Last night in Africa,

I am leaving in the morning! I have had a great time here and really enjoyed the experience but I am excited to be going home. I'm in for 2 long days of travel (over 11,000 miles) however I'm heading home so I don't think I will mind it. As my last post from Africa here are a couple of pictures from the landscape. A beautiful flower, a valley with "Africa trees" as I like to refer to them, and a termite mound. Yes, there are many, many termite mounds around here. Some active, some inactive, all very cool looking.

Dimanche

...that is Sunday in French. French and Swahili are the main languages here, so I have learned a little of both. Well actually some French and a couple words of Swahili. I have spent 7 Sunday's here in the DRC and have not been able to go to church. It makes Sunday different, but I have tried to make due as best I can. Each Sunday I have my own little church; sing some hymns, read my scriptures, read a lesson from the Teachings of Joseph Smith manual, read a couple talks from last General Conference, and say a prayer. I am grateful for my "church" time because I can feel the spirit and it helps the day feel more like the Sabbath.

Now a correction from my last blog. The sun actually rises in the east here and sets in the west, the same as the northern hemisphere. Don't think I am a complete retard, I was just misinformed when I arrived. However, now that I know the truth it has made everything clear to me. I am always able to naturally tell which way is north, however since being in Africa I was always confused. The way that I thought was north wasn't really north because the sun was rising in the west and setting in the east. Now that I know the truth I realize that the way I think is north really is north. I'm not sure if you followed that...I am sure glad that I got it all figured out three days before I leave :)

Sunrise, sunset - Africa style

As I am in the southern hemisphere, the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. Admittedly it took me a week or two to realize that the sun was setting oposite from what I am used to. I have not failed to notice the beauty of the sunsets however. Usually the sun and sky around it turn red as the suns nears the horizon, it is really awesome. I tried to capture the wonder...

...they do not do justice to the real life thing but at least it is a glimpse.

Transportation

Most people in the DRC do not have a motor vehicle, a fact I was not surprised about. I was however surprised when I saw the number of bikes. Tons of people have bikes! It's awesome. The bikes act as single person vehicle, taxi, and/or trunk or truck. I have collected some pictures to show the many possibilities the bike can offer:

It's amazing to me how many things they can pack on a bike. One time I saw this guy hauling two 10 foot long rectangular metal bars (they reminded me of rain gutters). He had them standing up on either side of his bike - it was incredible. I just think about what I would do if I had to haul something, like a mattress for example. I would never in a million years think of my bike as an option, in fact my car wouldn't even be an option. Maybe when I go back to Arizona and it cools off a little I will try hauling a large load on my bike. Ha, ha, I'm sure it would turn into a complete disaster. Anyway, I really admire the Congolese people for using the bike so well.

In contrast, the transportation for me and my fellow FMI employees is a lot less physical. Most people drive a white, 4-door, manual, diesel, Toyota Hilux truck. If you have never hear of this truck it is because it would not pass emissions laws in the USA. There are some other vehicles as well - some Toyota SUV's and Land Rover's, but mainly white trucks. When I first arrived a wondered how in the world anyone knew which truck was theirs when they all look the same. I soon learned that a) they don't really look the same b) you just know which truck is yours c) each truck has a number painted on both sides and the back. I was lucky enough to have a truck secured for me when I got here, #595, which is great because then I don't have to go to work at 6:30. Although the seats are completely covered in dirt, grease and I'm sure other things, it gets me from point A to B so I have no complaints. (In case you're wondering about the flag on each truck in the picture, that is called a buggy whip and it a requirement for any vehicle driving in the mine).

Base Camp

The area that the company owns here is called the concession and there are two "camps" on the concession, Bravo and Base. I stay at Base Camp; which I am thankful for because Bravo is basically a man camp. Bravo is also very barren as it is all simple houses and rocks while Base is very green. Bravo also has a few thousand people living there while there are a few hundred at Base. Please join me for a tour of Base Camp...

Base camp is surrounded by a gate and razor wire. There is one entrance; through a gate which security opens and closes. This is a look at the gate from inside of camp. You can't see it well because one side is open, but the yellow and blue thing in the middle of the picture is the gate.

This is facing the other direction; what you see as you drive in through the gate. There is one main road through Base Camp.

The first 1/2 of Base is offices, a lab, security, geology, HR, small vehicle garage, etc. - basically places where people work. There are geology core samples all over the place, as is shown below.

There is also a clinic which serves the Base camp occupants as well as some people from Fungarume - I think it is just families of people who work for the company but I'm not positive.

About 1/2 way down the main road is the mess hall and the housing buildings. This is the mess hall; there are tables inside and out.
The commissary. I haven't been in yet, but the prices for the limited amount of goods are pretty outrageous.

To the left of the mess hall (up and behind) are rendavos (I have no idea how that is spelled). These are cute houses that people call chicken coops.

Across from the mess hall to the right are these housing buildings.

There are also a lot of housing building that look like this. This one - H4 - is where I lived the first 2 weeks I was here.

A look at some of the housing from the main road.

Continuing on the main road past the mess hall and the housing buildings, you start to get to the houses. This is where many of the people who are working here permanently live. This picture shows the end of the main road at which point you can turn left or right.

Left takes you up a small hill to where more houses are being built...

...to the social club where they have pool tables, outdoor sitting and beverages (most people go there to drink)...

...and to the tennis court and gym.

A right at the end of the main road takes you to some houses, including Mark and Anna's house where I am living. (You can see Mark and my trucks parked in front of their house).

This is a small portion of Mark and Anna's yard, it is very green and pretty. The tree in the middle is a banana tree. If you look closely at the right side you can see bananas growing.

The Green Wall

This area of Africa is very rich in copper and other minerals; it is one of the top 5 richest copper ore areas in the world and my company is mining just a small portion of it. Here are some pictures to help you see how much copper I am talking about.

As I drive out of base camp each day, heading to the mine, this is what I see. It is called the green wall and all of the green is copper waiting be be extracted. This "wall" is about 20 miles from the area that is being mined right now.
A closer look at the wall.
A closer look at one of the rocks from the wall.

Me at the green wall. Without getting into the mineralogy - look at all that copper. It is crazy! There is a lot of copper mining in Arizona, but you never see anything like this.

Washing windows

The company has hired a lot of Congolese people to work here in all sorts of jobs; mine jobs, mess halls, cleaning rooms, doing laundry, custosdial work, yard work, speed tracker (hiding in the bushes with a speed gun)...you get the idea. Sometimes as I drive to work I think that they created some jobs just so that people can have a job. For example, there are markers along the sides of the road out to the mine and today I saw a guy out washing them. There are hundreds of markers so I don't know if he will ever get to all of them, but at least he is working and making money. At the mine there are people who come and clean the lab each day. The way that they mop is quite unconventional. They pour water on the floor, squeegee it around and then wrap a towel around the squeegee to do the actual "mopping". It may not be as good as using a real mop, but it works pretty well. The "custodians" also clean the windows and outside of buildings every couple of weeks. Today one guy was outside cleaning the building (it is a metal con-ex) and the windows by getting soapy water on a broom, sweeping the wall or window and then throwing buckets of water onto the walls and window to rinse away the soap.

As I watched him working from out the window, I was reminded of when Beth, Brenda and I cleaned our windows in our apartment during college. We hadn't been living in our apartment very long when we noticed that the windows were very dirty. We had a split level apartment making the living room window about 10 or 12 feet above ground and we had no ladder so cleaning the window was a bit tricky. We taped together our broom and mop - very resourceful - and mopped the window as best we could (it didn't really get very clean). After the mopping we had a lot of soap on the window and no way to rinse it off as we had no hose. Once again we tried to be resourceful by filling a bucket water to throw on the window. But, even for the very buff Brenda, a bucket full of water was too heavy to throw up to a 10 foot high window. Instead we tired 1/4 full of water, which was perfect, and after a while we had the soap rinsed off the window. Now that the windows were cleanish, Brenda decided that she wanted to sweep our parking spots in the parking lot. Beth moved her car out of the way but Brenda didn't want to go into the house to get her keys nor did she want Beth or I to go and get them. Instead, she put her car in neutral and had Beth and I push it out of the parking spot. In the meantime, some of our neighbors saw us pushing the car and came over to see if we were having car trouble and needed some help. "No, no. We are just pushing it out of the way (because Brenda is too lazy to go inside and get her keys) so we can sweep the parking lot". So our neighbors just told us that they would move their cars so we could sweep their parking spots as well and walked away, probably thinking we were really dumb girls. It was just one in the many "brilliant" ideas we had while living in that apartment; bringing many laughs and good memories.
While watching the guy wash the windows today with a broom, etc. I couldn't help but laugh out loud at the remembrance. It definitely improved my Monday. And now I hope you also got a small laugh, or at least a smile, from this story and it brightened your Monday.

Hills and Gardens

The Congolese people who live in this area do a lot of gardening. The landscape is kind of hilly but that is not a deterrent, the gardens are just planted on hills. I have never seen gardens on hills before, probably because I have always lived in desert type climates. The rainy season from October to May is what makes these gardens possible; I'm pretty sure a garden on a hill would never work if you had to irrigate. Since I got here in the dry season many of the plants were already dead, but I can tell that they grow corn, beans, peanuts, some melons or squash and leafy greens, bananas, mangos and papayas. We also have a lot of cucumbers. onion and tomatoes during our meals so I think they must grow around here as well. These are not the best pictures, but they do show the essence of hill gardens.

Carrying Things

This is one of my favorite things that I see each day in the Congo:

Women (sometimes men and children, but mostly women) walk around carrying things on their head with a baby on their back. I'm not really sure why, but I am quite fascinated by this. I think it's that I like to see how they've adapted to carrying large loads without the ease of cars, wagons or carts. I often wonder how they carry these loads without hurting their necks; I think it's all in maintaining great posture. Many times they carry large tubs full of things (like the pictures) or large canvas bags of crops or charcoal but I've also seen a load of sticks, a mattress or a purse. I also think the babies are so cute in the little pouches on their moms' backs. The mom uses a piece of cloth to hold the baby that is tied in front. So far I haven't gotten a picture of the load on the head and the baby on the back, but I hope to before I leave.

Return of Boy Bands

It takes about 25 minutes to drive out to the mine each day. That can become 25 very boring minutes with no radio or music. While I like to drive in silence once in a while, doing so twice a day six days a week would be too much.
Luckily there is a tape deck in the truck.
Unluckily I failed to bring any tapes with me.
Luckily Steve (our LIMS programmer) was here before me, bought some tapes and left them for me.
Luckily one of the tapes is Congolese so I get a taste of the music here.
Unluckily, or maybe luckily, the other tape is Backstreet Boys. That's right, they are making a comeback in the Congo.
When I leave I have to take one of the tapes with me to return to Steve. I'll let you decide which one that is :) I think I will actually take both tapes as I'm sure he wants BSB back.

Accommodations

My first 2 weeks in Africa I lived in H4, an apartment in Base Camp. It was like a studio apartment, a little more comfortable than a hotel would be.

Looking from the front door to the left I had a bureau, small couch and bed with a mosquito net. I used the mosquito net every night. I don't think that I mentioned this before, but I am right in the middle of malaria country. They spray here every few weeks so the mosquitoes aren't bad, but better safe then sorry. The door in the picture opened into the bathroom.
Looking straight in from the front door. From this view you can see a wall separating the kitchen/laundry room from the bedroom area.

Kitchen/laundry room. It was nice having a washer. Luckily I brought a clothes line so I could hang my clothes up to dry. Usually by morning they were not dry yet, but the cleaning people would take and iron all of the clothes that I left out drying.

This is a picture of the bathroom, it was pretty good sized. I had no hot water for the first 4 days, which made showering a little tough.
After 2 weeks I moved into Mark and Anna's house. (Mark is running the lab here that I am doing training for and Anna is his wife. I worked with Mark at the Central Lab for several years before he moved to Africa). They went on vacation so I am house sitting as well as dog sitting, gasp, and cat sitting, double gasp. For anyone who knows me well you know what the gasps are all about. I really do not like pets! Luckily the dogs are nice so I can tolerate them and the cat is shy and stays away from me. Mostly I just have to let the dogs in and out, pet them (only the dogs) and feed them. The great thing is that I am living in a house, which is so much more comfortable then a small studio apartment. Being in a house has allowed my time here to feel more normal; I am able to vacuum, dust, iron, do laundry, etc. It sounds funny that I am glad to be able to clean, but I am. I will still be living here for another week and possibly longer if there are no apartments open when they get back from vacation.

Looking from the pantry/store room into the dining room and kitchen. To the right is the front door.

To the left of the dinning room is the living room (this is looking at the doorway between the two room). Their house is decorated with an African theme, I think it is awesome.

Looking at the living room from the dining room.
To the right of the dinning room is a hallway to the bedrooms. On the left the doorways are(starting from the closest) office, guest room, master bedroom. At the end of the hallway is the toilet. On the right are the bathroom and another store room.
The bathroom. Behind the wall is the shower. There is no toilet in here, hence the toilet room at the end of the hallway.
The guest bedroom; this is where I am staying. There is no mosquito net, but no worries as long as I keep the AC running. Plus I haven't seen any mosquitoes in the house.