When I told people I was going to the Congo, the Democratic of Congo, there were worried faces, shocked and scared ones. ‘Why Congo?’ they ask ed. I said, ‘why not?’ If the sisters in the Congo, yes, THE Congo, not the other Congo (Brazzaville), wanted a volunteer then they would
get one.
My answer was simple, if there was a need for me in Congo then I would go. That is what this calling to serve is all about. Filling a void, being used as needed. I had been warned by people about the conditions in Africa, how I would need to prepare: don’t eat the food you don’t know, cook all your veggies, don’t drink the water, take a mosquito net, wear lots of bug spray, etc. Loads of warnings meant to prepare me I think, it is far better to over-estimate and be surprised than underestimate and be shocked.
Like most developing countries, the distinction between the rich and the poor, the suffering and the striving, is obvious. There are shanty towns, houses built with corrugated steel, dusty roads, and shack like stands selling almost anything. There are also grand maisons, large houses built with concrete, painted in bright colours, with Acadian roof tiles (or something like it), with large concrete fences with barbed wire on-top, long driveways for multiple vehicles, paved roads with markings.
Yesterday, (Day 1), I visited both Salesian communities. I am staying with the Salesian Sisters in Gombe where they have a striving community in the rich part of town. Like many Catholic sisters I have visited and got to know, these Salesian sisters are enterprising. Where there is a need, they fill it, in the most ingenious ways possible.
The Salesian sisters in Gombe, where I am staying, have a beautiful home and school for the twenty-something students and four Sisters that live here during the summer. This school focuses on matieres, professional development, and as such have provided venues for the young girls here aged 13 to 15 to acquire those skills. There is a boulangerie (bakery), a pattiserie
(café/resto), a kiosk (second lunch cafe, less rich, moins cher), a cyber café and a soon to come salon with aesthetic school.
The Salesian sisters in Katunga/Salunga (sp?) have a much bigger estate upon which is built four schools, a bakery and garden. The Sisters provide education to young children (maternelles), primary school aged children, secondary school (secondaire) and something else called scolaire. (I’m still trying to figure out the French.) They also have a boulangerie and two gardens. What they don’t have is electricity. Comme ci, comme ca. It is what is is. They are not suffering, to me, it seems. There is sunshine for light and heat and rain for cooling and water. It is a large estate so they seemed to be self-sufficient. I may be wrong, but that was the impression I got. There is still great need but they seemed okay, not destitute.
Both communities, though different in some respects, are the same in the core values and principles. These Sisters aim to help the children, educate the young, cherish them and give them values, hope and opportunity.
It’s not as bad as you think. It is actually better. My room at the school puts my hostel to shame. In Paris, I prepared myself for this trip and saved money by staying in a hostel. I made friends sharing with two others at a time. Our bathrooms were down the hall. Shared showers and toilets. Sheets and towels were rented. Only one plug to share among three people. The bed felt like a 10 year old futon. At the school, I have my own room, a desk, a comfy bed, comes with mosquito net, my own bathroom, sheets, bedding and a towel, two plugs and air-conditioning--which I don’t need because it is cool in Congo at the moment.
At breakfast the morning after I arrived, after mentioning my gluten and dairy allergies in French at dinner the night before, there was delicious gluten-free, multi-grain bread. Imagine my surprise, upon surprise.
One thing I wasn’t prepared for was the fastidiousness of the Sisters. I wasn’t as humble as I had hoped to be, because I came expecting the worst and wanting to help and share my skills, only to see that this community is doing pretty darn well. Where I thought I could share my baking
skills, they have a school for that; my hosting skills, again a school for that. I was starting to feel unneeded, plus my French is ragged at best.
Then, one of my unique skills became evident and valued. English! Ha, who would have thought that my desire to teach English in a foreign country would be realized in French-speaking Congo? Who would have thought that my degree in English Language and Literature would be of such
great value. I had a long chat with the Superior here, Sister Yolande, and through my broken French, she ascertained I have lots of skills and added value, just a matter of figuring out how to use them. My spoken and written English is pretty darn good and I can teach it while learning French, (yippee), I sing and can harmonize and the girls want to learn English songs, I sew and
there is a need to sew uniforms for next September’s classes. Lots to do here, just have to figure out what. It's all good and I'm looking forward to discovering more.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Parlez en francaise en Congo - Am I nervous? Bien sur! - June 26, 2012
I’ll be in Kinshasa by dinner time. I’m looking forward to a vastly different experience from my everyday in Toronto, Canada and my vacation week in Paris, France. I’ve heard about the Congolese people from new friends on Facebook (thanks Sabrina and Zaya) and I saw beautiful, adorned women in the lineup at the airport to go to Congo. Women in long dresses with sequins and jewels adorned, bright colours like fuscia and black, bright pink and aubergine, red and silver. Heads wrapped in matching or complementary scarves. Some with babies wrapped around their backs. All dressed up and made up. Wow! I cannot match them in my yoga pants, tired face and head wrapped for travel in non-matching scarf. But I hope to match them if I can by borrowing a little Congo culture when I’m there for 11 weeks.
A good friend asked me if I was nervous, if I had butterflies. I said ‘no, not really’. But it caused me to think about it. I was okay before being in Paris, it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, nearly everyone I encountered spoke a little English; it’s like everyone in customer service, travel and hospitality was bilingual. I won’t exactly be a tourist in Congo, so I know it will be different. My experience in France will not compare and I don’t expect it to. I am most nervous about ‘parlez en Francaise toujours’. At the airport, I needed people to repeat questions and directions, and I barely understood the spoken French. I can read it but listening and hearing is different.
Am I nervous? Do I have butterflies? Yes, I do. Mostly because I will be in a foreign environment but mostly because of the challenge I have hoisted upon myself to ‘get bilingual’. My boss asked me if I had a plan to learn French. I thought it was obvious. Immersion! I have always considered
immersion to be my best plan for learning and practicing French. But I also recognize I actually do need more study, so I’ve got my grammar book and my French-English dictionary and I will need to practice reading, writing and speaking. Practice is something I will get in Congo, what I am most happy about being in Congo is that I will have little choice but to ‘parlez en Francais’.
I know it will feel odd at first, but the years of study and the conversations with friends, listening and watching Quebecois television will become useful somehow. Talk about getting out of your comfort zone. I’m putting myself out there and taxing my limits to become a better, stronger
person through this experience. I can only do this by the grace of God and with the support and love of family and friends and through the fellowship of the Filles de Marie Auxiliatrice (Daughters of Mary, help of Christians), Salesian Sisters.
I hope the next blog will be bilingual. J’espere ca la prochaine blog sera bilingue.
A good friend asked me if I was nervous, if I had butterflies. I said ‘no, not really’. But it caused me to think about it. I was okay before being in Paris, it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, nearly everyone I encountered spoke a little English; it’s like everyone in customer service, travel and hospitality was bilingual. I won’t exactly be a tourist in Congo, so I know it will be different. My experience in France will not compare and I don’t expect it to. I am most nervous about ‘parlez en Francaise toujours’. At the airport, I needed people to repeat questions and directions, and I barely understood the spoken French. I can read it but listening and hearing is different.
Am I nervous? Do I have butterflies? Yes, I do. Mostly because I will be in a foreign environment but mostly because of the challenge I have hoisted upon myself to ‘get bilingual’. My boss asked me if I had a plan to learn French. I thought it was obvious. Immersion! I have always considered
immersion to be my best plan for learning and practicing French. But I also recognize I actually do need more study, so I’ve got my grammar book and my French-English dictionary and I will need to practice reading, writing and speaking. Practice is something I will get in Congo, what I am most happy about being in Congo is that I will have little choice but to ‘parlez en Francais’.
I know it will feel odd at first, but the years of study and the conversations with friends, listening and watching Quebecois television will become useful somehow. Talk about getting out of your comfort zone. I’m putting myself out there and taxing my limits to become a better, stronger
person through this experience. I can only do this by the grace of God and with the support and love of family and friends and through the fellowship of the Filles de Marie Auxiliatrice (Daughters of Mary, help of Christians), Salesian Sisters.
I hope the next blog will be bilingual. J’espere ca la prochaine blog sera bilingue.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
History ain't nothing like the present - Paris to Kinshasa - June 23, 2012
Paris has been fun, a good test of my French skills and my ability to manage in a somewhat foreign environment. One might wonder why I detoured to Paris en route to Kinshasa. Moi aussi, yet there are some great incidentals along the way.
Incidentally, while in Paris I visited the Musee de Quoi Branly, Europe's largest collection of Oceanic peoples, Asian, African and American first peoples history and culture. It is referred to as the collections of 'non-Western' cultures. I began my history tour of the museum with the Pygmy people of Papua New Guinea and finished with the Chilean people of Chile.
Along the way, I saw artifacts and history of the food, lifestyle, dress and culture of the first people of many cultures including Congo, Angola, Haiti and Vietnam. I feel like I learned stuff about a history many centuries old, as much as you can from dead people's stuff. (Shrug). I also saw that one of the largest collections came from one Western European doctor who brought back to Europe all the "gifts" the people had given him. I had my misgivings about the number of funeral staffs and pyres that were on display. I appreciated seeing them in the museum, but wondered about the ethics of uprooting someone's culture and heritage in the form of their tombstone so it could be in a museum. Hmmm, that is a debate that I believe rages beyond this blog.
While I learned about the people of Congo and the Yoruba culture (in Congo and neighbouring African countries), it has only whet my appetite to learn more about the culture and heritage of Congo from those living it today. Just like studying French language and history. Going to the museums is fun, but it is a damn-sight removed from the France of today, which is more complicated and diverse than the revolution would suggest. I have attended two churches this week and I keep remembering that getting rid of religion and religious hierarchy was a tenement of the revolution. Hmmm. Yet, Paris and many other parts of France boast the most beautiful and largest churches with strong congregations, the language is built around religion. With as complex a history, or more complex and diverse some could argue, (but each person's and country's history is relative and unique), the Congo of today may be far removed from the Congo of years past that I saw reflected in the museum.
I realize that not many people get the opportunity to visit a country different or 'foreign' from their own and live the culture, heritage and history of that place by living among it's peoples. Most of us are limited in our experience of other cultures through museum visits and what we learn on the internet or from a library or the media. I am grateful for this opportunity to live another culture and experience another life, another lifestyle by living among the peoples.
I hope I can give back to others what this experience will give to me. I only wish more people took the chance and the opportunity to be somewhere else and do something else.
Incidentally, while in Paris I visited the Musee de Quoi Branly, Europe's largest collection of Oceanic peoples, Asian, African and American first peoples history and culture. It is referred to as the collections of 'non-Western' cultures. I began my history tour of the museum with the Pygmy people of Papua New Guinea and finished with the Chilean people of Chile.
Along the way, I saw artifacts and history of the food, lifestyle, dress and culture of the first people of many cultures including Congo, Angola, Haiti and Vietnam. I feel like I learned stuff about a history many centuries old, as much as you can from dead people's stuff. (Shrug). I also saw that one of the largest collections came from one Western European doctor who brought back to Europe all the "gifts" the people had given him. I had my misgivings about the number of funeral staffs and pyres that were on display. I appreciated seeing them in the museum, but wondered about the ethics of uprooting someone's culture and heritage in the form of their tombstone so it could be in a museum. Hmmm, that is a debate that I believe rages beyond this blog.
While I learned about the people of Congo and the Yoruba culture (in Congo and neighbouring African countries), it has only whet my appetite to learn more about the culture and heritage of Congo from those living it today. Just like studying French language and history. Going to the museums is fun, but it is a damn-sight removed from the France of today, which is more complicated and diverse than the revolution would suggest. I have attended two churches this week and I keep remembering that getting rid of religion and religious hierarchy was a tenement of the revolution. Hmmm. Yet, Paris and many other parts of France boast the most beautiful and largest churches with strong congregations, the language is built around religion. With as complex a history, or more complex and diverse some could argue, (but each person's and country's history is relative and unique), the Congo of today may be far removed from the Congo of years past that I saw reflected in the museum.
I realize that not many people get the opportunity to visit a country different or 'foreign' from their own and live the culture, heritage and history of that place by living among it's peoples. Most of us are limited in our experience of other cultures through museum visits and what we learn on the internet or from a library or the media. I am grateful for this opportunity to live another culture and experience another life, another lifestyle by living among the peoples.
I hope I can give back to others what this experience will give to me. I only wish more people took the chance and the opportunity to be somewhere else and do something else.
Friday, June 22, 2012
Let the music play in Paris - June 22, 2012
Last night in Paris was "La Fete de la Musique" all over the city. I walked about the area around my hostel and heard all kinds of music playing. As I wandered along Rue de Lyon, I heard a little bit of jazz. I was intrigued and sat down for a meal as they promised jazz. I ate dinner at an American style restaurant and listened to French jazz music. It was very nice.
After dinner, I walked down Rue de Lyon and heard more music. I ventured closer to this other bar and there was beautiful music, the sounds of a big band and New Orleans jazz. I stood there for a while listening to the music. Later that night, I came back with my new friends from the youth hostel, Laura and Caroline from Germany. They will be studying in Paris next year so were here looking for a place to live. We ended up at the place with the big jazz band. We stayed for a while (until the bar closed) and listened to the band. I counted at least 10 pieces in that band including trombone, trumpet, tuba, saxophone, such beautiful harmonies. They played classic tunes, French tunes, their guitarist even sang American songs once in a while. When the band played they were excellent. There was even a singer, with a soulful voice and passionate.
Listening to the music, I was reminded of the brass band that Father John Lee started in south Sudan. I watched a video about Father John Lee during my training and formation with VIDES. He brought the marching band to Sudan and shared with the children the gift of music. It was beautiful to see in the video how the children loved Father John and became a great band loving the music also. Seeing the 10-piece brass band in Paris on the Rue de Lyon made me think of them also. I'm looking forward to my experience in the Congo even more. I hope to bring the joy of music whereever I go and share it with those I meet.
After dinner, I walked down Rue de Lyon and heard more music. I ventured closer to this other bar and there was beautiful music, the sounds of a big band and New Orleans jazz. I stood there for a while listening to the music. Later that night, I came back with my new friends from the youth hostel, Laura and Caroline from Germany. They will be studying in Paris next year so were here looking for a place to live. We ended up at the place with the big jazz band. We stayed for a while (until the bar closed) and listened to the band. I counted at least 10 pieces in that band including trombone, trumpet, tuba, saxophone, such beautiful harmonies. They played classic tunes, French tunes, their guitarist even sang American songs once in a while. When the band played they were excellent. There was even a singer, with a soulful voice and passionate.
Listening to the music, I was reminded of the brass band that Father John Lee started in south Sudan. I watched a video about Father John Lee during my training and formation with VIDES. He brought the marching band to Sudan and shared with the children the gift of music. It was beautiful to see in the video how the children loved Father John and became a great band loving the music also. Seeing the 10-piece brass band in Paris on the Rue de Lyon made me think of them also. I'm looking forward to my experience in the Congo even more. I hope to bring the joy of music whereever I go and share it with those I meet.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Learning French not as easy as I thought - June 22, 2012
I'm in Paris for a mini-vacation and cultural experience before I embark on my volunteering service with the Salesian Sisters in Kinshasa, Congo next week. I had hoped the experience of being in a strange land though westernized and speaking a foreign language would prepare me for being in a more foreign land and I might have better French by then.
I'm testing myself today and realize I need more practice and more faith in my abilities. It is scary being here on my own and barely speaking French, but I got myself some books and will find myself at a cafe reading French and practicing. Courage!
Everyday is a learning experience, my comprehension is getting better and understanding the accent and doing it right makes a world of difference. This is me getting ready for Congo.
I'm testing myself today and realize I need more practice and more faith in my abilities. It is scary being here on my own and barely speaking French, but I got myself some books and will find myself at a cafe reading French and practicing. Courage!
Everyday is a learning experience, my comprehension is getting better and understanding the accent and doing it right makes a world of difference. This is me getting ready for Congo.
Monday, June 18, 2012
This is so real, this is it - July 18, 2012
I can hardly believe how real this is. I leave on a plane tomorrow to begin my journey across 3000 kilometers of land and sea. I'm going to Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
I had hoped to be going to a French-speaking African Country and I am. Wow! I didn't know it would be the Congo, but if that is wher I am meant to be, if that is where I am needed, then so be it. I am looking forward to meeting the Salesian Sisters in the DRC and learning from them at their school in Kinshasa.
I'm looking forward to working with kids and young people and sharing what I know and learning from them. It will be a different and challenging experience but I'm ready for it.
Even though I'm scared sometimes, and I get choked up thinking of all the people I will miss, I know that this is something I've wanted for a long time and I'm ready for it. A friend said to me a week ago when I wondered aloud, "am I ready?" Here wise reply was, "You'll never be ready." Accepting that statement made me as ready as I will ever be for a life-changing experience like serving on a volunteer mission trip in a foreign country with a foreign language.
I am so proud and simultaneoulsy shaking, but I'm feeling courageous. A leader today said, 'Courage is feeling a little bit uncomfortable every day.' Those are words that will make me feel courages when I'm feeling a bit uncomfortable. Knowing that I can never be truly ready, makes me feel good and that I'll be as ready as I ever can. Here I go!
I had hoped to be going to a French-speaking African Country and I am. Wow! I didn't know it would be the Congo, but if that is wher I am meant to be, if that is where I am needed, then so be it. I am looking forward to meeting the Salesian Sisters in the DRC and learning from them at their school in Kinshasa.
I'm looking forward to working with kids and young people and sharing what I know and learning from them. It will be a different and challenging experience but I'm ready for it.
Even though I'm scared sometimes, and I get choked up thinking of all the people I will miss, I know that this is something I've wanted for a long time and I'm ready for it. A friend said to me a week ago when I wondered aloud, "am I ready?" Here wise reply was, "You'll never be ready." Accepting that statement made me as ready as I will ever be for a life-changing experience like serving on a volunteer mission trip in a foreign country with a foreign language.
I am so proud and simultaneoulsy shaking, but I'm feeling courageous. A leader today said, 'Courage is feeling a little bit uncomfortable every day.' Those are words that will make me feel courages when I'm feeling a bit uncomfortable. Knowing that I can never be truly ready, makes me feel good and that I'll be as ready as I ever can. Here I go!
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