Sunday, February 9, 2014

From Ro's Journal: 10 January - 2 February 2014

Read below and enjoy the pictures at the end!


THREE WEEKS INTO OUR HUMANITARIAN MISSION TO THE DRC

January 10-12, 2014

            Today was the day we had been waiting for since the end of August—departure day for Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Most people refer to the country as the DRC although in French it is the RDC—Republique Democratique du Congo.  Our itinerary called for a flight to Chicago and a rather lengthy layover, then a flight to Brussels where we would have just 70 minutes to get to a different terminal for the flight to Primarily because of the short turnaround time in Brussels we had purchased premium coach class seats closer to the front of the airplane so we could dash out of the airplane, clear passport control and customs, and not miss our flight to Kinshasa. 

So we were up at 5 a.m. in order to catch our shuttle to the Salt Lake City airport at 6:30 a.m.  Fortunately, we had all of our suitcases and bags weighed and organized, so that we were all ready to go when the shuttle arrived.  There was just enough ice on the ground to give me some concerns, but the shuttle driver handled it all expertly.  We had been anxious all week about the weather in Chicago, as the airport had been closed for several days due to extreme cold and icy conditions.  But the Chicago airport had reopened, which meant that our flight to Chicago was still on!  The SLC airport was not crowded; we didn’t have to wait in line at all to check our bags.  We were told that our bags were checked through to Kinshasa, although we didn’t realize at the time that we would not be required to retrieve them and take them through customs in Brussels.  As it turned out, that was a great blessing, because otherwise we would have missed our flight to Kinshasa.

            We breezed right through airport security even though I had forgotten I had a 4 oz. aerosol can buried in my hand luggage.  The TSA picked it up on their scanners and made me pull it out, but after telling me that it exceeded regulations, a kind agent let me through without confiscating it.  I then proceeded to purchase us a major breakfast because I didn’t know it we would be given food on the plane or if we would have to pay for it.  On our flight we met a professor at Southern Virginia University who had served a mission in France years ago and had baptized a Congolese man.  We told him we would try to find the man when we got to the Congo and to put the two in touch with each other.

            Upon landing in Chicago we proceeded to the gate area, whereupon Gloria went off in search of a wi-fi hotspot and I proceeded to telephone AT & T to order up international messaging and data plans for our iPhones and iPad.  Of course we were wearing our dress clothes and sporting our missionary badges, and so several people stopped us to inquire who we were and what we were doing.  As we were conversing with one such person, a young mother trying to get back home from a business trip, up strode Torben Smith, son of our friends Thales and Laura Smith from Roseburg, who is about Monique’s age.  He was trying to get back to his home in North Carolina from a business trip to Korea.  We had a nice visit; it’s great fun to run into old acquaintances in unexpected places.

            Our flight to Chicago was delayed getting off, and so we were even more concerned about making the connecting flight in Brussels.  Evidently the terminal lost electric power when we were on the runway waiting for clearance to take off, so we were apparently the last flight out of Chicago for a while.  If we had been delayed even a few more minutes, we probably would have been grounded as well.  We felt that we were being watched over as our journey unfolded.  We were also fortunate in the seating on our flight to Brussels because the plane was not full, giving us each an entire row of three seats to ourselves.  Hence, we were actually able to stretch out and get some sleep on the flight, something we have never enjoyed before on trips to Europe.

            As soon as the plane landed in Brussels we bolted out of our seats and out the door, located our terminal and gate on the monitor, and began power walking/jogging toward our destination. All the while I kept expecting to be shunted off to passport control or to the baggage area to pick up our suitcases, but strangely enough we were spared that ordeal.  We just took a shuttle bus to the terminal that serves Africa and Asia, walked to the gate and right onto the plane, almost without even breaking stride.  Again, we felt that we were being guided along, that the Lord really wanted to make sure we got to Africa.

            The flight to Kinshasa was crowded, and I had to sit right next to a young mother with a fussy 5-month old baby boy, but we endured it patiently.  The passengers appeared to be about 90% Africans, evidently on their way home from Europe.  About two hours before our landing several serendipitous things occurred.  First, on my way back from the WC a man stopped me in the aisle and asked me about my missionary badge.  He wanted to make sure I knew that he was a Christian, and quoted several passages from the Bible for me.  I talked to him briefly about the Church and then promised to try and find some literature to give to him.  Second, as I made my way back to my seat I noticed that Glo was talking to a man.  Evidently he had approached her when he saw her missionary badge and said to her “hello, sister.”  Not only was Jean-Pierre Mguwa a member of the church, he was the bishop of a congregation in Kinshasa that meets in the same building as the one we have been assigned to and very charming.  I asked him to go back to the man I had talked to in the back of the plane and give him a copy of the Liahona, a church magazine.

            The Kinshasa airport was hot and crowded, but eventually we got through passport control, cleared the health checkpoint by providing proof of our yellow fever immunizations, and found Antoine, the man hired by the church to help missionaries get their luggage off the carrousel, onto a trolley and out of the building to a waiting public or private transport.  Fortunately, two missionary couples, the Moons and the Sneddons, along with Aime Ngoy, a church employee who is also the bishop of the congregation that we are assigned to, were waiting in a van to drive us to our apartment.  The drive was rather intimidating, as there were so many people in the streets wearing dark clothing and darting in and out of traffic, and portions of the roadway were under reconstruction. 

But we arrived at our apartment building, Immeuble Commimo (Commimo Building), without incident. Our address is 198 Ave. Isiro, Gombe, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, although there is no mail service in the DRC.  Our building is situated in the northern part of the city in a reasonably upscale district known as Gombe, not far from the Congo River and most of the foreign embassies.  Our apartment is on the 5th floor but the lower floors are leased to USAID, the American foreign aid agency, and therefore the building enjoys some serious security measures.  It seems that after the attack on the American compound in Benghazi, Libya, the American government strengthened security at all of its facilities in dangerous parts of the world. 

To illustrate, the building is protected with a high wall with razor wire.  To prohibit a suicidal terrorist from bringing a vehicle loaded with explosives into the compound, as one approaches the entrance concrete posts in the ground force vehicles to slow way down and to negotiate some right angle turns.  At that point armed guards determine whether to open a steel door and to retract steel posts in the ground so that one can enter into an enclosed garage area.  Once inside the garage, one must turn off the motor and open the hood for guards to inspect the engine compartment and to pass mirrors under the vehicle to ensure that there are no hidden explosives. If one passes that test, the guards raise a second set of steel posts and open a second steel door leading out of the garage and into the compound.  To exit the compound, one must  negotiate a third set of retractable steel posts in the ground, as well as more gates and armed guards.  Of course the guards also keep a log of everyone attempting to enter and exit the compound, and security cameras are everywhere. 

Our apartment has been occupied for the past 18 months by Brent and Val Moons, who we are replacing as Humanitarian Services Country Directors, but fortunately before our arrival they had moved into a nearby unoccupied apartment in the same building so we could have some privacy and an opportunity to try and overcome jet lag.  Of course we were dead tired, but they insisted on giving us a complete orientation to the apartment and the important water filtration system before allowing us to fall into bed.

Somehow we actually were able to get a respectable night’s sleep, and fortunately the next day was Sunday and we didn’t have to be ready for church until 10:45 a.m.  Elder Moon insisted that he coach me while I drove to church.  Although many of the roads in Kinshasa are in marginal condition, Avenue du Trente Juin, a wide boulevard reportedly built not too long ago by the Chinese, covers most of the journey from our apartment building to the church.  Driving in Kinshasa appears to be rather dangerous, as pedestrians and cars alike appear to give no thought to traffic control signs or lights.  We are happy with the Toyota diesel pickup with canopy hat has been assigned to us for our transportation and protection.

Our church experience was delightful.  The building, known as the GB (Grand Bazaar) building, houses two wards and the Kinshasa Stake offices, and a temple has been announced to be built on the grounds.  Priesthood and Sunday School meetings were well attended, and the discussions were lively.  Five missionary couples and a few American and European church employees supplement the local African members.  For example, the Gospel Doctrine teacher, Jean Delisle, is a French Canadian from Quebec employed by the Church in the Facilities Management department, and the High Priests Group Leader is an American working at the Embassy.  We were asked to say a few words during Sacrament Meeting; I of course translated for Gloria.  The weather was warm of course; at this time of year (summer) it reaches about 90 degrees every day and cools down to 73 degrees at night.

After Church we got a chance to settle in a bit but in the late afternoon the Moons came up and together we collaborated on dinner.  We enjoyed getting acquainted with our apartment and the building and our views of the city.  We have a good view of the train station, a large public square known as Place du 30 Juin, several tall buildings and government offices, and the Congo River.  The apartment is not new and the workmanship is far from temple quality, but it is spacious and more than adequate for our needs.  We have two bedrooms and two bathrooms, a living/dining room that open out onto a covered deck overlooking the Place, and a serviceable kitchen.  The washing machine is in the kitchen and the dryer is on the deck.  Because the public water is deemed of questionable purity, we have a three filter system that at least delivers lukewarm clean water.  We must rinse all fruits and vegetables and wash all dishes in a diluted bleach bath. We have good air conditioning and so will be quite comfortable.  Although the internet service is down much of the time, we are grateful to have pleasant surroundings in which to plan our work and also to relax when we have  a break. 

January 13-19

Monday marked our first official work day as humanitarian missionaries.  Elder Moon insisted that I drive the four of us to the office so I could learn his preferred route and become comfortable with driving in Kinshasa, to that extent that is possible.  He instructed me when to signal, which lanes to travel in, where and how to turn and where not to stop, when to plow aggressively through pedestrians and traffic and when to be cautious and defer to pedestrians and other drivers, which potholes to avoid, and where to buy diesel to get the best exchange rate. The Service Center where our office is located is a converted villa known as the TA (Temporal Affairs) Building and is situated at 18 rue Roi Baudoin.  Elder Moon instructed me how to back into the compound and where to park in order to make a quick get away.

     We were introduced to a number of Service Center employees, but of course had trouble remembering all of the names and faces.  Everyone seemed friendly; some even knew our names already.  The Service Center houses the Construction Department, the Real Estate Department, the Finance Department, the Translation Department, the Member Resources Department, the IT Department, Fleet and Supplies and a Distribution Center that sells church supplies such as scriptures and temple clothing.

The office is small with no windows, but there is good air conditioning and a small refrigerator with two desks and two computers.  Unfortunately, there are no drawers or filing cabinets so the office is in disarray and the computer files are extremely disorganized. The project files are all in binders in an armoire. 

In order to begin the orientation process I encouraged the Moons to simply start at one corner of the room and explain to us what we were looking it,what its purpose was, and what we were to do with it.  We had numerous interruptions, as it seemed that everyone wanted to give their farewells to the Moons and their greetings to us.  About noon Glo announced that she was fading fast, and so the Moons graciously agreed to take us back to the apartment, where I fixed us an omelet for lunch and Glo took a nap to try and make up for a poor night’s sleep last night. 

We had a wonderful dinner in the evening at the Smiths’ apartment.  The Smiths are the Perpetual Education Fund missionary couple; they administer the program in which the church makes funds available to worthy and needy church members, typically returned missionaries, to obtain higher or vocational education and/or training.  The students make token payments to the Fund while they are in school, and then are expected to pay off the loans diligently when they eventually obtain employment—hence the “perpetual” education fund.

We resumed our training Tuesday morning and did a little better, but we agreed to take a lunch break, something the Moons only did occasionally, and after lunch the Moons took us to two grocery stores to get some supplies, such as shampoo and hand soap, and some staples for our pantry.  They also took us to their favorite corner fruit and vegetable vendor, Wivine, where we spent about $30 on lettuce, carrots, leeks, potatoes, tomatoes, onions and a juicy pineapple. It is surprising that food costs are so high in the Congo as the soil is productive and the climate permits food to be grown all year long.  And of course the extreme poverty and unemployment is distressing.  That evening we had another wonderful meal, this time at the Gates’s apartment.  The Gates are the missionary couple whose job is to teach young Congolese church members to learn a construction trade.  Now the young men are building chapels for the church and eventually hope to get jobs with private contractors.

On Wednesday Elder Moon took us to visit several humanitarian projects near the airport.  The Kwayunga project consists of several beautiful latrines built adjacent to a public elementary school, but unfortunately the project has been plagued with poor management and so the latrines are not always functioning—hence the reason for our visit). We also visited a demonstration garden at the Kampeseke Stake Center to show church members and others what families can grow in their home gardens and how.  Finally we visited an irrigation project known as the RVA Gardens which is situated across the highway from the Stake Center and adjacent to the airport.  The government has allowed a church contractor, who happens to be a bishop in one of the Kampeseke Stake wards, to tap into a government water and to thereby irrigate a very large community garden plot.  We were surprised to find that mostly people were planting crops to harvest their leaves, as opposed to planting higher calorie root crops. 

In the afternoon Elder Moon and I visited a Dr. Mavaard at the Ministry of Health, who we hope will be able to give us information on communities in the Kinshasa area that are in especially serious need of potable water.  Dr. Mavaard seemed most interested in working with us in some manner.  While we were at the Ministry of Health we also picked up Dr. Mousafiri’s assistant, with whom the church collaborated last year on a wheelchair project, and took her to the government warehouse to inspect and inventory the remaining wheelchairs that the church had donated to the Ministry of Health last year.  The ladies, meanwhile, worked on some of the financial reports, including payment request forms that we need to complete when we want to get approval to pay vendors, including translators and site monitors.

Thursday was the Moons’ last day in the Congo.  Although they were very busy getting themselves packed and ready to leave for the airport in the early evening, they did spend some time frantically trying to instruct us on what to do with the open humanitarian projects.  We discussed the status of the wheelchair project (two new containers of wheelchairs is expected to arrive in March), last year’s vision project (I need to pay a bill that the Maltese Embassy charged to St. Joseph’s Hospital to get the vision equipment through customs last month), the neo-natal resuscitation project (that apparently is scheduled this year for Brazzaville in the Republic of Congo, across the Cong River from Kinshasa), and a sewing project in which sewing machines and supplies were supplied to the seven stakes (major church units) in the Kinshasa area to help people learn to how create, repair and makeover their own clothing.  

However, mostly we discussed Elder Moon’s desires with regard to water projects. The primary water project to work on is the Sanga Mamba project which has had numerous problems such as a broken drill in one borehole (drilled well) which ruined the well, a broken pump, a burned up generator, and the fact that there is still no electricity to the site to power the pump.  We need to keep our eye on the Molende project, consisting of six wells with hand pumps and four spring impoundments in which surface water is put through a piping system and delivered to faucets (to avoid having to drag a bucket into the  nearby very shallow river itself).  And we need to put to bed the Kwayung and the Mapela latrine projects. 

We also spent much time discussing Elder Moon’s favorite project, Luputa, which is located in the center of the DRC, actually in the Lubumbashi Mission.   The church did a multi-million dollar project there several years ago but there is interest in doing a follow up project.  The visit to Luputa takes at least five days what with the air travel and a 6-hour drive from the airport to the site.  There is also interest in a project in Kananga, which is in an even more remote and primitive area.  It would require a major sacrifice to do projects in those areas, and we are frankly not too keen on the idea; we can see that we will have plenty to do in Kinshasa.

We also discussed the fact that a major change needs to occur in how water projects including sanitation projects are conceived and executed.  Ever since the church has been doing such projects in the DRC the humanitarian missionaries have been approached by contractors with offers to put in a well, and/or a spring capture, or maybe a latrine, for some community, hospital or school.  The missionaries then pitch the project to the Southeast Africa Area humanitarian missionaries in Johannesburg, who then pass it up through several layers of paid church employees in Johannesburg and eventually to church headquarters in Salt Lake City.  If the project is approved, it is funded and built, and when completed, it is donated to the community, hospital or school with a nice closing ceremony.  After that, the contractor has the responsibility to train a “water committee” to collect revenues from the sale of water and to put the revenues in the bank against the day when the pump will inevitably break down or something else happens that needs money to fix. 

Way too often, however, after much time has been spent by missionaries and contractors, the church has rejected proposed projects because they were too expensive, or has approved and built the projects but only greatly in excess of the originally approved budget.  So now the church is requiring that the humanitarian missionaries (us) find projects completely independent of any contractors, obtain plans and specifications for the projects, let the contracts out for three bids, and then award the contract to the lowest, or at least the best, bidder.  Hopefully this process will enable the church to fund a greater number of less expensive and simpler projects that will have a high likelihood of success.  Unfortunately, there have been way too many projects that never succeeded, or only partially succeeded, or succeeded initially and then failed because either the contractor did not properly set up and train the water committee or the water committee never understood its duties or intentionally subverted its duties by misappropriating revenues from the sale of water.

Elder Moon also discussed with us the concept of a site monitor.  When a contractor is building a project the church hires a site monitor to go to the site every day to observe the progress or lack thereof, and to report to the humanitarian missionaries (us).  The site monitors have contracts specific to the project.  A good site monitor will hold the contractor’s feet to the fire and ensure that the contractor does a good job in the construction process and also in the training of the water committees who will be responsible for collecting the money through sales of water to keep the equipment in repair and functioning after the contractor has left and no longer has responsibility to make repairs.  Elder Moon discussed the strengths and weaknesses of each of the four site monitors that he has been using.

On Thursday I also met with Eddy, the Saga Mamba site monitor.  We composed a letter in French asking the contractor, ADIR, to provide more training to the water committee.  We also modified the contract between the Saga Mamba community and the church in order that the 5% of the revenue from the sale of water that traditionally went to the “chef du quartier” or community “chief,” to go instead to a longtime resident of the quartier, ideally a mother or grandmother, to be used for community development projects. Finally, we composed an invitation to the water community and community leaders, including the chef du quartier and the local police offe,r to attend a meeting scheduled for Saturday.  The purpose of the meeting is to try to reorganize the water committee, to elect pumpers in addition to officers, and to get a representative from SNEL, the government electric utility, to take some measurements in order to prepare a bid to bring electricity to the site.  The committee has been in existence for a while but has not functioned because they haven’t yet been able to pump any water since there is no electric power on site and the church is not yet willing to donate an expensive electric generator. 

On Friday we decided to take the day off because of the anticipated work day on Saturday in Sanga Mamba.  So we walked around the compound to get some exercise for the first time since we were at the MTC in Provo, went to City Market to buy some groceries, and drove around for a while to get better oriented to Gombe, the part of Kinshasa in which we live, work and attend church.  Unfortunately, at one point we were stopped by a cadre of armed guards, as apparently we had approached to close to the President’s compound which is not far from our office.  One guard with an automatic rifle pounded on my window and demanded that I roll down my window and surrender our passports and driver’s license.  I had no driver’s license and was not about to surrender my passport or roll down the window.  Things were very tense for about five minutes, as the leader of the battalion kept shouting at me and ordering me to open the window and give him my passport. Glo tried to call Aime and Thierry, our Congolese friends who work for the church and who are also a bishop and stake president, but couldn’t get the phone to work.  So she pretended she was making a phone call, and for good measure thrust a church pamphlet out the window to one of the officers.  Maybe one of those initiatives worked, because eventually they gave up and let us drive away.

We had a delightful dinner with the Mission President and his wife at their apartment which is adjacent to the Mission office and not too far from our office.  He served a mission in Paris in the 1970’s and in real life is a podiatrist in Logan, Utah.  We told President Cook that we were feeling absolutely overwhelmed with the magnitude of the responsibility with which we have been entrusted, and he made us feel a little better by essentially stating that he felt the same way.  He has been serving for six months and said that he just recently figured out something that he had been told during the Mission Presidents’ orientation six months earlier.

On Saturday we met with our translator Felix and the Sanga Mamba site monitor Eddy.  We had been told that we should provide refreshments for the meeting, so we spent over an hour trying to buy a supply of 40 chicken sandwiches and soft drinks.  It was a comedy of errors, because I hadn’t yet acquired any Congolese currency, the local “boulangerie,” Chez Victoire, had failed to make the sandwiches that I had ordered the day before, and we couldn’t find any place to buy ice to keep our purchases cold.  But at length, we got our supplies, picked up the representative from the electric utility, and drove out to Sanga Mamba.  It was a harrowing drive with a combination of unbearable traffic (it was a national holiday; a day of mourning to commemorate the assassination of the former head of state), unimproved and virtually impassable narrow and muddy pot-holed roads degenerating into trails, and unimaginable obstacles to navigate around.  I’m not sure I have ever driven in more dangerous conditions, even in ice and snow.

We spent the first hour just looking at the nearest available electrical transformer situated in a Catholic church compound and discussing where the eventual on-site electric panel should be situated.  The meeting was scheduled for 1 pm, but it wasn’t until 2 pm that enough people had dropped by the compound where the pump was situated so we could have our meeting.  But Eddy handled things very completely; he is such a diligent and dedicated young man.  He explained to the water committee and community leaders how things had to be organized, and then supervised the election of the pumpers.  Glo passed the hat and collected the ballots and I read off the election results.  We then broke out the refreshments; fortunately we had plenty of sandwiches and drinks for everyone except….us.  Somehow we made it back to the office in one piece, and then, absolutely dead tired and famished, we drove to Chez Victoire to buy some chicken sandwiches for dinner.

Sunday was delightful again.  The first meeting was the Priesthood meeting for the men and the Relief Society meeting for the women.  I decided to skip the High Priests meeting and to attend the Elders quorum meeting, as there were no English speakers in the Elders meeting and therefore no distracting translation from French to English.  The Sunday School class was taught by John Delisle, a French Canadian who is working for the church’s Facilities Management Department.  He is an excellent teacher who apparently always uses power point to help people follow his lesson.  And of course Sacrament Meeting is always very rewarding; the main speaker was on the High Council and he was most motivating and inspiring.  We enjoyed the music very much; the Congolese people sing the church hymns with great gusto.  After church we enjoyed dinner at the Sneddons, the missionary couple who run the Mission Office, and got in a walk on the 3rd floor rooftop garden.

Photos from Sanga Mamba:


 
 
January 20-26
With the Moons gone, we turned ourselves to the task of actually sitting down at our desks and trying to figure out the email messages that have accumulated over the last few weeks, and thinking about how the office should be reorganized to make it work more efficiently for us.  We ordered new telephones, since our iPhones are too expensive to work in the DRC and we cannot abide the old-fashioned phones that the Moons had been using and had left with us.  We asked for some office supplies, such as filing cabinets, paper, envelopes, etc.  We submitted photos for a driver’s license, made arrangements to get our visas extended beyond six months, met with Pascal at the Mission Office to ask for help in getting some of our building problems fixed (we need to caulk around our kitchen sink and to get some electrical outlets and switches fixed), purchased French-language scriptures, asked the Finance Department to help us figure out how to get money into and out of their systems, and tried to work with the IT people to  get us into the church’s Humanitarian System and Financial System software.
The pressing issue, however, was that we learned just on Monday that Elder and Sister Lee, the Southeast Africa Area humanitarian specialists, are planning on coming to Kinshasa on Wednesday to give us training, that they intend to stay with us in our apartment, and that they will not be leaving until Sunday.  We decided that with our ongoing difficulties in getting a good night’s sleep, and with our desire for privacy and our lack of enthusiasm for houseguests, I would email them and ask them to consider staying in a hotel.  They were very good about it, and so we were able to confirm their hotel arrangements and airport transportation.
We are starting to get to know people better in the Service Center.  Several people, especially Musa the custodian and David the official translator, insist on trying to teach us a few  basic expressions in Lingala, one of the four native national languages.  Many people in the Service Center are very fluent in English, which shouldn’t be too surprising since the church really encourages its leaders to learn English and many of the people who work at the Service Center are church leaders. 
On Tuesday Felix went with us to examine the RVA Irrigation project, as the site monitor, Jordao, had advised us that the contractor had connected to the government water supply and had installed the primary irrigation line.  We were to inspect it and pick up the contractor’s invoices so we could make payment. Unfortunately we were stopped twice on the way to the site by the traffic police.  The first time I foolishly handed the officer the vehicle insurance card, and he refused to give it back until I gave him 2,000 francs.  The police are notoriously crooked and are always stopping people, especially non-Congolese, and shaking them down for money.  The second time the police let us go when we showed them some church literature and our missionary.  Despite the intense heat and our failure to bring hats, we were quite pleased with our examination of the irrigation project.
We also intended to examine the nearby Mapela school latrine project, as we learned that the contractor had made some necessary repairs on the flexible tubing to the sinks and was anxious to get his 6-month contract payment.  However, the roads were so narrow and abysmal that we finally had to give up without reaching the school.  The site monitor indicated that he would go there on his own and report back to us on the repairs.  We took off early on Tuesday in order to do some shopping, prepare food in advance, and work on our apartment.
On Wednesday morning we had a major meeting with our four site monitors and two translators.  We spent some time getting acquainted with them personally.  We then carefully went over every project that they had any responsibility for.  Jordao reported on Mapela and on the RVA irrigation projects with which we are familiar, and on the failed N’Sele project, which unfortunately has resulted in litigation between the contractor, one of his employees, and the water committee.  The church is not taking a position on this distressing development.  Eric reported on three projects that we have not yet visited, the Laloux, Lutendele and Camp Luka projects, all of whom have failed to some degree or another.  Fortunately the church is going to spend some more money to fix the water system at Laloux, but the water committee at Lutendele is evidently dishonest and since the project is closed, probably there is nothing that we can do about it.  The Camp Luka project is a spring capture project, and the heavy rains have fouled the source.  But again, the project is closed and so there is likely nothing that we will be able to do about it.  Eddy reported on the Kwayungu latrine project that we had visited with Elder Moon, the Sanga Mamba project that we had just visited on Saturday, and on the successful Molende project.  He asked us to visit the project with him  on February 1 and to be prepared to speak. 
We also had the site monitors fill out their time sheets from mid-December through mid-January so that we could process their payments as instructed by the Lees.
Wednesday afternoon we picked up the Lees at their hotel, drove them to the Mission Home so they could meet their old friends, the office couple Elder and Sister Sneddon, and then  to our office for an introductory meeting.  About 7 p.m. I insisted that we really needed to get some dinner, so we drove to Patachoux for dinner at the Lees expense, and then dropped them off at their hotel.
We then spent the rest of the week, all day long Thursday through Saturday, in training. 
The Lees discussed in detail the legal status of the site monitors and translators, the idea of requiring them to get licensed by the government as independent contractors, when and how they should get paid and how to handle the administration of their site monitoring agreements.  It became apparent that there were some major problems with the way site monitors had been used in the past, and that we were not going to have as much need for site monitors in the future.  We decided that we needed to meet ASAP with the site monitors, so I called Felix and asked him to have the site monitors meet with us next Tuesday and to bring their detailed reports to the meeting so we could see what they had been doing during the past month.  We also asked Felix to meet with us on Monday so he could help us make our presentation to the site monitors.
The Lees explained the hierarchy or bureaucracy involved at the Area level and church headquarters level with respect to humanitarian work, and also with respect to church finances.  They covered CFIS, the church’s financial information system, and CHAS, the church’s humanitarian reporting system.  We discussed budgeting, what expenses we may incur that the church will reimburse us for, the use of contractors, opening and closing humanitarian projects, and how to run a humanitarian project from start to finish, both from a church welfare principles standpoint and also from a practical standpoint.  We reviewed project development worksheets and spent hours working our way through the church’s computer software and the numerous reports.  Unfortunately, it became increasingly apparent to them that the books and records of the office were in very poor shape; that things had not been handled correctly in the past and so there were numerous corrections and changes that needed to be made.
They discussed in detail the SE Africa area plan for the DRC, encouraging us to do as many small projects as we could instead of fewer large projects.  We must keep in mind that our partner in every project must be a community and not a contractor.  They gave numerous examples of possible projects and how to talk with a potential partner, such as a school or hospital, to determine their needs, whether their needs are compatible with church humanitarian principles, and whether we can work with them.  We went over the Neo-natal projects, the immunization projects, the food initiative projects, and literacy and self-reliance projects.  And of course we carefully went through all existing projects to see what errors had been committed and what could be done to fix them.
Occasionally we would be interrupted by various people, including Rigo and Hugh, two attorneys who do contract work for the church, and the Bybees, the missionary couple that handles public affairs, but who had been in Pointe Noire (Republic of Congo) for a few months waiting for the arrival of a missionary couple who had been in our group at the MTC.  I also kept getting phone calls from various contractors wanting to introduce themselves and to welcome us to the DRC.  Obviously they want us to hire them to do a job.  Rather than tell them over the phone that it would be useless to meet with them until I had a project in hand to ask them to bid on, I agreed to set up appointments with them so I could discuss the new approach to projects that our supervisors from Johannesburg have requested.
Every day for lunch Elder Lee and I went out and brought back sandwiches, and Friday evening the Lees took the Sneddons and us out to dinner.  We had visited a bakery/restaurant, Eric Kayser the week before to get some good bread and cake for our initial meeting with our site monitors, and so recommended the place for dinner.  I was very happy with my pasta a la carbonara, and everyone seemed to enjoy their sandwiches and gelato.
On Sunday we had the Lees over for one of my super breakfast omelets, and we helped them get off in the taxi to take them to the airport for their flight back to Johannesburg.  We then took the Bybees with us to church.  However, we opted to attend Sacrament Meeting in the other ward that meets in the GB building so we could visit with the bishop, whom we had met on the plane from Brussels.  But we attended our own ward Sunday School and Sacrament Meetings. I then spent most of Sunday afternoon and evening preparing a written statement for the site monitors in English so Gloria could understand it and for Felix to present to them in French.
January 27-February 2
Felix came over as planned on Monday and we asked him to read and digest my statement to the site monitors.  He understood and accepted it well, although he insisted that site monitors were already independent contractors and didn’t need to register with the government.  He also said that it could cost $300 to register, since he had already done so for other businesses.  We spent the balance of the day just trying to go through emails, create electronic and paper file folders in which to put emails and documents, go through our notes to try to implement all of the ideas, suggestions and directives that we had received from the Lees, and in short to attempt to deal with the mass of paper in the office.
On Tuesday morning, just prior to the arrival of the site monitors, I got a phone call from Elder Lee announcing that the site monitors would be considered church employees under Congolese law, since they had worked over 20 hours per week for a six-month period without  independent contractor agreements backed up by registration with the Congolese government as independent contractors.  Therefore, the Area’s attorney said that we could not cut their hours, let alone lay any of them off, and that if we did so we would have to pay them a severance package as if they were employees.  I was tasked with determining how many hours they had worked and how much money they had been paid over the last few years.
Elder Lee’s phone call threw me a major curve as it forced me to instantaneously modify a major portion of my presentation to the site monitors.  Instead of telling them that their incomes were going to decrease, probably drastically, over the next few months, I had to tell them that even though there was going to be less work for them to do, the church was not going to drastically reduce their incomes.  Of course, I didn’t really know what that meant or how I was going to be able to administer such a program.
But the meetings with the site monitors went relatively well.  We met with Eric and Jordao first, and then with Walter and Eddy.  We stated that there will be less work for site monitors in the coming months for several reasons:  we have no new water projects to do because in the last 18 months all the projects the Moons had tried to get approved were rejected as too expensive; the process for proposing new projects has changed drastically and it will take some time to put any new projects together; we would rather put our energy into completing open projects and perhaps fixing failed projects instead of starting new projects; we anticipate it will take us 1-2 months before we will have our office organized the way we want it and we do not want to start a project as difficult as a water project before we are properly organized; and we have numerous other non-water projects to accomplish such as neo-natal resuscitation, wheelchairs, vision, food, immunizations, etc. 
But, in a masterful stroke of total confusion, we stated that even though there would apparently be less work, the church was not going to cut them off and radically deprive them of income, and that while we don’t know how it will be worked out, we hoped that they would be patient as we wait further instructions from Johannesburg.  However, we emphasized that they may need to be registered with the government to work on any open projects with which they don’t have a current site monitoring contract.  I encouraged them to give me a report detailing when they began working as site monitors and what projects they had worked on.
Because we will be working on Saturday again this week, we decided to take Wednesday off.  We did a full 60 minutes of the P90X “stretch” workout, and then went with the Bybees to check out some stores:  American Eagle for household/office supplies, Extra for groceries, especially meet and cheese (for meat we bought chicken breasts, a mixture of pork and beef burger, sausages and lardons, and for cheese we picked up feta, gouda, brie and romano), Hassan and Freres for a little of everything, and of course City Market for bread.  American dollars are widely accepted in place of the Congolese Francs (CF).  $1 is worth about 920 CF.  When we got back to the apartment I decided to make some risotto for dinner, and we also took some time to do some housecleaning.
On Thursday morning we had a meeting with Eustache Ilunga, the director of the Service Center, to explain to him what was going on with Johannesburg and our site monitors and why we were in such a dilemma.  He agreed with us in every particular, but did indicate that the site monitors could probably register with the government for under $100.  We then met with the Finance Department and decided that beginning next month we will require that the site monitors have checking accounts so they can be paid by electronic deposit.  I actually felt that I got much accomplished on Thursday; I know I got my desk and papers much more organized.
Friday I had my first experience at a Congolese bank.  I thought it might take 30 minutes to withdraw some money from the church account so I could pay the site monitors and translators, but it took 90 minutes.  Fortunately I took Serge from the Finance Department with me; otherwise it probably would have taken longer because at least he knew the process:  present my passport to the guards; present my passport to one window; then go outside and across the courtyard to a different office and present my passport again; then wait 45 minutes for them to do their paperwork; then write my name, address, phone number and put my signature on six different forms; then work out with the banker the denominations of cash that I want before finally getting my cash.  I will be relieved to do this electronically next month.
On Friday I also exchanged correspondence with the Area’s attorneys and their local Congolese contractor.  It is still not at all clear how we are expected to handle payment next month to site contractors for the work they will do, or more accurately, the work that they probably won’t do. 
We also took off in the afternoon with Fils, the other translator that the Moons had been using.  We needed to go to Limete to deliver payment of $1,020 in cash to BDOM, the arm of the Archdiocese of the Catholic Church that runs St. Joseph’s hospital, to reimburse them for the payment they made to the Maltese Ambassador for the Ambassor’s fee for facilitating the importation through customs of the medical equipment that the church donated to BDOM for last year’s humanitarian vision project.  We then paid a social call on Dr. Arthur Ngoy, the pediatrician with whom the church has partnered on the neo-natal resuscitation projects.  Our next stop was to the Kimbanseke stake center to pick up a sewing machine, and then to deliver it and another sewing machine to Relief Society President at the Mokali stake center.  We then took a tour of the building, which is affectionately called the Nauvoo Temple for the obvious reason that it really does resemble the old Nauvoo Temple.  Since Fils lives nearby,we dropped him off there and somehow drove back to the office on our own.
Our last stop of the day was the home of John and Megan Collins, an American couple and members of the church, who live right on the Congo River adjacent to the Congolese Prime Minister’s office.  John works for USAID and actually works in the building where our apartment is located.  The Collins family had invited all of the missionary couples, including President and Sister Cook, over for dinner, and we had a wonderful evening together. 
Saturday was our excursion to the Molende quartier with Felix to meet with site monitor Eddy and the Molende water committee.  But first we met the other missionary couples at 6:15 a.m. and drove over to what the missionaries refer to as Embassy Row which borders the Congo River.  Because there are so many foreign embassies concentrated there it is a very upscale and safe area and so the missionaries like to walk there for exercise on Saturday mornings.  They apparently do a 1.5 mile loop but; we did two loops.  We passed numerous other walkers and joggers including a coterie of about ten bodyguards surrounding one man who obviously was an ambassador or dignitary of some sort out for his morning constitutional.
Although the ride to Molende took us through some rather distressed areas, we had a great experience there.  The project consists of six wells with hand pumps and four spring impoundments.  We enjoyed walking down the sandy paths through the lush forest to the water committee chairman’s home, and then meeting with him, his secretary, treasurer and pumpers.  They were all so friendly and grateful for our visit.  The chairman called the meeting to order and then surprised us by offering a prayer.  He then had the minutes of the December meeting read, took the treasurer’s report.  It seems that between June 1 and December 31 last year the water committee took in revenues of 2,253,900 CF, spent 1,407,000, and deposited 831,900 in the bank.  As of January 7 they had 877,548,000 CF in the bank, and deposited another 41,650 on January 15.  They discussed the fact that sometimes the well water smells or looks bad but acknowledged that the problem can usually be remedied with chorine.  The chairman reminded the pumpers that they are to bring their notebooks to the next meeting of the water committee so their water sales figures can be verified.  There were some moments of levity; the chairman praised one pumper for selling the most water that month, but then the sole female pumper expostulated that she had sold the most water the previous month and demanded equal praise.
The chairman then asked me to say a few words.  I took about five minutes commenting on the great importance of water to the community, why the mission of the church includes helping people in a very obscure part of the world have clean water, and why we had come to the DRC.  Of course I also omplimented the committee for its work and enjoined them to keep up the good work. They seemed quite pleased that I could converse with them and even joke with them in French.  Gloria then spoke to the committee, faithfully translated into French and/or Lingala by Felix.  She told the female pumper that she loved her dress and the fact that she stood up for women’s rights. This is clearly a successful water project, a very refreshing experience after hearing so much about projects that have foundered usually due to some kind of equipment failure compounded by an ineffective and/or dishonest water committee that didn’t collect and deposit money in the bank to deal with the inevitable equipment failure.
The contractor for the project is Eloi, who is a member of the church and who attends the ward that we attend in Gombe.  We were told that some journalists recently read about Molende on Eloi’s website, and so came out to talk to people, take pictures and write a story.  It was very nice that Eloi was there to personally support the water committee, even though he had no obligation or financial benefit to attend the meeting.
The committee then served us all some rolls with a pudding filling of some sort and a soft drink—in contrast to the Sanga Mamba experience two weeks earlier when we brought refreshments to the water committee!  When I expressed interest in the tree we were sitting under, the committee chairman smiled, referred to it as a “pomme rouge” (red apple) tree, then took his pole and knocked down some fruit for us to take home. 
We then took a tour of most of the wells and spring impoundments.  Everywhere we went, all of the children and many of the adults called out to us “mundele,” meaning white persons. Sometimes they would say “bonjour mundele” since they clearly had no malice in calling us mundele.   For some of the children it was probably the first time they had seen white people.  Gloria charmed them with her burgeoning knowledge of Lingala.  They really like it when we say to them “mbote” which means hello, or when we toss out other simple greetings in Lingala.  I had to chuckle to myself wondering what they would think if we called out “noirs” (black people) to them as we passed them by.
Sunday we attended our meetings from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.  As I sat there listening to the discussion in Priesthood meeting and the testimonies offered in the Sacrament Meeting it just struck me that, except for the racial composition and the French language, there would be very little difference between these meetings and any other LDS church meetings taking place anywhere in the USA that day.  These Congolese members of the church have thoughts, concerns, interests and testimonies similar to their American counterparts; they are alike in many more ways than they are different.  We enjoyed a peaceful afternoon; we did some reading and writing and Gloria even decided to tackle our Turkish oven and bake some bread.  In the evening all of the missionaries including the Mission President and his wife were summoned to the Gates’s apartment for brownies, ice cream and stimulating conversation. 
The Mission President leaves soon for his monthly tour of Cameroon, Gabon and the Republic of Congo (formerly part of French Equatorial Africa; the Bybees leave soon for Burundi as part of their Public Affairs assignment; and the Gates are returning to California for two weeks for the remarriage of their daughter, who lost her husband last year due to a traffic accident.  The Johnsons are doing their best to stay in Kinshasa and to avoid traveling except we will be crossing the Congo River to Brazzaville in the Republic of Congo sometime this spring, as we are expected to do neo-natal resuscitation and immunization projects there later this year, and in May we will be traveling to Johannesburg to train with all of the other humanitarian missionaries in the Southeast Africa Area.
We have been in the Congo three weeks now, so maybe I should discuss the country itself and not just as the venue for our humanitarian work.  I have been interested in this area since 1961 when I was in the 9th grade and we were studying the African decolonization movement that was then in full sway. 
King Leopold of Belgium succeeded in claiming the Congo for Belgium in the 1880’s when the entire African continent was being carved up by various European powers.  As Belgium was dominated by its Francophone component during those days, French became the language of government, education and industry.  The country gained its independence in 1961, along with most of the British and French African colonies.  The capital of Leopoldville was renamed Kinshasa and the second largest city, Stanleyville, became Lubumbashi.  The country itself went through several name changes, including Zaire, before settling on the DRC.  It is the third largest country in Africa by size and the fourth largest by population.  I asked our chief translator, Felix, if the name “Zaire” meant anything and he said it did not; it was just a name created by the previous dictator, Mobutu, who believed in magic and fetishes and thought the name invested the country in something magical. 
Kinshasa has a population of 7 to 8 million people spread over a large metropolitan area.  I’ve seen only part of the city of Kinshasa and will likely only see bits and pieces of the entire city during our stay here.  It is the largest French-speaking city in the world, although probably most people use their native language of Lingala in casual conversations among themselves and especially at home in a family setting.  But as we have observed, the Lingala is spiced with a healthy dose of French.  Sometimes it sounds like the typical conversational mixture is about 50/50 French and Lingala.  We could probably not get by in the villages without a translator to sift through the Lingala for us.  I spend my day going back and forth constantly between French and English, since many people in the Service Center wish to speak English and whenever Gloria and I need to meet with others we need to either attempt to do it in English or I or Felix have to translate for her.  Our strategy for dealing with traffic police, who have stopped us five times already just to harass us because we are white, is to pretend we don’t understand their demands and just wait for them to give up and let us go away.  They clearly just want money, and frequently the missionaries do give them some money or water or something they can use.
Although I am trying to make it my rule not to give too much thought to some of the negative aspects of life in the DRC, full disclosure compels me to state that before anyone makes plans to vacation in the DRC they should know that the roads are in really terrible condition (the great majority in the city are unpaved and impassable without 4WD and even then…), the trash on the ground is extraordinary even by third world standards, and driving in traffic is relentlessly exasperating and just plain frightening. 
I don’t think we Americans appreciate how good it is to have traffic laws that people actually obey and that are actually enforced fairly.  The traffic police here allow local people to run red lights flagrantly, to turn right across traffic from the inside lane, to turn left across traffic from the outside lane, to drive on the wrong side of the road, to back up in heavy traffic, to recklessly barrel into a busy street from a side street, and to park anywhere at any time.  However, when recently I had to slam on the brakes while approaching an intersection because someone ran a red light and turned head on right into, forcing me to come to a stop partially into the crosswalk, that is all the pretext the traffic police needed to stop me and try to shake me down for money, while the offending driver of course was ignored.  We also don’t appreciate what it is like not to have hordes of pedestrians walking (or pushing overloaded carts) in the middle of the roads or darting over barriers into six lanes of heavy traffic in total disregard of  traffic lights and crosswalks, or not to have vendors and beggars weaving constantly in and out of moving traffic trying to get some money or make a sale.  On the other hand, while I have not yet seen a posted speed limit in the DRC, generally the drivers do not seem to drive too fast.  Accidents are happening constantly all around us, so it is only a matter of time for our turn to come.  Maybe it is that sense of fate—what can happen will happen--that encourages everyone here to take such enormous risks in traffic.
But all that aside, it is a great opportunity for us to be in Africa at this time.  We are learning about the culture, appreciating the industriousness and kindness of the people, and seeing things we could scarcely imagine without being here.  In America we really do tend to believe that the world revolves around us and that everyone else in the world should just do things our way.  After being abroad for a while one begins to understand that others have their own agendas and interests to pursue. 
The church is prospering greatly here, with new chapels being built constantly and new wards and stakes being created regularly.  We have met three representatives from the construction company that have been hired to build the temple, although it probably won’t be started for another year or more.  When it is completed, however, it will be a wonderful gift to the good people in this part of Africa.  We are particularly excited about the prospects for success in our humanitarian work. We have seen enough challenges to experience some discouragement, but we realize that we are just barely getting started and that we should expect some great things to happen.  We have been sent here for a reason, perhaps primarily to solve some problems that have been brewing for a while, and to put the program on a course for future success.  And even if we might not undertake as many new water and/or latrine projects as did our predecessors, there may well be other important humanitarian projects that we will think of or which will fall into place while we are here that will be exciting for us and a blessing to the people we have been called to serve.
Pictures from Molende:








 











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