another update on the "sitch" over here

Hey, i figured i should probably try to update since my last note might been a little shocking. Well, the situation has definitely calmed down and the airport opened back up! That is always a good sign... There is fighting still in upper parts of Congo but not here anymore. We are advised not to go out at night but we had church Sunday and went out to a restaurant...all of that is downtown. We passed tons of buildings that had missing windows because they were in the middle of the crossfire and so therefore were shot at. My friend in French class had to stay at TASOK on thursday night and left friday evening. As I said, there were 75 kids that spent the night thursday but anyway when he got home he discovered his car had been stolen and 2 of his workers were killed. Apparently some soldiers broke into his compound (he lives RIGHT where it was all happening, across the street from the cemetery downtown) and stole his car and his 2 dogs but didn't touch the house. His family had left the keys to the car in the car because if they hadn't the soldier's would've tried to find a way to break into the house and find the keys. It was a good thing none of his family were home that day because loads of bullets came through their windows ... he said his house is pretty much destroyed and really needs some work before they can move back in -- they're staying with cousins. The dogs that were stolen were returned! Figure that one out! lol. Ah, le Congo. C'est la vie. I heard some other crazy stories today...my friend Jisung got home and found that his gate had a lot of blood on it... at this hotel Memling, a bullet came through the window and a French delegate was hit and died on the way to the hospital from loss of blood! Downtown many of the little shops were pillaged...some of them have nothing left inside. The soldiers would put chains on the metal fences that are over the doors/front windows, attach the chains to a truck and pull so that the metal broke loose and they could easily break in. So SAD!The major grocery stores were not pillaged though, so we were able to do some grocery shopping and it all looked about the same. We were safe the entire time... it was completely calm by saturday so we got out of the house and went to TASOK, had lunch, and i made some cookies while we hung out with friends! God is SO GOOD! I don't know anyone personally who was hurt, so i am very thankful!
Well that's it for now! Thank you for ALL your thoughts and prayers! Continue praying that peace will continue and we can go on with our normal lives...and school.Love & Miss you all!!

this country needs our prayers

Yesterday our French class was interrupted by an announcement on the loud speaker that there was trouble downtown. But it didn't stop there. Every student in the class almost started getting text messages and calls... and answering them in class. We got new reports every 5 minutes. Shooting had started. There was heavy artillery. Soldiers were lined up right outside of Wasim's house downtown so he couldn't get home. Soldiers set up a whole road block on a main road. We heard a few booms at school, even though the fighting was far off. The first big disturbance since the elections. And it's the same people as last time. Bemba, the one who was running for president last time, has troops here that have started a huge uprising. It was the most interesting french class we've had yet! I stayed calm the whole time because i knew my house wasn't anywhere near all the trouble, but most of the kids at tasok live in the downtown area where all the craziness is happening!We went to African Studies and watched loads of kids start leaving school early. Afric. Stud. was our last class and of course we knew we weren't gonna have a lesson that day. Kids were starting to freak out. Mrs. Law, our teacher decided to let the 6 or 7 remaining in our class to play monopoly! ...To get our minds off of things. Chaima was picked up by her dad in his UN car, Mehreen and Nadia left,... Liz stayed put as her parents told her. She lives above where the trouble was but she lives pretty close to downton and her rents didn't want her on the streets. So at 2:30 when school got out we sat around the pick-up area and not many kids were getting to go home. I left at 3 with Mr. Gorenflo because i had to practice music for sunday with him, but Liz was left there and Wasim and a BUNCH of others who couldn't get home. We invited liz to come home with us but her parents wanted her to stay and wait. This morning I got ready for school and then as we were eating breakfast we got a call saying school was cancelled! Then we heard there were 70 students that had to stay the night at TASOK last night!!! They split them all up somehow with the teachers and other families who live on campus so everyone had food and someplace (or some floor) to sleep at. That shocked me. I thought by night time it would be calm enough for people to go home. Apparently not. Last night the airplanes were flying but this morning the airport was shut down. People are pretty much stuck here I guess. But I'm praying that will change. I'm praying that the situation will calm down today and we can get on with our normal lives.... if you can call living in kinshasa a normal life. But anyway! :-)We have neighbors who are really worried right now. But their dad is in the States, so I can understand.... I'm not worried though. I am praying, but I know God will take care of us and this was part of His plan. He allows things like this to happen so that we will lean on Him and trust Him. I know that He knows exactly what He's doing.... so why should I be afraid?Bemba's troops are apparently now trying to flee across the river to Brazzaville, and we hear that Kabila's army is after them. The UN has what, 30,000 troops stationed here, but they can't open fire unless Kabila asks them to. We have friends who are stranded at their offices downtown and can't get out to go anywhere until stuff calms down. So I'm really asking for everyone's prayers. Thankfully we do not live downtown, and thankfully God is going to protect us no matter what, but please pray for the protection of all of God's people here. Pray that the students at TASOK who are separated from their parents right now won't worry, and can get reunited with their families very soon.This morning we heard gunshots right outside our walls so we stopped and prayed. I haven't seen anything at all, but apparently you can see a lot of far-off smoke if you look over the wall. Tanks were heard driving past near here. I just want this to end soon... I am praying we can go back to school Monday and I can still graduate from here in June!Today we're just trying to relax and take advantage of the karaoke and tv ... watching lots of Monk episodes:-) And thanking God that we have POWER and WATER right now!!! It went off a lot last night and this morning ... so I hope now that it's back on it will stay on!Pray for peace.

red carpet day...and other stuff this week

Thursday was an interesting day. I broke down by the end of it from all my frustration, but there really wasn't MUCH to get frustrated by! It was just life. I almost got left at school again (i get forgotten quite a lot) and that just added to my ...what should i call it anger? annoyance? stress? Whatever it was, it was not worth getting mad about! Turned out my family was still planning on picking me up because they had to get mom anyway (i didn't know she was on campus) and we went to the Cabalka's to wait for her while she finished doing whatever she was doing! I think one of the things that happened at school was everyone dumped the prom decoration planning thing on me. So I had to go through the prom catalog and pick out decorations, then friday mehreen wanted to change all my ideas, and so i wanted to just pass the responsibility to her since she loves decorating and since she has all the strong opinions... but no, she wants me to take care of it. lol. Friday was actually fun though! We had a spirit day (to kick off spirit WEEK coming up tomorrow!)...which i will rename Red Carpet Madness. I let my friend Liz borrow my dress from last year, and i wore a dress i've had for a few years (see photo), curled my hair (woke up at 5:30 am), ...i think i was a little crazy to do all that. But we had an assembly and during the assembly, we had a fashion walk off competition between the 4 teams of the school! That was loads of fun. I walked with Wasim and Lisa, and our team ended up tying for 1st! I hate ties ... but that's ok. We are the Pirates team, and we always have to win!! :-p So the day was a bit crazy. I only stayed in the dress until 3rd period. The heels were a bit much!
Friday night was even more fun... we had a youth game night here, and dad surprised us and got the karaoke mic fixed! Well actually the Magic Mic works to PLAY music, but the mic itself doesn't work which means it won't score you any more (:-() buuut we just have to plug in a normal mic into the system and Voila! You can karaoke like normal! We tried playing Cranium, we ate food, and then we sang for a long time. The funniest and best Karaoke-er was Todd of course, but the funniest part of the night was when this girl finally got up there to sing and just as she was gonna sing her first note, the power went out! Okay it was SAD, not funny. No, it was funny. Really funny! But poor girl. It was time for everyone to go home anyway. God's got such a sense of humor... and He really has perfect timing, because the power was on for the whole rest of the party, and didn't stay off for too long! We also had coke floats and Fanta floats!! (Sarah & I had to make a lot of ice cream for everyone...i think we had 25 ppl) Good times...
Yesterday I kinda forgot about St. Patrick's Day... meaning I didn't wear green and didn't do a thing. Just wore my pajamas and relaxed the entire day! It was great. I had a lot of homework so i didn't relax the WHOLE day, i actually did do some work, but i didn't go to choir because I kinda have a cold and i needed to study for 2 tests....
What is up with tests every monday all of a sudden? I really hate this... Teachers don't understand!
I am so tired. That probably explains why this blog is crazy. So goodnight to all! 4 of the 5 "Camels..." sharing lunch @ school!

random thoughts smooshed into a blog

I am so excited about graduating. I have waited a long time and now the time is coming. I've been working on my senior page for the yearbook, trying to find pictures and trying to decide what to write on it. What do I want everyone to look at in their yearbook and remember me by? It's hard to know what to put. I want to put pictures of friends in the States but there isn't enough room. So I decided to put family and people that i am either always around or REALLY close to. But I have a book written instead of a short paragraph. I am always one to write a LoAd. I can't just write a short "Thank you to everyone who has always been there...." i have to go into detail, mention people's names. ... and then i realize i am caring too much about other people's feelings. If i don't mention him or her will they feel left out? Should I put a picture of her on? We're not best friends, but i think i should anyway ... But i shouldn't care. It's my page and i should put the people that have meant the most to me on my page, yeah? SO this is harder than i thought it would be. I have to be finished by friday. And i thought i was finished just now but I am starting to reconsider some of the pics/text i have on my page. I want my page to mean something to Me. Not just to people who buy yearbooks. I wish i could get someone's help! Wow, it's just a page in the yearbook, gosh!
I'm on swim team again! It started last week after boot camp ended and I am the only highschool girl. There's one 9th grade boy on the team but the rest are middle schoolers... so it's interesting. But I joined to stay in shape and learn how to swim better and swimming is fun for me. So it doesn't really matter who is on the team. We've got a great coach and that's all ya really need.

This past year I keep hitting myself for quitting ballet. When i decided to quit it was because i had to make a choice: guitar lessons or dance. And i chose guitar since i was always discouraged in ballet that nearly everyone was better than me and i had stopped improving for a while. I just felt like i was going no where and everyone else was way beyond me. Then i kept getting the smallest roles in the ballets which just added to my discouragement.... so i was like "well guitar you can do your whole life, and i love music so why don't i do that?" But i wish i could've stayed with ballet and done guitar as well. Of course that wasn't an option, but i'm debating on whether i would wanna go to beginner ballet classes in college. Just for fun. Ballet is so much fun and... so beautiful! I still dance around my room all the time. I can't dance but i can sometimes do a bit of ballet-ish stuff.

Dad just got back from Lodja (interior of Congo, "up-country"). He was speaking at a conference of like 450 people. He spoke the entire time in Tshiluba, his "mother tongue" that he grew up speaking when he lived in the Kasai! He got a lot of attention, i know.... and this group of 3 or 4 people who had traveled 3 days ON FOOT loved him and were so happy he spoke in a lang. they could understand. At this conference there were 2 meals for 400 (or however many) people every day from thursday-saturday! That is one heck of a lot of greens and beans and Chickens!! My dad said as a gift they gave him a live rooster and 3 hens He held them like the congolese do, by their feet upside down, and dad said the rooster kept trying to peck him, so when he did that, dad would knock him on the head! I hate roosters. They also gave him lots of fresh fruit as another gift. Those people's hearts are so big. They have nothing but they give all they can! My dad said he had an amazing time, and I think he felt at home again out there in the country (the Kasai part of the Congo is really 'out there!').

I went to a lock-in last weekend and it wasn't as bad as everyone thought it would be. but i guess if you come with a negative attitude you're not going to have fun...or if you just don't come at all then of course you can't have fun!! well, i came with a POSITIVE attitude and i had a great time just hanging with Liz & Chaima (since there were only like 4 ppl there my age!) ... we just don't have time everyday to sit and talk about anything and everything at school so this was really fun! And we swam, and i made spaghetti and brought that to share with them... and chaima brought us toblerone chocolate and apples :-) We watched 2 movies and i fell asleep during the 2nd one (Taladega Nights. Who wouldn't fall asleep with all that NASCAR and dumb humor?!) ... kinda just crashed right there in the auditorium... but that was fun. Then i went to sleep around 3 while everyone else (the guys mostly) played soccer out on the basketball court! I had no energy and was getting a cold so i am glad i decided to sleep! We had awesome croissants in the morning for breakfast and then went on our way home...Anyway here are some pics from that night.
I really wanna get out of Kinshasa even more now. We're praying we can do SOMETHING cool for Spring break --- which is April 2!! Excited about that!!Okay the bell's about to ring so i'm gonna stop this one right here.

a little update

The choir just left our house. They all came over after choir practice to have a little appreciation dinner. The power's been going out every day this past month, and today of course it went out.... and it stayed out til about 8:45! We have a generator, but that doesn't run the oven or stove so we had to heat all the food on our camp stove. There was SOO much food, too! Congolese mostly, so i didn't eat very much. Congo food for me is good only in small amounts. You can only have so much rice, beans, and greens! Or that's what i say anyway! But we had some realllly good chicken and lots of drinks! We had fans going but it was still so hot! Thankfully when the power came on we could turn the AC on... We had about 25 people in our living room! Our neighbors are having a birthday party right now, and so before the choir left we went over and sang happy birthday to their brother whose birthday it is! i felt kinda bad for them because we sang happy bday in Lingala, then french, then English, and then we sang this other song in those 3 languages and they just stood there smiling awkwardly at us!! I could kinda see them thinking "okay this is great but ... when will you stop?" Haha no it was fun. But their backyard is so amazing! They put candles around the pool, and they hired caterers in tuxedos and bartenders! Sarah goes "Man, why can't we have parties like that?!" Haha, it would be nice... but it's not that important! We had fun tonight regardless of our awful furniture, lack of seating, no a/c, and whatever else we might have been lacking. Oh the men in tuxes... :-) We sang a lot and everyone ate a lot... and now i want to sleep, but I know i haven't blogged in forever so i'm gonna keep going.

Boot camp ended Friday! :-( Made me sad because we only got to do it for 5 weeks and now the new after-school activities start. Todd will continue boot camp for anyone who wants to join, but i really wanna do swimming and it's on the same days so I unfortunately can't do it again. It got me in really good shape though! I am so happy I pushed myself every day to do it. It was reallllly hard, but it was so good for me. We had pre-tests on the first day of boot camp to see how many sit-ups, push-ups, dips, and flexed arm hangs (girls) or pull-ups(guys only) we could do in a minute. On the first day I think I did 40 sit-ups and around 40 pushups in a min...and i could hang for 15 seconds. Oh and i couldn't even do a dip on those 2 parallel bars. On Friday I did 50 sit-ups and 62 push-ups in a minute, and i hung for 42 secs. I could do only 2 dips, but hey i improved and that was the record for girls! I set the record for girl's pushups too:-) and beat all the guys in sit-ups. We ran the mile after doing all that and on the first day my time was around 9 mins and friday it was 8:07...which i wasn't happy with. I really thought i'd be faster but i just proved the point i've been trying to make all along. I wasn't made to run! My little sister has a faster time than me! So that was kinda disappointing but kinda expected also.

The talent show was 2 weeks ago and I sang 2 songs. One I played the guitar and sang with JoJo Top of the World (Dixie Chicks). It went really well and everyone said we sang like angels, lol! ...the other one i did with Chaima and Liz and it kinda flopped....well i won't say that, but it just wasn't the greatest! We sang Cowboy Take Me Away - another dixie chicks number. But we had fun... last sunday i sang a duet with this guy Jonathan in choir, who is like the coolest & funniest congolese guy i've met so far at church, and he has a really good voice. So i'm very glad i did that song... i'm also really glad all that performing stuff is over for the moment. I am working on Midsummer Night's Dream now in drama... and it's tough! Shakespeare is hard to memorize!! I am the fairy queen, Titania. It's a fun role but it won't be fun until everyone in my scenes have their lines memorized because it's hard to act when people have their noses in their scripts!! I'm really excited about my costume for this one though ... i'm gonna kinda look like galadriel i think, we're gonna somehow put extensions in my hair or find a very long wig, and i'm gonna have like a 3m long train coming off my dress! Mr. Ligon is ordering me a nice rhinestone tiara which is gonna look awesome!! So i'm pretty excited...it's weird that i'm a fairy again.

hmm, the fact that I'm graduating in 3 months still hasn't sunk in. Or if that fact has sunk it, the fact that i'm LEAVING THIS CONTINENT hasn't sunk in yet. I'm really going back to the States and I'm really going to college!! That just seems unreal. I'm so excited but I don't want it to sound like I'm dying to get out of here. I'm not! This place has been such an awesome experience for me. I have learned more than I ever thought I would, and last year I said I regretted a lot. Well now I am trying to not regret anything. Everything that happened happened and it has made me who I am now. And I can be thankful for the lessons it all taught me.
But how did I get on that subject?
I'm gonna miss quite a few things about Congo.
I will miss the choir.
I will miss being with so many nationalities and the funny cultural differences of those many nationalities.
I will miss not having to worry about being late to something...because running a little late is very normal here!
I will miss fresh GIANT mangoes, mangostan, avocadoes, and pineapple.
I will miss not having to wear a seatbelt.
I will miss the entertaining car rides---watching to see how much people can carry on top of their heads, seeing how many people can squeeze into one van, seeing the clothes people wear, etc!

I will add on to this list later when I'm really about to leave I think because I'm sure there are other crazy things i will miss!
Then I will make a list of I wont miss-es!

Okay it's time for some sleep. I miss you people in the States!!