An Elementary School, A Neighbor and Beautiful Children

This school is out of town quite a ways, in a quiet quartier (neighborhood) where there is no electricity and families have to walk quite a distance to get water from a public well.

This woman is a seamstress and has a little shop right next door to us.  She has sewn some things for me and we always greet each other as we leave our home.  She came over to get some water one afternoon for her children.  We aren't sure if they are both hers or not, but we are pretty sure the little boy is because he is in the shop with her all the time and every once in awhile he gets into big trouble and we can hear him being unhappy! 

 When we opened our gate one afternoon, these two little girls were playing on the wall across from us.  Notice the French bread in the little girl's hand - a staple of everyone's diet here, and mostly air.  A loaf like that costs 100 cfas, which is not very much - about 20 cents in US money.

These boys are selling this dog.  When we smiled at them as we were waiting in traffic, they thought we wanted to buy him.  We were sorry to disappoint them!  There aren't a lot of dogs here, and they are mostly very skinny and don't seem to have owners.  We have only seen 2 cats and one of them jumped out of our yard when we came home last night!  I don't mind - maybe he was catching a mouse, even though I haven't seen any.  There are lots of other 'things' I have seen that I don't like to think about (BIG roaches, geckos, lots of mosquitoes.....)

People at Work in P. N.

This young man painted this picture for me, which has mothers with babies on their backs.  He said he and his father are artists.  They display their work on the steps of the post office.

Notice the AMERICAIN on the store.  A 'Boucherie' is a butcher shop where you can buy chicken and other meat and usually canned food, kind of like a 7 Eleven, but where most people shop because they are in the quartiers where they live.  The display of apples is typical and each apple usually costs about 250 cfas, which is about 50 cents.

More Action Shots of the Best Basketball Game in Pointe Noire (since they are small, two balls were needed!)

 Elders Larsen and McGrath

 Elders Lamb, Larsen, Andriamamonjy and Garner










Below right, Elder Tshibindi
Below left, Elder Andriamamonjy 

P Day Basketball at the only BB Court in Pointe Noire (that we know of)

Elders Larsen andTshibindi

Elders Garner (behind Elder Lamb), Lamb, McGrath, Andriamamonjy and Tshibindi








Oh my gosh!  HeMan  made it to the Congo....

Elders Andriamamonjy, Tshibindi, Lamb, Garner (hiding again), Larsen

 and McGrath

Our Home and truck

 This is where we live.  It looks fancy, and we are very glad to have a nice place to live.  There are always ups and downs, though - we have birds living in our attic, electric power that goes on and off and isn't powerful enough to run our washing machine (we finally gave it to the elders when theirs broke and we do our laundry in the tub!) and a small generator (it is called 'the group' here and we couldn't understand what people were talking about when they said that!) that keeps the fridge going and a few lights on when the power is off.

This is our truck.  It is essential to have 4 wheel drive, which we have never had in a vehicle before.  Elder Wheatley is amazing as he maneuvers us through incredible traffic - he is getting as good as the taxi drivers who go places and do things I would never have imagined possible - sometimes I just have to close my eyes and hold on tight!  Today we got so close to a large stalled truck that it pushed our side mirror in - I usually just put it in as a caution in heavy traffic. 

Travels and Activities from the week of 2/11/2012

 This young man is enjoying a drink of water on a hot afternoon in Pointe Noire traffic.  If you look closely, in his left hand he has live birds that he walks out into traffic to sell.  They are green and look like parakeets.  We are told they trap the birds to sell for food.  Young men (mostly, a few are women) walk through traffic at the busy intersections selling snacks, water, pens, gum, clocks, watches, sunglasses - all kinds of things, because it can take a long time to get through an intersection and so the opportunity for a sale is great. 

This is a cosmetics store that is quite nice, and shows the very common process of the 2nd story being built (it may take years to complete) while using the main floor and the wood posts(little tree trucks and branches) that hold everything up while it is being built.

This is a lumber shop - at night, the wooden doors are closed and locked.  It is next to other businesses and is only the 4 shelf areas showing and a little area on the left.  The Congolese people are very entrepreneurial and do amazing things with very few resources.  This is the kind of shop where the people earlier in our blog bought the wood to make their home.

These are two amazing women in our home branch.  They asked me to show them how to make cookies and cakes.  We made a chocolate cake, white/vanilla cupcakes, and sugar cookies that we could do lots of things with, like roll in cinnamon sugar, white sugar, or put a piece of chocolate into the middle.  We had a great time.  There was one more sister who had left when I took this picture.  It took us 4 hours because I have only the little oven on the right, with only one shelf in it. We made whipped cream, which they had never had, to show it could be used on top of the cake instead of frosting - powdered sugar isn't available here.

The Best Elders in the Whole World with Wonderful Elder and Sister Hartman