE  Probably 90% of these kids did not go to school

EVERYONE WAS EXCITED EXCEPT THIS LITTLE GUY

THE MAN IN THE BACKGROUND IS BUSY SEWING.  HE WAS VERY PROUD OF HIS SHOP.

MANON, NILZA AND EDDY

  There was a little girl that followed us the whole time.  I stuck my hand out to her so I could hold her hand and she turned and ran.  Before long she was behind us again. After we showed her a picture of herself, she was happy. By the time we got to the well, there were about 20 little kids.

   

There are 35,000 people in this valley which is only about 10 miles from the center of the city.  These wells provide the only clean water in the valley.  Prior to these wells being drilled, the people had to hike back out of the valley to collect and carry back water.

THIS IS THE LITTLE GIRL THAT WAS SCARED AND RAN AWAY

                                   We also walked to two other wells and tried out the pumps. 

MANON AT THE PUMP.    THE VILLAGES CHARGE A SMALL FEE FOR WATER WHICH GOES TOWARDS A MAINTENANCE AND REPAIR FUND.

THIS WELL WAS BEING PROTECTED BY A GOAT PATROL

            After visiting the wells we went back to their office and spent the rest of the day training.  We also looked through their files and their computers.  We had dinner again at the hotel and the shuttle picked us up the next morning.  When we got to the airport, the driver took us in to the office of Jeffrey Travel.  A man came up to us and wanted our passports, tickets and the money for the airport charges.  We were both a bit surprised because we didn’t know this was going to happen.  It was kind of scary to hand over those things.  We then followed the guy to the ticket counter and he took our money.  He walked over to another window and paid the airport taxes.  In the end it was nice they did that for us because we wouldn’t have known what to do but it would have been much better if we had known from the beginning.    We had a good flight home and it was nice to be in our own flat again.

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