Polly Pocket Sushi Strawberry Shortcake

Ten years



When civil war arrived in Kinshasa in 1997, the areas most fought in the city were those close to major routes. One is the road that comes from Bas Congo, and entered the city from Mont Ngafula. Another is the road that leads from Bandundu, along Ndjili airport, and then at the city becomes Boulevard Lumumba, the main road between the watershed districts of Kingasani and Masina.
The Congolese do not often talk about those years. The missionaries tell them, but with admirable serenity, despite everything. Father Stephen, smiling when told to Mont Ngafula came out in the street and stood in the middle between Kabila's army and that of Mobutu, acting as interpreter between the Banyamulenge (Congolese Tutsis) and the Swahili-speaking Kabila's soldiers Mobutu, most of Bandal, who spoke Lingala. Sought to achieve a truce, but did not go well, and says without missing serenity even as he ran like hell, and those moments of blind fear.
"I'm not like the military romantic movies or novels, they have no morals," said Father Santino. He tells us of the ease with which they killed civilians, rapes, the nun who died in the north of the Congo Anuarite for refusing to yield to a soldier. The child soldiers, then, they were also the most ruthless of adults, "killing is a game for them." Tell
always lightly, running fast on individual subjects, "because if you start to think about it he takes the fear. "
For people in our neighborhood were those years of anguish. During the second war, Kabila's soldiers, who by then had taken power in Parcelles were looking for "Rwanda", which then meant to identify anyone who had physical traits similar to those Rwandans. The unfortunate suspicion that had the features they found themselves with a tire soaked in gasoline slipped around his waist like a belt, burned alive and ended on the street.
Those same roads today are full of children. When it rains it is a party, leaving all to play barefoot in the puddles and splashing in the water, risking ogni volta di rimanere fulminati su qualche cavo elettrico mal sotterrato. Scene che raccontano un quartiere che è ancora molto lontano da una qualità della vita dignitosa, almeno secondo le nostre concezioni, ma che è ben lontano anche dalla paura che doveva vivere alcuni anni fa.
Cerco di immaginare come dev'essere stata l'infanzia di quelli che oggi hanno diciotto anni. Sono gli stessi che spesso in strada ti guardano con aria diffidente, lanciando occhiate di sfida che trasudano una voglia insoddisfatta di rivincita nei confronti di quelli che identificano facilmente come ricchi e potenti.
La parola mundele , quando sono loro a usarla, assume tutta la sua forza dispregiativa. Un razzismo di ritorno che, ironicamente, si releases in just one word that came from the distortion of "model", an expression of allegiance with which the colonists called the Belgian Congo.
I wonder how I would act for them, if you were born and raised in Kingasani Congolese in the nineties, among pillages mobutismo in decline and the wars that followed later. How I would have been if I had seen what they have seen them? What would I have felt towards the whites, the powerful, those who have every opportunity and exploit the resources of the Congo to bring wealth abroad, of those that when things get difficult they can get on a plane and leave? It is to be amazed, after all, to think a quella gran parte di ventenni che ci accolgono con amichevolezza e allegria appena ci conoscono.
Quando uno arriva in questi luoghi all'inizio è sopraffatto dagli odori, dai paesaggi urbani spesso disperanti, dagli atteggiamenti più superficiali dell'umanità varia e densissima che ti si presenta davanti.
Più mi sforzo di andare al di là di questo primo velo, cercando di vedere queste strade in una prospettiva di qualche anno, e più mi sembra finalmente di intravvedere anche un bicchiere mezzo pieno, dietro all'apparenza di questo paese a prima vista senza via d'uscita, avvinghiato sull'immobilismo dei suoi mali endemici che, sfortunatamente per i congolesi, si sposano troppo bene con gli interessi dei paesi ricchi.
I'm beginning to understand the joy of these people who grew up in a perennial lack of serenity and peace, has recently found at least hope and stability that are already a vital first surrogate.

"Do not be discouraged." I am reminded of these words, beautiful and totally unexpected, which two years ago I was told by a girl-cop, after his boss had just passed a bad time. Are the same words that Mark, without knowing it, he repeated it to our children who will manage the center at Kingasani. Encouragement we have also supported us, and that goes beyond solving problems with a hard drive or an installation, as the enthusiasm, the sense to belong to a community and the desire to sacrifice themselves to build something will be needed in every aspect of their commitment.
Positive signs are all there, but there is also awareness that the signs here are always precarious and temporary, and that hope may soon become disillusioned, exhausted in a country that expects a lot from this new regime. Is always easier to destroy than to build, and does not take much to scupper the plans and the sacrifices of many, and get back, into the abyss dell'ognun itself.
Sometimes, starting from these trivial considerations, I took a bit 'of no confidence on the true extent of a cooperation project like ours, in a place where you just taken a wrong decision da un potente in occidente per mandare all'aria quello che s'è costruito con fatica in mille progetti. Ne parlavo con Marco, una mattina, tornando da Gombe in uno dei nostri viaggi, e i suoi racconti m'hanno fatto riflettere.
Ritorno da Kinshasa con un po' di fiducia in più. In un paese dove la la voglia di ricostruire si regge su un filo precario, il nostro minuscolo progetto di cooperazione, realizzato dove non c'era nulla, ora mi sembra qualcosa di significativo, non solo per il progetto in sé, ma anche semplicemente per aver portato un'esperienza di cooperazione in più in un contesto in cui non ce n'erano molte, e aver dimostrato che costruire qualcosa insieme è possibile.

Uncensord Waxing Salon

Fireworks (maybe)

Stamattina Debora e Ange, la ragazza che ci prepara le colazioni, parlavano dei rumori che si sentivano ieri dopo la mezzanotte, in lontananza. Secondo loro erano armi da fuoco. Dicono che capiti ogni tanto che la polizia becchi qualche ladruncolo di notte, e si metta a sparare in aria. Nel nostro quartiere è successo anche qualche settimana prima del nostro arrivo.
Stavolta però dicono che i rumori somigliassero più a dei colpi di cannone, simili a quelli del 22 e 23 marzo, e questo non le ha fatte dormire troppo tranquille. Abbiamo controllato, ma in città non è successo proprio nulla. Forse era qualche esercitazione nella zona dell'aeroporto.
Io dormivo, e non ho sentito nulla; la spiegazione più probabile, secondo me, è che fossero some of the fireworks concert at FIKIN, historic international exhibition in the evening becomes the center of nightlife unleashed kinoise (at least according to the stories of who we were).
this morning while we were having this conversation, has run up the wind and the sky hath been blackened. We had to turn on the light, seemed to be lowered again at night. And then came a new burst of water, the third since we are here. Ange says it has already reached the rainy season (with more than one month in advance!), While Father Santino says it is not possible, it is just a couple of rains in more than half of rain that normally bathes the dry season, caused by a climate a bit 'more crazy than usual.
There are no more than once the dry seasons.

Chicken Pox One Leg Only?

The room is ready!




On the first day of work, the focus, we started meeting and knowing the group of neighborhood children (eight boys and a girl, to be precise) then we have followed during All installation work, and which form the audience will be chosen from which the trainers and managers of the center.
The formal presentations are not exactly my forte, in Congo, then, the moments are able to reach formal levels of bombast from nineteenth-century academy. And so, when it was my turn and I had submit to the boys our role in the project and explain our presence, I tried to be as forthright and pragmatic as possible, even at the risk of appearing a little 'cranky.
I tried to tell him something first of the Italian part of the project, as it was pulled forward with the energy and free time of students and voluntary workers, how many people and organizations are committed beyond the three of us we came down here , effort and sacrifice it took to get this far with those ten scatolozzi, scattered in different bags. Maybe not the greatest of courtesy enter in this way, but I think we carry a duty of witness that is more important than courtesy.
The computer center is not a magnanimous gift of some mundele who could afford it, are a contribution to development made by boys and girls who are struggling, study and work like them, albeit in completely different contexts and conditions. This point may seem trivial from Italy, but here it is not at all. Kingasani The boys have never been in Europe, very few exceptions, and they have something very smoky, a bit 'like the idea of \u200b\u200bthe Congo who may have seen Italy without having ever really. Here it often happens that a guy who gave you just met ask if you will give him the camera or the phone: it does this without any malice or evil, simply because he has no idea how valuable those objects for a European if he has to work to buy it, or whether he buys a day. They know that we have the opportunities that are a few orders of magnitude more of them, so they are also difficult to assess.
Being constantly treated like a walking piggy bank, first as a person who is an approach that inevitably creates distance and separation, two different levels with two different levels of dignity: it is something very dangerous in an environment of cooperation from tiring of living for those who you are. I have tried from the outset, as was from my possible, to avoid such situations, to testify that we are on both sides of the same boat, let the kids feel that the center is their before ours, we have equal dignity and equal responsibility so we hear.
Certainly it would be hypocritical and unfair to think our presence alone vanish with the legacies of decades of colonialism, a mundele here, as well as a walking piggy bank, is also a tale of unintended and often unconscious, a piece of history of a bad story. And we must come to terms with this. The looks of distrust, at times of challenge, which happen to get walking down the street are understandable in light of the history of Europeans in this country: we must take, and try to correct a little bit at a time, bringing a witness of a different Europe, and looking at our house to make even the Europe of today different from what it is.
To set a cooperation project, however, it is important that the people we work with you overcome these barriers, and establish personal relationships, trust and shared responsibility. We hope to have succeeded.
Judging by the attitude and the seriousness with which all the boys have faced the commitment these days I believe that if only we made a good start.

We started with the install and check all the hardware, and then continued with the installation of operating systems. On all the PCs we have made both Windows and Ubuntu, trying to spread free software and all its meanings are not only technical and at the same time, however, make the center attractive and usable immediately in a country where no one yet has ever heard of Linux.
We alternate on the computer to hack the long lectures on the board, summarizes in a few afternoons several months at a university. And at every stage we were always accompanied by a constant background music, and quite peculiar, blending the rhythms of Congolese music played by the neighborhood bar, the singing of the choir that was evidence in the church, and the cries of the children of the parcels next to ours. An impeccable sound summary of the spirit of the neighborhood.
also breaks current which have happened on average every two days, are always accompanied by a funny background sounds: a cry "eeehhh" choir of all children in the neighborhood, who celebrate the event (whether it goes away, and when he returns). They help us unconsciously, in their style, and to inform when we have to attack the router to the battery, and when we can pull it off.
The day before yesterday we finally completed the task of installing, connecting the cable that connects the classroom to the Internet: Ethernet connection to one hundred and forty feet underground, on two sections connected by a small switch that acts as a bridge to the other side of the road, where we have the wireless antenna that connects to the provider of Kinshasa.
After half a day spent pulling cables and check crimping, the ping response that was printed on the screen m'è seemed more beautiful than a poem.
Now the room is ready, you just have to clean up, end the training, and then we completed our part, and you only have to open the center and get it to work and live ... less is done!

Flucloxacillin Alcohol

Solidarity Photo


Take pictures in the Democratic Republic of Congo is still an act to be done cautiously. Remains in force an old law that prevents taking pictures in public places, although in theory this rule is no longer compatible with the new constitution, for the police and then a car Photo drawn is a violation of the law, and an excellent pretext to intimidate some unfortunate and to be a bit 'of money. If they can seize the car then the price increases: they know well the value of a camera, and they also want to have it give us thirty or forty dollars, of course it put the memory card with photos seized.
The best technique, if you really want to do a few photos in a controlled area is to identify the chief of police officers and pay before you start shooting. Or taking pictures of the car in the race, when there is open road ahead. Or, better yet, keep the car off in his pocket and he left the picture.
This is what we learn from "tourist" a Kinshasa.
La situazione di chi da queste parti fa il giornalista o il reporter è invece un po' più complicata. Oggi mentre passavamo in macchina sul Boulevard du 30 Juin a Gombe abbiamo incontrato una manifestazione di fotografi e giornalisti, che bloccavano civilmente buona parte del viale nel senso di marcia opposto al nostro. Saranno stati qualche centinaio al massimo, marciavano tutti con la macchina fotografica appesa al collo, e degli striscioni che chiedevano l'impegno del governo perché cessi l'uso delle armi contro i fotografi, e si puniscano gli omicidi.
Io avevo la mia macchina in tasca e avrei tanto voluto scattargli una foto di solidarietà, poi ho dato un'occhiata al numero di poliziotti in giro, e al traffico bloccato we had before, and I thought that was enough thought. Santino tonight
Father told us "oh yes, they have recently killed two." I did not know, but in fact is true: in the Kivu region of eastern Congo where there are areas still not pacified, journalists are still victims of scheduled execution, which the government apparently unable either to prevent or to punish and suppress.
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=23252

Today we are going in the return path in the opposite direction, after half an hour since we had crossed the event. We expected to find the queue, and instead traffic was flowing, a large police cordon was blocked the event and led all the photographers on the sidewalk, the parade was over.

How To Make A Legit 3d Cell Without Food

From Gombe to Kingasani





Among the mission where housing and Gombe, the center of Kinshasa, there are twenty-five miles of various roads and humanity. The trip takes over an hour's time, and a bit 'of good will.
It begins with the mission, in an inland area of \u200b\u200bthe Kingasani neighborhood. The streets here are narrow streets of sand, which can be reached only by off-road vehicles. There are taxi-bus or taxi-express since arriving here, nor car private, off-road part of our parish, or the occasional jeep someone who comes from other quarters. The density of shacks crammed with people is among the highest I've seen in Kinshasa.
The nearest paved road is the Boulevard Lumumba, which is the road that connects the airport with the city Ndjili: Distrito three kilometers from the mission, and is also the closest point where you can take a taxi.
For one of our trips villas we get there on foot, accompanied by Blaise, a boy of the parish, which makes us be your guide. We cross the neighborhood for a walk, it really is impossible to go unnoticed. The children run towards us all the time, make a big festa, ci battono il cinque e poi si guardano la mano per vedere se s'è sbiancata. Ci chiamano “Santino” finché siamo nella zona della parrocchia, o semplicemente mundele quando oltrepassiamo il confine parrocchiale. Samuele viene spesso apostrofato anche come “Jesus”, nell'ilarità generale. Fra i più grandi invece ci sono anche quelli che ci guardano con aria di sfida, in modo non particolarmente amichevole. Cerco di rispondere a tutti con sorrisi pacifici, non c'è molto altro che si possa fare.
Si cammina guardando per terra: la sabbia è piena di immondizia, ed è meglio fare attenzione a dove si mettono i piedi. Di tanto in tanto l'immondizia è smaltita in qualche falò that pollutes the air. Shortly before
Boulevard skirt Poverelle's Hospital of Bergamo is a very large, built before the neighborhood grew around it. It covers all the health needs of an area of \u200b\u200beight hundred thousand inhabitants, and the only maternity ward is twenty-five shares per day. Everything is managed by three part-time doctors (everyone is in the hospital three days a week), nurses handyman, and a lot of art of getting by.
Once we stop at the Boulevard at the corner of the street while Blaise is looking for a taxi. We send him alone to negotiate, so that the driver does not see that there are also three mundele , otherwise the price rise for sure. Back ten minutes later, with an average of battered taxis: an old Mazda with broken windshields and body ailments. Stickers on the dashboard of the usual "Respect the driver because it leads to your soul" and "God is my strength", plus another sticker that had not yet seen, which reads "Life is hard, man must fight." The car park, even looking around, it seems not to be changed one iota in these two years. The same old Volkswagen vans and Ford to act as a taxi-bus with portholes on the sides cut out with a whisk and wooden stools placed at a density inhumane. The same-old truck pollutes air, laden with sacks of flour mixed with people, e le stesse macchine scassate a fare servizio di taxi-express . L'evoluzione più notevole, che salta subito all'occhio, è un inizio di applicazione del codice della strada: non ci sono più persone fuori dai furgoncini e dai camion, nelle auto non si può andare in più di cinque persone, sui sedili anteriori bisogna indossare le cinture (nel nosro taxi sono rotte, il conducente le ha rimesse su con un nodo, ma comunque ci sono), e sparsi in giro per la città ci sono addirittura una manciata di semafori, tutti funzionanti (anche se non so cosa succede quando va via la corrente).
Prendiamo il boulevard in direzione centro, ed arriviamo alla fine del viale, dove c'è una grande rotonda con al centro il monumento a Lumumba, e dove inizia la parte più centrale della città. Due anni fa quella rotonda era un'immensa discarica/inceneritore a cielo aperto, e mi ricordo che proprio in quel punto Ngindu mi disse “benvenuto a Kinshasa”. Ora non c'è più immondizia, un altro segno degli sforzi governativi per mettere ordine.
Certo, questo è uno sforzo più di facciata che di sostanza: la raccolta dell'immondizia in città non c'è ancora, e i rifiuti che non sono qua finiscono evidentemente da qualche altra parte non troppo lontano. Però almeno il povero Patrice può avere un po' di decoro intorno al suo monumento.
Continuiamo attraversando la zona di Avenue de l'Université, where was our old center, and continue along the stadium, a huge building that looks a spaceship fell there in the middle by mistake. It was here (or better in the old stadium, which is next door) which Muhammad Ali regained the title from George Foreman in the historic match in which a crowd of Congolese (then called Zaire) was rooting for him, shouting in Lingala "Ali Buma Ye."
continue beyond the stage towards the center of Gombe, along the National Assembly (parliament), and then the National Centre of Hygiene, or rather what remains. He was one of the most beautiful and efficient buildings in the city as a legacy of Belgian colonization. I remember Ngindu ci raccontava di quando da ragazzo andò lì a vaccinarsi prima di partire per l'Italia. Negli anni 90 poi fu semidistrutto dalla folla inferocita durante uno dei pillages , ed ora resta un imponente rudere annerito, occupato da una folla di senzatetto.
Arriviamo all'Institut Superieur du Commerce, dove andiamo a trovare Ngindu, e poi ci dirigiamo verso il Boulevard du 30 Juin, il viale centrale della Gombe, dove si trovano tutti gli edifici e le ambasciate più importanti.
Quella della Spagna porta ancora qualche segno delle cannonate del marzo scorso, quando fu colpita inavvertitamente dall'artiglieria pesante dell'esercito governativo che stava cercando di abbattere un cecchino dei miliziani di Bemba, il capo dell'opposizione defeated in elections last autumn. Mark tells us of the tension of those days when the airport was closed, and the sound of gunfire at Gombe felt up to Kingasani.
It is said that Bemba had an army of six hundred militia, of which three hundred were killed in those days by the government, while others are missing. Since then he has not more shot in Kinshasa, and the political situation finally seems stable.
And indeed, at least on the surface, are several signs that suggest a more relaxed city than I remembered: the blue helmets are not going to watch with tanks, you meet them than the normal pick-up up. Outside the headquarters of MONUC non ci sono più le barricate di sacchetti di sabbia, sono rimaste solo quelle di filo spinato. Ci sono molti più poliziotti in giro rispetto a due anni fa, ma finora nessuno di loro, fuori dall'aeroporto, ha mai provato a fermarci per spillarci dei soldi. Uno sul boulevard m'ha schernito chiamandomi ciccione in lingala (almeno stando alla traduzione di Blaise), ma anche lui poi è passato di lungo. In altri tempi ci avrebbe come minimo chiesto i documenti, e avrebbe cominciato a questionare su ogni appiglio.
Al mercato di souvenir e oggetti d'arte in fondo a Boulevard du 30 Juin ci siamo arrivati verso ora di pranzo, e non c'era quasi nessun cliente fra i banchi, a parte noi e un casco blu russo in libera uscita. Eppure quasi nessuno dei venditori trying to get our attention, or at least no one showed the insistence hungry I remembered a sign that maybe you see some extra cash around.
signals are only superficial, in a country where the living conditions of people in two years there is hardly moves, but the fact that small changes are noticed already I feel something unexpected, which is worth remark.

Academic Poster Dimension

Last night our neighbors seemed to be a dance party: loud music, annoyingly distorted by a system apparently used beyond its capabilities, but still understandable and cheerful. Every now and then charmed a song, and felt a noisy crowd, who complained at once, for a few seconds, until the music resumed.
We went to bed around eleven, and the music is not mentioned at all to stop. Never mind, it was still early, people will also have fun sometimes! I fell asleep with a lot of hard work, and then I woke up at about two: the music was always there, without any hint or end nor even less to fall in volume.
came to my mind every time in Rome my neighbors must have thought insults like those I had in my head ... We must be tolerant!
At 5 and a half I woke up again, the bells of the first use, as every morning. This time the bells were mixed to the music of our neighbors, who was always there to run strong, steady and impassive as the water of the river Congo. At that point I instinctively started to call myself that went off the current ... possible that when you need it never happens?
At 7 I got up, shower and breakfast, always with music. We ask for information to Debora. There are two possible explanations: either it is a religious vigil, which can go on for twenty-four hours or a funeral. In the latter case, the music can go on for three days in a row. If electricity shall be necessary to organize with the earplugs.

How Do Doctors Confirm Hernia

Lullaby "Our" neighborhood

Breast Images Breast Bud

Mimi

One of the objectives of the mission in Kingasani, together with the installation of the center, is also re-establish communication with our partners in the old project, see his friends again , resume broken threads. This morning we went to visit Ngindu, the Institut Superieur du Commerce, Economic University of Kinshasa. While we were there we had a chat with the vice-chancellor, who has now asked whether the ISF can do something to install some 'PC' d'occasion "in their computer lab, which is dreadfully short of machines and means ... next round even to make a visit to the campus of Kinshasa, and I imagine that similar demands will come out of there too. Projects to do, willing and able, he would find plenty of them.
We hope to find time to meet with the other NGO partners with whom we worked in the previous project. One of them, unfortunately, we can not see her again. Mimi, the teacher of cutting and sewing of the NGO, passed away yesterday. It was she who welcomed us the day I arrived in Kinshasa, Congolese cooking my first meal at his house. She was the one who has sewn a shirt that I brought home the Congolese with me, the gift with which I was greeted by the NGO when I left the Congo. He was a person who ispirava subito fiducia, col suo sorriso e la sua calma. Un filo che s'è spezzato davvero troppo presto.

How To Roll Neckerchief

Wednesday, August 8 - Rain in Kinshasa


Martedì mattina atterriamo a Ndjili con un'ora d'anticipo, oppure con ventitré ore di ritardo, a seconda dei punti di vista. Avvertiamo alla svelta Marco con un sms, quando siamo ancora in aereo, per non rischiare di ritrovarci coi bagagli ritirati a dover passare la dogana prima che lui sia arrivato.
Affrontiamo il controllo passaporti con tutta la cirscospezione del caso (credo d'aver fatto una testa così a Samuele e Daniele, dopo i travagli capitati in passato) ma stavolta fortunatamente va tutto liscio. Superiamo tre controlli di passaporto senza che praticamente neanche ci guardino la lettera di invito, ed anche il controllo della vaccinazione contro la febbre gialla è solo una formalità. Ci avevano detto che il governo sta cercando di mettere “ordine” a Ndjili, e qualche cambiamento in effetti si nota, non solo per i cartelli ripitturati.
Superati i controlli siamo all'area bagagli, Marco è già lì che ci aspetta. Anche qua si nota un po' più di ordine: non c'è più la ressa di due anni fa, e in mezzo ai nastri c'è solo gente in uniforme (non so se rallegrarmene in realtà). Rimaniamo più di un'ora a vedere valigie, buste e scatoloni passare... ma dei nostri otto bagagli non c'è traccia. Quando si ferma il nastro e si chiudono i cancelli are undecided whether to laugh or get depressed, and then bet on the latter option. The Sisters of Mauritius who were in Addis Ababa with us are also without their luggage, and also do not know if this is a sign of or even more alarming. There is a strong suspicion that perhaps all'Ethiopian there was a small misunderstanding with the flight yesterday that we lost ... Investigating and asking around a bit 'we end up in the infamous room dell'OFIDA, customs airport. I recognize now a pile of suitcases family arrived the day before, comfortably (my dear boy Ticket Ethiopian airport, if you read these lines know that you were right, an hour of change is more than enough, not only in theory, transfer baggage, even when the flight arrives late origin).
fetch six out of eight, without picking up tips to anyone. There are only the bag with the printer, and the suitcase with all my clothes. Asking again we end up around a man Ethiopian, who was looking for "Monsieur Archangels." He gently put aside those two bags because there were some pockets that were not closed padlock. We go with the six airport baggage, without them there to open up customs checks (after a few tips), and we take them in the car. Then Marco and I go to the second floor of the departure, Ethiopian office to retrieve my two missing. Fate will be that every time I come Ndjili those stairs to let me do I, for one reason or another! I take my bags in impeccable condition, and Marco leave a small tip to the Ethiopian man, without him has claimed.
short, within a couple of hours we are away from the airport, having shelled out a total of pennies, with all eight of our luggage (despite all the adverse variables such as the masses of lost bags at Heathrow these days the missed connections in Addis Ababa, and the Congolese customs).
The first meeting with Congolese officials and police to leave me skin feeling something has changed really. But it's just a feeling, it is also possible that nothing has changed and has simply had bad luck two years ago (so much so that just a couple of policemen trying to break the boxes for a picture taken by Danielle when we were already outside the airport). Or maybe this time it was all a bit 'easier because we were better prepared. Or perhaps, more rational explanation, the crosses that have both really helped.
We leave the airport and take Boulevard Lumumba, on the city, what anyone has passed this way will not forget anymore. The same highway, the same humanity that populates it varies, the same dirty sand. Well before the roundabout with the monument to Lumumba, turn left to Kingasani, the district where located the mission that we hosted. It is the district where we were two years ago to deliver some boxes of medicines to the hospital of the poor man of Bergamo. A quarter of those are not easy to explain in words: an expanse of slums, with narrow streets interspersed with sand and rubbish, full of people. People everywhere, especially children, and here and there even a dog or some chicken. The water is very little, people are going to take a walk with bins and carts "pousse-pousse" walking along a few kilometers. The electrical supply is there, but Mark tells us that is currently disconnected, for some days.
When we enter the part of the district covered by the parish's mission, all the children start to urlarci "Santino! Santino! " (Santino is the missionary who has created out of nothing the parish). This chorus takes us to the entrance of the mission, a true oasis in masonry, where we have beds, toilets, food, a wireless Internet radio to the provider in the city, and a generator that can go on for some the evening hours (the time to pump water from the cans into the tank).
In the middle of the night I wake to the sound of the wind, very strong, followed by a short burst of rain that lasts several hours. This is really the last thing I expected in the middle of the dry season! The rain in Kinshasa, and the streets of wet sand I had never seen. If this is the effect of Cross began to be quite 'impressed. The next morning Father
Santino calms me: in the four-month dry season a "little" rain is forecast, and the combined event has run on the evening that we arrived. It does not rain again until at least mid-September. Maybe.

How To Customize My Bmx Bike

Monday, August 6 - Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa we only have an hour to change. Last night at check-in Ethiopian boy told us, " theory in an hour is sufficient to transfer baggage, and this I do not really encouraged us very much. Obviously then the flight left just an hour late ... we arrive at the gate of the flight to Kinshasa when he is given as "boarding", but the hostess told us that the flight is closed, and we remain in Ethiopia until the following day. Reassure us on baggage, which will be held at the airport in Addis Ababa and boarded with us the next day.

The setback, to be honest, not that we mind that much. We will have a day to visit Addis Ababa, and above all a chance in more than our eight bags (full of computer and work materials, as well as clothes and food) we all follow together. We go to the transit desk

Ethiopian, and within an hour we find ourselves in a brand new shuttle in the direction of a nice hotel in the center, insieme alle altre persone che hanno perso la stessa coincidenza (un gruppetto piuttosto variegato in cui spiccano due suore delle Mauritius e un enorme uomo d'affari congolese che somiglia a B.B. King). Pranziamo e poi andiamo a fare un giro con un tassista che ci guida per la città.

Inizio presto a realizzare di essere tornato in un'altra dimensione: i bambini scalzi che mendicano in strada, la puzza dei vecchi diesel, le baracche che vendono di tutto... Mi viene irrazionalmente un groppo in gola, che lascio scorrere via.

Per tanti altri versi però Addis Abeba mi sembra anche la prova di uno sviluppo possibile: è l'Africa così come me l'immaginavo due anni fa, quando ero a Fiumicino in attesa di partire per il Congo.

È un posto in cui all'aeroporto non bisogna pagare nessuno, nelle strade ci sono marciapiedi, segnali e strisce pedonali, i taxi sono colorati e hanno una licenza, le auto sono vecchie ma sono riempite con un numero normale di persone, le catapecchie si alternano a case dignitose, esistono i trasporti pubblici. Non sono solo segni di un benessere economico che si sta diffondendo, almeno nella capitale, ma sono anche tanti piccoli segni che esiste una base condivisa di convivenza civile, pur con tutte le difficoltà e i limiti di un paese del terzo mondo.

Quella stessa base che invece manca troppo spesso in un paese come il Congo, che forse ha ancora troppo vivo il ricordo di trent'anni di dittatura e saccheggio mobutismo of, and is trying to build a civil society over the wounds of civil war.

Raven Riley Mobile Vídeos

Sunday, August 5 - Starting over ... Two years ago

We arrive at Heathrow at the end of a long Sunday to board the flight to Addis Ababa of 1:50 at night, a time at least unusual. Fiumicino to me is like a second office, and yet I had never seen at that hour, and I am a bit 'confused ... I do not know if it's just for the night as the airport, or if the destination is not the usual ones. Perhaps it is natural that the places of transit and face identity change depending on final destination.

We leave for another project, another center di formazione informatica, questa volta a Kingasani, una baraccopoli appena fuori Kinshasa, ed anche per cercare di riallacciare i fili del vecchio progetto, e tornare a salutare i partner e gli amici.

Due anni fa ero partito da solo (Claudio e Monica avevano il volo il giorno seguente), e mi ricordo bene il mio stato d'animo, con un fondo di agitazione cieca di uno che non ha troppo idea di dove sta andando.

Quest'anno siamo io Samuele e Daniele, e partiamo tutti e tre insieme. L'atmosfera è scherzosa, eppure un po' di tensione ce l'ho anche stavolta, una tensione che ci vede piuttosto bene (almeno spero), proprio perché un'idea di dove stiamo andando ora ce l'ho.

Ci siamo muniti di three crosses, more or less noticeable depending on what we found, for hanging around his neck, as we have asked the missionaries who are willing to take at the airport should be a way to make things easier for customs.

We try to wear them and burst out laughing looking at us. I'm not really a believer, but I really hope they give us a hand.

Like Woman Sitting On Me

http://www.generazioney.com/page37/page37.html