Feels like Christmas...

Yipee, our container finally arrived! Not sure how long we have been waiting for some goodies to arrive, a couple of months. This afternoon was so exciting as we watched a guy in a bakkie drop it off, then we waited until Paul came home before opening it up. Torden was happy with his share of things, and managed to store all of it, including a box of chocolates, Otee's and Oros juices in his bedroom cupboard. It's a joy to see how excited he gets and knows that all his goodies came from "Afrique du Sud" as he now calls it. Just last week, he told us at dinner time, that he doesn't belong here, " I belong in West Beach" he said. We both looked at each other, and tried to contain our laughter. It happens more and more, where we try so hard not to laugh at the grown up things he says. But the cutest of all is when he climbs into bed with us, puts both his arms around us, and says " I love you guys"!

This morning was our last coffee meeting for the year ( The new year starts in September) with the International Women's Club. It was held at the American Embassey Residence along the river, which is a great spot. Lovely for a coolish dry season ( I want to say winter) morning. We had a speaker from Proctor and Gamble talking of statistics within the DRC, as well as marketing of a sachet to purify water. Interestingly, only 1,5% of the population have HIV/Aids, half the population uses birth control, a large percentage of women die of illnesses related to problems after having too many children close to one another and malaria, is the biggest cause of death amongst children up to the age of 5.

So yes it does feel like Christmas as Paul also received his belated birthday gift from me, a " Tin Tin in the Congo" special edition hard cover. He also got his own ipod speaker system that we are going to us outside and in the bedroom, Paul and his toys! As well as everything seems to be coming to a close here in Kinshasa, lots of friends taking off for far away places as soon as next week. We also attended a painful end of year school play at the Belgian school. I never ordered the year book at Torden's school, and apparently there is a lovely picture of him in his class. Hopefully, I will be able to attain a copy somehow.