October 19th: ville morte and our 13th anniversary

Little did we know that 13 years after the day we got married, we would be in Kinshasa in a 'shelter in place security posture'. This flyer calls for 'ville morte' - dead city - and is what was distributed in the days beforehand by the opposition parties calling for Kinois (sounds like quinoa, means people in Kinshasa) to stay home on that day. There is no public transportation running and so people stay home.. the city is very quiet. 

Ville morte is a passive message of discontent, in this case, about the results of the recent political dialogue, which made some headway on having the opposition more involved in running the government starting in less than three weeks, but did not guarantee that Kabila was going to step down at the end of his term. There were lots of things missing from the agreement that was signed, so discussions are not over yet. December 19th is coming up fast!

Most Americans were asked to 'shelter in place' on that day, which for us means to stay home and make cookies. So we did. As the US government is politically neutral, our Embassy and USAID were open, so Zeric and about 15 others went to work. We do continue to consistently push for the Congolese to adhere to their constitution and to democratic processes.

You'll see that on the flyer that they've given Kabila a carte jaune (yellow card). Next, in soccer terms, he will get a red card (November). Then.. he gets kicked out of the game? Exciting times!

Rosh Hashanah dinner

It was a little strange having Rosh Hashanah dinner AFTER Yom Kippur, but we wanted to do it.. 

even if it was two weeks late.. 

because we were only able to have apples and honey in the hotel in Brazza on the day itself. 

I even got a little creative with apples holding tea lights in flowers as a centerpiece.

We had some Jew and non-Jewish friends over, and ate all of those foods that feel right this time of year: 

brisket, round challah with raisins, kasha, green beans, kugel (thanks to Aaron!), honey cake, salad from Zeric's garden 

with pomegranate seeds, chicken liver pate, apples and honey, and carrots and figs. 

It was a really nice dinner, with really nice people.

Shana Tovah!

Cupid, and reverse cupid

While waiting for the school bus

Along the river, Kin side

We were so happy to be home that we had to walk around our neighborhood. 

We weren't gone very long, but maybe it was because we didn't know how long we would be gone.

Blu in the setting African sun

Jaffa, Micah, and Blu

Pretty girl by the river

zzzzzzooooommmm

a view of the Brazza bridge from our side!

Enchanted

This is definitely one of my favorite pictures of Jaffa. 

She found this interesting wall in the hotel in Brazza 

and knew right away that she wanted a picture taken there. 

She named it 'Enchanted'.

Repatriation boat ride

Our friend Alain was taking pictures on the boat ride back to Kin from Brazza. 

We missed getting Eben and Blu's nose, but this gives you and idea of how it went!

Happy to be home!

Friday at 6pm we were told that we were going home the next day.  All 120 of us in six waves of two boats, before the port in Kin closed at 3:30pm. We packed up, boarded the boats, and in less than 10 minutes, we were back on the Kin side. It was great to see Zeric!

I missed getting a picture of Eben's three hour nap on the couch... but here's how Blu felt about being back in his own bed last night. We were all feeling the same way. Happy to be back in Kin!!

Serious construction

Friday night, we want to a restaurant by the river called Mami Wata (mermaid) and the boys took off to make a bridge. They were back in time for pizza, and when we went to see it, it was a bit too dark to appreciate it (though we did appreciate the amount of mud that was involved!).

The next day, we saw a GREAT construction!

An example of excellent engineering!!

Blu and his girl

Every morning we were in Brazza, I would get up at 5:45 and Blu and I would take a walk along the river. There we met Lapin ('rabbit') and some other dogs who lived in the area, and had a little sniff and play. When we got back to the hotel room, the kids were always still sleeping.. and so Blu would take advantage of the moment and jump into Jaffa's bed for a snuggle. 

Here are some pics from each of the days that we were there.. 

Brazza bridge

We look at the Brazzaville bridge every evening from our balcony, 

so we had to go walk on it while it was lit up!

the moon!

the kids!!

Looking back on the whole bridge.

Beautiful!

Making words

So.. you get a little creative when you're in your hotel room for a lot of hours, and so I challenged Jaffa, Eben, and Eben's friend James to creating as many gross words as they possibly could with the Banagram letters. Ta da!

It helped us work on our spelling too :)

Later, I challenged them to spell names of animals. That was a little more tame.

Pool time

The pool at the Radisson had four levels, it was pretty fantastic and the kids spent a lot of time there. I did too, fending off the black flies that were sucking my blood and leaving bites that make me look like I have the plague. There were 40+ kids in our evacuation, so you can imagine afternoons at the pool! Oh, and see the view of Kinshasa in the distance??

There were a lot of American Girl doll play dates, this one included a photo shoot by the pool. Jaffa was the photographer.

It wasn't such a bad way to spend a week ( we can say that now that it's over!).

Coping while in exile

See here .. the Hendricks and tonic and cucumber (perfectly assembled by the bartender downstairs), frustrating French homework, and a list of restaurants in Brazzaville. That pretty much describes our week in exile.

Apples and Honey

So evacuation happened just before Rosh Hashanah. Time to improvise! 

Here's what I made the morning before we took the boats across the river to Brazzaville.

And once we were there, we bought some apples and honey at the (fancy French) grocery store. And then we shared with all of the other evacuees we could find at breakfast in the hotel.

Shanah Tova! 

(And now that we're back in Kin, Rosh Hashanah dinner is on.. just two weeks late)

Mercy's tree

Mercy died a year ago, on September 19th and after we buried her, we put a small plant on her grave. That plant has now grown into a beautiful flowering tree in a place in the garden that we can see all the time.

We miss you, Mercy.. and think of you every single day.

My dollhouse

This post has been a long time in coming.

This is the dollhouse that my dad made for me for my 6th birthday. I remember that the garage was off-limits for a very long time, which was where he had been building it.

We brought it with us because I knew that the kids would be at an age where we would want to play with it (with me, of course!) while we were overseas.. and so finally, I unpacked it in Indonesia and got a board cut to fit it. Zeric then reattached the second floor and got the roof on as my Hanukkah present two years ago. Then, it was shipped to Kinshasa in a custom-made box. 

Now, we've unpacked the furniture and have moved back in. Next step, reattaching the staircase and maybe some landscaping.  

It's very exciting to have it back in action!!

Egg seller

Hard boiled eggs with hot pepper sauce are a common snack here in Kinshasa.

These are the guys who sell them, and this is how they walk around town all days long.

Photo credit to Zeric

Kinda like a snow day

Not unexpectedly, September 19th was a tough day in Kinshasa. It was suppose to be the day when the electoral commission announced the date of the next elections. They didn't. People demonstrated, the police shot and killed too many on that day and the next day. We don't yet know what will happen after December 19th, the last day of Kabila's term. Discussions continue, and elections have now been tentatively scheduled for December 2018, a full two years late. The whole thing is very unfair to the Congolese people.

Meanwhile, we were very far away from all of the terrible things happening, both physically and psychologically. (It was a bit surreal, really, given that we were getting updates every hour or two on the situation in the city.) Knowing that there was going to be something going on that day, we were told to stay home.  Leo and Mia joined us at our place while their mom (and my boss) covered the office. Our good friend Juan had brought pastries the day before, and so we decided it would be a good time to eat them... in between movies, a little homework, and lots of play time.

Caves and blind fish

The Embassy here does a nice job organizing trips so that we get out and see things in this beautiful country. We opted in on the trip to see caves and blind fish, and it turned out to be quite a memorable day! We all went in the same bus, and it took us about 5 hours to get there. 

On the way, we saw lots of Saturday morning market action.

And when we got there, we were welcomed by the village kids. Talking to them, I learned that they go to school and there, they learn French. I asked them about learning Kikongo, and no.. that only happens at home and at university (if you want to). Clearly, our project (early grade reading in national languages) is not working in this area!

Off we went, hiking down the hill to the cave. We had a number of kids from the village joining us... but (errrrm) supportive. Ish.

Then we turned right and down down down into the cave. It was pretty magnificent, and HUGE inside--like a hotel ballroom with high ceilings, and it was room after room until we got to a waterfall about a kilometer in. In the pools were little white fish that were blind, because it's so dark back there.

It absolutely made you imagine who might have taken shelter in there in days long past. 

So we went the whole way back, and then came back.. and then up up up up out of the cave. 

Our friends were waiting for us.

And so were the REALLY beat up cars to bring us back to the bus. Somehow, they didn't seem so.. um.. yucky when we were going, but on the way back they were yucky AND we broke down! Our car needed to be pushed by the car behind to get started each time it stalled. And really, you didn't want to touch anything on the inside. Stuff of unknown composition kept falling from the ceiling. Ewwwwwww...

Thankfully, some of us were too tired to notice. After we broke down, we squeezed ten people into the other car to go the few miles back to the bus. And then another 4+ hours to get back to Kinshasa, through crazy traffic. It was a fun, crazy, tiring, great day!