Today's Visit!

Marianne picked me up this morning after yoga at 9:15am and I was late, so caught her playing with Fin in the garden. I mean who wouldn't want to play with our lively dog in a beautiful garden on a warm sunny morning. It took us about 45minutes to get to Binza, and we side-tracked onto a dirt road. The weather was much cooler out there, it clouded over and eventually it started to rain. We went through a white barrier with a guard who greeted us, and drove through to the last building, which looked nicely painted and fairly new. I was told that a South African company operating in the DRC donated the money for the construction of this building. The orphanage houses about 60 children in different sections of the huge property run by an Italian man. He has been here in the Congo, with the children for over 30 years. Marianne, herself has been coming here for 5 years.
The first section we visited, was with the handicapped children, which Marianne feels need more attention than most. some of them don't get to leave their beds. We handed out a few construction toys to the children on the stoep, and helped them try to build it. I expected the worst in conditions, but was fairly surprised at the good, clean and livable place, these children call home. What I was not expecting was a little fight that went on between 3 little boys, and they managed to clunk Marianne on the head with a wooden toy in the battle. These children, yearn for attention, and just need to be given a short time of your love and affection. Upon entering the interior of the home, we both picked up two toddlers out their beds, and at once smelled the urine stains in the beds all around. I played with the blind boy, who clung to my arm, and just wanted to touch my skin. He also loved it when I clapped his hands. I'm not sure what I was feeling at this stage, my heart told me to not to feel pity, and just enjoy the moment, and I went with this lovely feeling. It wasn't that I wanted to feel self-worth, just love. I am happy for feeling this, and I really expected to be bawling my eyes out at the sight or thought of even visiting the orphanage. I never did, instead I enjoyed every minute, and would do it all again soon. We went onto visit the other little building, where lots of little ones between the ages of 18months - 3years, were grabbing onto my legs and calling me "mondele" which means "white person" in Lingala ( local Congolese language). I laughed at the thought of this, and then they were touching my hair as I bent down. I realised, after playing with them for over an hour, that besides basic needs, these children are in need of just someone to show them affection and attention for a few minutes, if not longer. It makes me think of just how much my own child needs.
I now sit and wonder what will become of them, if they are deprived at such an early age, how will they ever know how to love and live.

Me? Dancing Queen!

Cape Wine Sales

When I got back from holiday 2 weeks ago, and our yoga group hadn't started up yet, I was persuaded by one of the Mom's at Torden's swim lessons to join them for a Salsa exhibition dance at the next LADY's NIGHT. It turned out to be a Lady's night with partner's on a Friday evening, not the normal Thursdays, and it would be at Vicky's house, not the usual night out at a restaurant in Kinshasa. I never turned the opportunity down, being the "dancing queen" that I am. I grew up dancing, around the house, in the car, yes I even did modern dancing lessons for my entire schooling life, as well as a few years in my later years. I did shows and exhibitions before, so I was game! Well, I was also unfit for Salsa, had 2 weeks of 2 hours dancing non-stop, my neck hurt for a few days thereafter. It must have been those sharp, dramatic head twists to the back ooh la la..... Our tutor, Christian, is a great dancer, not letting us giggling girlie's stop for just any excuse, he encouraged us, gave us the confidence to put on a small show. There were 4 of us faithfuls, and we had lots of fun! Now, the BBQ was set outside on the lawn, and the new stage was set on the grass, euw.....but nonetheless it turned out to be a great evening. I even had a SA stall selling some good white wine from the Cape. Now to get me back to a Salsa class, of course!

A WISH FOR MY SISTER!

THIS IS A BIRTHDAY WISH FOR MY SISTER, KIM.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SISTA!

I remember my little sister while growing up as being the tough cookie!

Whenever she got mad at me, which was quite often, as I could be quite irritating at times, she would have that look in her eyes that would send me running.................

Yet, she has the kindest heart, the bluest eyes and a funny sense of humour! You know how when two people think something's humurous, and all they need to do is just look at each other and start laughing, nobody even knows what they are giggling about. That's us, always was, and still is today.

Friends forever!

You'll love this one Kim, describes us.....

"Families are like fudge... mostly sweet with a few nuts." -- Author Unknown

Can you think of anyone?

SAME - Same

When Torden sees 2 alike things, he always says: same-same. It reminds of the how we started the new year, everything is the same. Nothing seems to have changed in Kinshasa, a few friends have left, one more friend is departing us at the end of January, yet life still seems to be the same. There are always going to be lows and highs of every change, but realistically we carry on living. The prices at the supermarkets have gone up, but then again, last year they also went up, not too mention the few times during the year that the groceries went up in price. Globally, there is a financial crisis, locals are getting less for their dollar and the situation is that they are still poor, nothing has changed. We have been told to be cautious on the roads, as there seems to be more of a chance to be harrased for money as there is not much out there. We were caught out last year a few times by bribes on a small nature, and it hurts this economy, it hurts the man on the street and Africa is not going to change. The fighting in the East of the country has apparently decreased. My wish is that the attitude out there will not be the same, the dreams of the DRC and it's people will be changed.

SOUL'S PURPOSE!

I have just been doing some soul searching this evening, I did a reading from my favourite deck, Classical Mythology Deck, and found the following few things.
That I am maturing ( or evolving), while living here, this I can believe! But that I have a spiralling negativity attached. Not sure if it's attached to me, or if Kinshasa is a negative place to be right now. I have a wild flare, and have spent time in Nature in my past year. That's for sure, living here, you are surrounded by nature, just my garden has 4 huge palms, not too mention the little palm trees and birds that sing amongs the noise of traffic, I live on a thoroughfare, if the traffic is heavy,everyone uses our road as a detour. Friendship is my strength, and gives me just as much power, as I give to my friends.
I realise that I am here to learn from our experience, and whatever the future holds will be just as great, if not better!

When I stepped off the plane last week, I looked back, and saw my friend and her family stepping onto their plane, leaving Kinshasa. I wished she had urned around, so I could wave to her, but it never happened. I wanted to call her and tell her this. I never did. I know that she had great times here, and was sad to leave. She told me that in Germany, it's not as easy to make friends, even though she was a friendly person. Here friendships, are made based on familiarity, or similarity, we are all on the same level, no better off that the other. Our children, are all the same, we all go back to our "other" homes once or twice a year, we all know that we are here for a short while, some shorter than others. This makes life almost easier. It is simpler, yet effective in that we concentrate more on evolving ( there's that word again) our relationships. On that subject, all relationships should improve, if not, they were never happy to begin with. I love the feeling of being in a world that works for us, our lives, and our families.
An almost, "Perfect world" if this exists.

Today, while out shopping, a group of street children, accosted us while walking to our car, quite scary, as they came up our of nowhere. And were darn rude, showing us the parted finger, and they openly displayed metal objects, with which they could cause harm.
On seeing this today, nothing could be worse, than the headlines of our local newspaper, in Cape Town, The Cape Argus, where a man was outside mowing his lawn, when 2 guys shot him in the head, and made off with just his cellphone. This man happens to live in my suburb, just up the road from where we lived. ( NEGATIVITY, it's all in the air, unavoidable)

I shall end on a happy note of Friendship.

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.
Anaïs Nin

COLD AND HOT!

Here we are another year, and life is just passing us by! Happy New Year!

We managed a 35degree Celsius temperature change on our arrival home on Saturday night. They say, ( and I suppose you've heard this one before) that Europe is experiencing the coldest winter in 10 years. I actually believe them this time. As we drove through Belgium on Friday, we saw the most beautiful snow capped trees and just knew it was colder than the week before that when we left Belgium for Austria.

There is so much to tell when you've come back from holiday. I cannot sum up the entire holiday, but I suppose I can give you the highlights in date order.

1. 19 Dec - 28 Dec Rovaniemi and Helsinki, Finland

2. 29 Dec - 1 Jan Brugge, West Flanders , Belgium

3. 2 Jan - 8 Jan Salzburg and Tirol, Austria

4. 8 Jan - 9 Jan Traben- Trabach, Germany

Not too mention we hired a car in Belgium and drove for 9 hours through Germany on the Autobahn. Each and every city was beautiful, and each part of our holiday was different. The most beautiful part for me was to spend Christmas in the snow, and to have an Artic Circle experience. I loved Rovaniemi, ( The home of Santa Claus) and I loved each and every part of my day spent in this warm, friendly and delightful place. From the snow mobiling, to the husky dog farm, to the cooked salmon eaten under a warm teepee in the freezing temperatures, right down to the reindeers. You cannot imagine, coming from South Africa, that this is really what Christmas is all about, you see it on pictures, you sing about it in the songs, but you never experience it. I know that besides not being with my family, it has been the Christmas I always dreamed of!