We're off to Luputa

The next 6 blogs are an accounting of our new water project in Luputa. We wanted to let you experience this wonderful region and get a feel for this gentle countryside. In the posting the first two posts got switched so the account starts with the second blog and then reads through chronologically about our experience. Enjoy the pictures as that is what it is all about.
Life in the Congo is a great experience and this trip was a keeper. Scroll down to "The Water Project" and then come back and read from the beginning.

There are roads and then their are roads but some roads should not be called roades!

Heavy loads for those transporters using bicycles

The trucks travel very fast thinking that if they hesitate they will get stuck. consequently the pedestrians hear the cars cooming and scatter into the tall grass and then peak out after you have passed. They are probably also trying to stay out of the way of the flying mud.


The scenery on our trek was amazing with the landscape of palm trees, lovely villages, beautiful farms all along our path. The roads were a different story. Have you ever ridden on the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland? Well, multiply that by 3.5 hours and you now understand the rigors of our trip to Luputa. All along the road we passed women carrying babies on their backs and large bundles or baskets on their heads. Men had their bicycles loaded down with large bags of corn and produce taking it back to Mwene Ditu, pushing their bikes all the way. This trip, taking produce to Mwene Ditu can take a full week before they arrive back home and will earn them about $10. The young men in Luputa who want to go on a mission earn the required funds by making these trips. To go on a mission they have to come up with $240 for their passport and visa then the church funds the rest of their mission.

We arrived in Luputa in the early afternoon and went straight to the church, a nice rented building with an additional building for classrooms and offices in the back yard. We were greeted by the District Presidency, Pres. Benini, a gracious, gentle man who is a farmer. His wife runs a nursery school right next to the church. The members here want a new chapel and they are growing and need a bigger place but the cost of building out in this remote area is in the Millions and the church cannot justify the amount of money it would take to do this. We visited with the members who had come to greet us and the hundreds of children who came running as soon as they saw the white faces in town.

We had to check in with the government and register with the immigration office. We were greeted with much enthusiasm and everyone knew why we were there. They were more excited than we were that they were going to get water. We met some of the water committee and the government engineer who we had heard about from the Christensens. He had a baseball cap from a Pizza place in Nephi, Utah. When he came to meet us he had on his cap and remembered that it was pretty famous. We told him that the Christensen’s were going to take the picture of him in the cap back to the pizza place and make him famous. He loved that. You will find him in his Nephi hat in the picture with the Water Committee. He is wearing the red baseball cap but you can't see Nephi written on it.

The Water Committee

This is Relief Society meeting at church where the women are learning how to sew beautiful baby clothes. I bought little girl dresses and a sweater set for the new granddaughters. Very special and they were delighted that I wanted to buy their handiwork.



The bed

the shower

the water closet that doesn't work but then Leopoldville has been gone for a very long time. It is now called Kinshasa

We had arranged to stay at a Catholic Mission. It has a generator so we would have some electricity. Turned out we had electricity when we arranged for it and paid for the fuel to run the generator. The mission is a beautiful spot with a chapel, a school and living quarters. We were using 5 rooms in the mission which is all the rooms they had to rent out. The rooms were pretty bare, not clean and the beds were something else but we brought our own linen to cover the beds and mosquito nets to put over the beds. The Facilities were . . .a . . interesting as the toilets needed to be flushed with a bucket and the shower was a room with a drain so showering was out of a bucket. It smelled like the camping outhouse so we just pretended we were camping out and it worked just fine. We all shared one bathroom which meant we had to space our use but it worked and we were glad for a bucket of warm water every night to wash the dirt away. We had access to a dining room with a large table where we could fix our meals and eat.

The team, the Frandsens, Robert and us, had important business to conduct. We had to choose a site monitor for our project. The site monitor acts in behalf of the church as their representative to monitor the project and report back to us what is happening. Because this project is big and expensive we had to choose a very responsible person that we could count on to take care of our interests. We needed someone who could ride a motorcycle (his transportation to the project), work a computer (write reports and email them to us), use a camera and transfer pictures to email, use a phone responsibly and be honest and forthright in working with ADIR and in reporting back to us. Pres. Benini had 3 candidates for us to interview. We interviewed each candidate separately. One man was a farmer and needed the work but had no computer skills. The second candidate had a degree in Agronomy and had limited computer skills and he had a license to drive a motorcycle. The third candidate was a recently returned missionary, good computer skills and eager to learn. They all interviewed well but after we considered the three and prayed for guidance we all felt very strongly to choose the recently returned missionary , Daniel Kazadi. We didn’t inform Daniel till the next day, then we took him with us to see the water source. He was so very excited and somewhat emotional when told he was our new site manager. He later told us that he and his new wife prayed every day for a way to earn enough money so he could take her to the temple. He knew that this was the Lord’s blessing so that they could fulfill their goal.

Daniel Kasidi, our site manager.


We needed a little walk so took a stroll and ended up in the market. This is an open air market as most markets are in the Congo. People put together wooden stahls and sell their wares. We have never seen so many expert bicycle repairmen or so many bicycle parts than in this market. . I wanted to find a straw hat. It was very hot and I knew we were getting sunburned. We found this lady dressed very elegantly, selling in her stall. There were several women selling termites covered in oil to keep them from flying away. There were live caterpillars and they kept trying to get us to eat one. Elder Frandsen bought some for a boy if he would eat one and he pretended to eat one but never really did. We have seen them before roasted and the kids eat them then. Many of the bikes here are very old and I am sure I saw one just like the bike I got when I was 7 years old. I never did find a hat but we did get to see the train come in. There were several men and women sewing beautiful Congolese fabrics. The Congolese are known as the fashion setters of Africa and sewing is a real art. I must get a dress made before we return home.

That night we celebrated by eating our MRE’s and our bleach washed pineapple and counted our blessings.





Our first night took a little getting used to our accommodations but by the 3rd night we sat on the veranda and looked at the stars and fireflys and started planning how we could serve a mission and live in Luputa. The place was starting to grow on us. Luputa has a peacefulness, a serenity that is hard to find these days.

Former missionaries, the Seiters came to the DRC to do the measles Initiative in Lubumbashi . They planned on a Safari in Kenya on their way home. They invited us to go with them and since we had been told we could take one to two weeks off during the holidays we decided to take the opportunity and go with them. The Thomases came also which gave us a a fun group to be with. The Public Relations missionaries in Nairobi set up the Safari for us and arranged for us to stay with missionaries while we were in Nairobi.
We flew out of Kinshasa on the 31st to Nairobi.

At the Kinshasa airport the Thomases were stopped by officials because they didn’t have the proper visa. Apparently you have to have an exit visa and a reentry visa. Farrell ended up asking the agent for a solution and he said it could be arranged. The Thomases paid $100 to the agent and he “prepared the terraine” and got them on the plane with a promise to meet them when they returned to “prepare the terraine” when they wanted to reenter. We had such a visa since we had been traveling to Brazzaville on a regular basis.

We were met by the Sudweeks at the airport with a returned missionary from Kinshasa, Tierry, who was our transport and guide for part of our journey.

The Subweeks took us directly to a MALL (apparently there are malls in some parts of Africa) where all the missionary couples were gathered for dinner. We ate milk shakes and fast food and it was a real treat. We were introduced to our host couple and taken to their apartment and invited to use their apartment as home while in Kenya.

We arose early in the morning to be fed a real American breakfast of eggs and bacon and real milk and then Tierry picked us up to take us to the airport for transport to Masai Mara our Safari site.

As we flew into Masai Mara we saw giraffs lumbering off of the runway as we landed. We were met by a safari Van and a beautiful Masai woman who handed us a cool damp cloth to refresh ourselves from our journey. We were driven to the camp site and greeted with tea time including hot chocolate and cookies.

Masai Mara is a Safari Resort on a game preserve. We were taken to our tent to settle in and unpack. Our tent was a permanent fixture with a wood floor and a tiled bathroom and shower. The bed was surrounded by a mosquito net. It was rather romantic set away from the dining area on a little path that put us right out in the preserve area but we were enclosed by an electrical fence that kept the animals out. We were warned to always keep our tent zipped closed to prevent finding monkeys on our bed when we returned. The tent had windows all around open to the outside which gave a faint breeze through the tent and it was very pleasant.

We went to lunch which was a buffet of breads, cheeses, fruits, meats and salads. And of course we ate way to much. We then went to meet our guide, Rafael, who came recommended to us by the Sudweeks.

Our vehicle was an open SUV with padded rollbars. It allowed us to sit and look out or stand and look out through the open roof. Rafael asked us what was on our agenda for our first trek. I said Giraffes were my favorite and someone else said hippo and leopard. We headed out over the beautiful savanna hunting big game.

With my poor eye site I was always the last to spot any animals but right off we saw a herd of zebras and many gazelles. Then off in the distance someone spotted a giraffe. I couldn’t see it and then all of a sudden I could see this head of a giraffe sitting up high over the horizon. Rafael headed in the direction and there standing on a slight rise was a huge giraffe standing like a sentinel looking out over the terrain. As we got closer we headed down into a gorge and there drinking at the bottom of the gorge were 6 giraffes the large male on top was indeed a sentinel watching for any danger while his family drank and fed on the trees there by the stream. It was a wonderful sight one that filled my soul as we watched these beautiful creatures who in turn lifted their heads and watched us. What a great beginning to our Safari.

This first trek gave us many wonderful sites as we bounced along the open savannah. We were at the end of the migration of the wildibeast and zebras. As the dry season starts these animals, thousands of them, start to migrate down to the Serengeti looking for green grasses. We may have been at the end of the migration but we still saw hundreds of these beautiful animals. They say the migration is a site to behold as these huge herds of animals move south.

We returned to our homebase tent with a plan to meet Rafael at 6:00 am for an early trek. When we got back to our tent our bed had been prepared and a bottle of wine was waiting for us. No we didn’t drink it.

At 5:00 am we were awakened by a Masai tribe member reminding us we were trekking in one hour and he gave us hot chocolate and cookies to warm us up. The savannah becomes quite cool at night and the morning was cold and the hot chocolate was a wonderful amenity (I think the hot chocolate is a missionary thing as everyone else got tea or coffee.)

Our first trek for the day included a bush breakfast. Rafael had picked up boxed breakfasts for each of us and we planned on staying out on trek until lunchtime. Again our guide took great care in finding many beautiful animals for us to see. We stopped within 6 yards of a cheetah mother and two cubs who were feeding on their kill from the night hunt. Once the cheetah were filled then the jackles came and feed and when they were through the buzzards finished off what was left. The site was very bloody but the animals were very interesting and you realized you were witnessing the circle of life right there before your eyes.

We ended up eating breakfast at a table set up by a trading post. We searched the wares of the trading post but soon were drawn across the trail to some Masai women selling jewelry in the dirt. One of the women spoke some English and we had a great time dickering for some treasures. I bought a 5 strand Masai bead neckless. I didn’t realize when I bought it that it was a real treasure and I am sure I didn’t pay enough for it. It is my favorite treasure from Africa.

We were taken to a Masai village that allows tourists to come in to their compound for a price. The village is surrounded by a stick fence with each wife having a hut made from sticks woven to gether and then cow dung plastered on the sticks to make thick walls. There is no light in the huts except from the small windows. There is a room in the hut to keep the cow in during the night. The Masai are herders of cows and goats. They graze during the day and are brought back into the compound at night. The gates are closed to keep the predetors out. You can tell how many male members there are in the village as each has his own gate to the compound. The Masai are polygamists who have as many wives as they can afford. A wife costs 10 cows. Our guide told Farrell he was a poor man if he had 6 sons and only 2 daughters. He would only get 20 cows for those daughters and he would have to pay out many cows to get those sons married off.

The Masai women sang a song of greeting to us and the Masai men did a jumping dance. Farrell, Elder Seiter and Elder Thomas were invited to try the jumping and some did better than others. One of the Masai could jump very high. They jumped flat footed and it was amazing how high they could jump. You must read about the Masai as they are a very interesting people.

We returned to the village for lunch and a rest and then took another trek in the afternoon from 3 pm to 6 pm. We came across some lions who were sunning and they did not seem bothered by our presence in their world. They looked rather lazy and could careless that we were within 6 feet of them.

We found many hippos bathing in a stream and on the bank were several crocodiles. The hippos were making quite a noise sounding like the horn players of the old Taylorsville Elementary School band warming up.

We also came across a leopard up in a tree. A rare site and we were able to watch this beautiful cat come down out of the tree and walk right across out path.

We were blessed to see every animal available including the rare black rhino. When we returned to our homebase in Nairobi (missionary apartments) they were all jealous as none of them had seen a leopard or a black rhino and they had been on Safari a number of times.

We spent Sunday with the missionaries going to church and taking in a bit of Nairobi. In the evening we had a fireside where the DRC missionaries presented a fireside on what was happening in the DRCongo.

Monday morning we headed out with Tierry in a Safari van to Lake Nukura. This is another state park preserve that is famous for its pink lake given it’s color by the thousands of pink flamingos that call the lake home. We stayed in a cottage on the lake and spend 2 days circling the lake and seeing the wonderful wildlife in the area. The flamingos were amazing and truly did give the lake a ring of pink around it’s shore. This park had many type of monkeys and the famous white hippo.

We loved Kenya. It is very different from the Congo but still has some of the same problems as the Congo. Going on Safari is a realization of the wonders of God’s creation. I don’t think we will ever care about seeing a zoo again. Seeing these wonderful creatures in their wild state was breathtaking and made us realize what a wonderful gift we have been given in this world we call our home. This was a life altering experience and one we wish our whole family could experience.

xx

Just a bit about Kinshasa the capitol of the DRC

KINSHASA: Kinshasa is the capital of the DRC. Kinshasa has a population of 9 million people and it is about the same size as the Salt lake Valley. It sits on the bank of the Congo River.

It has many high-rises and some very beautiful buildings but most are old and rundown. Many buildings that were once beautiful are gutted and ruined during different unrest and fighting. There is one medical university that must have been very large and beautiful but now stands like a skeleton on the side of the road and is full of squatters using it as home. There is no water or electricity to it.

Many of the little suburbs which are still part of Kinshasa have no electricity and many have only water in streams that they fetch in big 5 gallon jugs. Plumbing is only for the wealthy and the systems are run on septic tanks.

Every business or embassy or large home has a fortified wall around it topped with razor wire of broken battles to discourage anyone coming over the wall and all have guards at the gate. Our apartment, the mission home/office and Temporal Affairs building all have high walls with guards. Everything is dependant on whether the electricity is on. Electricity service is sporadic and most large buildings have back up generators. We have plumbing with running water and we have a 3 filter system for our water so we can drink the water if we run it through the filter. The water tastes good and we put it in the refrigerator to get it cold and do not have to buy water to drink. The rule when you shower is to keep your eyes and mouth shut tight.

All over the city you will see men selling water. They package it in plastic bags about 2 cup each. People buy water to drink when they are thirsty as there are no water fountains or taps to get water from and no way of getting water. With the heat you have to make sure and drink a lot of water. The bad thing about this commercial system is that when they finish drinking the water they throw the bag on the ground and you can imagine how this litter adds to the garbage that is everywhere, It is a very bad problem and we have heard that in Kenya they have outlawed plastic bags. We don’t know what they use now. But for the Congo this water bag issue is a huge problem as trash. Trash is everywhere and there is no garbage system to speak of and you never see a garbage can on the street to collect trash. Trash does get gathered up into piles and then it is burned. these piles may be little road side piles or big piles filling a huge lot.

On every corner and all along the streets people have stands and are selling something. They have an umbrella over the booth many of them tattered with holes or ribs that hang down. They have 2-6 plastic patio chairs around the booth . They sit at these booths all day with all the chairs filled with friends or family members. These vendors sell big bowls filled with bagets of bread, soda pop, phone cards, and other food snacks. They sell a pasty food called foofoo that is wrapped up in banana leaves and tied with some kind of strip of vegetation. We understand that they boil or roast these bundles and eat them for dinner.

Everyone eats breakfast on the road. They buy bread and tea. The bread is spread with something but we haven’t ventured to try it yet. Lunch is usually more bread bought at one of these booths or from someone who walks around with a big bowel on their head full of bread or a packaged of cookies and a soda pop. You may see some one just start a little fire to heat a pot for tea right on the side of the rode in front of a large business. The road side belongs to everyone and there are no rules to who can you the area or what they can do with the area. At night the air fills with smoke as everyone goes home and people start building charcoal fires to cook their dinner on. The smoke gets pretty heavy at times and we aren’t sure what they cook but we are told it is usually foofoo . This is that pasty food that they add things too such as onions, peppers, garlic and cooked greens. The Congolese don’t like salad and they think we are crazy for eating raw vegetables. Bread is sold everywhere and we buy it at a bakery. The bread has a big European influence and it is the best bread I have ever tasted. We eat bread almost every meal, something new for us.

When driving down the main streets ii is not uncommon to have salesmen carrying their wears come right out in the street and try to sell you something through your window. They sell maps, shoes, shirts, ties, Kleenex ( these are heavy duty and people use them to wipe away the sweat from their faces), newspapers, children’s toys, flashlights, bags of water and almost anything you can imagine . People are usually stopped in traffic when this happens but not always. Sometimes the car in front of you just stops or slows down and the transaction takes place while the car continues on down the road moving slowly. It is hard to appreciate this dangerous way of selling but the cars are whizzing by and where there are two lanes the cars may make three lanes causing the cars to be very close in proximity. I have seen one of these vendors raise his hands and his goods up in the air to make himself very skinny so he won’t get knocked down when two cars whiz by on each side of him.

There is some open air markets where many vendors put out their wares. One is "Thieves Market". They sell paintings which they swear they painted themselves. They sale jewelry, wood carvings, masks, kuba clothes, onyx and jade carvings. Everything is up for barter. You can never get away without buying something and usually they make such good deals you buy many things you didn't want to buy. They also have a fabric market with just rows and rows of booths selling Congolese fabric which is very colorful and is the cloth that the women make their beautiful Congolese dresses out of.
POLICEMEN: Here in Kinshasa it is very hard to understand the police system. There are security guards at businesses like the grocery store. They are all in uniform and many carry guns or even rifles. There are several different kind of policemen. The ones dressed in navy blue uniforms with red bars on them are mostly mean and rude although one by our intersection is very good at directing traffic, always waves and smiles when we come by. The other police are dressed in bright blue pants and hat with yellow shirts. They only direct traffic. Most of these policeman are grouped together in 3,4 or 6. We have been told not to be the first one to stop at an intersection as they work together as one stops you while the others walk around the vehicle and try to get you to pay money. There are also state soldiers who are dressed in dark green uniforms are always with their dark green vehicles and usually are quick to say bon jour. You don’t want to mess with the soldiers. They have a reputation of being mean and using their power to rob people. There are also the UN soldiers. Their compound is just across the street from our apartment and they runaround in grey or white vehicles and are dressed in gray uniforms.

We have had 3 incidences with the police. We were stopped once and they demanded money from us but we just kept telling them in English we are poor missionaries and they finally waved us on.

We have finally decided that the best thing to do is wave and smile at every officer (no matter their title ) and try to make friends. This is starting to show some results as now when we approach an intersection we get salutes, smiles and many times the traffic is stopped to let us pass through. I guess the Lord provides. As you can imagine we are always watching to see that we not offend or disobey traffic rules. We don't have any pictures of policemen as we never stop long enough to ask for a picture and here you have to ask if you can take a picture and then it may cost you as everyone wants a way to get your money.

TRAFFIC RULES: We have been told that you must stop at all intersections, use your turn signal and yield the right of way but no one does any of this. There are no stop signs to speak of and traffic lights are rare and if you do come on one you must stop way back from the intersection or incur get chewed out by the policeman. At the main intersections there are round booth raised up above the traffic and a policeman stands in this booth and stretches out his arms. If his arms are pointing at your lane you have the right of way but be ready for him to turn without warning and change the flow of traffic. People weave in and out of traffic and there is no time to turn on a signal light and most cars are so beat up they don’t have headlights let alone turn signals. The unwritten law is if you are in motion you have the right of way. You hear horns honking continuously which signals that they are passing or taking the right of way. Headlights are also flashed to signal that a car is taking the right of way so watch out.

If a car breaks down it stays right where it is and they fix it right where it stands. It doesn’t matter if it is in the middle of an intersection or lane they fix it right there and I don’t know how they do it without getting killed as everyone is just whizzing around them, ignoring that they have the hood up or are changing a tire. We saw a big truck in the middle of a road and they were changing the axle. How they did that in the middle of the road, no one knows. We have seen only a few accidents but when there is one it is bad. It is no wonder since everyone speeds and leaves no room for error. Traffic is always bumper to bumper and if there is an inch of space some one takes it as a pathway. We were trying to get across a main road and you have to inch out into traffic or just take off and hope people stop. Farrell is more careful and a car behind him got angry and took off around us sailing through the intersection and cars screeched to a stop and it got through but I sure had my doubts it would make it. People get really angry if you let someone in or wait for someone to pass. If you come up to a car and it is going to slow you just go around it even if someone is right next to you they just have to get out of the way.

Despite all the strange things about this city, the city is growing. Everywhere you look there is building going on. New businesses open every day. People are happy, optimistic and enjoying life. You can buy fresh flowers on the corner, a bouquet for 1000fr ($2). There may be no fresh milk but the bread is the best in the world. Traffic is terrible but nothing is too far away. Police at first seem intimidating but after awhile become friendly and helpful. You find beggars everywhere but along side them are people working very hard to make an honest days living.

It is interesting how our views have changed just in the 2 months we have been here. We love the Congo and find new things every day to keep us busy and useful. Life is good

Farrell and Marilyn

Elder and Soeur Barlow