IMPRESSIONS.....

1. The women are all so beautifully attired.

2. The people speak so softly that you can be next to two people who are talking and it sounds like a murmur.

3. There is an incredible amount of dust. As we approach the Mission, the streets are not paved; dust is inches thick. The car stirs up a lingering cloud. You can see footprints in the dust where people have walked. It is about like our snow, it is inches deep.

4. Children in the Christian community are highly prized as they should be. The five little ones in our orphanage will not be taken out to be seen publicly until their health is improved. When they go out they will be beautiful.

5. Even though the adults eat very lightly, the children in the orphanage get three meals a day and medical care.

6. Didier told me that if they hung out a sign letting the community know that we have an orphanage there would be children on the door steps daily.

7. Lubumbashi has an unemployment rate of 80%. Yet people are smiling and appear to be very happy.

8. I was very impressed with Ethiopian Airlines. The company is very service oriented. Excellent food to the point of being overfed. In the evening, sandwiches—bread and turkey—along with drinks were available all night long.

9. At your seat, movies, music, and flight detail were available on your private screen continually.

10. At Addis Abba there were number of helpful employees available to help me as an obvious foreigner. I appreciated this so greatly as one of my greatest fears was not knowing where I was going when in the airport.

11. The people are multi-lingual. Pastor Didier told me that he converses in five languages.

12. Our guest house has no running water, electricity only when the generator is running, about two hours a day, but is very clean.

13. The Congo is a definitely a cell phone country. I see some children with them.

14. Everything including cement can be moved by bicycle; I saw three bags on one bicycle.

15. Yesterday I saw a bike loaded with bricks. The owner was walking beside the bike keeping it balanced.

16. In the division of household labor, carrying water seems to be a woman's work. This morning I sat on the porch and watched a woman trying to carry water with her left hand and keep a baby balanced on her hip with the right hand. She finally put the water down and headed home with the baby. I am sure she came back later for the water. By the way water is carried in five gallon containers so the full container will weight approximately 40 pounds.

17. I noted that in the Christian community that men left the house and went for water this morning.

18. I wondered why our well is completely enclosed in a locked brick structure. I was told that if it was not enclosed, the pump would be stolen.