Dear Family,
I have had a wonderful experience today. I have made friends with Tamiko and Brett Sher. She is half Japanese and he was raised in South Africa. They are really good friends. I found him because I saw these beautiful handwoven throws in the airport over a year ago when we moved here. I didn't want to pay that price (does that surprise you?) so I e-mailed to the address on the card thinking there was a shop that sold in that wasn't in the airport. He e-mailed back and I found he is 10 minutes from here. They live in a lovely home with their business in their home. I fell in love with his pillows, throws, scarves, purses, etc. It is high end quality stuff and he sold anything to me wholesale. We've become friends. I've taken missionary couples over there...mission president's wives over there because it is such fun. Their house is lovely, their gardens are lovely, and their workman are great as well as the beautiful things they have to sell. He will often call and say, "where have you been...come over" He likes my input with his new designs. They are all handwoven fabrics or African prints or Kuba cloths from Congo. ANYWAY, they have become good friends. They are in their very early forties.....artsy, kind, lovely people. He called a couple of weeks ago and wanted me to come over for a Christmas present they had for me. Well, I finally went today and took them gifts, but you won't believe what he gave me. He has a trunk with treasures in it that he has shown me before. He got them 20-24 years ago as he and his father went into the bush and would buy treasures from the people...mostly Zulus. He sold to dealers, collectors and the biggest African collection in the Smithsonian is from him. Also in the main museum here are things he sold to them. (By the way I went with another So. African friend to the bead collection in that museum and we went into the basement and she just kept pulling out drawers for us to see the massive African bead collection.....because I love the beads so.) He told me he was going to let me pick something from his collection for Christmas......you have to know that this collection means a great deal to him....it is valuable, but mostly an emotional collection. We sat on his living room floor and went through the collection and he told me about every piece....mostly being Zulu beadwork....bracelets, earrings, and many many belts. He also has some baskets, head rests, and a few dolls. It is mind boggling. I told him I couldn't choose as I didn't feel right about that. He gave me a beautiful Zulu necklace from the early 1940's. It is extremely valuable and very hard to find anymore. It is red, black, green, pink, yellow, and light blue. You can tell the age by the colors and size of the beads which he knows all about and about which I am learning. THEN he gave me a pair of Zulu earrings that the men wore. They are wooden, round, about 2 inches in diameter and they have mosaic like designs put on it with tiny, tiny nails. They are fabulous and have definitely been used. I treasure them. The earlobes are stretched those 2 inches to be able to wear them. I treasure the 2 hours going through his treasures and learning about it and hearing about the tales of meeting the people, and bargaining and dancing with them and becoming their friends. It is a lost venture now as the old treasures like these are gone and now it is dangerous to go and try because of the robbers. Some still go out for the new treasures which are still beautiful, but the old things like this are gone. It was quite a day. We are going to have them to dinner in January when the Andersons are here and he is going to show pictures of his trips into the bush and also show a ceremony with him and British Airways. He and some Nbele women designed the bright colors that are on the tail of those planes. I want you all to meet the two of them when you come. Ann has met him as have Ben and Isaac. We went to meet the owls that live in his trees. He talks to them every night. Enough.....just wanted to share the day with you. It was very special to me....couldn't get over it. I try to be spiritual every moment of my life but find I'm still worldly a lot too.......And I love it.
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
DR Congo Again
It really is hard to describe our impressions and experiences in the DR Congo last week. It truly is something I want to write about so that I can remember and also so others might feel what we feel as we travel there. We have made several trips there, and it continues to be place of poverty, joblessness, chaos, illness and even an underlying hostility that you can feel, but it also is a country of color, laughter, happiness, joy, talent and inventiveness that is so amazing. The drive from the airport is one of people, people and more people. There are hundreds of people on the side of road decked out in the most beautiful fabric of flamboyant color. They are busy walking, carrying, selling, talking, laughing, running, playing and just going about their everyday life. It reminds one on an ant hill with everyone going a different direction, but with great purpose.
We had one scary incident on that drive to the mission home. All of a sudden the traffic stopped because of an accident or something up ahead. We couldn't go forward or backward and there were dozens of people walking and many right next to the car. Most were students and I made eye contact with several and smiled and waved and they smiled and waved back. All of a sudden the waves changed and their hands turned over and they were asking for money. Their smiles became demanding looks and intense look and all of a sudden they were pounding on the car. It was very scary. Our driver, Eustach, had the space to turn around and he did so immediately and we went back to another route. From one second to the next the climate changed and I learned that in close quarters like that I can't make eye contact like I can in South Africa. We were glad to be on our way.
We trained all day on Saturday and that is always a wonderful experience. We couldn't get into the stake center because it was in the middle of Kinshasa and the roads were blocked off because of poles in the road on one street or a load of gravel on another street, or the metal plate that went over the sewer was out on another street so we parked out car in the middle of this area and walked about 4 or 5 blocks to the church. It was wonderful to see the way they live in that way. Little children were naked as they were bathing in the pan of water. There were chickens running around and children playing and laughing and following us, the white folks. We could see into their homes and courtyards all of dirt floors. We saw them cooking over their little fires, and one woman was delousing her child and many were doing the braids on their little girls. We loved it and they waved and smiled and we felt joy. The oasis in that village was the beautiful stake center which was an old house. I trained the women under a covered gazebo type structure which was wonderful because it was cooler there. Even though it was hard with the interpreter translating from French to English and sometimes from French to Lingala to English. In spite of it the women laughed with me and we learned together. I presented the new Health Manual that we had been working on and which was recently translated to French and they were thrilled to get it. We didn't have enough copies so we will print 200 more and send them up.
The most touching was Stake Conference on Sunday. We woke up in the middle of the night to a terrible storm....rain and wind. The next morning it had not stopped and we knew it would affect the attendance. When we arrived at the rented hall on the fairgrounds, which was a huge cement building with no windows and little light it was still pouring. When it was time to start there were 30 people there. We started a few minutes late because they were having trouble with the PA system. Slowly but surely the people began to arrive....in a slow steady stream. At one point a hired bus pulled right up to the door so they could dash in, but in that horrible downpour that was so severe that you could hardly hear, because of the rain on the tin roof, those people kept coming. I sat there with tears streaming down my face and Bill had tears in his eyes too as did the mission president and his wife as these wonderful Saints came in completely soaked in their Sunday best clothes and with beautiful smiles on their faces. They walked through mud and pot holes and a fields to get there. What a testimony to me of the goodness of those people. When they sang I thought the roof would come off. What a blessing to participate with them in that meeting.
There were 11 check points in the airport as we found our way to the plane on the tarmac. We were searched several times and when we finally lifted off for Johannesburg, we were thrilled to be going "home", but we knew we had had many experiences of a lifetime and we loved it.
We had one scary incident on that drive to the mission home. All of a sudden the traffic stopped because of an accident or something up ahead. We couldn't go forward or backward and there were dozens of people walking and many right next to the car. Most were students and I made eye contact with several and smiled and waved and they smiled and waved back. All of a sudden the waves changed and their hands turned over and they were asking for money. Their smiles became demanding looks and intense look and all of a sudden they were pounding on the car. It was very scary. Our driver, Eustach, had the space to turn around and he did so immediately and we went back to another route. From one second to the next the climate changed and I learned that in close quarters like that I can't make eye contact like I can in South Africa. We were glad to be on our way.
We trained all day on Saturday and that is always a wonderful experience. We couldn't get into the stake center because it was in the middle of Kinshasa and the roads were blocked off because of poles in the road on one street or a load of gravel on another street, or the metal plate that went over the sewer was out on another street so we parked out car in the middle of this area and walked about 4 or 5 blocks to the church. It was wonderful to see the way they live in that way. Little children were naked as they were bathing in the pan of water. There were chickens running around and children playing and laughing and following us, the white folks. We could see into their homes and courtyards all of dirt floors. We saw them cooking over their little fires, and one woman was delousing her child and many were doing the braids on their little girls. We loved it and they waved and smiled and we felt joy. The oasis in that village was the beautiful stake center which was an old house. I trained the women under a covered gazebo type structure which was wonderful because it was cooler there. Even though it was hard with the interpreter translating from French to English and sometimes from French to Lingala to English. In spite of it the women laughed with me and we learned together. I presented the new Health Manual that we had been working on and which was recently translated to French and they were thrilled to get it. We didn't have enough copies so we will print 200 more and send them up.
The most touching was Stake Conference on Sunday. We woke up in the middle of the night to a terrible storm....rain and wind. The next morning it had not stopped and we knew it would affect the attendance. When we arrived at the rented hall on the fairgrounds, which was a huge cement building with no windows and little light it was still pouring. When it was time to start there were 30 people there. We started a few minutes late because they were having trouble with the PA system. Slowly but surely the people began to arrive....in a slow steady stream. At one point a hired bus pulled right up to the door so they could dash in, but in that horrible downpour that was so severe that you could hardly hear, because of the rain on the tin roof, those people kept coming. I sat there with tears streaming down my face and Bill had tears in his eyes too as did the mission president and his wife as these wonderful Saints came in completely soaked in their Sunday best clothes and with beautiful smiles on their faces. They walked through mud and pot holes and a fields to get there. What a testimony to me of the goodness of those people. When they sang I thought the roof would come off. What a blessing to participate with them in that meeting.
There were 11 check points in the airport as we found our way to the plane on the tarmac. We were searched several times and when we finally lifted off for Johannesburg, we were thrilled to be going "home", but we knew we had had many experiences of a lifetime and we loved it.
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