Update on work to come later. Just know it's going well for now and I've become a master multi-tasking accomplisher with assistants!
So to preface me the volunteering volunteer on Sundays (as opposed to a Georgia state court labled volunteer) my Saturdays nights alternate between the bi-monthly poker tournament that the client hosts (Chevron) and Raito karaoke hour(s). It's nice to escape and relax in a chill environment and grills' with brats never hurt any situation. Afterwards I go to 'lime' (Trini's word for chill) with the Trinis (from Trinidad), which involves an island style drinking rate and karaoke. I never thought I'd be one for karaoke, but after a few sips of Ballintine's it feels good to sing your heart out in drunken sailors in a bar fashion. If there's no poker I'm in for the early karoake show. Normally we'll shut down the show around 2-3am.
I then stumble my way back to my room and crash for a bit until about 9am after drinking about 2-3 liters of water and a vitamin of course.
9:30 the bus leaves. There's a 20-30 minute drive through the main town, onto the main road and to the Mpinda area. The scenery is pretty tropical/jungle feel with the beginnings of a better future for the locals. They spend a lot of their time building their own houses. Some of them being fortunate enough to upgrade from sticks or mud to cement.
Once we turn down the road that leads to The Mission, as Bechtel calls it, we head 2km into the jungle down a row of gigantic mango trees on either side of the road towering overhead. We pass a church on the right that's has so many worshippers that there's literally hundreds of people sitting outside in the hot Africa noonday sun just to be a part of that experience. The church is the oldest church in all of west Africa, since it was established in 1491 when traders were looking for a route from Congo to England, which they thought the Congo River would provide. It's kind of funny to imagine how things get started. Imagine you were the explorer who stopped and said, "Eh, this look like a nice patch of trees to chop down and throw up a church in. Don't you think, Roger?"
According to local tradition the Congo River is where your soul goes to rest until the final days, where out of your soul will rise up a washed clean pure white and you will be taken up to your spirit ancestors' resting place. So here come along these white people, out of the river. The locals thought they were gods. So they were taken to the king leader and told him to repent and be baptized for his wicked ways. Of course whatever a god tells you to do you do it. The king leader gets baptized and the rest of the people in his kingdom follow suit. Thus began Christianity in this country over 500 years ago. There was a priest, as part of this church's history it is claimed, that he baptized over 300,000 people in the Congo River in his lifetime.
A little further ahead we come out of the mango tree tunnel and approach the girls' orphanage. We are greated by the little girls, the nuns and the security guard holding a knockoff AK-47. Since the women here just make babies they do not have the opportunity to become monetarily successful and give back to their home for so many years as the boys from the boys orphanage do. It's been over 60 years since this place has had the civilized touch of a hammer or screwdriver. That's where we come in. There's normally anywhere from 20-40 people that go on any given Sunday. We're pretty much putting cosmetic bandaids on the place for now until we get a budget approved to do reconstructive surgery, but that all depends on business and governemental politics. We have donated bunkbeds from this millinium as well as fixed their pump and plumbing, which has been down for over 2 decades.
Even though I don't subscribe to Christianity I did get blessed by a 115 year old nun that is 'living' there. Worse off without it, aren't I? 115 officially and that's just when she got a birth certificate. She was supposed to have already been multiple years old at that time. Just to put that into perspective, all those mango trees in the 2km drive to get to the orphanage she planted in 1939! She was in her mid 40's then! Already a grown women!! Mind bogglingly old. I think after 60-70 you might as well be 100 or 115. You know? How do you imagine the difference between being in a 60 year old body, mind, life style and one almost twice as old?!? Is it the same degeneration from 30 to 60 states of life?
Anyways, she also planted some avocado and lime trees. The avocados are the biggest ones I've ever seen! The size of fat full-sized shampoo bottles. The limes get to be the size of baseballs and when they're that big they taste like a hybrid of lime and orange, very sweet. When they're small they taste like limes. The locals want nothing to do with the fruits because they think it is a cause for malaria, so we are allowed to take what we want. Score!
Now if I could just find some gin and tonic...
