to the DRC...again

In August I traveled to the DRC again for work (see this post).  In more plain English, the Democratic Republic of the Congo in central Africa.  I went in 2009 for 2 months by myself but this trip was for only 10 days and I went with 2 other people from my project group.  It is a little crazy to travel for 3 days (Friday night - Monday afternoon) and 11,899 miles to only stay 10 days but that was the best choice.  The DRC has changed it's Visa rules so I could stay for 10 days or send my passport to the capital city upon arriving in the DRC and wait for it to come back with a new visa - which could be anywhere from 3 weeks to 8 weeks.  A visit to a country that is quite unstable for an undetermined amount of time and without my passport???...10 days was the obvious choice.

The flights over were long but comfortable in my business class seat.  This isn't the best picture, but it shows the pod seating on the plane.  It is not bad to fly 2 nights in a row when laying down is an option.  I'm not sure how I can ever fly coach again on an international flight when on my own time, however I will manage because flying business class is WAY too expense.

This project was different than others I have worked on because we were only able to travel to the site once, due to distance and cost.  So, we had to make the most of the trip.  10 days was not very much time in the country and only 8 were available for actually working at the mine site (the other 2 were travel days).  We had to hit the ground running and never look back.  I worked LOOOONNNNNNNG days ( up at 4:45 am and to bed at 11:00 pm while working all but about 2 hours of the time) and became VERY exhausted on about day 4.  So after that I had to scale back a little (up at 5:00 am and to bed at 10:30 pm while working all but about 4 hours of the time).  

It was a tough project.  Every that we could imagine going wrong did go wrong.  Everything that we could not imagine going wrong did go wrong.  We have several project go-live's under our belts and we can trouble shoot any problem within a matter of hours, however this project threw problems at us which took days to solve.  It was horribly frustrating.  But we are a good project team (if I do say so myself).  We solved all of the problems, over came the obstacles, and ending up successfully upgrading the lab to a new database.

Since I was working so much and a lot of the driving to and from the mine was done in the dark I didn't get to take many pictures, but I did manage a few.

Last time I was in Africa they brought up hot lunch for the ex-pats each day.  Times have changed and now everyone gets sack lunches (which I think is only fair).  Each day the lunch consisted of 4 things...2 sandwiches, 1 drink, and something else like chips, cookies or a piece of fruit.  There was usually 1 sandwich that was pretty good and one that was questionable, mostly because the bread was soggy and I hate soggy bread.  One day the sandwiches were especially picture worthy.

1 fried egg sandwich and 1 fish tail sandwich.  Yeah, it smelled as bad as it looks.  I would have thought about eating the egg sandwich but it had been sitting in the lab the entire morning; grounds for it being unsafe.  And the fish tail sandwich...that of course was out of the question.  The cookies were delicious that day :)

This was my room at base camp.  It was minus a mosquito net however it was the dry season and there were no mosquitoes to be found.  

On the bus ride from Tenke to Lubumbashi to fly home I took pictures out the window.  I figured if I took enough there would at least be a few that turned out.

This one is not great, but I was trying to capture the HUGE termite mounds in the background.  The things that look sort of like tepee's, those are termite mounds.

I appreciated going to the DRC again after 4 years.  While the areas I saw (mostly near the mine) are still very poor and humble, a lot of progress has been made.  It was great to see the strides the Congolese people have made at the mine and the pride they take in their work instead of treating it as "just a way to make money".  And it is always fun to rub shoulders with the Congolese because they truely are nice people with high values and morals.  Until next time DRC...if I ever make it back again.

The Carolina's

Last weekend I made a trip out to North Carolina and South Carolina.  Veronica, my friend that I used to work with (I talked about that here), moved to North Carolina last fall with her husbands new job.  She also had a baby last June so she has been transitioning from working full time to being a stay-at-home mom in a new town.  For her birthday in March her husband arranged for her and I to go on a get-away trip.  I opted to go out to there so I could see Natalia, the baby, so we decided on Charleston for our get-away destination.

After picking me up from the airport Veronica and I headed to Charleston, encountering the strongest rain storm either of us had even driven in.  Luckily her driving was superb and we made it through the rain safely. In South Carolina we stayed in a hotel on King Street, which is right in the middle of the downtown/historic part of the city.  That evening we walked to some of the old houses which were close to our hotel.  The Joseph Manigualt House (I just googled it...finished in 1803 and known for it's architecture) is an example of the picture in my head of "old southern" houses.  I think it is so beautiful and magnificent and I love the 2 story porches with pillars.

There were also two story rounded porches on the side of the house.

This house does not show it but many of the houses in Charleston are perpendicular to the street.  They would just look like long, skinny houses if the front door faced the street but instead they look like houses that are turned the wrong way.  They built the houses that way for better air circulation, we called it "they were trying to entice a breeze".

On our walk we came across this sidewalk art piece.  I'm sure it has something to do with Charleston, but we thought it was fitting for our trip.  Veronica is one of my best friends and on this trip it was as if we haven't lived away from each other for 2 1/2 years.  We had so much fun.

On Saturday morning we ventured to a park across the street from our hotel to a farmers market.  They were selling a little of everything; all sorts of vegetables, tons of strawberries, olive oil, preserves, baskets, paintings/artwork, lotions, candles, honey.  We got crepes at one of the food booths for breakfast (my banana and peanut butter crepe was so delicious) and bought boiled peanuts for later.  When we ate the peanuts later we decided they taste a lot like beans...maybe navy beans.  They were good and I liked experiencing a "southern" food, but I prefer regular peanuts over boiled.  I also tried grits, another "southern" food.  They are good...kind of like couscous.

After the farmers market we drove to Middleton Place, an old plantation.  The plantation house was a bit of a let-down for me because I was expecting huge wrap-around porches and pillars and instead it looked more like an old English Manor (not to say it was ugly, just not the Hollywood picture I had in my head).  It was one of three main living houses that were on the plantation right next to each other.  They had the north house (for men), the main house (for the women and daily living) and the south house (for a library and art display).  At the end of the Civil War the North went through and burned a lot of the plantations and this was the only house that wasn't burned to the ground, although they did have to remodel before it was liveable.  I didn't take a picture of the house, but you can see it here. 

My favorite thing at Middleton Place were the gardens.  They have huge gardens that were carefully planned out in the 1700's and are still around today.

That is Spanish Moss hanging from the trees.  It is a epiphyte, meaning it gets it's nutrients from the air and rain so does not kill the tree.

There were tons of Camellia tree.  The flowers were all different colors and so pretty.

This alligator went crashing into the water about 40 feet in front of us, I think we scared him when we can around the corner.  Truth-be-told, he scared us as well.

Saturday evening and Sunday morning we took some walking tours around Charleston.

The Battery.

Dock Street Theatre.  The first building in America actually designed to be a theater.

A 18-wheeler unloading bay...???  I couldn't figure out why they had these huge double doors in the middle of this old building.

Interesting facts about Charleston:

• It was originally named Charles Town after King Charles.
• It is right on the Charleston Harbor and was often attacked by pirates back in the 16-1700's. 
• To protect the town they built a wall along the water with areass for cannons.
• The water/harbor is now about 200 yards back from where it used to be.
• One of the main crops grown there was rice, which has a 15 month growing season.

On Sunday afternoon we drove back to North Carolina.  It was great to see Veronica's new house, the area, and her family...especially little Natalia.  She is a cute and content little girl.  It was a great trip!