Let there be light (blog #2)

Bathroom in our new house

Our first week in our new home has been eventful and productive.  We are settling into our new home and getting adjusted to Congolese life.  Although life is different here than life in the US, we still have many luxuries compared to the average resident in Bunia. We enjoy electricity and running water most of the time.  Sometimes we have running water and sometimes we have electricity and when we are lucky, we have both!  When we do not have electricity, Kalongo’s house is equipped with a generator that gives us a decent amount of light.  There is even a solar panel on the roof that allows us to access the internet when there is no power.  There are still problems with this system as there is not enough power in Bunia to power the whole city all the time so therefore the power goes out every now and then.  Even if residents in Bunia wanted to have higher end appliances such as washers, and refrigerators, there is not enough power to support these items so they are useless.  Kalongo has a refrigerator sitting in his
house that he cannot use b/c of the lack of power.

Stephen and Scott's room in the dark.

  Most of the time we do have hot water for showers that has been boiled in the backyard on the stove.  The hot water heater is another appliance that does not get enough power to be of any use.  We take baths in a bathtub that has a small bucket of warm water in it.  There is not enough water to take a complete bath.  You basically squat in the bathtub and slash water on yourself, soap up, and then splash water on yourself again to rinse off.  We all received a proper demonstration of this technique cupping the palms of your hands when we arrived.  Washing my hair proved to be pretty challenging for me and I have not even begun to think about how I will shave!  I am sure it can be done, just need to figure out the most efficient way to do it.  Another challenge I have is plucking my eyebrows.  Melissa, Eunice and Michelle, where are you when I need you?  Being the only female among 2 males, makes you miss your girls at times like this.

We were able to venture out into the city a little bit this week after realizing that we been stuck in the house and office most of the week.  We are working in Synergie Simama’s office which is right next door to Kalongo’s house (literally 5 steps from one door to another) so we most of our business was handled between the office and home.  This week we did get a chance to meet an American missionary named Dana that Stephen had been in contact with prior to our departure.  Dana and her husband work at Shalom University and have been here about 2 years.  She gave us some ins and outs about life in Bunia advising us not to walk at night, to take our malaria pills at night to avoid too much exposure to the sun, and to have fun.  She told us not to take things too seriously despite the importance of our project and that it will be ok to make mistakes.  She is very passionate about her belief in God and spoke about different world views and how it affects the way people think.  Dana introduced us to some families on campus so that we can come by and practice our Kiswahili.  Learning Kiswahili is a definite goal of ours during our time here and the more we interact with locals, the faster we will learn.  Many people speak French as well and some are learning English. 

Another exciting outing for me involved going to the gym.  We are officially members (and I think the only members at this time) of the first gym in Bunia, outside of the gym at the UN which is only for UN officials.  The gym is run by Synergie Simama and is located at its rehabilitation center.  The gym has just recently opened and is for the clients of the rehabilitation center but also open to community members.  I had my first workout session today in the gym that is a small room in a tiki hut type building.  It has 2 bicycle machines, an ab bench, a weight bench (without any weights) and a weight machine (with weights).  There are also 2 exercise balls and mats for doing abs on the floor.  Videos are available for cardio but I have not seen what those videos consist of just yet (Ms. Tiffany, I need my beach body videos asap lol)! 

                              

Gym at Synergie Simama

Hope you have enjoyed a snippet of life in Bunia.  This weekend we have been invited to a wedding so we are looking forward to that.  Stay tuned for more updates to come soon.