Impfondo trip: a few pictures

Expat Mama Recommends...

Today’s recommendation is: search for the spices! When I first came to Congo for a longer term stay, I had no idea how to find any kind of seasoning besides salt and artificial seasoning powder that’s kind of like boullion cubes.

However, as the days pass I have gotten better at figuring out how to track down the spices I might want. Since my days of salt-only food, I have since been able to incorporate black pepper, ginger and nutmeg, among others. I hope to find cinnamon locally as well at some point, but for now I’m still scooping through my self-imported container. I used to assume that all Congo had was salt and I'd just have to deal with it and pack in the necessary seasonings. Thankfully that is not actually true.

One of the reasons the search for spices has been difficult is that I don’t get out to the market much, and I also don’t know the French names for what I might want. Many spices and seasonings are sold in unlabeled little plastic containers so it’s hard to figure out what they are when you don’t know the word for them. Anyway, my recommendation is that you just keep searching for spices and don’t assume your host country doesn’t have it. It might be somewhere high up on a very dusty shelf at the back of the store.

School’s out

We celebrated the end of the school year (the end of my teaching until the fall) with a party which our pastor’s wife organized for the preschool class. Molly and Eileen were invited even though they only attended the preschool class twice a week for about a month. There was music, dancing, food, juice, popcorn and T-shirts advertising the school. It took them a while to get warmed up but when they did, the girls really enjoyed the dancing and party atmosphere. Eileen ate a ton of food too! Below are some pictures of the festivities:

Changing houses

Here is something I wrote back when we were moving out of our old house:

“We are saying goodbye to the pale yellow walls and brown doors, the glaring light fixtures and smooth peach tiles. I look around at our old house and see the memories imprinted all over it.

The greasy circles along the wall where we sprayed ants with an oily bug spray not knowing the marks would stay forever. Our names carved into the cement of the bath area that Orcxance made himself, complete with a drain pipe. The tin walls of our yard painted with palm trees and parrots, green grass, flowers and fish. The scribbles of marker in various places on the lower half of the walls. The remnants of cement from the doorstep Orcxance created to make it easier to get the motorbike inside. The water stains and mildew and bits of sticky tack from pictures that once decorated the walls. My papaya trees now full grown that I planted and cried over while I was growing a baby myself. The avocado tree, the banana tree, the flowers. The cross made of sticks marking the spot behind the house where I buried my miscarriage.

It’s not really a sad goodbye because we are excited for the next step. But somehow it is a little bit sad as well. This house is full of memories. We had our first dance in this house, played our first game of chess. We conceived four babies in this house and brought our first one home from the hospital to this home. She learned to talk to us in this house.

But despite the memories and the missing of neighbors, Orcxance and I are very happy for this move and thankful for a large new house with plenty of space for all of us. A place to make new memories, host more visitors, plant more fruit trees and flowers, and grow more babies.

Back online!

Hi readers! I know many of you may have given up on checking my blog... but I’m back, at least temporarily. I have had some phone and internet issues and I was unable to post for quite awhile. My phone also no longer has a working front camera so photos will be limited. Anyway, we are doing well and enjoying some payoff from the hard work we’ve put into the garden at our new house!

The latest news for our family is that we are expecting baby number 3 and a visit from my sister in the fall. We are very excited about both of those things. We’ve had some other family happenings including graduations, my sister’s wedding and the death of a grandmother. Also, Orcxance’s sister is about to graduate from school as a lab technician. I will try to share more news as I am able. Thanks for checking back!

Picnic

I decided to break up the monotony of a hot afternoon by taking the girls out for a picnic at the fish farm.

We brought plenty of snacks and water; a must for any outing.

We found some banana bunches getting ripe and some baby pineapples.

Molly enjoyed feeding the fish little bits or bread.

Days from Death

I suppose we all live our lives just moments away from death. Any of us could go at any time, it seems. It happens to so many.

Every time my kids get sick, particularly if it’s malaria, I know that my girls have only a few days to live. Literally. Except for prompt medical treatment, they will be dead before the week is out. This is our reality.

Every time they get sick I am reminded that these could be my last days with them. But really, whether they are sick or healthy, any day could be our last with our precious children. Remember this. I tell myself that. I hold them longer, read more stories, remember to stay patient. I enjoy their smiles more, hug them tight. Do we really believe they could be gone tomorrow? I need to remember this and live thankfully today.

I am thankful for medicine, and thankful that my husband is an experienced African nurse, and especially thankful that our lives are in God’s hands.

Until having malaria myself, and then watching my children suffer through it, I had never been so thankful for modern medicine. It is not something to be taken for granted. I’m a white girl who was raised far from deadly mosquitos. Since I have not built resistance over a lifetime, I face a similar problem as young children here do. If I get malaria and don’t get treated quickly, I probably won’t last a week.

I’m no different than the white man I watched die in a tiny hospital because one too many days had passed. Each time I come down sick I think about that man, I am haunted by the memories, and I think about the frailty of the human body. God gave the body a strong ability to fight but some diseases prove too strong. All of us are just days away from death. Or moments. We groan with creation waiting for our bodies to be made perfect. Waiting for malaria to disappear forever. Waiting for the final cure.