Road Trip!
Even though we spent quite a bit of time traveling to actually get here to Gemena, we had our first in-country road trip on Friday and Saturday. We headed out to Tandala, a village (mboka) roughly 40-50 miles Southwest of Gemena. We piled 13 people into a land cruiser and tied most of the luggage and other random trunks and boxes to the top of the land cruiser. It usually takes less than an hour to travel 40-50 miles in the states…but not in the Congo. Because the roads are horrendous to say the least, it took us about 3 hours to get to Tandala. Imagine going off-roading through small villages with twelve other people and their luggage piled in the same vehicle for three hours. That is the best way we can describe it. The potholes are immense and so the vehicle is constantly being tussled about.
We have decided that driving through the Congo is much like being in a parade for us. People peek out of their homes or stop what they are doing to look at the large land cruiser coming down the road. Once they realize there are white people in the land cruiser, children begin squealing with delight, waving and shouting, "Mondele! Mondele!" ("White people! White people!") and some of the adults begin to wave or raise their eyebrows in amazement. We thought it might be fun to start throwing candy out the windows like a real parade. But, we don't have any candy.
While in Tandala, we walked to the hospital, dental and optometrist offices that are heavily supported by ReachGlobal. We met all four doctors who work at the hospital and spent a little time in the dental office. Sam lived in Tandala for several years and had a great time seeing the area he lived and exploring all the trees that he remembered being so big. We even got to meet the family who lives in his old house now and walk through the home. Many people who knew Sam as a child were happy to see him again and one man even gave us a live chicken (nsoso) as a gift.
Saturday morning we loaded back up in the land cruiser with just as many bags and boxes, and even our chicken was tied to the top of the vehicle. On the way home we encountered several interesting scenes. A truck full of police officers with AK47s had broken down and they stopped us to see if we could take a few police officers as extra passengers…our chauffer told them, "Can't you see we are already full?" We stopped three different times to buy food on the side of the road as well as some baskets that we are now using as laundry baskets. While entering one village, a large group of men waving sticks came running and shouting at us. We thought perhaps we were about to enter an angry mob, but a couple men explained that they were having a tribal rite of passage ceremony that day and they were clearing the road. We were informed we could not drive through and since there was no alternate road, we considered rolling up our windows and driving through the mob anyway while they hit the vehicle with sticks. Luckily, a couple of the men allowed us to pass through…whew! Shortly after that we came upon several men shoveling sand into the back of a large, parked truck. Our chauffer honked his horn for them to move and one of the men informed us that their driver was no longer there and they were unable to move the truck which was taking up the entire road. So, the people in the house along the road directed us through their yard around the parked truck. We trampled a couple bushes on the excursion, but got back on the road in one piece (with our chicken still tied to the top).
After three-and-a-half hours we arrived back in Gemena. Even though we have only lived here for a little more than a week, we were really excited to be home. It was also exciting to find that shower heads had been installed in our bathrooms while we were gone. No more bucket showers for us!
Sunday morning we woke up and prepared to attend my first African church service at a church here called Bethlehem. Edison (our chauffer) arrived around 9AM to pick us up in the rickety land cruiser owned by the local church. We piled in the back and began driving down the pothole-covered roads of Gemena. Young children on the side of the road waved and screamed as they saw a truck full of white people pass by. The adults mostly stared. We picked up Sam's dad and the Free Church president, Bosopali, and we were on our way to church (losambo).
Now, I have heard about these church services from Sam and others who have been to Africa before. They are long services with lots of singing and dancing. So I fully expected to be in the service for about 3 hours, much like my experience attending Bread of Life when I lived in Tulsa. Luckily I had been somewhat prepared for a long service because the service lasted almost 5 hours on Sunday morning! Yes, that's right, 5 hours.
The service went something like this: men's choir sings a few songs, women's choir sings a few songs, girl's choir sings a few songs, pastor welcomes everyone, the congregation sings a few songs, we pray, we read scripture, we sing, someone speaks at the pulpit, we sing, we pray, the pastor introduces all the other pastors, the pastor introduces all the visitors and the visitors all stand up, the pastor introduces Sam's dad who speaks at the pulpit and introduces us and the Larsens, we sing, we read scripture, we pray, we sing, someone gives a sermon, many people in the congregation visibly fall asleep, we pray, we prepare to take the offering, entire congregation dances and sings to the front of the church to drop off their offering, the congregation sings and dances for an hour, we pray, the pastor announces the amount of the offering, we clap, we pray, men's choir sings another song, we leave. Whew! Keep in mind that the entire service is in Lingala and I only understand a handful of Lingala words at this point.
During the service the sky grew darker and darker and after the first 5 minutes of the offering it began to rain hard. Since no one could really go anywhere in the hard rain, they just decided to keep us in the church building singing and dancing until the rain stopped. Jim (Sam's dad) later referred to this as "offering jail" to which the Congolese people we had lunch with laughed about. It was quite enjoyable to watch all the celebration and I wanted to be able to dance like the Congolese women, but instead I just clapped and swayed. At one point an old woman came up to me, Aaron and Michelle and motioned for us to sit down while she was laughing. Apparently she felt sorry for us since we had been standing so long, awkwardly swaying.
We arrived at the church service at 9:30AM and walked out at 2:20PM feeling very ready to eat lunch.
The End
After four days of traveling we finally arrived in Gemena on Friday night around 10PM. Although we were all very tired (especially after the 7 ½ hour truck ride on the extremely rough Congo roads) we were pleased to get here.
We spent our first full day in Gemena at the Elikya Center and met many new people. We want to do our best to remember all the people we meet, so Sarah is keeping a log of all the names along with descriptions of the people. We are amazed by our new home! The masonry students here at Elikya built a duplex for us and the Larsens. Although we had seen photos, we are still surprised by how nice it is. It has been fully furnished and there is even a gravity-fed toilet in each home. We are taking "bucket showers" as we call them, but we still get clean. And the view from our front porch is fantastic! This place is beautiful.
We have eaten some very tasty food since our arrival, too. We eat rice almost every meal and either chicken or goat. Today we ate an eel-type fish that even Sarah (who hates seafood) liked! Sarah has also had the pleasure of tasting pondu and fuku for the first time. Pondu is very similar to cooked spinach and is quite good. Fuku is rather interesting and won't go into a "favorite food" category…but it is tolerable.
It is a huge blessing to finally be at the Elikya Center after praying and talking about it for about a year. It is great to meet the widows and the orphans who have been living and working here. Please continue to pray for us as we begin our language training on Monday and while we are excited about it, we are also a little intimidated.
