New Basketball Court

Hello all!

Wanted to update you about our new gym. As a reminder, this is what our old gym looked like: Cement with green paint on it. It used to be uncovered, so the cover is good, but the surface was very slippery and very hard for falling. 

Therefore, the school decided to buy a new court surface. We thought it would be perhaps foamy like the Montgomery Elementary School, but instead it turns out that it is this hard plastic tight webbing (hard to see in photo) made out of recycled plastic milk cartons (which we ironically don't have in Congo). So there are these squares of plastic webbing fit into this frame, and that is how they stay together. When some players move quickly or aggressively, the tiles can pop up, but so far it seems functional overall. It is not really that much softer to fall on (and you get web marks on you!) but it is much much better for stopping. New rims were also added and the famous 'cage' has been removed. Quite a transformation. It was a privilege to coach this year on the final year of the green cement and at the tournament for the inauguration of the new court.

On another note, sighted this morning: 

• Breathtaking sunrise over Kinshasa
• Some beautiful chickens including a very tall thin rooster and a pretty grey hen
• Lawn-mowing with hedge clippers (I guess it could be worse mom)
• An appreciative smile and giggle from a lady watching me struggle up a hill
• A thumbs up at a gas station
• Not one but TWO dudes on their morning commute with their saw (have saw, will travel?) 
• Some eggshells in my shoe tread (running on eggshells?) 
• A great smile from a girl and her little brother (I can't usually get smiles from kids, but these guys delivered) 
• My favorite turquoise lion and dolphin gate
• To top it all off: a dude sticking his head up out of the drainage grate in the sidewalk. As in up from the drainage area under the sidewalk. I thought I was hallucinating. 

Wasn't happy with my pace or distance, but plugged in my running watch to reveal that I have run more than twice the mileage that I ran in March. I guess that's an accomplishment! I am so thankful for my continued good health.

Have a wonderful weekend all!

Vacation Bonus: Fabric

I am so sorry I really did blog last weekend and then somehow it just saved in drafts and never posted! Silly me! Whoops!

Thought I would show off the fabric purchased (with the paid-in-tuna cat model extraordinaire). Tailor has not come yet and I am still hemming and hawing about what I want to get made. Suggestions welcome.

First, the hand-dyed Senegalese fabric (these are in no particular order)

I guess I will model if you insist.

Next is the super-soft more expensive fabric from the mall in Ghana - the one that will drape. I have too many ideas for this and not enough fabric! It is so soft! But seems like it would be wasted on a pillowcase. But that I could sew myself!

That pesky flash is getting in the way of my napping.

 Then the pseudo-kente cloth I got in Ghana. Real kente is very expensive and has a disarming habit of involving the color bright orange. Not my jive. So I got this fake in my colors instead.

You are boring me mom... boring me.

 This purple is also from Ghana. So pretty. Can't handle it.

So I guess I will sit on the fabric..,

And there is some classy Congolese side-eye for your day... the glare that says "Feed me now! Modeling over!"

I hope you have had a good week. Much love!

Vacation Part 3

Howdy y'all! Fresh off a week of organizing and still trying to catch up a bit after vacation, a good week overall and I'm happy it's over. My half-marathon training went well this morning and now I am resting, should be at work but with 8.55 miles run I think I would just pass out on the piles of work, so staying on my couch for the moment. Thought I would share the final bits of my vacation. After our big day of fabric shopping and ferry riding, we took the next day to travel to Madame Pasqualini's village, Somone, about 1.5 hours south of Dakar by taxi. The city disappeared quickly on VERY smooth roads and gave way to some very regular looking country side with occasional buildings, construction, and businesses, giving the impression of more economic activity/vitality than there is here in Kinshasa. My favorite part of the drive, aside from the villages and regular life observing, were the amazing trees. Just growing wherever. SO cool.

I was also trying desperately to get a photo of something that looked suspiciously like a Milkweed tree, which I knew my mother would love, (to weedwhack) but no such luck. Next time. 

We arrived in the village and got to Madame Pasqualini (my former landlady in Corsica)'s house and got settled in, agreeing to the days the housekeeper would come and cook us Chicken Yassa (again! YUM!) and getting down to resting. We spent our days laying on the porch, even though the beach was right around the corner it was chilly and we were in the mood to be lazy. Her screened porch was amazing with it's perfect lounge chairs and we spent a lot of time reading and hanging out. 

We had meals at a few local places within walking distance and it was very much a 'beach town' feel, everyone we met seemed cool and calm and less tense than the city dwellers (not that the city people seemed overly perturbed or anything, I think things just seem calmer when you live by the ocean) There were a few main hotels in town, both on the beach, as well as some restaurants which I ran by one morning. A restaurant caught my eye, which I decided to try to bring Adiya and Ella to for lunch. However, finding what I was looking for proved to be much more difficult from the road side than from the beach side where I had been running, so we ended up at a different restaurant instead. We walked up some stairs to a raised area so we could look out at the ocean as we ate. 

Our view of the fishing boats and fish cleaning depot was really lovely, if not sunny, and we were treated to a prix fixe menu that was SOOOOOOOOOOO good, aside from Chicken Yassa the best food of vacation. I had a veggie quiche that was insanely good, Parmesan crusted fish that was ah-maz-ing, and a papaya rice pudding for dessert. We headed back via the beach (still no sign of where I was trying to bring us for lunch) and were treated to some classic Ella dancing. We had watched Pitch Perfect 2 the night before and were serenading ourselves with some of the songs. (Serenading ourselves was an ongoing theme of vacation)

That evening, our last in Somone, the housekeeper came to make use our chicken and we headed out for an evening stroll with the house caretaker who had had a role in building a Mangrove Forest reserve right behind the house as part of the Lagune de Somone, the inlet at the end of the town. A rich French guy had invested money to create a protected area with raised walkways to show of the crazy-cool Mangrove trees and all of the wildlife that they attract. It was awesome! Mangrove trees (which live in water) grow these long skinny things that look like big string beans. When the time is right, the trees drop their string beans straight down into the water (it looks kind of like someone is writing underwater) and the trees grow roots and more roots and become kind of like a full grown hedge all growing together. It was so cool! There were crabs and fish in the water below the trees, and SO many birds in the Lagune... I didn't get any good pictures, but if you have a magnifying glass, you might be able to find the egrets and pelicans that I thought I was photographing?!?! 

We headed back to the house at dusk for our Chicken Yassa and packing, and we left the next day to return to Adiya's friends house in Dakar for our final night of vacation. We did a return trip to Goree Island to pick up some art that Adiya had her mind set on, and spent a fun evening with the family hosting us. They also rose early to take us to the airport - we were very grateful! Thank you! And that was vacation. (We had a long layover in Ethiopia, where we went out to eat fun Ethiopian food as well!)

Overall I was very very happy to have experienced non-Congo Africa in such a fun way, traveling with friends, meeting up with friends and having interesting places to stay. Air travel was an experience, super fun (lots of kindle reading!) and I really really enjoyed both Ghana and Senegal for different reasons. I am happy to have come and will be happy to return one day! Until then! 

The basketball tournament was a success (will update with pictures of the new basketball court) and now to bear down for the last stretch of school. Seven more weekend blog posts until I am home! Hard to believe. I have some plans to take a picture drive and get some last pictures and I am already planning my ending posts. More to come! Have a wonderful week ahead! <3 

Vacation Part 2

It's time for the second installment! It took some doing to get from Accra to Dakar and we landed in the evening, got a SIM card for Adiya's phone and contacted our Air B&B host who collected us at the airport and navigated us to our apartment. The Dakar airport is very much in the city, so it was a quick jaunt (happily enough, as we were wiped out) and the apartment was on kind of a main drag and near several shops and businesses (including this great hairdresser, which I was able to photograph the next morning.)

Upon waking, we took in the view (of a more functional construction site than that Greek one Lat and I saw). The way the apartment looked out over this area (can you spot the cat?) made the sound echo really well, and we were often hearing the horse-drawn carts (which operate right along with the traffic, not large or sleek horses but most looked pretty well cared for) and goats (not sure where they were hiding?), as well as sounds from the mosques. It was not a quiet apartment, but very cool to get the sounds of the city! I had an immediate flashback (as I'm sure every normal person does) to the last chapter of my Sophomore year of French class to the words for mosque and minaret (which are the same thing in French and English, I think) and it was a surreal feeling to know that when I had learned those words I had wanted to experience those things and here I was doing just that.

We spent the first day lazily loafing about, (we really needed this vacation!) changing money and buying groceries, until it was time to head out to Adiya's middle school friend's house for dinner (they went to middle school together in America, she just happens to live in Dakar now!). We made a pit stop on the way! What an immense and very cool sculpture.

We had Chicken Yassa (Yassa Chicken?) for dinner and it was amazing - chicken cooked in onions, it is SO good! 

The next day was jam-packed as we headed out to go fabric shopping in the garment district. We went down these tiny alleyways with guys sewing in every corner - my favorite was a guy listening to his MP3 player, sewing and holding a pen in his mouth! It was beautiful. I did get a hand-dyed Senegalese fabric (blue). 

The sewing alley

Trim for all the outfits they are sewing!

Garment selling street with dust from the Harrmattan, which was over in Ghana but not in Senegal yet.

Taxi! 

Then after lunch we boarded a ferry for Goree Island, a famous slave-trading island (though it may not have had as many slaves pass through as previously thought, it was still impressive.) We toured the slave house and wandered about looking at the art and gorgeous flowers (bougainvillea, my photos do not remotely do it justice) on the windy island until it was time to depart. 

We headed back to the apartment via a beach-side bar where we ate a GIANT seafood platter. YUM!

We await our food! Can you spot: (1) guy selling birds that you can buy and then 'free' (2) a dude working out by running in circles on the sand in front of people eating... we were mystified (3) surfers surfing! (4) the huge sculpture we had seen the day before in the background (5) Ella's glass recyclable Sprite bottle, one of the coolest recycling ideas in Africa I think!

Until next week all! <3 

Vacation Part 1

Hi there -

Sorry for the delay ~ Things are still crazy here (when are they not?) Basketball is going to finish on April 9th, so hopefully I will have some more free time soon. I am setting a goal of 9 more weekends or Mondays of consistent posting, and then on the 10th weekend I will be home in Vermont! The countdown is on!

Three Saturdays ago, my friends Adiya and Ella and I set out on a fun African voyage, my first visits to any countries in Africa that aren't DRCongo. I have lived here for over a year and aside from the Casablanca airport, I had never been to another African country until this trip. We headed out from TASOK at about 5am and out from Congo at about 8am, and then we changed time zones and planes (the only reason we made our flight, we gained an hour) in Togo (which has the coolest airport worker pagne uniforms ever!) and arrived in Accra, Ghana, to a very warm welcome from one of my students I had last year and his family. We got settled in their awesome house and the next day headed out to the beach! While there is beach in Accra, we took a drive to a lovely beach with a less urban feel and some awesome chairs and palm trees to complete the experience.

I did take a dip, though I hate salty water in my mouth! 

Adiya and Pippa getting ready to head home.

The next day it poured down rain (to end the Harmattan, winter desert wind) and we toured about the city a little bit before picking up the younger kids at daycare and heading back to the house for our afternoon nap!

The next day the weather was back to normal (warm!) and we went out to the market to buy fabric. I was categorically ignored, which is not the norm in Kinshasa (with much more aggressive salespeople) and had a great time, got two fabrics, one just pretty and the other one not typical in Kinshasa.

We also saw this sign, which had us giggling pretty hard.

On our last full day in Ghana, we walked to the neighborhood pagne store, which had fabrics that we can get in Kinshasa, but at better prices, and I bought a very fancy fabric not so much because of it's pattern, but because of it's amazingly soft feel. It is much more silk-like than regular pagne and I think it will actually drape. We had a great lunch at a place in the neighborhood and again took a nap all afternoon! We headed out the next day.

Overall, I really enjoyed seeing my former student and his family (who are British) and talking non-stop about all kinds of random things, including the vast differences between American and British English. It was also at about this time that Adiya realized that I have a Vermont accent, so we also got to throw that one into the mix.

One of the most striking things (aside from getting ignored at the market! Holy cow!) was being in a neighborhood where we could walk around and there were shops and amenities, including a mall and multiple restaurants a few minutes walk from the house. There are small free standing shops with nice signs on the streets that sell vegetables and fast food, all kinds of things. In Kinshasa those are not allowed so the street stands are more temporary.

The traffic in Accra is pretty intense, and we didn't see really much rural aside from heading to the beach (next time!) but I really enjoyed speaking English, seeing the market, eating Jolof rice, and napping all afternoon. It was really a vacation! THANK YOU Rich Family!