A New Month, a New Location

A few days ago after a noisy airplane ride and a stop-over in Moila, I arrived with my traveling buddies in Mouila. After climbing down the rickety stare case from the plane (which I nearly fell down because I was carrying someone else’s bag and couldn’t see the steps...) we got our bags and loaded up in an SUV. There were the front to seats for our driver Phillipe and the visiting Dr. Tim Jahris from Hawaii. Then Margariet and Huub Van Roeckel (they’re missionaries from Holland) and their one year old Rebecca and I all squished into the middle row of three seats. Actually, Rebecca didn’t really squish because she had a car seat that gave her plenty of built in room. The car ride lasted an hour or two (I don’t have a watch, so I’m a little uncertain on exact times).

It was insane. I think you’d really have to experience the road to understand what it’s like. Their are curves everywhere. We were following a large yellow truck, that threw up so much dust that at times we couldn’t see him at all even though he was just twenty feet in front of us. The road istself is something like certain ski slopes I’ve gone down which are completely covered in moguls, and when you don’t know what you’re doing you fly down over the top of them, teeth clicking and all the air getting knocked out of your lungs. Your body lurches around like a possessed rag doll doing a frenzied dance.

I’ve learned a few things about how to ride in a car here along these roads. The biggest beginners mistake is to try and sit still. You tense all your muscles, trying futily to not flop into your neighbor. This method will only leaving you flopping lurching awkwardly into the door and your neighbor (or both neighbors if you’re in the middle) and once you finally emerge from the car you realize that your muscles have become petrified in only an hour or two from tensely fighting the bumpy road.
Don’t do it friends. Unless you want to look and feel like Igor you need to relax. This way you just absorb the bumps. You flop around a little, and you need to find a balance between looking like a sheet flapping in a wind (which will result on hitting your head on the window or the ceiling or the car frame) and trying to pretend you’re made of stone.
After several car rides I’m starting to get the hang of it, but really, you’ll be sore no matter once if you ride long enough.

On this particular day I’m pretty sure it was about 200* F as well. Luckily, once the enormous truck in front of us lost steering and veered off the road into a hill, we were able to open our windows because there was less dust. We did stop to make sure that everyone in the truck was alright, and later we informed another truck in their company of their plight so that someone would go rescue them.

We also saw a man beating his pet monkey who ran away (just before the monkey had been holding on to the mans leg and sitting on his foot while they strolled down the road). Another surprising image was that of a fuel truck tipped over on it’s side, leaking from the back. This was concerning, but then as we passed him and looked back, there were two men lying under the cabin arms behind their heads. Phillipe must have seen them on the way out to pick us up (because he stops to make sure everyone is ok) and reassured us that the men were just fine. They must have been simply resting in the shade of the truck to avoid the heat and wait for someone to come.

Bongolo is in the middle of nowhere. There is no village named Bongolo, only a hospital on a hill and a few houses for doctors, nurses, visitors, residents and a few other odds and ends. There is a village about 10 minutes away over the river named Lebamba.

On the bright side, since it is so remote, there’s not much car exhaust. There are beautiful views off the hillsides of palm trees and bamboo and sky.

There are also lots of birds, bugs, and lizzards running (or flying) around.

I have an apartment (really it’s a nurses who is in the US for a few months). It’s a huge apartment. I have a great big room with a desk and a big bed. There’s another little guest room (but no visitors...), a bathroom (also home to my spider friends, who I can’t seem to come with good names for), and a kitchen/dining room/living room. It’s really very nice. My oven doesn’t work though, but that’s alright because I can’t even get the gas on to work the stovetop. (I need to ask about that and keep forgetting).

My apartment is attached to another where Renee (a doctor whose been here about a year) and Karen (a nurse whose been here for 16 years).

My first evening as we drove up to the Thelander’s I could hear Luke squealing out news of my arrival. Joanna, and Luke and Sarah brought me down to my apartment where they had hung glittery signs they’d made welcoming me to Bongolo.
Joanna gave me a tour, explaining how different things work and killing any cockroach we happened upon.

Then it was back to there house (it’s a nice little walk, about 5 minutes) for dinner. They even had homemade ice cream, which we’ve had every night I’ve been here. It’s great. Ice cream here is something like diamonds here. Rather expensive.

The second day here, I went over the Thelander’s at noon and played with the kids. We played with Trucks (which we did the first night before dinner too). And it was fun. We also played with Legos. We loaded the trucks up with them. And drove them around. Then I colored with Sarah while Luke played with a neighbor boy. We also watched trees be cut down and rolled down the hill into the jungle. The kids thought it was fantastic. They were so excited. It was fun too watch. I came back for a break for about an hour or a half. Then went back over and played with the kids more so Joanna could make dinner. It was more trucks I think...I don’t remember exactly. At dinner the visiting doctors came over (Tim, he’s a GI doctor, and Hank, who is an Anesthesiologist. Tim and Huin were there too. They’re a married couple, Tim is face surgeon (I think it’s oral maxo-somthing) and Huin is a family practice doctor.) So there were lots of people.

Yesterday I was awoken by some crazy animal that thought shreiking like a dying person was a good idea. It scared me quite a bit. Till I thought maybe it was a monkey, then I peaked out all my windows looking for it. I couldn’t go back to sleep. So I got an early start to the day at 5am. I made coffee, had breakfast, read my bible. And then got bored. At 8:30 I took a nap for two hours then got up again and headed over to the Thelanders at 12. We had lunch and then they showed me the missionary kid school. It’s not a running school anymore. But it has a library next door and a gym (which is being used as storage for now...so no basketball). There are a lot of books and toys and craft things. So I played read with Luke and Sarah and Becca for a while up there. Becca started to get pretty fussy so Margariet came and got her, and I got confused on the time (my cell phone is on a 24 hour clock and I got mixed up) and Luke and Sarah and I went back to the house an hour earlier than planned. On the way we jumped in the grass while a car came by and I got attacked by aunts. Luckily the kids didn’t seem to have any problems. But I got at least 10 bites. They sting! So I scratched my feet while walking back with probably looked like a funny, awkward, jumpy, dance. When we got back, since we were early, we watched some logs and things that were being burned in the yard and then played 2 games of Chutes and Ladders. After that it was quiet time for the kids. So I came back and to my delight, I found that my bins had arrived of all my stuff on the truck. So I unpacked everything. It looks nicer here now, much homier.

And then I got cleaned up and went over to Karen and Renee’s for dinner. Tim and Huin and Hank and the other Tim were all there. Then we had a surprise birthday party for Huin. Her birthday is Sunday but pretty much everyone is leaving here to go to a meeting in Libreville Saturday. It was a nice time.

Today we’re going to Lebamba. I’m excited about that. We were going to go tomorrow, but the stores close for a few hours or sometimes the day on Friday because Friday is like Sunday to Muslims (and I guess most of the stores are run by Muslims).

Margariet invited me over to their house for dinner tonight too. I’m going to go over early to watch Rebecca so she can make dinner (she has other guests coming over too).

Keir will be gone at the meeting in Libreville for 5 days, so the assistant stuff probably won’t start up till the week following his return. The baby clinic is Thursday morning and it sounds like I might get to start that next week. For now I’m just getting settled in and use to the place and meeting people.

Please continue to pray for smooth transition. I’ve had a hard time sleeping here, I think some combination of being on my own, plus the knowledge of spiders and cockroaches, and the loud outdoor noises (I don’t have a noisy fan to drown them out here).

On a whole though I’m really enjoying it here. The kids are a lot of fun to play with, my apartment is lovely, and I’m going to name the spiders so they are less intimidating. I’m leaning towards Eliot and Chaucer. But I think Chaucer ran away, which bothers me because he’s the creepy looking one. He left the bathroom last night (I can’t blame him, I thought he drowned in the shower, but he seemed to recuperate alright. And then I saw him in the hall. If I find him in my room I think I’ll have to kill him. I can’t sleep with spiders in my room. So hopefully he’ll go back in the bathroom. Maybe I’ll take pictures of them for you sometime.

Also, I’m around a lot in the evening, so 4-6pm EST. And the morning, but no one in the US is up then...unless you’re pulling an all nighter or get up at 3. So, I tend to be on skype (jessicaefox) and google chat(same screenname)...feel free to call anytime. It can get lonely in such a quiet apartment.

Alright, well I’m going to read and then it’s to the Thelander’s and off to Lebamba!

Love,

Jessica