day 4 congo

Third world countries are becoming more and more familiar to me. I want to still see it from an outsiders eyes, but i think i’m adjusting with being out of the USA so much lately. I remember the first time i arrived in India, I was in awe to my surroundings every place my eyes looked. Now here in Congo, I feel like i could be missing things because they seem so normal to me and to those who have never been here would be fascinating. I was talking with a friend today who was raised in South America. He said the first time he set foot in Walmart in the USA, he was blown away, but now it hardly has an affect. The things we take for granted in our clean country is shocking. We have so much, yet we all complain about being poor or not having enough. The truth is, will we ever have enough ?
My favorite part of coming home from a trip is the soaking in the luxury of Hot showers, electricity you can rely on all the time and the precious clean air we have in every city of America. Compared to the rest of the world that i’ve seen, we breathe in the best stuff.

I am smacking the mosquitoes as I am writing this to you. It is something you have to be very concerned about on this continent. Malaria is a very, scary and dangerous sickness that strikes with the bite of a mosquito. When i visited the dr’s clinic a few days ago, there were several malaria patients in the hospital rooms, hooked to IV’s.
As he told me, it is what most people come to him sick with.

Church on Sunday, was glorious. We visited a United Methodist Church that is right next to our hostel. The whole service was in english, along with the beautiful music. I recorded some of the african songs they sang and will post them when i get some time. After Church, we were invited by the dr. we met a few days ago, to eat lunch at his house. He lives on a street in Kinshasa that is named after him.
After a delicious meal in his Air Conditioned home, we went to see some communities and touch the Congo River. I asked him about the Tiger Fish really lived in the Congo River. A few weeks prior to my trip here i had googled the congo river and found photographs of this Giant Fish caught with Razor sharp Tiger teeth. It looked unreal. He confirmed what google had shown me.;-)

I am getting more use to the use of my camera here and learning when to hide it. Anytime you see any uniforms or approach an intersection, I dodge to conceal it.

-Esther

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 at 1:04 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.