Visiting the Heart of Africa

Promenade to Ofa

Every now and then we all feel the need to get out of Aru and see something else. Sometimes this ends with a trip to Arua, or Ariwara, or another promenade. This time, we went to visit our friend Orio’s village. Orio works on a variety of projects in construction, painting, chicken feeding, and he was also our sentinel for a few months. During the last few months he has become a very good friend and spends many evenings at our house (he always shows up just in time for dinner) eating, drinking, watching movies, and playing games. He has even lent his voice to our attempts at karaoke. Orio lives nearby in Aru, but he often visits his village, 4 km away to visit his 2 daughters, mother, and other relatives. One Sunday he invited us along to visit his village and meet some of his family.

After an almost pleasant bike ride (I’m trying to be positive, but it was really a mostly not pleasant bike ride with lots of hauling the bike up and down hills) we arrived in Ofa to a grand welcome. Many of Orio’s brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, neighbors, and who knows who else came by to welcome us to their village. There are TONS of kids who live around his house- most of which were happy to see us. A few, including Orio’s 2 year old daughter Mara, cried and ran away when confronted with so many white people. Some of the kids were even courageous enough to come near us and say a few works, but most just watched us from a distance.

After we had settled in and been greeted by half the village, Orio’s sister served us and amazing feast- meat, chicken, eggs, fufu, rice, French fries, salad, pineapple, passion fruit, bananas, and maybe a few other things I’m forgetting. We all ate until we were stuffed.

After lunch we went for a walk around the village. We climbed a few hills and enjoyed the woods and the beautiful views of Aru. We could see the library, convent, church, and many other familiar places from on high. I had seen these hills in the distant almost every day, and it was fantastic to be there looking back at the normal view.

Once our digestion walk was complete we headed back to give out candy to the children (although Mara was still crying at the sight of us), thank everyone- especially Orio’s sister- for welcoming us, and say good-bye. The ride (okay, I walked half way pushing the bike) was a lovely way to end our day.

This visit to the village showed me a different side of Congolese life. Orio’s family lives so simply, there is no technology up there. They live in traditional huts made without modern building materials, and eat food from the land. Even though they do not have much, they shared everything with us, giving us a huge feast and making us feel truly welcome in their home. They actually thanked us for coming to see them, when it is they who gave so much. Orio’s mother doesn’t speak any French, but I could see in her face and in her words that I didn’t understand how happy she was for us to visit. I was so moved to see such simple and real hospitality that truly came from the heart.


In the City

A few weeks after our visit to Ofa, we were invited to celebrate the First Communion of a Parishoner on a Sunday afternoon. Elena, me and two sisters went to their house in the city of Aru, not too far from where we live. This family was different from Orio’s simple village family in many ways, but the culture of welcoming and generosity shone through the same. This family lives in a modern house in the city and is very well off as the mother is director of a local primary school and the father is a government official. But just like Orio’s village, the house is full of children running around so that it is hard to identify brothers, sisters, or cousins- it’s all just one big family living together and sharing everything. We were most sincerely welcomed by everyone. These city children were much more used to seeing white people, so we had a very nice time playing with them. After visiting for a bit, we were served a lovely feast of many dishes.

I have seen through both of these villages how the importance of hospitality for the Congolese. This type of hospitality truly comes from the heart. We were made welcome in these homes not only because we were invited, but because our hosts truly wanted us to be welcome and to enjoy our time with them. I am so grateful for these opportunities to visit my friends and to meet new people and see the hearts of the Congolese people.

Italian Invasion: Surprise Attack!!

Every year in August, Italy descends upon a small town in Congo called Aru.  They come bearing gifts of cheese, olive oil, and meats and with good intentions to serve the people for a few weeks.  When they are here, they eat copious amounts of cheese, olive oil, and meats as well as pasta and drink even more copious amount of coffee.  They fill the air with their chattering in Italian and their hand gestures.  They talk late into the night (drinking coffee of course) and work all day.  They leave joy in their wake with their laughter, singing, and generous donations of candy.  The month of August is really like being in Italy, but Africa, and it can be a little overwhelming at times, but mostly it is fun. 

Usually us long termers have warning of when this Italian invasion occurs; we have time to plan our defensives and hunker down before they arrive in full Italian force.  We also know the names and how long they are staying for before retreating back to Italy.  This year we were informed that 4 volunteers were coming on August 3.  But wait, August 3^rd is still days away…how can I already be writing about this year’s Italian Invasion? 

BECAUSE THEY SURPRISE ATTACKED US!!!! 

In an inexplicable communication error from Rome, the Italians arrived on July 29, 5 days before their originally scheduled arrival.  Imagine my surprise when I innocently opening my email on July 28^th and found a message from Rome mentioning that the volunteers were leaving Rome today and would be in Congo…tomorrow.  “Tomorrow!  But we’re not ready,” thought I.  But there was nothing to do about it, the Italian invasion was starting.

 Now that the original shock has worn off, the Italy invasion is quite pleasant.  There are 5 people (4 volunteers and a sister from Italy to lead them) willing to do any work that we tell them to do.  They brought whole suitcases full of nothing but cheese, meat, and other delicious Italian foods.  There are some communication difficulties, but mosty we are getting along very well and I am looking forward to getting to know the new volunteers more.  A quick introduction:

Oswaldo, a librarian at the Vatican whom I am hoping can shape up my library a bit,

Valentina, from Rome who will be teaching the sisters a bit of Excel,

Lia, who works for Chanel and speaks excellent French,

Chiara, a nursing student who hopes to spend her life serving after getting her nursing degree,

And Sr. Tina from Como who only speaks Italian thus, I do not know much about her. 

Chiara and Sr. Tina will stay for one month and the rest will leave after only 2 weeks.  We set them to work right away by painting the Cyber (stay tuned for a Cyber update).  Other work on their list after the Cyber is finished is helping in the library, at the farm, and painting any other things that we feel need to be painted.  

That’s all for now from Little Italy: Congo addition!

Happy Birthday Karen/America/Canada!!!

My mother was born on July 5.  As a result she has had the occasional 4^th of July birthday party (including this year).  I was born 10 days later on July 15^th, a date that is a bit out of reach of a 4^th of July theme…until this year, that is.  This year, my community hosted an awesome 4^th of July/Canada Day party for my birthday.  But why?  Why didn’t we celebrate Canada Day and 4^th of July on July 1^st and 4^th?  And why are we celebrating Canada Day in the first place? 

It’s been so long since I’ve written I have quite a lot of news.  First, is that we have 2 new volunteers.  Dan from Canada arrived June 19^th, and Enzo from Italy arrived June 29.  So now we are 6 volunteers representing 4 different countries.  Very international…and a little difficult to communicate in our non-native community language of French, but we are getting along.  

So now you know about Dan and you can see why we were celebrated Canada Day…on July 15^th.

INDEPENDENCE WEEKEND

June 30^th to July 4^th was going to be a HUGE party weekend, full of independence fun.  June 30^th is Congo’s Independence Day, so no one had to work.  There is a big parade where every school and group in Aru goes marching past assembled dignitaries (including UN and Ugandan representatives), as well as everyone who feels like going to the parade.  On July 1^st, Dan was planning to spread Canadian tradition by celebrating Canada Day with some of our friends.  And for the past month, Katie and I had been planning a gigantic, awesome, 4^th of July party- with burgers, s’mores and fire workers. 

 All of these beautiful independence plans came to a halt on the afternoon of June 30^th (thank goodness after the parade- the only independence activity that went well) when I didn’t feel so well and took a nap.  I hadn’t felt so well the week before, but malaria and typhoid tests came back negative.  So Friday morning, (Canada Day) when I was really not well, the sisters decided to sent me to the Canossian hospital in Ariwara.  Once there I was admitted with a serious case of malaria and an infection and I spent the next five days taking in large quantities of quinine by IV and antibiotics as well as an assortment of other drugs:

But fear not: I have returned and I am better than ever!  The biggest downside (other than an African hospital, but no need to go into details there) was that I single handily ruined the national parties of 2/3 of North America!

Katie and I were determined not to be held back from spreading the joy of the 4^th by a little malaria.  Very quickly the perfect rescheduling date emerged: July 15^th, my 25^th birthday.  Canada hopped on the rescheduling bandwagon and the birthday party for me, USA, and Canada was on.

THE PARTY

Told in pictures

Katie and I bought half of a cow for burgers, a ton of potatoes for potato salad and Obama gum as party favors and Dan provided a case of beer.  Clara, Katie, and Dan decorated in Red, White and Blue (good thing Canada shares the color scheme minus the blue).  Since we have no BBQ, Clara and Enzo built a fire in our fire pit to cook the burgers over a real fire:

Our guests started to arrive and the beer flowed and we broke out the Guess Who? to play (very popular in Katie’s English class): 

There was a lively game of twister: the first time for all our Congolese friends, and let me tell you, twister was very well received.  I do believe they will be back to our house for more twister in the future: 

Katie and I served up the buffet of real American burgers and potato salad and more beer flowed:

After dinner we had disco dance party featuring the best of America music…we even tried to teach some line dancing: 

Then there was the cake dance and my birthday cake- pineapple upside down cake:

After 4 hours of America/Canada/Karen party we began to wind down as people had to go off to bed (Saturday is just another work day in Congo, so Friday is not a weekend…it’s like having a big party of Wednesday night).  We finished the party by giving out Obama Gum- yes, the American president is featured on gum here.  Overall, it was a great party with wonderful friends, good food, and very fun times 

Happy Birthday Canada, America, and Me!!!!!

Do You Know What’s Living in Your Shower Drain?

*Warning* Do not read this post if you have an irrational fear of cockroaches and/or things that crawl out of shower drains

First, some good news: we have a new volunteer with us!  After 2 months of just me, Katie, and Clara, Elena from Romania has joined.  Elena has lived in Rome the past 11 years and is a dental hygienist.  She arrived on Monday with Katie and me (we were returning from our vacation in Kampala, more to follow on that).  She will be here for 3 months and then join a group of dentists volunteering in Uganda in August.  We are very excited to have a new person here with us.

Now, when a new volunteer comes, we usually clean their room before they arrive to make them feel welcome.  We decided to give Elena Matteo’s old room, which no one had really been in since Matteo left in mid-February.  So, last week, I decided to start the clean-up.  Unfortunately, the windows had been left open, so the room was covered in a thick film of dirt and grit.  After sweeping about 5 times it was nearly clean so I turned my attention to the bathroom.  In retrospect, I should have just stopped with the sweeping and let someone else take on the bathroom…but oh well.

On entering the bathroom, I noticed immediately an abundance of cockroach corpses in the shower- 15 to be exact.  Plus 4 in the sink.  I thought it was gross, but they were dead, so it could be worse.  Well, I went to sweep them out and turns out a couple were still kicking, but I quickly disposed of them.  With all the corpses out of the way in the shower, I thought it might be a good idea to run the water from the shower faucet to wash away all the cockroach limbs and general grime.  So I opened the tap and let it run for a minute.  Then, to my utter horror, I watched as 1…2…3…8 cockroaches popped out of the shower drain!  EIGHT!!!!  The first two weren't so bad, but then, they just kept coming!!  All I could do was stand and watching in jaw dropping, stomach turning, horror as Matteo’s bathroom turned into a scene from a horror movie.  I think I stood frozen for a good 5 minutes as I watched the cockroaches scrambling to get out of the shower.  I mean, I’ve had experience with things crawling out of my shower drain before (see my previous post on the resuscitated spider), but eight cockroaches popping out after sweeping away 15 was just a bit much for me.  I had brought a bottle of bleach with me to clean, so I dumped about half of it all over the shower and all the cockroaches were belly up (literally) a few minutes later.  I swept them outside, then locked the door and let Clara do the rest of the cleaning. 

And for all those of you who wonder how cockroaches enter the house…VERY big cockroaches can pop out of very small holes…I’ve seen it. 

Library News!

The Library is opening May 8! 

 Are we going to be ready?  Yes!

Will we have electricity, bathrooms, computers, and a few other necessities? No! 

Will we have books, a few tables and chairs, a half finished building, and 2 willing librarians? Yes!

Ready or not, we’re going to open and I am very excited.

Right now the entrance, office, and children’s room are all ready:

The first reading room is almost ready, it still needs some paint, but it will be done soon.  In fact, here is a picture of our local librarian painting:

We have a local artist paining animal murals for the children’s room:

And there are a few almost bookcases not quite yet ready for the books (poor books have been in boxes for a year now):

 

In just over 1 month we have a TON of work to do and a very, very small budget.  We need to finish a few small construction details, install windows, clean, set-up bookcases, arrange and label the books, and do a million small tasks to get everything ready to open.  It’s a lot of work, but I’m ready to get the library open and I know it will be worth it when we have our big opening party May 8. 

I must admit that it is terrifying to be in charge of setting up this library, especially with such limited resources.  But even though the reality of what we have now does not match the vision in my head for the library, I am so excited- and ready- to finally be opening the library.  I will be more than busy over the next month with getting everything ready.  At the moment the library resembles more of a construction site/boys locker room than a temple of learning.  (The construction crew change their clothes in the computer room and leave their nasty work clothes there…I’ve told them starting May 1, I will burn everything that I find in there that is not a part of the library.  They laughed.  I also told them to stop leaving their tools in the computer room, so they took them over to the first readying room, rather than one of the unfinished rooms.  Sigh.).  With a little bit of concentrated effort in my spare time (like when I’m not configuring wireless networks and setting up servers in the Cyber, but that’s another story) I think the library will be “ready”- that is to say open- on May 8! 

Meet the new librarian:

2 weeks ago we found a local boy, Bolingo who is interested in being the librarian.  He was working on the construction crew for the road and fencing around the library and asked if he could be the librarian.  The first few time we kind of laughed, but he was persistent, so we thought, why not?  Let’s give him a change!  Bolingo just graduated from high school with a state diploma (a big deal in Aru) last year and, at this time, is unable to continue his studies.  He started working construction, but his real interest lies more in studying.  In the last few weeks he has eagerly been learning all he can about libraries.  I am very happy to have found young person interested in this work who I can train over the next few months.

As for the rest of the library?

Until further notice, all work has stopped on the other parts of the library.  What is left of the funds will be going towards getting the first rooms open, hopefully there is enough to achieve that and the rest will come in time.  And once the building is done, we still need LOTS more books.

But the Important thing is that the Library is opening!

Resuscitated Spider

The other day there was a spider in my shower.  I assumed it was dead because it did not move all day.  Usually spiders (or cockroaches, or hoppy bugs, or whatever else is alive in my bathroom) jump when I fill up my bucket of water to flush the toilet (our toilets don’t flush so you have to throw a bucket of water down).  All day, the spider stayed put as water wooshed into the bucket right next to it.  So imagine my surprise when I went to pick him up and throw him away that he jumped to life and nimbly ran across the shower.  Since I was about to take a shower anyway I figured I would drown him, so I opened up the tap and washed him away.  It took a bit of time with him struggling to get out, but eventually his legs crumpled up and he washed down the drain.  This time I was sure he was dead.  So imagine my surprise when I looked down 5 minutes later in the middle of my shower and see a soggy spider crawling out of the drain.  Apparently 5 minutes of water washing down the drain was NOT enough to do away with this hardy fellow.  Well, enough is enough, so I got a flip-flop and stepped on him.  Several times.  And then again.  Then I washed him down the drain again.   This time, as far as I know, he stayed down.  It is entirely within the realm of possibility that this spider exited the drain once more once I had left the room, so believe me when I tell you that I was looking around for him all night.  I was not going to be surprised if he was lurking in my bed- maybe even with a bunch of angry spider friends that I had tried to kill before in the past year and a half.  I haven’t seen him since, but you never know… 

Lent: The Season of Hope

The liturgical season of Lent started today.  From the outside, Lent might seem like that dreary time of year before spring when you have to give up something you like and remember to not eat meat on Fridays.  But for me, Lent is the Season of Hope.  It is one of my favorite liturgical seasons (I’d say favorite, but you really can’t beat Easter for a good time) and is a great source of inspiration and growth each year: I have been looking forward to Lent starting for weeks.

But why season of hope?   

During lent, we can increase hope in first God, and then ourselves.  Jesus is the center of this season; it is during this time each year that we prepare ourselves for The Resurrection: by remembering Jesus’ Resurrection at Easter and by preparing ourselves for our own resurrection with Jesus in concrete ways. During Lent, we contemplate the life and death of Jesus.  There are many somber, painful, and sad moments during Lent, but even these, or really, especially these moments give us hope- because we can look up and see the Resurrection.  We can see the wonders of God and all the reasons to hope in Him.  We are able to refocus our lives centering on the Resurrection and remember our reason for living: Eternal Life.   We hope in Jesus Christ and we hope in Eternal Life, that is why we live.

Once we have increased our hope in Jesus and His Resurrection, and by consequence our own hope of Eternal Life, we can increase hope in ourselves.  If we really try during Lent, we can find that we are able to change our lives: we are able to give our lives to Jesus.  We can do more, try harder, and even change a little.  We can learn and grow and that gives us hope to learn and grow more.  6 weeks is not overwhelming, like a New Year’s Resolution: this year I will change this forever.  It’s just 6 weeks to try something new, give more, live without.  But at the end of these “just 6 weeks” we can find that we have changed our habits into something better, or that we enjoy giving more, or that we can live without- and it’s not so hard, in fact, it’s good.  We can also learn that we really love chocolate cake and now we can indulge with a true appreciation of just how much we enjoy it.  When Easter is celebrated, we can be filled with hope that we changed ourselves- just a little bit- for the better during this Lent.  And that gives us hope to continue, and this hope grows so we can continue to become the person that God created us to be. 

Lent comes every year the same, every year is a new chance to add something to our lives- even if we add by taking away.  Every year gives us hope in Jesus, in Eternal Life, and in ourselves to be and to do what God is asking us in this life. 

At the beginning of Lent today, I am filled with hope.  I know that many of my ideas of how I will spend Lent will not work out the way I think, and I will change differently than the ideals in my head, but I also know that I will emerge at Easter full of Hope: in Jesus and in life.  And this hope does not disappoint.