Alone...

I am now by myself in the house.  Ted and Dana left for the US Friday, and will not be back until September. I was aware that Ted and Dana would be leaving for the US about 4 weeks after I arrived and would not return to Bunia until after I left.  That would mean 7 weeks more or less on my own.  I hesitated to come here at first, but felt that God opened this opportunity, and He would provide a way. I am glad I did not know that life in Bunia is so difficult; I would probably not have come, and I would have missed the opportunity to serve these wonderful people at USB, and learn a bit about the people and culture of this beautiful country that has seen so much grief and so much pain.

Still, I laugh now, saying to myself, “What was I thinking?”    I can’t even speak French!  These past few weeks have been an introduction to one of the least developed nations in Africa, and one I could not have imagined.  There are no paved roads.  It is not safe to travel after dark and it is dark 12 hours a day.  Even modest homes have bars on their windows and the more substantial ones have not only bars, but walls and metal gates and barbed wire (or glass shards) embedded on top of their concrete walls.  The police can only walk around on their patrols, while so many of the young men zoom about on motorcycles. Even some of the missionaries I have met joke, ‘Welcome to the end of the earth.’ A Samaritan’s Purse field rep I met said  he has travelled to 30 African nations and Bunia is just about the least developed city he has seen, only Freetown, Serra Leone being worse. Yet, these Congolese manage and exhibit great ingenuity amid poverty, health and infrastructure issues. I marvel at the at the way they simply get on with life, constructing sofas and chairs outside in the open, selling recycled everything in the marketplace, sewing clothes using a manual sewing machine outside under the round shelters, washing clothes outside in large basins, pounding manioc root, and cooking outdoors over charcoal fires. The women especially, are very stylish - many with beautifully braided hair, beautiful and impeccable pressed outfits, wearing shoes I can hardly believe are able to walk over the dirt and stone imbedded gullies that pass for roads.  This is a picture of the translator helping me, and so many of the young women around here are dressed very much like her. Très jolie, n’est pas?

 

 I feel a bit more confident about staying on in the house by myself since we have a working generator again. Fourth generator since the power went out 18 days ago. It is a Chinese model, which in Africa usually means cheap.  The Chinese make quality goods, but the saying in Africa is that the good stuff is sent to America and Europe, the junk is shipped to Africa. This fourth generator initially only lasted three hours before it seized up, and Ted took it back. They would not return his money, but they did fix it, and I am going to treat it gingerly in hopes that it will go the distance. The Honda generator is kaput for now, needs new rings, and Ted is hoping to buy the parts in Kampala (Uganda) on his way back to the states and send them back to Bunia on a MAF flight (remember, no postal service in Bunia; even the University's PO box is in Kampala, which by the way, is in another country...) so repairs can be made. This working generator should be able to give the house power for 4-5 hours a day - lights, recharging my cell phone and the laptops, with enough ‘juice’ left over to plug in the fridge for a few hours (I will use the freezer section as my refrigerator) OR pump the water into the tanks. Not enough to heat water or turn on the oven, so cold showers for now, and only eating food that can be cooked over a kerosene burner.  Hmm, this is sounding a bit like camp. I wonder if I can buy marshmallows, Hershey bars and graham crackers in a douka…

Ted, Kwienie (the cook, born the year Queen Elizabeth was coroneted, hence her name, although probably not spelled this way) and I went over the food arrangements the day before the Witmer’s left. Kwienie and I both needed Ted to moderate the conversation because Kwienie speaks Swahili and a little French; I speak English and very, very little French. She will continue to come every day (except Sunday) and cook a hot meal at noon, and do most of the marketing. I had Ted tell her she can start using onions and garlic, and I asked for some African fare.  Should be an adventure! And I wrote down (phonetically) in Swahili the words yes, no, good and bad, so I can communicate a little, at least about how I am liking the food! I am up to 12 words in Swahili now.  I might just get better at Swahili than I am at French. But I do have this French phrase down pat: Je ne parle pas française. Je parle anglais. Pardon moi. I must be getting better at saying this, because sometimes they just start talking away in French at me. 

 

Once I used a French phrase I learned, one to communicate that I am not lost.  I take a walk nearly every afternoon for about an hour, and some people feel I must be lost, seeing this white maman walking about the roads, so I learned a French phrase to let people know I was not lost and did not need help. I carefully repeated my rehearsed phrase to one man who had stopped me, asking if I needed help (at least I am sure that is what he was asking), and he just looked at me and asked, en française, whether I spoke French or English.  When I said, en française, English, he just looked at me and said emphatically in perfect English, ‘So what is your problem?”  I felt a bit defeated, and I just had to laugh at myself.  

 

So I am trying hard to focus on, and remember, that I worship Jehovah Jirah, the God who provides. Next post, maybe something about what I have been doing. I have found that challenging, too!