Week 8 Edition

Yesterday marked 8 weeks that we have been living in Kinshasa, initial reaction should be, no way really! It actually feels like we have been in Kinshasa way longer then 8 weeks.

My mind is completely blank............... hmmmmmm
thinking............ thinking............thinking.............thinking..................... you get the point! I just tried to recruit Evan's help but he is still working at 11:00 pm ( workaholic)!
Lets try another point form post, it maybe all over the place but it could be interesting! Yeah for little tid-bits of info that are not necessarily connected in anyway.

- Evan and I just recently started driving ( I think 2 weeks ago), mainly on weekends and some evenings. Traffic during the day ( Mon-Fri) is still a little crazy for my liking so I rely on a chauffeur for the week. I LOVE driving, I LOVE the freedom.

- We have yet to acquire a pet of any kind, chicken coop still isn't finished. Sorry Ari, no lion or giraffe yet!

- We have had 4 days of sun in 8 weeks, and I say sun very loosely. We will be heading into rainy AKA Hot season in the next 4 ish weeks. We are all really looking forward to some heat and some sun.

- Emmanuel and Micah are really looking forward to starting school, they are desperate to make friends and have someone other then each other to play with.

- Both kids are still very reluctant to speak any french in public. There have been a couple times when we have forced the kids to just say "Thank you" and that ended with tears, embarrassment, more tears and an even bigger wall up with speaking french. It will come, I have realized more and more that it needs to be on their time and NO ONE else!

- Often when I speak french in public I get laughed at, doesn't matter who is around people laugh at me. I am not being laughed at because I am speaking wrong ( most of the time), everyone is happy to hear me speaking french and it comes out through laughter. This is one of the main road blocks the kids have with speaking in public............. they HATE that people laugh "at them". I know I have tried to explain it!
Micah has cried when people have laughed "at" my speaking.
But my french is slowly coming along........ slowly!

- Evan is loving his job, it keeps him very busy ( 12:05 am and still in the phone, he did stop for supper though). He generally is in the office from 6:30 am - 5:00 pm Monday through Friday but gets phone calls on Saturday and Sunday.

- We found Smirnoff Ice out here! WHOO HOO
Crazy... I know! It has a slight different taste but it is still good and the alcohol percentage in not as high as what we get in Canada. The first one I had I was so proud of myself that I finished one and was starting on my second with little effect. That was until Evan pointed out that the alcohol percentage was lower.

- I ( Mel) have been shopping in town by myself ( aside from weekends) for about 4 - 5 weeks now. I can even order (in french) cheese and sandwich meat from the deli with little to no troubles.

- We all have good days and bad days, culture shock is still very relevant in our lives. We deal with it the best we know how and hope that the next day is better.
We miss friends and fam often and send you all our love.