May 27, 2014 - Clark

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

We had a bit of a bust for a day.  Only a single appointment with Flavien turned out.  We had a 10:00 appointment with the Minister of Health but Flavien was waiting for his office to call before we went into the office to wait.  Flavien forget his information on prior projects and we had to drive to his home to pick up the pictures that his wife had put in his briefcase that he left at his printing office.  We did a lot of driving but accomplished little.  We had a funny experience when we stopped at Flavien’s home.  There was a large dog in the street and mom asked Flavien why there weren’t more dogs.  He quizzed her on her estimate as to why so few dogs.  Mom said she guessed they were too expensive to feed and he burst out laughing.  He said it is because they eat them.

We went to visit World Vision but they are having a local seminar and we decided to try back on Thursday morning.  We also have another appointment with the Minister of Health Thursday morning at 10:00.  Most of the missed appointments reminded me of being a full-time missionary.  We did have some backup plans that eventually panned out.

Within the last year the Area Presidency has visited the School District Offices for the Catholic Schools and said we would follow-up when there was a humanitarian couple assigned to Lubumbashi.  We visited with the Priest in charge; his name was Gideon.  They have over 100,000 students and the rewarding statistic was that nearly half of the students are girls.  Girls don’t have the same advantages as boys in this culture and often they drop out of school.  Many of the sister missionaries do not know French because it is taught in school and they have not attended school.  

We visited about their most pressing needs and they said latrines and benches.  They asked if we could help with roofs and fencing.  We said we would prefer to focus on classrooms and benches.  They gave us a tour of their facilities which were previously a monastery.  We made arrangements for them to show us 2-3 schools tomorrow.  We asked them to show their areas of greatest need and we were well received.  I asked for a copy of their budget to see the amount of money they were spending on their own to maintain their facilities.  You can be pretty bold when you are writing the checks.  

The afternoon was a continuation of frustration.  I can see early on that the financial and budgetary accountability are going to drive me crazy.  We have a totally cash society and are required to fill in reimbursement forms for any reimbursements requested.  We will also have a $1,000 petty cash fund.  It all sounds pretty good until you realize that to travel anywhere in our mission requires air travel with excess baggage charges, ground transportation and hotel accommodations.  Every single trip will be in excess of $1,000.  Our support couple from South Africa is in Cape Town helping with an emergency response effort where over 200 homes were lost to a fire.  The bottom line is we’re spending our reserve of cash and hope to make an accounting someday.  I wish they would allow me to follow Roger’s example and fill out an annual expense report.  

We did have a bit of excitement this afternoon when the office accountant asked us to accompany her to the bank.  She withdrew $22,000 in cash and wanted an escort.  Everything operates on cash here and you get a little paranoid about carrying hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars on your person.  

We have located a couple of American type grocery stores that cater to the expatriates who live here with the mines.  Mining is the big industry and most of the owners and supervisors are white.  The prices are pretty high.  We paid $7 for Nutella, $4 for yoghurt, $11 for garbage bags, etc.  They go through a 3 step process  whenever handling money.  One party rings it up and collects the money, another stop is to have someone review the receipt to make sure you have paid for everything and the third is baggers and anyone else who jumps in carries the merchandise out to your car in order to collect a tip.  

We received our dirver’s licenses yesterday and they are still working on our exit visas.  You receive a travel visa for 6 months when you enter the country, but you can’t leave the country after 6-months unless you have a long-term visa.  In the past it has taken up to 5-6 months to get that long-term visa.

Shelley has worried a lot about what she would do if her mother passed away when she didn’t have an exit visa.  We also expressed a need to expedite this process so we won’t be grounded for that waiting period of time in the event we have projects going on that require travel.  

We had an enjoyable facetime call with Spencer this evening.  He is between nobs right now.  I have been extremely disappointed in Medtronic for the way they have ignored his needs after all the sacrifices he has made for the company.  I’ll let him tell that story.

He taught us how to share our photos using iphone technology.  We have loved the Apple technology and are certainly happy we brought all of our Apple equipment.  In the last week have discovered hotspot technology that allows our iphones to act like a portable router that provides wi-fi or internet access for up to 5 devices.  We learned about photo streaming this evening and generally we couldn’t survive without having contract with our family and the outside world through technology.  

I’m sure once the projects get rolling, we’ll have less time to write.  Everyone continues to do everything possible to make life comfortable and enjoyable for us.  They really do treat senior couples differently in an effort to solicit increased senior participation.