Dustin dressed as Harry Potter for Halloween.

All the dead termites on our window sill--yuck!

The chameleon we found.

A bunch of dudes dressed up in African masks for Halloween.

Me, and 2 of my friends dressed up for Halloween.

Jensen wearing one of the African masks.

Our jack-o-lantern oranges!

Hello Everyone,
I was planning to write this before we left for Spain and South America, but you know how it is getting ready for a big trip—lots to do—so I never got around to updating my blog. In any case, we are now in Spain, and aside from Jensen being sick, we’re having a good time. But I’ll write more about that in another entry. Right now, I’ll just update you a bit on what’s been going on with us in the Congo.

Rainy season is upon us, and we have been getting fantastic storms nearly every day. These storms seem to be more intense than the ones we got in Lubumbashi. The rain just comes pouring down for hours and the thunder is so loud it wakes us at night. It starts with a huge clap and then just rumbles for what seems like several hours. There is mud everywhere! And because we walk everywhere, we really cannot go anywhere without wearing rain boots.

With the storms, came the termites (and various other creatures). Every night now, we have to tape up all of our doors so the bugs don’t come in. The doors are poorly fitted in the frames, so there is lots of space all around the doors for the bugs to get in. Like last year, the tape is definitely coming in handy. I bought more when I was home this summer, but apparently not enough because we are already running low. The first night the termites came it was like a scene from the movie, The Birds, only with termites. There were millions of them flying around our house and coming in through the sides of the doors. We couldn’t get the tape up fast enough! All 4 of us were running around with fly swatters and we just couldn’t get a handle on them. Once we got all the doors taped up, things calmed down and we were able to get the rest of them that were in the house. I vacuumed all the bugs up that we had smashed and we went to bed.

The next morning at 5:00 AM, Kami woke me up with her shaking because another storm was starting. Right as the first clap of thunder hit, our power went out. I went to let Kami outside, but couldn’t see anything because of no power. I took the tape off the door and opened it up. I saw Kami lifting her feet strangely, like she was stepping in water or mud, or something. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong so I shined the flashlight on the floor and saw a billion termites rushing into the house. It looked like opening day of Disneyland, (or Termiteland), where everyone just rushes in like a herd of cattle. I ran for the bug spray and sprayed the heck out of them. Then, I gave Kami her anti-anxiety pill to help her calm down, and we both went back to sleep. She never did get to go outside.

A couple hours later, when Bill was leaving for work, he opened the front door, and every inch of it was covered with termites, as were the outside of our windows. Bill sprayed the door and the windows, and I took pictures of the aftermath—billions of dead termites all over our window sills. Yuck!

Along with the rains and the bugs, we have had leaks everywhere! I honestly thought we were through with that, once we left Lubumbashi. Fortunately, (or unfortunately—I’m not sure which), these leaks did not come from the rain. They came from bad plumbing. So, let’s see—the air conditioning was leaking in Dustin’s room. The bathroom and kitchen sinks were leaking. The dishwasher was leaking. And our water heater was leaking. Oh yeah, and some pipe outside was leaking. By the time we left, all had been repaired except for the pipe outside. Hopefully it will all hold for awhile.

New update: Just heard from our friend back in Africa and she said our house had sprung another leak, after we left for Spain. Luckily, our house cleaner noticed water coming out from under our front door, and he went to find our friend who had the key to our house. They went in, fixed the leak, and cleaned up the flood. Our kitchen and dining room had flooded. Glad we didn’t have to come home to that mess!

In addition to the termites, there has been an explosion of little tiny frogs. They are so cute—little tiny baby frogs! They are about the size of my pinkie nail! And on Halloween, we found an awesome chameleon. We put him in a little cage, and were going to keep him for a pet, but he looked so unhappy that we let him go after just a couple of hours.

Speaking of Halloween, we all had fun at our Halloween party, and the kids had a blast trick-or-treating all around the camp. Some of you may remember that last year, the kids carved eggplants because there were no pumpkins. Well, this year, they carved oranges. The little tiny jack-o-lanterns turned out quite cute.

Well, guess that catches you up with Congo life. I’ll be writing again shortly to tell you about our trip to Spain.

Cheers!
Laurie