BrianJBecker.com

I usually have my hair cut by a friend.  My last haircut was in Kinshasa some months ago and it was done by Donata, a Swiss friend who directed the International Red Cross in Congo.  Lately my long curly hair has been driving me nuts.  I enjoyed the bozo the clown look in college but with the heat here and the lack of running water it’s not at all desirable.  My problem: I don’t have any friends in Kisangani who know how to cut my hair.  I’m not sure that I trust any of the thousands of little salon kiosks to cut straight blond white-guy hair either.  It doesn’t help any that I have seen my share of European men walking around with freak nasty haircuts.  Finally I came to the conclusion that it’s just a question of the lesser of two evils… long and curly or short and hideous.

Today I decided that I just wanted my hair cut at any cost.  My friend Dieu told me that the best barber shop in town could do the job.  I built up some courage, combed down my bed head, put some shoes on and out we went.  The place is called Dr. Jaff and it looked alright on the outside (decent sized colorful wooden shed).  Inside it was small and cramped but they had sturdy wooden chairs to sit on and there were a lot of mirrors on every wall (mirrors are rare here), so at least I’d be able to see the damage from all angles.  I asked if the doctor was in.  They said he was out but that a nurse would take care of me.  They asked me what style I wanted and I tried to explain short but not bald.  There were hundreds of drawings of haircuts for black men on the wall and one poster of four white guys that looked like the New Kids on the Block.  I pointed to one that looked semi-normal and said, “kind of like that”.  A few times the generator running all of the electric clippers shut down and the barber had to run outside to adjust it.  I enjoyed the sparks that shot out of the power strip that was nailed to the counter.  There was a fan on that kept us all cool but blew my hair all over the place and into my face as the barber was cutting it.

The final analysis:  this might be the best and cheapest barbershop haircut I’ve ever had.  I’m so glad that I got over myself and took the plunge.  My hair is very short and I am very happy about it!

Dear Friends & Family,

Greetings from Kisangani in The Democratic Republic of the Congo, at the geographic center of Africa!  For at least the next two years, this will be my home.  It has been just over two months since I left my home in San Diego to pursue a new job and ministry opportunity with HOPE International (www.hopeinternational.org) leading their microfinance institution here in Kisangani.  Getting from there to here has been a major journey.  I sold most everything I own and packed four heavy suitcases to bring along.  Then I lugged those things to Chicago, Lancaster, Philadelphia, Kinshasa and finally a month ago to Kisangani.  I can’t complain, but I also cannot recommend that luggage-laden itinerary to anyone.  After all of that it felt wonderful to unpack and gather my thoughts about all of the great new colleagues that I have met and all of the technical microfinance knowledge that I have been taught.  I do miss life in San Diego, but I feel confirmation every day that this is where I am supposed to be and this is what I am supposed to be doing.Life has now settled into a regular workweek routine –at least as routine as life here can get.  Just about every day here presents challenge(s) and few things work out as planned.  I am learning the kind of patience and flexibility that should well endure life’s difficulties wherever I find myself in the future.  It’s a fringe benefit of working in the Congo.

Kisangani has a dinosaur hydroelectric plant leftover from the colonial era.  In those days the Belgian colonizers used African labor to tame the jungle and build a cosmopolitan city for themselves.  Anyone with black skin was relegated to the shanties in the outskirts by sundown.  The colonial period was followed by the rule of Mobutu Sese Seko.  Mobutu was heavily funded by France and the USA.  (He knew how to flatter US Presidents with flamboyant visits wearing hats made from jungle cats and promised to align with the West in the Cold War.)  He invested almost none of those millions anywhere but in his own pocketbook.  The roads deteriorated and all former colonial possessions were given to his cronies.  The building I now live in is owned and managed by the children of one such man.  Somehow through all of the mismanagement the hydroelectric plant still sends out 230 volts much of the time.

Life here, like life everywhere else, is colored by the place’s past.  Congo is struggling to become something more than the sum of its troubled past.  This is a land of hard working people and tremendous natural wealth.  My life here is shaped by the same colonial history and I am always working to let people know that I am here to do something different.  I am coaching local staff as together we work to provide small loans to women and men in the marketplace.  We are facilitating the bottom-up growth of the local economy by making the same basic baking services that you enjoy available to the poor.  The goal is to empower people to use their own gifts and energies to find a way out of poverty.  We provide the spark and then we encourage the honesty, integrity, and values of Christian community that promote holistic development.

I’m going to try to keep these updates short.  I’m writing regularly and posting photos on my website (www.brianjbecker.com).   Let me be clear that my goal in sending these updates is not to solicit your financial support.  Of course, I’ll be writing about what I am doing here and if you would like more information about HOPE Intl. I am happy to provide that to you directly.  That said, if you would like to contribute in a small but significant way to my work, you may consider buying a calculator that will be used in community bank meetings by our staff for years to come.  I think that might be a cool thing for some of you.  I’ll put more details about that on my website.

Please do not hesitate to contact me.  E-mails from friends and family are a tremendous blessing.  I’d be happy to hear from you anytime!  Thank you for your thoughts and prayers on my behalf!

Sincerely yours,