Centre ville

I finally got to go into the city on Tuesday. What a fun trip! I live about 45min to an hour from the centre du ville and driving in Kinshasa is always an adrenaline rush. I had to go in to make copies of the books I will be giving to my students—now close to 80!—and to register myself at the U.S. Embassy. I wasn’t able to go and say hi to the Swedish one, but I already registered online for that one—and more on that subject at another time, I think I will be going Tuesday to meet the Ambassador! Cross your fingers!

We went with some of the other people that work around here—there is a project called CEPHY founded by the EU (they work on ensuring that schools throughout Kinshasa and the DRC are teaching sanitary classes) and one of their employees also had to run some errands (although theirs were a lot more important than mine—dropping off letters of correspondence in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Health J).

We were able to go to the U.S. Information Center (aka—the U.S. Cultural Institute) and I was able to meet with the administrative director. I was lucky enough to have been able to get the director’s name at the U.S. Embassy—but it was a little more difficult than I imagined. The best part was that they were so welcoming once I was inside the center, although I had to give them my passport to hold and me escorted at all times—a lot of precautions. I got a lot of materials from the director for my courses and many contacts for the work I’m doing in terms of the Monkole Hospital expansion program.

The best part of the trip was that I was able to go shopping for some fabric that I will be able to use to make the special dresses they wear here!

I also finally got to walk on the street like normal, of course someone was with me, but people wouldn’t stop and stare like they do in my neighborhood because I’m such a rare sight—there were other people there from different countries. It’s almost surreal when you see people from the Jordanian army in uniform because this is their mission, or UN personnel from all over, in their official cars because this is the conflict region they have been sent to. Ironically I saw most of these people in the huge super market across the street from the US Embassy, where I finally got some hairspray (I didn’t think I would need it and then I didn’t think it would be that difficult to find if I did need it—I forgot about the hair we are dealing with here J).