Riding through town on motorcycles

Everyone in town pretty much knows that there are two white girls that live here, that are almost always together, and that one is called (something like) "Angel" and one is called "Marlen." So often when we're riding around town on the motorcycle we'll hear random people call out "Angel" or "Marlen." Sometimes they call out the right name, sometimes they don't. What's interesting is that even when we're both on the motorbike, we'll only hear one name.
This weekend I was riding around by myself, and I was driving by the taxi drivers in the market part of town, I got a: honk honk, kiss, "ou est Marlen?" (Where is Marlene?)
It makes me wonder...

Here I am standing outside of church with the new dress I just had made with the cloth my friends in Brazzaville gave me. Even though you won't see someone here wearing the exact same outfit as you, you will often see the same cloth. It's fun having cloth that no one else has! I'm quite pleased with the outfit, although it has these interesting ruffles at the back of the skirt that I'm not too sure about.

When I showed up at the tailor's yesterday, I said to him, "do you have something for me?" To which he replies, "your dress is already finished." He then proceeds to iron it and put two zippers in. This didn't bother me though, because I was prepared this time. I now know that a tailor will never finish an outfit until you are there. It never fails. Everytime they call or send a message to say the outfit is ready, and everytime I arrive they grab whatever it is and start ironing, or sewing in the zipper, or finishing the hem. In Bunia, I had to go there three times before I could actually leave with my clothes.

Bananas for breakfast

Every morning, there are always a ton of people sitting outside our office. I think they work in the office next door, but they usually sit in front of our office. They don't ever seem to have a lot going on, so whenever I'm hungry I ask them to do me a favor...send the kids with bananas my way. There's always kids walking around with various things on their heads...bananas, peanuts, fried doughnuts, avocados and mangos when they're in season.
This particular time, I bought an avocado, 6 bananas, and a capful of peanuts for about 35 cents. I've quit worrying about eating breakfast in the morning because I know I can always get a banana at work.

When you need to get out of Isiro, there's not many places to go. We managed to get out of town for a day though. We went out to someone's fields. Exciting, right? First stop was the desert. This was just a patch of soil that Marlene wanted to show me where crops don't grow.














In order to get to this desert in someone's fields, you turn in here. You see the path, don't you? Don't you want to take your motorcycle in there?








Next stop was the river. We followed the river until it got really muddy and I didn't want to continue any longer without shoes on. It was nice to be lost in the rainforest though.





We tried to find a place to throw down a blanket and read, but couldn't find any place where there was shade and a place to sit. Palm trees aren't very good at giving off shade. We eventually ended up sitting in this church for awhile. It was nice. Nobody bothered us. That's rare.

Loudspeakers in church

Across the street from our office, there is a church that likes to do lots of outreach. It's nice to see a church doing outreach, because there don't seem to be many churches that do. The problem is there seems to be this philosophy here that everyone should always want to listen to preaching, so it's okay to blast it in the street. This church has these prayer meetings something like three times a week, and they keep the doors open and blast, on their poor quality speakers, the service. Several different people, including the pastor, have come over to talk to us the last week, asking us to come visit the church or with their various requests. Each time we've asked them if they could turn the volume down and keep the service to themselves. Each time they agree and say they'll turn the volume down. In reality though, it's getting louder. Yesterday we noticed that there are now three huge speakers outside the door to the church, and they're now pointed directly at our office. I guess we're going to have to try another tactic. It'd be one thing if it sounded nice, but it doesn't, and it's sooo hot in our office. There's no breeze, no windows, so working late afternoon is becoming very unpleasant. At least our work these days is pretty mindless and doesn't require much concentration.
Along these lines, our church wants to buy loudspeakers. One of the main reasons we go to that church is because they don't have loudspeakers, so I don't know what we're going to do when they get them. They've given out envelopes for a special offering for these loudspeakers, and they've made sure that the four white people at the church received them, but none of us plan on giving any money toward the cause. We're all very against loudspeakers at church in Congo, so this could get interesting. The church isn't that big. No one has a problem hearing the sermon, but it's a prestige thing. There are lots of prestige things here that I just don't understand, and this is one of them.

Reasons why Bunia is better than Isiro

Not to say Isiro doesn't have an advantage or two, mainly the security, but Bunia has quite a few advantages.
There's nothing like this in Isiro.

Best tomatoes I've ever had, and check out the green beans, and cucumbers, and green peppers...vegetables that aren't leaves!

It's hot!

There is a new cat in our yard. It's a white one with golden spots, and it sits out in our yard and whines. Our night guard wants to "assassinate" it, because it's wild and he says that because it's whining, that means it's the cat of a sorcerer. I told him he could not assassinate it (which he would have done with his bow and arrow) and then asked others there opinion. Everyone else just brings up the point that our "chat" is a "chatte" (she's female) and the other cat is just out looking for some lovin'.
The whole cat situation has just taken an interesting turn though. Marlene heard a cat meow, and then turned to see the two cats heading down to my room. We went and chased them out, but it took a bit of chasing. I'm not going to allow wild cats roaming around the house, especially if they want to go in my room. We'll see how this goes.

This is my neighborhood in Isiro. I put a similar picture up back in August with a circle around a house, saying that's where I was going to live. I didn't actually move into that house, so here's my actual house, with a circle around it.