Children happily helped with the clean-up

04.2015:The school operation moved from the old temporary buildings and one solid brick building we had built on the former farm SADR to the new brick buildings on our own piece of land. It was a special moment for all and the children happily helped with the clean-up of the school grounds. It is a dream come true for us, after 4 years of struggle, since the beginning of this project in 2011.

The construction of the 3^rd building on our land is put on the back burner for now as we are concentrating on building a water reservoir to collect the rain water before the dry season starts next month. It is very important to have water for the next construction work so we don’t have to carry water from the nearest river 80 m down in the valley.

When we are in Kinshasa, we like to help the orphanage where Anissa comes from. This time some new friends came along, Hicham and Stefanie, who also helped the orphanage. The biggest bread factory in Africa, Pain Victoire in Kinshasa (producing more than 3 million baguettes and other breads every day), donated bread and Anissa’s school gave drinking water bottles. As usual we bought food like rice and beans etc. for them and they were so thankful for it all.

We also visited the biggest orphanage in Kinshasa, where our longtime friend Madlen is working fulltime since 4 years. We were able to bring them some of our own materials and Anissa’s school gave nice, new toys for them. It was also a great time of fellowship with Madlen and Gino and Clotilde who we worked with when we lived together in Kinshasa a few years back.

Preparation for the upcoming trip to Mushapo are underway, but things are moving slowly as everything in this country. Orgaman, a local company who helped us many times in the past, donated 5 boxes of exercise books for the children. Another dear old-time friend, Ahmed, shipped them for us to Tshikapa, together with 2 boxes we prepared with supplies for the school and food and drinking water for our stay there.

When Ahmed heard, that the wife of the German ambassador wants to visit our school in the bush and that we have to hire taxi motorbikes to get from Tshikapa to Mushapo, he said that he will organize a jeep for that trip. He recently opened a shop in Tshikapa and sent a jeep by boat on the Congo River to Ilebo, from where it’s supposed to drive overland to Tshikapa. Because of the rainy season it doesn’t look like this jeep will make it on time, so Ahmed wants to rent a jeep in Tshikapa on his charge. In a few days we are planning to leave and hope that it doesn’t rain much, so the jeep can actually drive through the bush, quite a challenge in the rainy season.

Mohamed, our long-time pharmacy friend, donated several boxes of medicine to treat malaria and fever, including antibiotics and multivitamins.