Spring Break!

What a vacation!
I came into the week a little sad, and disappointed because our friends were planning on going to Kikongo, and we wanted to go too but there didn't seem to be enough room on the plane.
Well, we prayed, and God opened up the way for us to take 2 planes so that my family could go! We left on Wednesday morning and flew in a little tiny MAF plane ("The Caravan") to Kikongo (about a 45 min. trip). Kikongo is a very tiny village north of Kinshasa on the Wamba river where the Lowerys (a missionary family now living on campus at TASOK) lived for quite a few years. They have taken many groups to Kikongo to stay up there with them for fun, so now it was our turn.
You cannot imagine the difference in people's attitudes in cities and villages.
You cannot picture the difference in beauty in Kinshasa and Kikongo.
You cannot taste the difference in the air of the city and village .... Until you leave the city after a long time and go to the beautiful country.
No one could stop telling us how beautiful the Congo was, and so i was very happy to finally get to see for myself for the first time that it really was a gorgeous country. It was so neat flying over all of this undeveloped, untouched land. Wild thinking how much land there was and how it was so sparsely populated. The villages were spread out so far! There weren't roads connecting the city of Kinshasa to outer villages, and that's why we had to fly.
When there isn't connection by roads, you really feel cut off and isolated from the city, and i think that is why Kikongo felt like a different country.
We were met by at least 50 kids jumping around, waving to us with big smiles on their faces...welcoming us to their village. They are always excited when people come to visit, Jill Lowery told us. The kids were wearing very raggedy clothes, and most of them didn't have shoes, but they were as happy as can be.
"MBOTE!!" was the greeting that we used to say hi to them. They speak Kituba, but many of Kituba words are the same as Lingala words which is the language spoken mostly in Kinshasa (the word mbote is hi in lingala and kituba). Mr. Cabalka who was in the group made the kids so happy by taking pictures of them. It was the first time since South Africa that we could freely snap pictures without anyone caring. Actually, the kids and adults wanted their pictures taken! And we were in a place worth taking pictures of. Kikongo is gorgeous!
My family was put up in the Chapman's house (the Chapmans were on furlow, so they weren't there but they normally live in Kikongo all year 'round) and the rest of the group slept the night in tents or the Lowery's house.
So Day 1 (Wednesday) was spent hiking and river floating. We walked down to the Wamba river and were so excited to get into the water without having to worry about catching amoebas or other worms! We swam around as the first half of the group was taken across the river in Congo canoes. These canoes are long hollowed out logs which are steered by a long flat oar. The man taking us across was the village chief, and he was an expert at maneuvering the boat through the strong river current. You have to paddle standing up, and it's much harder than it looks. More on that later! While we waited for our turn to be boated across, we swam in the river and played some frisbee on the sand bar in the middle of the river. Eventually it was our turn so we all got into the boat and crossed. We hiked a little while to these waterfalls that very few white people had ever been to.
In Kikongo, many of the people do not go to the river or waterfalls because they believe there are spirits inside it. Evil spirits, so that is why they will boat on the river and fetch water, catch fish, but only do things that keep them alive. Most of them do not play in the river and swim. There was a picnic hut near the small falls where we had our picnic lunch. The villagers had brought us 3 huge sticks of sugar cane and piles of peanuts and oranges! Oranges and tangerines grow green here, by the way! They were so good, but it was weird that you don't wait for them to turn orange... you just eat them green. We enjoyed everything but felt bad about not being able to finish all that sugar cane! After a while your tongue begins to feel a bit funny and raw. You can only have so much...
We spent a lot of time splashing around the falls and decorating ourselves with clay mud for fun. Then we hiked back and a few of us [brave souls] swam across the whole river! The Lowerys said it had never done before! And when you tell that to some of us people who love adventures, there is no turning back. So we went for it! It was a very strong current but I swam hard and all of us including my dad made it across fine. We trudged up the river a little further and all floated down... had some competitions, and just played until dinner time.
That night we had a nice campfire-- sang songs, roasted marshmallows, and told some stories. Todd told one of his awesome stories for Matt after most of the people had gone to bed.

Day 2: My parents, Theo, Suzanne Francis, the Gorenflos, Hannah Lowery and Mr. Lowery all went back to Kinshasa at about 7:30am so that a few of us who wanted to could stay longer. Sarah and I were the special ones who got to stay til Saturday! I felt extremely privileged...
Around 10 we went to the river and just played around all day. We all got REALLY red even though we had put on sunscreen. My legs got eaten up by bugs too! But it was a fun day. We couldn't get enough of that river. Todd, Mr. Cabalka, and Joe learned how to handle one of those canoes. Mr. C. was getting pretty good, too! Me and Ms. Ewbanks tried a bit, but it was much harder than i thought and i kept getting carried away by the current! It just kept turning to boat around... so I gave up. Maybe if I could practice every day for a week or 2 I'd get it, but it was tough! We played some card games until dinner, then We had another campfire and another story from Todd, this time for me! :-)

Day 3: We went through the Kikongo village which is around the Lowery's house. It was so sad seeing how little each family has....and yet they act happier than we do! All of the kids in the village came out and followed us. Mr. Cabalka started marching with the kids, and they all LOVED it! We were all taking hundreds of pictures -- the small huts that each family lived in were amazing. We walked through the Mitedi village also, and found 2 boys drumming. They had buried 2 milk jugs under the sand and one of them was banging on a bottomless rusted out cooking pot! They really could drum though -- we enjoyed watching the kids sing and dance, and some of us tried dancing too. We were entertaining to them, to say the least! They laughed a lot at Joe C., Mr. C, and Todd who were trying to dance like they were. I thought they were doing a good job, though! That was probably the coolest part of seeing the village. We toured the hospital which was a bit depressing because of the shape it was in. We walked past all the sick rooms which didn't have any screens on the windows or mosquito nets on the beds. I thought it was interesting that the rooms for women were always bigger than the ones for guys. The conditions were so unsanitary it almost made me feel sick. It made me sicker to find out that the Lowerys really couldn't do anything about it though. The man running the hospital is corrupt and any money (screens or even nets) anyone gave to the hospital would go to his pocket or be stolen by other people working there. Even though the Lowerys tell everyone he needs to leave, they can't get him out because of his blood (he's the nephew of someone big), so it is a really sad situation. The hospital doesn't have enough money for new meds or even gloves. They reuse the cheap latex gloves they have by washing them!
Walking through the village was a big eye opener to how almost 95% of people in the Congo actually live. I'd never been through a village before so it was very good for me, but it just made me sad. I loved the kids who were all fighting over my hands to hold, and wanted pictures taken, and wanted us to stay with them forever, and dance and sing.... that was great, but I realized how hard it would be for any of us to live the way they do. They really have nothing, but that is life and they can still be so joyous. We have So much but we take it all for granted. I know God showed me this because He wants me to change my heart.
After the village we came back and relaxed with some lunch and talking...on our way down to the river we noticed how dark the clouds were getting so we started running down the path and jumped in the water. But then the lightning started getting worse and so we had to get out. We shivered on the bank for a while, got back in one more time and then went to the house because it wasn't clearing up. More games of cards and a good chicken noodle soup for supper. We played the funnest game of Spoons ever after that!

Day 4--Saturday: We got up early so we could leave in the plane by 8, but it didn't come so we spent an hour or 2 down at the river for the last time. The plane came at 11 so we packed up and sadly left. The kids all came down to send us off and you wouldn't believe how much they waved to us! I loved how they ran after the plane as we were taking off:-) What beautiful sweet people! Around 12 we landed and said goodbye to the group at TASOK.
That was one amazing trip! I am so thankful I got to go and do all that we did! It was really a blasssst.