Pointe Noire, Republic of the Congo

We are finally feeling somewhat settled in the Congo and have internet access right now so will take this opportunity to share a few of our adventures over the past few days.

          We left Calgary Thursday morning (Sept 26) and arrived in Pointe Noire, approximately 24 hours later. Our flights were uneventful and relatively pain free – basically moving from plane to plane with just enough time to grab something to eat or a washroom break between flights. We were met at the airport by Krissy, a Mercy Ships project manager who is our liaison, and Anna-Lee, a friend of Christina’s from a previous trip. It was wonderful for Chris to be greeted by familiar faces. We hopped into the Mercy Ship land rover and traversed wide, well-paved streets – a pleasant surprise for both Dan and Chris, who’s previous visits to Guinea and Sierra Leone had prepared them for poorer road conditions. Our first stop, of course, was the Africa Mercy Ship. We were warmly greeted by many people, most of whom had worked with Christina on previous occasions. The full extent of Chris’s comfort on the ship wasn’t really known to us until we arrived at her assigned cabin. Around the door were many white balloons with a big “Welcome Home Christina” sign on the door. We have since had the opportunity at every turn to meet more of Chris’s friends – wonderful young men and women with a passion for serving others with amazing selflessness, a real joy in living, and seemingly constant smiles on their faces. Once Chris had given us a short tour of the ship we were ushered into the cafeteria where the “hospitality hostess” had set out a lovely cold meal for us as supper had come and gone before our arrival. It’s been a while since I’ve eaten white bread – but there’s a lot of it here and I’m learning to appreciate it again – especially the freshly baked baguets that seem to be served regularly. Once we had received our guest identification cards and completed the necessary paperwork, Krissy and Christina took us to our arranged accommodations, the SUECO Guest House, approximately 1.5 miles from the ship. The apartment we rented included a bathroom, dining area, kitchen, living area, and bedroom. The windows had louvered panels of glass which are nice to direct air currents into the room however, the screens were either broken or missing and therefore let in many mosquitoes.  Fortunately we had a large mosquito net over our bed to keep out the pesky critters and for the most part it has worked, other than the first night when we failed to kill all of the mosquitoes inside the net before going to sleep! Mosquito’s here aren’t like mosquito’s at home – they seldom announce their arrival with buzzing, and you only notice they landed on you after you’ve been bitten and they’ve left you with lovely welts all over your body!

Saturday morning Dan and I managed to drag ourselves out of bed at 11:00 am and head down for breakfast. The Republic of the Congo is a French-speaking country – a language we unfortunately are not nearly as familiar with as we need to be while here. We’ve spent the past four days at this guesthouse and unfortunately today was the first day we were actually able to communicate with more than a “Bonjour” or “Oui”, as we finally had an interpreter come with us to help us communicate some of our concerns. That being said, we did manage to order breakfast from a menu – omelets with onions in them, baguet’s, and coffee with milk powder. We also enjoyed a fabulous “sugar bun” – for those in my family, remember the ones mom used to make, then double them in size and make them twice as heavy – absolutely scrumptious when you’re hungry! Our guesthouse was across the road from a stadium – so we were entertained throughout the day and evening with concerts, political meetings, and I think an old-fashioned revival meeting. We were also located on the intersection of two roads – therefore trucks, cars, people, motorbikes, etc. roared by our window well into the night. We were pleasantly surprised to come back Saturday night - following a lovely birthday party barbeque with friends of Chris’s (and now ours) – to hear some great live blues music coming through our window from a nearby bar.

Sunday we again woke up to music, only it wasn’t across the street but right beside us! There was a church group meeting in the compound – therefore great African singing and beautiful people surrounded us as we had our breakfast. Due to our still screwy sleep schedule we spent most of the day resting. However, we had the opportunity to join the volunteers on the Africa Mercy for supper and an evening church service. It was wonderful to worship in a small congregation again, but even more amazing was that each individual there was a volunteer, having come specifically to help those less fortunate than themselves.

We’ve met individuals who’ve been on the ship for 17 years, 10 years, 4 years, 2 months, or just recently arrived like ourselves. Many of those who are here for 2-4 months have come back for their 3^rd, 4^th, or 8^th time. It amazes me to see the bonds of friendship that have developed between many of these men and women, and how easily they have welcomed us into their group.

Monday we began our tours of the hospitals. We spent the morning doing some initial planning, then visiting one of the local hospitals. Tuesday we toured three more of the hospitals here. Conditions, according to Chris and Dan, are much better than they were in Guinea and Sierra Leone. Having said that, there is still much to work on here. The wonderful thing is that at each hospital we visited they expressed a sincere desire to improve their knowledge of sterile processing and were anxious for Chris to assist them in this process. Think of her as she has taken on a daunting task – one that will take much time, patience, and perseverance to complete.