Arrived in Brussels

We got a bit carsick on the 6 hour drive from Bukavu to Kigali, but we enjoyed a quick visit and dinner with MCC colleagues there before an overnight (direct!) flight to Brussels. Belgium has old ties to central Africa, especially DR Congo (former Zaire as some people here still know it). King Leopold's Ghost is an incredible book that presents the case against Belgian colonization in Congo.

So I'm a bit torn. It's so beautiful here and amazing infrastructure, and I just want to enjoy it so much, but I also know the conditions that my friends in Congo are living in and how it seems there is not a lot of hope for "amazing infrastructure" in DRC any time soon. Nonetheless, we've enjoyed finding and eating some special foods and walking in the amazing parks.

Our great pastor in Congo connected us with a friend of his who pastors a church here in Brussels, AND IT'S ON OUR BLOCK! Less than five minutes walk. Crazy!

Also interesting to be here in the capital of the European Union during the "Brexit".
We start French lessons on Monday. Up to four hours a day in lessons!  So We're happy to be here and thankful for this opportunity.

Hike in National Park near our place in Congo!

A week ago today, we went hiking with some friends, including Serge and his wife, as well as one of the Seeders. It was an adventure, as usual. We wanted to summit one of the extinct volcanoes, but there were Congolese army soldiers who were doing a patrol in that area, so we had to readjust our plans. Instead, we were stuck with this waterfall hike. ;)

Then we spent a couple of days with our current supervisor and had some really good, helpful conversations about changes that are going on in our Eastern Congo team. He stayed at our place and it was fun to have our first houseguest!

(Note: this is a continuation of the previous post, but it was too big so I cut it up into two. But they should be read as one. Unfortunately, the blogs post them like they do, so you have to read the first one to the bottom, then come to the top of this one to continue. C'est la vie.)

I’m excited but not too excited because, well, my life doesn’t work well when I’m focused on the future too much. But I can’t forget the fact that Karen and I are going to language school in Belgium in less than a week!! We leave DRC next Wedneday and fly from Kigali to Brussels directly, over Wednesday night, and on Thursday will check into the place we secured through AirBnB to be our home for the next 7 weeks. We’re looking forward to this trip for many reasons, but especially because it will be so wonderful to not always be struggling to communicate with people here.

We got kicked out of the place we’d been playing ultimate. That place was a 5 minutes walk from our place. But other than the location, actually, I’m happy to be gone. Because… we found a better place to play! This place has nice grass, and we don’t get mobbed by children who hang out in the end zone and mess up our ability to use the space, and they’re not demanding money either. It’s a 20-30 min drive away, up on a hill on the edge of town. And yes, it is really pretty. Probably around 300 feet above town, the cliff sweeps down and gives a fantastic view of Bukavu. Here’s some pictures.

 

 

Also, I am clean-shaven for the first time in Congo (it was 8 months!). Karen loves it. A woman at church asked me if it was my first time there. And then was mildly embarrassed but laughed really hard when Karen told her that I was the same person, I just shaved. I was told yesterday I look 18. That’s why I wear the beard. It doesn’t make me look old, it just prevents me from looking too young.

I now feel comfortable on the motorcycle. It’s becoming fun to ride it. I always wear pants, a full-face helmet, a jacket, and shoes (normally boots) when I ride. Despite the “full-face” helmet, the eye-glass/shield/visor thing is gone, so I get a TON of dust in my face. I wear sunglasses, so it doesn’t get in my eyes at all. But after a particularly long ride, I look this :

 

 

Thanks for reading! As always, we would love to hear your thoughts, questions, and comments.

When I wrote this, we were stuck on the National Highway between Goma and Bukavu. It's absurd that it's called a highway, though, because it's in such terrible shape. Our car didn't get stuck, but a big truck did (it's about the size of a trash truck). It blocked the entire road (which is the width of 1 or 1.5 lanes most of the time), so we, along with 6 other Toyota Landcruisers (all NGO vehicles) are waiting. Also, the big truck is on contract with the UN, so the only non-motorcycles using the road that I’ve seen today are NGOs and the UN. This is because the road is so bad it can only be traversed using a Landcruiser, and large entities are the only ones that can afford a Landcruiser.

Thankfully, it's a very pleasant temperature, and I'm in a beautiful place, which is nice. Here’s some pictures and a videos of this road.

last candlelit dinner for a while

Maybe we've been quiet for a while, but it's mostly because internet prices in Congo just recently increased five times what they had been. And so we're putting off doing things on the internet (like posting a bunch of pictures of the trip we took last week) because we're about to have good, unlimited internet...in the "developed" world!

We leave for seven weeks in Brussels tomorrow! We'll be doing intensive French language study there at a language school. We've been in Congo almost eight months, but this is the soonest my job would allow us to get away to do focus on this essential skill. We're hopeful about coming back with a lot more confidence in our French ability.

It comes at a good/bad time. Good because it will be nice to have a break from the stress of life and work in Congo; Bad because there are a lot of unexpected challenges due to unexpected changes in our MCC team in Eastern Congo. Please keep my colleague, Serge, in your prayers as he's running the entire MCC Eastern Congo ship here for two months!

I'm sure we'll post all those pictures and stories before long, but for now, just wanted to say "bon voyage!" and more later.

Sometimes this week, it has felt like we’re in America! Well, almost.

After three days without power, yesterday the power came back on in our apartment! The enchiladas we’d been waiting to cook for two days got cooked, and we watched Garfield in French for Friday night entertainment. Also this week, we got a new table/counter/shelf in our kitchen that is SO NICE, especially compared to the tiny table we had that was taken up by the water filter and electric oven (about the size of a toaster oven) with two hot plates on top.  The new kitchen setup is awesome! AND we both had hot showers last night! (That’s a first.)

When I stayed in Zambia, we were often without power, but it was at least on somewhat of a schedule. Here, we had no idea that they were going to do major work on a power substation near our house and only on the third day we found out why we’d been without! When we first arrived, I had low expectations that were mostly surpassed – except for the crazy flick on/off seven times a night that just feels like someone at the electric company must be playing with our minds.

During the 72 hours without power, I realized there are only a few essential needs for electricity in my mind. First, the fridge. If I knew we’d be without power, I would have emptied it and done without yogurt for the time being. But as it was full of leftovers, cheese, a box of milk and frozen meat, I actually lost sleep worrying about if the food was going to spoil. The other essential is the fan – which, by awesome invention, has a battery that gets charged and can run without power for a few hours. But it’s purpose is to keep the buzzing mosquitoes away from my head during the night. Mosquitos here don’t carry malaria (the elevation here is too high for those kinds of mozzies.) but they do still live according to many African fables and enjoy driving me crazy by hanging out near my ear. Unfortunately, the battery doesn't last through the night and I usually wake up as soon as it stops running.

I woke up really grumpy a second time this week and realized these two things were not worth losing sleep over and having a bad day, but I’m still quick to roll my eyes when another Westerner in town worries about if the place they’re moving to will have less reliable power than the current lodging. “Of course you won’t be satisfied with the power there!” I think. Even in the nice part of town where the expats live, what I call “suburbia”, the power isn’t satisfactory, so just don’t expect that it’s going to be reliable, and you won’t be disappointed! So goes my reasoning.

Who could be grumpy with this cute kid around?! Our pastor's son, Beniyah

It was a year ago that I first heard about this position and in a “why not apply?!” moment, started the journey, and now we’ve been in Congo for more than seven months. Yesterday, my 3 year old niece asked my sister if they can come over to our house, and it just kills me. BUT I must confess that there are perks such as homemade cinnamon raisin bagels (thanks to our awesome “domestique”) and locally grown coffee this morning.