Weekend Visits

Sunday has arrived and finally there was a car and a driver outside our appartment who really had no one to take shopping....We decided to take advantage of the opportunity to go on one of our visits. After a brief discussion with our driver Etienne we decided to visit Kinsuka to visit Chez Conseille (Pompage) It is about a 35 minute ride from Belle Vue on the road going to Matadi... Driving on the roads he has to go around the potholes and broken down truck and cars at times, which give you time to look at how the people of Kinshasa live. Mama's with big basin's of bread (baguettes) and a jar of homemade peanut butter making breakfast for anyone who stops by to order with her...Woman going about shopping for vegetables all dressed in the beautiful dresses or skirts and tops made of wax anglais materials...so bright and colourful I just love it! Not to forget the many full little churches (some make shift ) full of people singing and praying...People are very religious here , I have come to the conclusion when there is nothing else, no hope you turn to something or someone that offers some form of hope! I do not think a day goes by when I am not asked if I have a job for someone....it is sad, and I feel a bit helpless at times.

What a surprise when we eventually got to Kinsuka, we where on the Congo River with a view of the rapids and just on the other side of the river Brazzaville. The beach is full of huge black boulders. Here and there you spot a fisherman on the rocks fishing with a net or rod.. and.kids bathing in the shallow water. In this area you also find that they earn minimal money by breaking up these rock, first by making dynamite holes blasting them and then chipping at them to make smaller pieces so that they can build houses .....in a week they can earn about 10 20 dollars doing this.

I also discovered some very nice statues that where made out of cement dotted around the gardens before getting to the beach .I spotted my first African Dwarf Pygmy Kingfisher(Bird)
in some reeds next to what was once upon a time a fish farm.....

After our walk we discovered a little restaurant , where they have a buffet lunch for $20 but we opted for the fried bananas with a fish that is steamed in banana leaves ...it was delicious...

We had a great Sunday and will visit there again......

Places to Visit .....

Two weeks ago having a chat with Jaèl the young woman who comes in, to help me with the house twice a week we got chatting about different touristic places to visit. Vianney and I decide to go out to the closest one called Nganda Yala with Alfonse our driver. It is a little picnic spot where you can take the family on a Sunday to enjoy the day. They have a little restaurant where you can have something to eat and drink , I even saw some people swimming, if you enjoy fishing this is not the place for you, there are none, I was told!



I believe that there are other places to visit like Lac de ma Valee which is about an hours drive from here , and a Park for rescued Chimps , I guess we will have to try and see these soon before the rainy season comes! The roads are not in the best condition so when the wet season comes I am told you will definately need a 4x4 to get around.



In the mean time I am kept busy with my little Coffee Morning which has turned out to be a hit and we are now starting to think of ways to help people less fortunate than ourselves.

Life at Belle Vue

I have been living at Belle Vue , for two weeks now, slowly I am getting into a routine of going for my morning walk of a couple of laps around the compound with Bev....I have tried to stick to about 7000 steps on the walk and do a couple more laps in the evening with Vianney. This gives us time to chat about our day and to get some exercise in at the same time.

More family's and consultants have been arriving so the little group is growing....and with that all the teething problems of a new project get sorted out as we go along. It seems the major problem for us has been cars and driver assignments but the company is doing there best to accommodate everyone so it is all good.

This week on my walk I got to see how very lonely people are on the compound. Some of us are going to be here for 3-5 years and it is difficult in the beginning to make new friends find a dentist , doctor etc. I have taken it on my shoulders to try and form a support group for the lady's here at Belle Vue, by arranging our first Coffee Morning.....

A quick note on this I had about 15 woman turn up, it was fun, from teachers to a Child Psychologist , all with different views and hobby's. It was great to exchange information amongst ourselves and we will meet again next week.....

I have been helping the moms that do not have much English or French enroll there children at the International School (Jewels Int. School) just down the road from Belle Vue . Yesterday was the turn of a lovely Albanian Family that arrived just 3 days ago......We are turning out to be a great International Community.

Last weekend had some colourful moment . I found a hairdressing Salon downtown and a few of the consultants tried it out..first...So I thought the hairdresser had done a good job on them I would go with Vianney...you guessed....Yes something did go wrong.. we both got very short haircuts.. we look a bit like convicts in hiding. One good thing , hair grows....at least we know we can have our hair done here!

Sunday we where all invited to one of the Ministers Homes,who's wife works as an Office Manager for the company. She had tables beautifully set out in her garden . She had organised a lovely buffet lunch for about 50 guest . We had champagne for the celebration with a band playing music in the background...it was fun and different.

One of the dishes on the menu was stewed 'Mopani Worms'.... I passed on this dish, but some consultants where brave enough to try them and said they where good!!!!

My Maid Jaèl

On Monday morning Jaèl arrived at my front door, she was employed by the company to do the cleaning of the house.

I must be honest when I first saw her I really did not think that this young woman of 27 was going to work out. The reason I thought it was not going to work, she arrived looking more like a model than someone that was going to help in the house. Jaèl has turned out to be fun and very helpful, she told me that the outfit she is wearing she designed, cut and sewed together so she is talented. Going to get her to help me with my sewing! (and French)

Vegetables and fruits here are very expensive but she manages to shop at the market for much less, buying very fresh local products...mango, Paw paw, pineapples and Avocado's...so it works for both of us!

I told her I was going to put some pictures of her on my Blog and she came all dressed for the part.

Embassy and Passports Do Not Make for a Good Day!

Today I was ready to pack my bags and go home! Talk about feeling frustrated. Why is it that every country you go to (when entering through Immigration with your Passport) find this unstoppable urge to use a clean page for their stamp and then another one for their visa!!!! As a result the passport that I now have, has too few pages in it. When we arrived they put a

temporary visa plus the normal stamps of entry into my passport (taking up 2 pages)a day later our passports were collected again for another more "permanent" visa... (it was supposed to be for a year), but guess what..... it was only, for a month.

The passports now had to go back once more,Patrick, the guy who is doing this for us, told
me ‘Mama you do not have enough pages for this’ so that is the reason why I am trying to obtain a new passport. The South African Embassy here has been awful.

I have been to them 4 times and every time (according to them)I have had something missing. or I had not completed all the forms.
I had to prove my citizenship, apply for an Identity Document, Apply for a new Passport, and bring copies of my existing Passport, Identity Document, and Citizenship Document.


Second time with everything in order I go back and the man who does finger prints was not there BUT..let me check your papers , oops! You forgot to fill in all the details of your parents…!!!! Where they where born,when, Identity numbers etc. which I do not have !


Third time every thing is filled out but the fingerprint man is still missing in action and so I cannot leave my application once again.
SO....
I take time and go back this morning only to be told that I filled the papers in with the wrong
blue and not black…colour OK.. I redo them…"oops something is not right! "You have crossed something out ,that is not allowed, I start again…oops! this "You have gone over the R in your surname that is not allowed…".That is when I just got so frustrated and burst into tears!!!!!

I am now convinced that these people were looking for a bribe, and without it they where
going to give me a hard time. I told the fingerprint man (Who magically appeared- Like the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland) that I was not happy with
the way I was been treated and that I would report their behaviour…as I was about to fill in my forth application of the day….

He then proceeded to tell me he was in charge and no you do not have to redo that just scratch it out like this…with a stroke of the pen and write next to it!!!! I said the Madam in the
front said it was not allowed, he told me forget about her she is in training…and he knew what was allowed and not……and had been doing this job for many years!!!


I COULD HAVE SCREAMED! This was NOT funny! There I am standing - tears running down my face, runny nose (no tissues) and all of this happening in front of a room of around 30 people.

I was ashamed to be South African and to be treated like this in a foreign country by my own embassy….…..Shame on you SA Embassy for not been more helpful to YOUR citizens in a foreign country. I am sure many of the people sitting there are subjected to this type of behaviour and abuse - having no choice but to pay something (someone) under the table to be served!!!

Well I will have no part in any form of corruption….Happy to have got that all off my chest, time to move on!

Moral of the story , is to go prepared with enough blank pages in your passport and everything else to do with your Travel Document in order well before you leave home !
Hope the weekend is allot better!

Things Move Slow !!

This week has gone by so quickly. Even though I did not have that much to do, things move slow in Africa, so it takes time to do thing.
In Africa one should have time and patients. I do have the time but after going to the South African Embassy four times in the past two weeks, to apply for a Maxi Passport my patients are slowly getting to the end!!!
I will persevere as I need a maxi passport for all the visa's I am collecting. One of the reasons I have had to go back is we do not have a permanent address here in the DRC....and the Embassy wants to be sure I still have SA citizenship. Thanks to Dorianne scanning and email I now have all the documentation I need. So I will be trying again next week.
We do have a vehicle and driver available to us when they are not busy with the Consultants it just takes a bit of planning to organise your day .
In the morning when Vianney goes off to work Bev and I get together to go for our morning walk it’s about 2km (enough to nearly do our 10 000 steps for the day). I do my French Lessons, Internet when it is working and some washing and that takes care of the morning.
I have just heard that Bev and Alan will be leaving the Hotel over the weekend to go to the attached houses in the compound so I will be minus my partner from Monday but will keep up the routine”
Well talk about things moving fast…shows you I should not talk to soon…As it happens we moved out of the Hotel on Sunday Morning. We have unpacked and settled in very well.
The name of the Complex is Belle Vue; they have row houses in an enclosed compound. We have 3 Bedrooms, 2 Bathrooms, Toilet downstairs with an open plan Kitchen, salon and Dining Room. Little Garden outside so we have lots more space and feeling very much at home….
Went shopping yesterday to buy groceries….big surprise …things are very expensive here in Kinshasa…I paid US $750 for a very small trolley! Anyway we should be fine for the next few weeks; I must admit that shopping here is not one of my favourite things to do…We did manage to find everything we needed as it is imported from South Africa and Europe guess that is the main reason for the price we paid. It's great to see some good South African Wines on the shelf.
I intend to put more effort into my French and be fluent by the time I go home to Canada, on that note let me get back to some studying!

Living in the Hotel

Today is our 5th day in Kinshasa. We have not been sleeping that well. We are still
trying to get used to the 6 hour time difference, the different sounds and the strange bedroom!
We woke up this morning to find a notice under the door from Management. The notice was apologising for the disco and party noises we will be hearing tonight, until 1am in the morning and then again for Saturday night until 3am Sunday morning !….Guess they know how to Bogey and throw a good party…poor us trying to sleep!
Guess what our room is on the 4th floor above the venue. There is not much we can do about this, as we are here for next 3-4 weeks. So I guess we better get used to it and buy earplugs and sleeping pills!
The apartment they are trying to get ready for some of the consultants are in the process of been built….I went along with my new Australian friend Bev, to have a look at them today they are a 5 minute walk from here. Once they are completed they will be really beautiful and spacious, they all look onto the Congo River, so I look forward to moving.
We had some more time to explore the city with our Driver Theo, who only speaks French and his own language, so there is some room for misunderstanding some times.
I went off to the South African Embassy to apply for a new passport as mine is so full of visas, then off to the Canadian Embassy to tell them we where in Kinshasa. I had to get some passport photo’s taken and had it done on the street sitting on a little red plastic chair in the dust surrounded by people selling sunglasses fruit and even portable dryer stands….so this gave one a true feeling of been back in Africa. Its funny but as time goes by you take in the friendliness and helpfulness of the Congolese people and know that things will just get better as time goes on…..This weekend we went on a company picnic at someone’s farm along the Congo river, I tried to do some fishing but I guess I will have better luck fishing with less sophisticated tackle…but it was relaxing ….with that we come to another week….

Arriving in South Africa and then DRC

Leaving Montreal, with Dorianne and Seb at the Airport was really difficult in some ways, excitment to travel again and sad to leave them behind. There was some difficulty in getting our electronic tickets printed but after an hour we managed to book all our luggage in ...all 8 pieces of it! We paid 600$ extra but at least it was booked through to Kinshasa. When we arrived in New York we had another problem, as SAA wanted to charge us again for our luggage...the young woman was not very helpful at all....guess i managed to annoy her, as she had both V and I searched on our way through Security..She marked SSSS on our boarding pases so we where pulled aside and I was x-rayed..not.funny!!! I felt that my privacy was invaded in a way but guess that is the joy of travelling.


We arrived well rested in Johannesburg thanks to the good seats we had. I was fortunate to get to see my daughter Tanya, her husband Stefan little Lizel and baby brother Theo..I will put pictures up shortly to show the happy reunion...


The next day we where up very early and ready to get our flight to Kinshasa. We arrived here in Kin at about lunch time....


Getting to the entrance of the airport building , you have your passport checked for a visa and yellow fever card is presented at this time....Well we had a copy of our visa but not in the passport as yet . No one asks for proof they jsut send you off to a little room where they demand money for the visa and are generally abit intimidating ......Eventually someone came to our rescue with the visa and money to pay for them as it is all taken care of by the company....


We where taken off to wait for our luggage in a VIP lounge. You then have to identify your luggage which V did, only to dicover that one case was missing...mine.

I thought that I would end up with no underware but plenty of jeans to wear!!!!!Not very helpful in a warm climate. On that note it is a very nice tempreture here at the moment ...it is said to be there winter its about 21


The suitcase turned up at the Hotel yesterday in good condition with everything still in it ...


We are staying at the Grand Hotel in town I think it was a very nice looking Hotel at one time , at least I can say that our room is comfortable and we are well settled .This will be our home for the next 2 weeks . We have been told that we might be going to a place called Lumbumbashi. I am sure it will go well there.


We have already met some of the people that will be working with V, a lady from Australia and a couple from there as well.... I know that once we are settled we will be fine. Went shopping today to go and look at the Super Market and they have about everything you would need. The only thing is that the vegetable and fruit selection was not that great but I am sure we will find other shopŝ...

Getting Ready For The Big Trek !

The past two weeks have filled up so quickly with list of things to do. Me furiously ticking off at my list of things to do and buy. In the process of all this we have a house of furniture to store with family and our kids living in Ottawa. Living in St. Alexis de Montcalm means we travel about 2 hours to Ottawa where my daughter Dorianne lives with her husband Sebastian. We have done this trip about 3 times in the last 2 weeks . The positive aspect , we have had time to spend with them before leaving.



Vianney and I lived in Mauritius for almost two years in between that we travelled to the Far East , Philippines, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. The list has grown quickly to include living in Montenegro for almost a year and then the Caribbeans where Vianney did some contracts and I got to visit Antigua island.

Our next assignment , is to be in Democratic Republic of Congo, I have had mixed feelings about going. It all started with the different vaccine's we had to have before leaving. The tablets we are going to have to take to protect us from malaria and just general uncertainties. Nothing on the Internet describing the country has been that positive, apart from one blog that a South African has been writing named "life as in Kin". I want to thank her for her positive outlook as she has made me feel at ease about this "big move".

We have 3 more days one more vaccine for Vianney then we will be on our way, by Saturday morning we will be in our new location and country will keep you posted.

The hardest part about starting a new project is leaving my daughter, son-in-law , family and friends behind here in Canada.....we should be home for a "White Christmas" so I will have something to look forward to...