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I told Pete (my predecessor) that I felt very tired one afternoon last week. Or, rather he saw my eyelids drooping low as he was explaining the asset depreciation schedule. He told me that it’s normal to be tired for the first month or so in a new place like this. It happened to him. There are many stresses that aren’t always on the surface but they are there. There’s the stress of adjusting to the culture, the languages, the climate, the living situation, etc. He told me not to take things too fast, but to allow myself some time to adjust, time to rest. It will take some time to build a foundation, to regain full strength. That’s about the wisest advice that I have heard in awhile.

For the first week that I was here the electricity and internet at the house and at the office were nearly perfectly functional. Now that Pete has left for Kinshasa, some things have gone south. The electricity in the apartment cut out a few nights ago for about two hours. We lit some candles and fortunately our meal was warm enough to eat. The lights were out in the surrounding city so it appeared to be a widespread blackout – not uncommon. Then the following night it happened again. I quickly noticed that the nearby buildings were still lit. Every time I ask someone what is going on I get a different story. “The cable has broken underground in a place it hasn’t broken for 40 years.” “The electric company has cut it off until everyone pays them something.” “They’ve located the break and dug down to it but now it will take two or three weeks to fix.” “They still don’t know where the problem is.” Apparently it’s big news around town that our building is out and the stories vary by the hour.

Fellow HOPE expatriate staff say that there are good weeks and there are not so good weeks living here in Congo. I am not sure how this one classifies yet, but I think it’s somewhere in the middle. Food is expensive here and so anytime the power is out long enough to cause the food to rot… that’s not going to be a banner day. In whole though, I am still doing very well.

The building that I live in now was built by the Belgians who used to live here. They built most of the city, or at least they designed it and supervised Congolese workers. This building had to be quite magnificent for it’s time. The Belgian School is also located in the building complex. The elevator doesn’t work (doesn’t appear to have worked since shortly after the Belgians left) and from the small parking garage it’s about 16 half flights of stairs up to the apartment door. Then once you’re in the apartment it’s an immediate flight down to the main living area and another flight down into the kitchen. It’s a unique design, one that you can spend an hour contemplating and still not quite understand how it all fits together. It’s like having a stairmaster built into your life and it makes for a good work out.

The Belgians also built large houses all around town. Some are still inhabited, some are in disrepair, and some have been reclaimed by the jungle. This was apparently quite a cosmopolitan place into the 1950’s. John Huston filmed part of “The African Queen” with Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart here. There is a fair amount of now crumbling art deco architecture, including our office building which had to be a pretty stylish house in its day. The entire city is a colonial relic in varying states of decay.

It feels like a good place to build something new. I’m a coach for this team of local leaders who are building a microfinance lending institution. Thanks to their efforts, there are about 1,000 people so far who are working to build their small businesses, their families, homes and churches. Foreigners have been the ones who have had the resources to build here in the past. Now with peace and with the help of HOPE it is a season for local people to build their livelihoods from the foundation up.

UPDATE: As of Saturday evening the power is back on. The main line is not yet fixed, but some tenants got together and bought an 80 foot cable that they connected to a light pole in front of the building. The strung it into the front door and down the stairs into the electrical room. The building is now plugged in, ever so feebly. The power dips and bows around mealtimes as people are using electric cooking appliances. We’re back to boiling our own water and eating hot meals at home!