Goree Island

From Wikipedia: Gorée is a small island 900 metres (3,000 ft) in length and 350 metres (1,150 ft) in width sheltered by the Cap-Vert Peninsula. Now part of the city of Dakar, it was a minor port and site of European settlement along the coast. Being almost devoid of drinking water, the island was not settled before the arrival of Europeans. The Portuguese were the first to establish a presence on Gorée c. 1450, where they built a small stone chapel and used land as a cemetery.

Gorée is known as the location of the House of Slaves (French: Maison des esclaves), built by an Afro-French Métis family about 1780–1784. The House of Slaves is one of the oldest houses on the island. It is now used as a tourist destination to show the horrors of the slave trade throughout the Atlantic world.

So we spend our Saturday go to and from Goree Island, an having a nice lunch and walk around.

WWII era?

Galileo the pelican, who roams the island, and likes to have his chin rubbed.

The door of no return, in the house of slaves. 

The house is small, but you can see all of the rooms where the slaves were held. 

It's cold and damp, and it helps you imagine a little of how terrible it must have been.

Colonial cannons

Ebbetts field

Baseball/softball diamond, playground, 

yoga classes in the late afternoon (loved it!), a couple of grills, 

available for birthday parties... 

what a great USG space right on the ocean!

Last baby tooth

It came out in Dakar!

Now you gotta really really brush and floss, Miss Jaffa.

Breakfast

One the highlights, according to J&E.. 

the amazing breakfast buffet at the hotel.

Nothing like a little salmon and strawberries!

Dakar!

Lucky us that Zeric agreed to share his hotel room for a week, so we tagged along to check out Dakar. Before we came, we were excited about moving here.. but now that we've been here, we are SUPER excited about getting here in August.

Note to self: Not surprisingly, traveling across Africa is not the easiest way to get to Dakar. We flew from Kin to Libreville (Gabon) to Abidjan (Cote d'Ivoire) to Dakar. It takes about 10 hours end to end. And notice: no screens for in-flight entertainment (except the ones in our hands)!

In Dakar, there are beaches everywhere.. and it's chilly!

We arranged for Eben to go for a surfing lesson (see Surf Senegal boat, center), as many many people do multiple times a week. See waves on the horizon on the right.. 2 meters high! Glad they headed somewhere more tame for the lesson..

There are a number of nice beach restaurants too.. some of which serve sushi and have live music including (below) Evergreen with the djembe!

We noticed right away that it seems that everyone is out exercising.. running, walking.. in the morning, in the evening and on the weekend. These calisthenics machines that the Chinese donated are all along the beach, tons of different kinds with people doing so many exercises on them!

Truth be told, it certainly helped that we were staying at the Radisson. Beautiful hotel on the beach where the floors went down instead of up because it was build into a cliff.

two kids in the infinity pool next to the ocean..

ordering her (virgin) pina colada..

aaaaaaaah...

Memere loves us!

She must! Look what she sent!!!

A week in the Kivus

It was finally my turn to go to Goma and Bukavu. We took an early morning UN flight, and arrived in Goma just after noon to find out that our flight was cancelled to Bukavu because of bad weather. One night in Goma! It' beautiful there.

At the airport, there were these amazing hanging nests and birds with yellow chests.

The view of the river from the hotel was beautiful..

And then early the next morning, we took the boat across.. 

it was a three hour trip, and it was a great way to start the day.

Once in Bukavu, we joined the rest of the team who was doing a focus group with young people to learn more about their ambitions, and the things that they felt were stopping them. We visited a lot of different organizations including a center for people with disabilities, and the Panzi Foundation (see http://www.panzifoundation.org) which was incredibly powerful.

The view of the lake from this side (Bukavu) was equally stunning.

And I learned about a new fruit, they call it (in French) "prune", though in Rwanda they call it a tree tomato.

It tastes like a sour tomato, with a bit of a different texture and a bit sweeter.

Bukavu, center city. It's a beautiful place, the weather is cool and the people are friendly. It's sad that there's still such insecurity, it would be a great place to live!

Japanese Karate competition

Eben and his friend Leo take karate lessons with our driver Papy, and so when Zeric got an invitation from the Japanese Embassy to watch a karate and judo competition, they went! (Papy was invited too, but couldn't make it.) Eben said that it was interesting that the competitors had to be weighed to know who they were going to spar with. And, they all got to meet the Japanese Ambassador!

Another Kimbanguist orchestra visit

We braved another Friday evening of traffic to get to the Kimbanguist rehearsal, this time with more friends. It's always so inspiring. 

I love the look on the musicians' faces, they are so happy about playing!  

Somewhat captive audience..

I will be posting soon about how to support them!

Hippy Ziggy

Remember Ziggy? 

He was my birthday present last year, 

and has been doing a GREAT job of protecting our house ever since. 

Jaffa decided Ziggy needed some decorating.. 

and he clearly feels much better for it.

Bralima

Congolese love beer. 

And so do Americans, so the Embassy set up a trip to a local brewery to check out the operation.

One of the two major brewing companies, Bralima, 

produces thousands of crates of beer a day that are distributed all over the country. 

The brewery manager said that one of the reasons civic protests in DRC tend to end after three days 

is because the brewery makes about three days' of beer in advance. 

If production is cut off, it doesn't take long to have no beer to be had!

One of the original fermentation tanks form the early 20th century.

And here's the happy crew. I wonder if there was any tasting going on..

sushi in Kin

Yup! Yummmmmmmmm

The EAGLE school and the Girl Scouts

You'll remember back in November, I wrote about the EAGLE school that we went to visit with the Ambassador. It was a good visit, but it highlighted a lot of the challenges that the students face. Not too long after that, the Girl Scout troop leader (who is a good friend) was telling me that she was looking for a way to support girls' education in DRC, as their troop had made about $500 over the last year with their bake sales and other fund raisers. Did I have any ideas? Yes!! I spoke with the EAGLE staff and asked what would be most useful. The answer came back quickly: underwear for the girls. You see, they all have to wear skirts as a part of their uniforms, and underwear is expensive so many don't have any and need to miss school if they have their periods. So, we bought about 600 pair of underwear and a number of boxes of sanitary napkins. 

We also thought it would be great if the girls could meet. Come to find out, with all of the visits that grown-ups had done to that school, never had any children visited. Everyone was excited and got ready! The Scouts got art supplies and snacks together (okay, the Scouts parents), and the EAGLE girls put together a while program to make their guests feel welcome. Here's how it went:

Girl Scouts meet with a car load full of girl stuff to donate.

We arrive at the EAGLE school, and the EAGLE girls sing a welcome song. (These are the elementary girls, the older girls were at another part of the campus doing much the same.) Then the EAGLE girls each came and chose a partner, and took them to the classroom to draw together.

Waiting for art supplies..

The girls had a good time making art to decorate the classrooms, and did a lot of chatting too! There were enough scouts who spoke both French and English to make for some good chatting.

Art goes up on the walls

Then some impromptu play outside

That grew and grew

And finally, after snacks and more playing, we took our final group picture.

We all had a GREAT time, and everyone was asking to do it again soon!

(Note: The donations were taken to the principle's office while the activities were going on, and girls would receive them the next school day, privately.)