Hotel Memling Kinshasa

... Moi, j ai eu de la chance tout de suite dirige vers le directeur qui a fait tout les demarches administratives pour moi et ceci sans demander d argent. De maniere generale je n ai pas eu de gros probleme de corruption en RDC. Les agents ayant peur des blancs. Meme si cela n a pas empecher des militaires de me demander 1000 dollars. Mais ils ont rien eut...

... for around 4 hours, and agreed on plans for services on the Sabbath. We plan to meet again in the afternoon after services to continue discussions and wrap up what we can for this visit. I was able to have my wife call me back on the phone in the evening, and we caught up on what's been going on back home during the week I've been gone (one down, three to go). News from home is a wonderful tonic.

... we got close, the taxi driver said the fare would be $100. Last time I was here it was $50. "This is the new price" he said. I negotiated him down, until we split the difference. It was still highway robbery, but only in a figurative sense. This was better than risking it in the literal sense.... After checking in and settling in, I called my local contacts and they said they'd come to the hotel as soon as they were able. I worked in the room until they came. Jacob came ...

So we finally got picked up and went to the restaurant. La Roi de Cossa, the King of King Shrimp. :) When I walked in, I thought I had been teleported to a different country. The place was a total D rating when it comes to appearance, but the huge smile and the super friendly greeting I got at the door nearly floored me. NOONE IS FRIENDLY WHEN IT COMES TO THE SERVICE INDUSTRY HERE!! At the supermarket, I am used to awesome checkout people ...

... need it here. All I do is wake up early, take a shower, eat some food, take a malaria tablet and then sit on my **** surfing the net for hours on end. :P Who needs to timetable that? ha ha. I am going to post some more pictures up on facebook. ones of my head, now that my hair has loosened a bit. I feel really bad. We totally participated in the exploitation of these people. The lady, Jacqui, braided my hair in 4 hours and we paid her $US20 for something that could have ...

... I might just relocate... The only problem is that if I dont sleep under a mosquito blanket, I will catch malaria. Talking about malaria. Since last Tuesday my dad has been bed-ridden because he had malaria. Haha. The best part about it was that it was not the malaria that put him in bed. It was the meds. Apparently they really mess with you. He was tripping all over the place. He saw people climbing out of the walls, had random things shouted into his head when he was out ...

... They sang a hymn they knew by heart in Lingala, and I sang along with the words I recognized: alléluia and Yesu came up in the chorus each time, so I could at least chime in with what little I understood. I asked an opening prayer and then Justin gave a 15-minute sermonette which was mostly translated for me. It was on the topic of "bring forth fruits fitting for repentance" which he tied to the judgment at the second ...

... Congo started out not as a prop** colony but as the p**sonal prop**ty of King Leopold I. That was an awful time for the Congolese since the king of the Belgians treated the huge land tract essentially as a cash cow, using horrible and disgusting methods to get the people to provide rubb** and oth** products he wanted. Adam Hoschfeld has written an excellent if gut-wrenching account of that p**iod, called Leopold's Ghosts. The capitals of the two Congos ...

This morning, Jacob arrived at 10:00. He'd been slowed by traffic. He had a taxi this time, which is how we traveled the twenty minutes to his house. There were about thirty five people there of which fifteen were children. As we started they sang two simple hymns in Lingala, the local language; there was an opening prayer and then a sermonette in French by Justin about the parable ...

... pizza restaurant in courtyard of the hotel. Behind a canvas wall, there was a big formal event going on around the pool: live band, cocktails, a catered meal, a mix of expats and Congolese. What a difference from all the grinding poverty we'd been driving though all day. I felt a little indignant at the disparity, especially since the locals who have enough money to come to gigs like this almost certainly didn't come by their money ethically. It's the way of the third world.