Pictures of local children of Fungurume

These boys are not so sure about the whole picture-taking thing.
Jensen blowing bubbles for the local kids.

Jensen getting mobbed, while trying to hand out pencils. Can you see her pony tail with the white hair tie in it?

The little girl with the baby on her back. One of my favorite pics!

Another one of my favorites. Isn't this little girl just precious?

Pictures of Fungurume school and hospital

Jensen just gave the pregnant lady in green, a little baby shirt.
Dustin sitting on the "chairs" in the Fungurume school.

The classroom in Fungurume that holds 102 children at one time!

Bill and Dustin planting a tree in front of Fungurume hospital.

Bill and Dustin in front of the "chalkboard" at Fungurume school.

Volunteer Work at Fungurume Hospital

One of the rooms in the hospital. This is the "before" picture.
This is one of the operating rooms in the hospital.

The maternity ward in the hospital. No medical equipment--just mosquito netting.

The entrance to the hospital.

Bill and Dustin painting the first room you saw in the pics.

Hello everyone,
Last weekend, our family drove to Fungurume (the mine site) in order to do some volunteer work in the local village. The project was to clean up and paint a local hospital. This hospital was smaller than most doctor offices that we go to in the States.

Before we began painting we had a short tour. You cannot believe that people were actually coming here for care. The rooms were tiny and disgustingly dirty. Everything smelled like urine. Operating tables were covered in dirt and dust, though not due to lack of use. Small pieces of fabric covered doorways; there were no actual doors on any of the rooms. People waiting for appointments waited in chairs outside of the hospital. We were able to peek into the maternity ward, where new mothers lay on beds covered with colorful blankets (this was one of the rooms that had already been renovated by Bill’s company). Their babies were on beds next to them—not in cribs or bassinettes, but on regular twin sized beds. In another room down the hall, a doctor was performing surgery (a mother giving birth via C-section). Here we were, getting ready to paint, and just down the hall, a woman was giving birth, paint fumes and all. Throughout the tour, I did not see one room that had a sink, or any kind of running water. Can you imagine going into surgery without even doing a simple act like washing your hands???!!!!!

After the tour, we set to work, cleaning and painting. Jensen and Dustin were the only 2 kids there, but they painted right along with the rest of us.

During breaks, the kids gave out candy and pencils to the local children, while I took pictures. The local kids went wild! Jensen and Dustin were completely surrounded. At times, I couldn’t even see them, as they were buried in the throng of children. They couldn’t hand things out fast enough. It was actually quite overwhelming, and I thought the kids would be scared. But they handled themselves quite well, despite being pushed, shoved, and grabbed by the local kids. Later, Jensen blew bubbles for the kids, and this was quite the sight to see. She would run with the bubbles, and all the kids would follow her, like she was the Pied Piper. Jensen also had a chance to hand out some baby clothes to the new mothers for their babies. This whole experience really had a great impact on Jensen and Dustin. They both said they wanted to use all the money they had saved (to buy things for themselves) and instead, buy things for these kids. Jensen went home and immediately got on the Oriental Trading website looking for things to buy for the local children.

Later, we visited a local school that Bill’s company is also planning to help renovate. The classroom, which holds 102 children at one time, was probably less than half the size of classrooms in the States (about 20 x 27 feet). There are no desks or chairs; the kids sit on brick lumps that are built into the floor. All that is in the classroom is a blackboard, and not even the black shiny ones that we have. It looks more like a piece of stone that can you can scratch words into. I know that Bill’s company is building desks and seats for the classroom, but I’m not sure what else. It’s sad because anything that is given to the school needs to be locked up because otherwise it will get stolen.

Because Bill’s company has done so much work in the village, they said it was okay for us to take pictures, so I went crazy taking pictures. The whole time I’ve been here I’ve been wanting pictures of the local people, and the way they live. Well, I finally got some! The local kids were really cute because at first, they were a little shy about me taking pictures. But after I took the picture, I showed it to them on the camera, and they thought that was so cool! After that, they started posing for me! One of the pictures that really had an impact on me was of a young girl (definitely no older than Jensen) with a baby on her back, the same way that all the women carry their babies. I was hoping that it was a sibling she was carrying, and not her own baby.

I think I’ll have to make this blog entry into 2 separate ones. I can only load about 4-5 pictures at a time onto the blog, or else it takes forever to load. So, I’ll do a separate entry that will just be pictures.

Well, we leave tomorrow on vacation (it’s our Spring break, even though it is Fall here). We are going to Mozambique, a small country on the East coast of Africa. We will be going to one of the small islands of Mozambique, called Bazaruto Island. I will write all about our trip for my next blog entry.

Hope everyone is well! Our time is flying by here. Before we know it, we’ll be back home for a visit! We should be back to AZ about the beginning of July, so just 3 more months!

Cheers!

Laurie

P.S. More pics to follow!

Zoo field trip

The J.A.C.K billboard, seen as you come up to the chimpanzee area. The sign says (in French and Swahili), "Don't buy me!", "Don't eat me!", "Don't sell me!", "Respect me!" And that is a real chimp sitting on top of the sign.

A couple of the chimps in their outdoor enclosure.

All of the expat kids (and a couple of adults on the ends) in front of the J.A.C.K. sign.

Hello everyone,
I thought it was about time I wrote about our field trip to the zoo. This zoo (The Zoo of Lubumbashi) used to be a world renowned zoo. But during the war, all the animals were eaten, as people here in the Congo were starving. Slowly, the zoo has been rebuilt, and animals once again reside at the zoo. There are not a lot of animals here: a couple of tigers, lions, elephants, and crocodiles, some birds and snakes, lots of monkeys, and chimpanzees. The zoo has very few precautions put in place, as far as not getting too close to the animals goes. Most of the cages have no fencing around them, so you can be right next to a cage, and animals can stick their hands/paws out and grab you! Mostly it is the monkeys that try. There are also no good paths to walk along, so often you are trekking through muddy fields to see the next animal. And in one part of the zoo, you have to cross this balance beam type of thing (over a small river of water) to get to the other side of the zoo. I had thought there were crocodiles in this little river, but I was told that there were not, so that was good. I’m telling you, if this zoo were in the States, it would be one lawsuit after another!

The most interesting part of the zoo is the chimpanzees. All the chimpanzees are there as part of a rescue program, called J.A.C.K, which stands for Jeunes Animaux Confisqués au Katanga (Young Confiscated Animals in Katanga). Katanga is the province that Lubumbashi is in. Founded in April 2006, J.A.C.K. is a refuge center for orphaned chimpanzee babies confiscated by the Ministry of Environment. This program works with the Congolese government to end the illegal trade of chimpanzees in eastern DRC. Unfortunately, people here still seem to think it is perfectly acceptable to eat chimpanzees. The other problem is that expatriates (us) see these baby chimps on the street for sale, and they buy them, thinking they are helping to save them. The problem is that the local people know that we will buy them (thinking we’re doing the right thing), so they continue to obtain more of them. For every baby chimp that is for sale on the street, an average of 10 adult chimps were killed, trying to protect the baby.

I believe there are about 20 chimps now at the zoo. They are in a special part of the zoo, part of which is not open to the public. We were able to get into the part not opened to the public because we have connections there. A couple of the expat families are very involved with the chimps and they go twice a day to feed them, and can sometimes play with the babies. The chimpanzees have a large outdoor enclosure to play in, and at night, they go into a covered area.

Most of these chimpanzees have been badly abused by humans. One of the chimps was an alcoholic, forced by his human owner to drink alcohol at bars and then perform stupid tricks for other patrons of the bar. Another came to J.A.C.K with burns all over his body. His owner would put cigarettes out on the chimp’s back. A third was treated just like a human child. The couple got her because they thought they could not have children of their own. However, they ended up getting pregnant with their own child, and then no longer wanted the baby chimp. They actually started physically abusing this baby chimp. Regrettably, almost all of the chimps at J.A.C.K. have similar (or worse) backgrounds. If you want to read more about J.A.C.K. the website is http://jack.wildlifedirect.org/.

That's about it for now. Hope everyone is well.

Laurie