Congo: Day 5 Final Post!

It doesn't get much crazier then this.

This trip has become a complete turn around. On our first day here we were almost kicked out of the country, didn't feel like we were even accepted here, and weren't even sure if we WANTED to stay after everything that happened. But after our last day here I wanted nothing more then to spend at least one more day in Congo. I had just reached the point of enjoying being here and it was time to go. I'll explain...

In the morning we went Eden and it no longer felt like we were strangers to these kids. We were greeted by name and with lots of hugs and love, and I think they could tell that we loved them too. While my mom went off to take care of important things, the kids dragged me by the hand to play checkers with them. They were using a home made version with cardboard and bottle caps for pieces. And for the first time I really started to feel what it must be like living here. On our first 2 walk-thru's I felt more like just an observer, feeling sorry for the kids living in these conditions. But sitting there in the dark, on this rickety table, playing on this sorry excuse for a game, knowing that there wasn't much else for them to do, it made me wish even more that that there was more I could do. But they were still being funny and silly and before we even finished the game it it was time to go. There was a lot to do today and we were already behind schedule.

Then we were on our way to visit Mafe, a small orphanage in Kinshasa that I'd been warned by my dad that it was VERY difficult to get to. The first time my parents went to Mafe they had not been prepared for how difficult it would be. After a couple minutes of driving the sand was dubbed too difficult to drive through. They had been told to get out and walk the 1 and a half hours the rest of the way in their sandals and flip flops. NOT fun. This time we refused to go unless we had an appropriate car to drive us the entire way.

Well..... we were promised that the Mini-van we were in had made it to this orphanage and back and that we had no reason to worry. Hmm.... we were concerned but we believed them. We hit the section that my mom warned me was where they had to stop last time. Instead of slowing down and stopping we started to speed up!! "It is the only way we can make it" our driver told us!! We braced ourselves for the turns as we spun on the sand and the driver almost lost control!! I probably would have enjoyed it so much more if I wasn't so scared for my life! This continued for about 10 more minutes as we gained speed and spun around at EVERY TURN. We were all scared but laughter took over us as our coping method. I was laughing SO hard as I heard my mom gasp every 5 seconds! Sometimes I would brace myself for a crash against a building as our driver would changed directions at the last minute almost missing the turns!! I actually thought it was a fairly exciting drive... but my mom just glared at me when I told her that :P Buuut to our surprise we made it there!

The kids at Mafe were sweet and we brought them some cars and clothes and took lots of pictures of them :)

But when it was time to go we braced ourselves for the drive back. We just skidded around the sand like a ball on a pinball machine again. But this time... we got STUCK! :( I think it took about 2 hours to finally get out but I can honestly say that it was probably my favorite 2 hours from our whole trip. We had stopped right at the edge of a soccer game that had brought out about 50+ kids to play and watch. And I ended up hanging out with some "street kids" that had come to see what was going on. (But... I'm not sure if "street" is the right word though because this was like no street I've ever seen. Maybe "sand kids" would be a little more appropriate...) So I was surrounded by these "sand kids" and they were probably the cutest things in the world!!

So while the men did a lot of this:

I just watched a lot of this:

But best of all I got to play with these guys:

These kids were ADORABLE! I took these videos when they just didn't stop cracking me up. The the funny little guys were doing hand noises and arm pit farts... boys will be boys.

The kids above inspired me to teach them one of my favorites... the "hand-snapping-thing-that-im-not-sure-even-has-a-name"!! They did pretty good too. I still laugh every time I watch this one...

How can you not love this little face?? This is the same little guy that entertained us all above.

But it was more then his impeccable ability to pull off mismatched women's shoes that drew me to him. The kid needed some pants! He was wearing underware for shorts, and they were so worn and tattered that it left him almost naked. I couldn't bear to think about how long he'd been wearing them! All of the other kids around at least had something on... I felt so bad for the kid! We had just visited one of our last orphanages so I thought that it would be a lost cause to check to see if we had anything he could wear. But after shifting through diapers and baby bottles for our final orphanage, I found a pair of brown 4T stretchy pants. It was unbelievable!! It didn't even hit me how amazing it was until later because there was no way that we would have purposely left these pants in the bag because the only kids left for us to see were babies! I can't even explain how excited I was that they were there. I LOVED seeing him with these comfortable pants on, perfect for this playful little kid. If I hadn't just been scolded for taking pictures believe me, the image of this little guy climbing trees in his new pants would probably have been one of my favorite pictures of all time. God truly showed his love for his people today. Not only the orphans in the DRC but for the "sand kids" as well.

"God loves to use things that we consider to be insignificant, like Moses' rod which parted the Red Sea, or Davids sling-shot that brought down a giant, or a boy's lunch that fed a multitude..." And I would add to that, "the pair of pant's that wasn't supposed to be there".

After visiting our last orphanage, Markos, we visited the Congo River! It was cool to see Brazaville sitting on the other side of the river, but other then that it was pretty anti-climactic. hah. From our spot the trees were covering most of our view and there was no way to even sneakily take pictures. It was basically the perfect storm of places that would easily land us in jail for taking a picture. Our viewing location was right in front of the American Embassy, we were viewing one of the most protected rivers in all of Africa, aaaand the President, Joseph Kabila himself, was getting ready to walk by!! And I guess this is as good a place as any to note that this was the 3rd time this trip that we'd crossed paths with the guy. Part of the chaos at the airport on our entrance was a result of the president landing at the same time, we passed him again in traffic when there was tons of police cars that I talked about here, aaand now we had to get out of this area to make way for the guy. I figured that he was must be trying really hard to see us and that I should at least go and say hi! But the guards would have none of it...

We enjoyed a nice classy dinner at the "Grand Hotel" and FINALLY got to relax and enjoyed being finished with our work. Buuut not without a small change of plans of course :) We checked our email and to our surprise found a reply from our friend "Welcome". Remember my angel that saved me at the airport?? We had planned to meet up again while we were here in Congo, but we hadn't heard back. He had written us the nicest email about how he had enjoyed meeting us, but had to take an emergency trip to Ivory Coast and couldn't see us. But, since he couldn't meet with us himself he sent his brother and friends to meet us at our hotel that evening!! His email told us that they would be at our hotel at 5 PM but we had only just gotten the email and it was already 8 PM!! There was no way they would still be there waiting for us. But they only proved to us to be about the nicest people in the whole world!! They had waited there as we strolled in at 9 PM and were MORE helpful then we could have imagined. They knew so much about the country and wanted to do everything in their power to help us get a house for the kids and/or other housing for ourselves while in the country. His brother knew so much about adoptions, and his sister wanted to take it upon herself to check up on our kids for us. But they didn't speak much english so they brought their 2 seminary student friends to translate :) I don't know what we did to deserve this, but we felt so blessed to have met them.

By the end of the day I really thought about how many things had seemed to have gone badly at first but really turned out to be quite the opposite. Some of those circumstances that I can pinpointed as the most frustrating times, afterwards I looked back as the most memorable moments that have led to some even greater surprises. Getting separated for hours at the airport... pretty bad. Having Dereje held for ransom... that was pretty bad. Getting stuck in the sand for hours and putting us far behind schedule... that also on the surface seemed pretty bad. But truth be told, if we hadn't been stuck at the airport, we wouldn't have met Welcome (Bienvenue) and we would have left the country with SO many unanswered questions and frustrations that were easily solved in a short meeting with his friends. And through Dereje's situation at the airport I think that we learned a lot about the system that may help us later. But most importantly, getting stuck in the sand gave me a chance to really stop and "smell the roses" on my last day. I honestly can say that I loved meeting those kids on the side of the road and really brightened up my whole perspective on the trip. Sure, many aspects of this trip were difficult but i wouldn't have it ANY other way and I wouldn't change those circumstances even if I could. They have all lead to some of the biggest blessings from being here that we would have completely missed out on. We could have had a mediocre, unexciting trip in which we always got everywhere we needed to right on time... but what kind of story would that have been? I probably would have lost all of my readers by day 1! ;)

Congo: Day 4

*Warning! Long post! For some reason I felt the need to share minor details from this day and I don't have the energy to shorten it*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Did i mentioned how expensive it is here? Everything from souvenirs to the hotels to the food! We had done some souvenir shopping the day before and it was just shocking! I love buying little things from other countries but I quickly found out that I did not bring enough money for everything that I wanted to get. Bracelets and earrings that would have cost 1-2$ in other countries were about 5$ here.

Shopping was not easy and there were 2 things that I wish I understood before we went.

1) I wish I knew how to convert Congolese Franc (CDF) to US Dollars

aaand...

2) that it doesn't really even matter if you can convert Franc to Dollars because if you don't speak FRENCH you won't be able to buy anything anyway!!

But, of course, if I had actually understood that my day would have been far less exciting. We had stopped at a tourist area that had lots of little stands with vendors selling all different things. Our group had all gotten separated as we lingered at different stands and I had found some little wooden boxes and animals that I wanted. I had asked at a few stands already about prices so I knew to expect to pay no less than 5-10$ on each wooden piece. Now... I'm used to going to a country and being able to barter the prices down in english and be ok (and resorting to hand gestures and counting with fingers if I needed to, hah) but this was not quite so easy. I wanted 2 small wooden animals and a little wooden box so I figured 15$ to start. But the vendor answered me in French and I understood nothing. "I don't speak French" I told her. (By then I had learned how to say that very phrase in French! hah. I suggest to anyone going to learn it too. To me it sounds like "Je ne parl pa fraces" You'll use it a lot :) But she was not happy to hear that. She sighed an exasperated sigh and I'm about 90% sure that I saw her roll her eyes at me! I should have just walked away then. But instead I lingered around as she got out her cell phone to type the numbers that she wanted to tell me which I got a kick out of... After a few minutes with each of us typing the prices we wanted we had settled on 17$. I was thankful that they usually take American Dollars (but ONLY crisp and clean for some reason) in the DRC but they usually give you change in Franc. I gave her a 20$ but I was not even sure how much change in Franc to receive! -hmmm.... See Regret #1- But I had an uneasy feeling about her the whole time and I could tell that she was not happy about the final price... (I take bartering very seriously.) So when she gave me 2000 CDF as change I just knew that she had to be taking advantage of my "foreignness". I acted more confident then I actually was as I argued with with her and told her that I needed more change. How much change? I had no idea, but she didn't know that. I told her that I would not take all 3 items if she was going to overcharge me and I began to put one of the items back and demanded my money back for that item. -Aaand that would be regret #2- But she didn't like that so much either but she finally hesitated toward her purse but pulled out a 500. And now... I don't know why I was so unsure about her but it still didn't seem right. Maybe I was just used to people doing whatever they wanted by now. I thought I had remembered the conversion was a little more rounded off then 1,250 CDF to the Dollar so I told her that it still wasn't right and that I needed another 500 CDF. Again, "no", but then she said something else to me but in English this time. I had to have her repeat it a couple times but finally I made it out. "I don't want to". What?? Was she serious?? just like that... she just didn't want to. This was not going to be easy. My boxing gloves had to come out. So I told her that I wasn't going to buy anything if I didn't get the right change. But... all of a sudden she pretended she didn't speak english anymore! -_- I saw our translator down the row and signaled for him to come over and help me. But before he even saw me waving at him the vendor realized what was happening and pulled out another 500 to finally be rid of me. There we go! 1000 CDF to the dollar. Much better :). I realize that in the end it was a lot of effort just for 1 dollar but I just couldn't let her get away with it! I should frame that dollar... it's the hardest i've ever worked for one lil buckaroo.

I was so exasperated after the encounter that I found my mom and adamantly told her to never leave me alone again! This was impossible by yourself and it was NOT fun walking around to vendors on your own. I couldn't even look at an item without being bombarded by other vendors trying to force me to buy their version of the same item. When I finally found a vendor that gave me enough breathing room to think, I ended up buying a few bracelets, keychains, and earrings made of the green Malachite stone that is abundant in the DRC, and then we got out of there. But on the way out I found my favorite item of all. Back at the entrance one man was selling these really cool cards with Congolese scenes on the front made of brightly colored sand. I was thrilled that they were a smaller alternative to a painting so I bought about 7 of them to decorate my new apartment with. And I must say they are the perfect accent to my mostly brown/dark colored African collection on my wall :)

Then we had our daily meeting with our lawyer and headed out for a long drive out of the capitol. It was a really pretty drive and the pace of life out there was just visibly calmer. People weren't as rushed and there was FAR less trash covering the roads. We had a really nice view with the mountains in the background as we headed out to the orphanage. This orphanage may be one of my favorite ones we visited whole trip. It helped that it was in such a peaceful area. We started by seeing the few kids we had at that orphanage but the poor kids were scared of us! The orphanage directors told us that some of the kids had not seen a white person

before and didn't know what to do!

One of the little girl's heart was just pounding out of her chest! Poor thing... they're sure going to be in for a surprise when they come to America! Hah. But they warmed up to us pretty fast, it probably helped that we brought toys :). They had a lot of fun when we brought out the super balls and they were giggling as they had them bouncing around the room. And they looooved having their picture taken and got pretty silly in front of the camera. But sadly all good things must come to an end and we left to see some more kids in that area that weren't in the orphanage.

One thing about being new to the Congo is that we usually don't know where we're going and just have to assume that our driver is taking us to the right place. (But before we know it my mom will probably get her own drivers license and car like she does in Ethiopia and know her way around better then the Congolese themselves! ;) But for now we are getting used to feeling clueless. So when we pulled off to the side of the road where there was a crowd of people we had NO idea what we were doing there. We quickly found out that this was the meeting place where we were going to meet the kids we came to see. "Oh good" my mom said, "and it smells like a pee". Opening the window's was completely out of the question and it didn't take a genius to figure out the source. We were parked RIGHT next to what was apparently the understood bathroom. Lovely. During the 30 minutes we waited there was a constant stream of men that would just walk over to the edge of the woods and just.... take care of business. Yes, gross. But I tell this story because I wish I could portray the absolute hilarity of the moment. We would try to talk to each other in the car but then another man would just walk up next to our car and take the peeing stance! Try having a conversation with that going on in the background!! haha. Dereje just laughed at us as we tried to cover the window with anything we could! But regrettably nothing was good enough...

I really enjoyed getting out of Kinshasa for the day and seeing the quieter side of Congo. But even better, I got to take lots of pictures b/c there wasn't many police around to make me stop! :) We had had an exhausting day so we went the Memling Hotel again for dinner but ate at their indoor restaurant this time. I have really enjoyed getting to know the Congo and it's culture, and although it's not the easiest place to stay and a very different living situation then our accommodations in Ethiopia, once I got to spend time with the kids they grabbed my heart and made it so hard to leave!

My next post will also be my last day in the Congo. And what happened on that day was the result of what seemed to be unfortunate circumstances on the surface but it actually turned it into my favorite day! It was a great way to end our trip!