July 19, 2015 - Shelley

July 19, 2015

While most of you are enjoying the warm summer months, we are in winter.  Well, if you can all 70 degrees “winter”.  It’s the dry season – almost a 100% chance of no rain for about 6 months.  It’s a time when a lot of burning takes place because that’s difficult to do in the rainy season (summer).  That means

burning of the garbage build-up and burning of wood to make charbon.  The smoky air makes for beautiful sunsets!  This is a street near our house.

We have a new statue in town.  The  

president of the Congo (who lives in Kinshasa) has decided to divide the Katanga Province into 4 smaller provinces.  We don’t understand the local politics really, but we’ve been told he’s doing it so that this province isn’t as powerful as it is now.  He wants to run for a third term next year – and we think that the governor of the Katanga Province, who is very popular, is a political threat.  Anyway, this statue “says” that even though the province is divided into 4 parts, they will stand united.  At the Operation Smile banquet last week, the governor said as much.  So we’ll have to see.  The elections in Burundi have caused such chaos over the same issue (third term for the president) that foreigners have fled from the country and the church has no current plans for sending missionaries back there anytime soon.  Let’s hope that the DRC doesn’t have the same problems next year.

We visited all five of the neighborhoods in our Regideso water project this week to tell them that the work will begin in the next two weeks or so.  They were all happy except one neighborhood that is still fighting over who gets to have the water taps in their yard.  Regideso will make that call.  We always see things

of interest when we go visiting.  This is a train made out of sardine cans, bottle caps, nails, and string.  An adorable ittle boy pulled this all around while we visited.  It’s kind of hard to see in this

picture.  When I think of all the money we have spent on toys . . . haha!  Who knew that sardines could be this fun?!!

Another interesting site was a family who dug up their yard to use the dirt in making bricks for a new addition.  The

men are shoveling the dirt into a rectangular press, adding a bit of oil and water and squeezing it with a presser handle.  The bricks will then be fired and used for building.  I’m not quite sure what the plan is for filling in the hole!  ☺  Clark and I were quite taken back when Marcel, our translator, asked us if our house at home was made of bricks.  Then he asked if we had made the bricks ourselves.  It’s what everyone does here – and it seems to work very well.  This is a picture

of Marcel’s home.  It is also made of bricks but they are covered with some kind of stucco.  There are actually 4 homes here – his is the green door on the right.  He pays $30 per month.  We haven’t seen inside, but I think he’s paying too much!!!  I wouldn’t dare show him a picture of our home that’s made of “store-bought” bricks!  We are so SPOILED!!!!!

We also took Daniel shopping this week.

He’s on the left in a pink tuxedo shirt.  He is a chief of one of the areas and runs a literacy program for women who haven’t attended school.  We bought school supplies for his program.  The man on the right is a printer who is preparing some written materials for him.  If I said the printer’s shop was “bare bones”, it would be an understatement – but he’s employed and is working hard.

We also went fabric shopping with the Drapers for Sister Draper’s birthday.  Her husband hates to shop, so Clark went along for moral support.  He captured

a picture of two other shoppers.  The one in the middle has a wig on and the one on the right has a fancy “do” using hair extensions.  It’s amazing what the local gals do with their hair!!!  We all

celebrated her birthday and my companion’s birthday (next week) with a dinner at Lattélicious!

Yesterday was a big day for me.  We finally had the first of six training days for the Days for Girls (maturation) project.  There are 3 stakes here, and it will take 2 days in each stake.  These cute ladies

from the Katuba Stake sewed all afternoon.  They are such hard workers -

some with babies on their backs even!!!  The other senior sister missionaries helped me, and I think it was a real success.  About 35 ladies were there.  They are so amazing to me because they sew on hand-run and treadle sewing machines – and their work is beautiful!

Last night we attended another wedding.  Gires, one of the Operation Smile volunteers, married Arlette.  We

took all of the other senior missionaries with us except President and Sister Thomas, who are touring in the Kasai Province this week.  The reception followed about the same format as the others we’ve been to except that there was more dancing and hooting!!  Sister Vance is from Canada but was born in London and has the cutest accent.  And she is a DANCER!!!!  This was her first local reception, and she really got into the spirit of things!  Of course, all of the local people just loved it!  Here is a picture of her after she had joined in with a crowd of dancers.  She’s on the

right.  Super fun gal!  We all thought this

cute lady was fun to watch, too.  And even Clark got “persuaded” to join in the festivities.  It was funny because some man who had been at the reception talked to Clark at church today and said in broken English that he had found joy in Clark’s dancing last night!  I feel pretty shy about doing

things like that, so I’m glad it wasn’t me!  I figure that someone has to be on the sidelines cheering, so I’m okay with it!

Well, we attended church today in a ward we had never been to – the Bongonga Ward.  They had a choir of Primary kids (about 25 senior Primary children) who sat up in front alone on their little plastic chairs.  There was no adult supervision needed – they sang prelude for about 30 minutes – with no accompaniment.  And they remained sitting together for the whole Sacrament Meeting – no little squabbles or issues of “who is bothering who”.   I just don’t know how they do it!  Aren’t

they adorable!!!

Well, even though I’ve been retired from teaching for two years now, I had my annual “nervous for school” dream the other night.  Usually I dream that it’s Back-to-School Night, and I’m talking to parents with only my slip on.  But this time, I dreamed that I couldn’t find my classroom, I hadn’t prepared anything for the first day, and the bell was about to ring!!!  I just want to remind all of my wonderful school-teaching friends that you still have plenty of summertime left and don’t start worrying about school yet!!!

Happy Birthday this coming week to our son-in-law David Chamberlain – and to the best companion in the world - Clark!

Love,  Mom/G-ma/Soeur Davis