Africa!!

The children The glass shards on the tops of the walls.
The "bush"

Principals office at the school
Lloyd, Chief of village, Claudia, Claude (interpreter)
How everything gets cooked there

The "Squater" (use your imagination....see that big nasty bug)
Must be close to six o'clock. Very smoky because they burn acai trees to make charcoal)

Can't remember the name of the food, its like a potatoe. they wrap them in banana leaves.

The chicken sacrfice thing.....

They carry everything on their heads.

Love the baby in this one......comfy? I think not.....I could be wrong though...
they pile everything a mile high then sit on top. Oops!

Claudia with a different chief

I love the kids! Claudia said this is how you see the older children carrying the smaller ones!





A house.....when the rain season comes this mud just washes away.

A truck piled high with people and cargo and who knows what else!!
Cool lizard






Town

More barbed wire
back of compound

** sorry I didn't get some of these turned. When I do mine with my camera I don't have to turn them. Claudia took about 800+ pics and I tried to pick some that would give a good idea of what it was like there.

Wow! We had a real treat yesterday! Lloyd and Claudia returned from Africa on Monday. So yesterday they made the trip down to see us! It was great to hear all of their stories and see their pics! What a time they had! Claudias brother Robert has started Tifie. A humanatarian group. See here. They were in The Democratic Republic of Congo. There are several different areas that they visited. They flew into Kinshasha which has about 9 million people and Lloyd said they were all in the streets! It was very dirty and dusty. They have a compound there that houses all of the equipment etc. They stayed in the villa. It was protected by walls and atop of these walls was barbed wire and some other walls had glass shards on top to further protection. They didn't go any where with out their policeman Papa. That made a huge difference in traveling. When they went to the market they had to stay in a group. Major "stealers" as Papa put it. You are seriously mobbed by hordes of people when they see a white man there. It means money to them. They bring you everything out of the shop to buy! They said it was very difficult to walk around there. When the police officers see you they will fine you for rediculous things!! You went two inches after I told you to stop, etc. Oh and the cameras, if they see that you have one you are either "in trouble, big fine, or they take it!" Lloyd has his video camera kind of hidden as they walked to church, but he had it on being very sneaky!! He took lots of footage there when they traveled to different villages and to the bush. It was fun to watch! The children especially! They love to see white people! And they especially love to have their pictures taken! Then they want to look at it and have a picture! When you can't produce the picture then they want the camera.....adults too!! They took the orphans to the park (kind of like a zoo) and spent time in the bush getting land ready and a place to build their little town. One thing was the villagers who used to own it did a little ceremony. They had a little black voo-doo like doll and poured beer on it, (no one could touch it except the chief or else they would die) then they took a chicken and basically sacrificed the poor thing, then plucked its feathers, cut off its head and sprinkled blood on the ground! Okay let me back up a bit. The chief wanted money (also a ridiculous amount) and beer and salt for the transfer of this land. They agreed on a smaller amount then he got the beer and salt too.

The sun there rises at 6am and sets at 6pm. Everynight. 365 days a year. I'm trying to think of all of the neat things they told me!! It was great to have them come down out of their way to see us. They even gave us some very nice trinkets from there. We were sad that Mr. Mayes couldn't be here.