Trip to Brazzaville

Brazzaville is the capital of the Republic of the Congo, a former French colony, situated across the Congo River from Kinshasa.  "Brazza" and "Kin" are the only two international capitals close enough to see each other.  The masses of people in the photos are being deported from Brazzaville back to Kinshasa as refugees.  Brazzaville is much more clean, orderly and prosperous than Kinshasa. This and the following six pictures are of the Congo River shots from Brazzaville with the DRC in the background. You can see the Brazzaville Tower and refugees being deported back to the DRC.

 

The hotel we stayed at was marvelous as the photos around the swimming pool attest.

More Brazzaville: Glo failed to bring a bathing suit but did enjoy the hotel pool ambiance.

Looking from Brazzaville across the Congo river toward Kinshasa.   The Congo is impassable for boats from the port city of Matadi all the way upriver to Kinshasa.  However, from Kinshasa upriver for over 1,000 miles the river is own to boat traffic.

Tributary of the Congo River (Fleuve Congo) rushing toward the mother river.

Missionary couple on the banks of the Congo River.

Visit to a bakery that the man in the photos started with encouragement and guidance from a church program called "Interweave," which was started up by some returned missionaries from Third World countries to help people become entrepreneurs of their own businesses because getting a real job is so difficult in many parts of the world.  Unemployment in the DRC is said to exceed 80%.  The couple with us are Howard and Sue Bybee, who recently had to leave their mission due to health issues.  They were the Public Affairs couple.  We went to Brazzaville for three reasons (other than to get a little vacation): take a look at some of these Interweave projects for which Humanitarian Services actually provides some funds; meet with Ministry of Public Health officials to see if we could support their immunization campaign; and meet with some pediatricians to try and set up a Neo-Natal Resuscitation training program later this year.

We are supporting the government's measles and polio vaccination campaign by printing banners for the government to use for publicity purposes.  In this photo I'm delivering some banners to the Ministry of Health.  We also printed literature for Church volunteers to use as they go door to door encouraging people to take their children to clinics for vaccinations.