Guest house renovations begin

Monday 12 March 2012

Decisions - junk or store it back in the garage

Busy day.  We started on some of the renovation work at the guest house.  First we cleaned out the garage so we have a place to put the stuff we move from the bedrooms as we start painting the ceilings tomorrow.  It seems that several missionaries have used the guest house as a temporary/long term storage for all kinds of things.  Most of this was sorted and much thrown out.  The missionaries have long since departed,  some literally, so with Valentine's guidance, we pitched a lot of junk. 

Jim, Sue, Major

Just before lunch, Valentine returned to the guest house with a man in uniform.  She said the local authorities wanted to see us.  We thought this would be a repeat of a visit from local officials in Diengenga, when they took down on a piece of paper our passport data and information about our visit to the DRC.  But no, Valentine was pulling our leg.  The Protestant chaplain at a local military base,  a Major in the DR Congo Army, dropped by to visit Valentine and wanted to meet the Americans.  The Major and Jim bonded over ranks and military matters, with Valentine translating.

The cistern walls construction starts today

The barrel is just about empty

We finally got some rain this afternoon, but even though this is still the rainy season, they have not had the usual rainfall for being in the equatorial belt.  The cistern at Jacques house is almost dry and they are  having to buy water in 55 gallon drums and haul it to the house from one of only several wells in the neighborhood.  Tough life, even when it comes to the basics.

Tuesday 13 March 2012

Mother hen and eight new chicks

No daylight savings time to worry about on this end.  Just the men’s choir at the local UMC across the lane. They start practicing each morning around 0500 and sometimes there must be an early prayer service.  Sue says she hears what sounds like a hubbub and chattering intermixed with the singing coming through her window where Jim only gets the singing in his window.  Additionally, there are all the animals, chickens, guinea hens and other assorted fowl making early morning noises.  Jim turns in with his ear plugs in so he misses the main noises during the night.  Sue plugs into her MP3 player and listens to an audio book, with a faint chorus of singing a distant background.

Scaffolding kluge

Jim figured out how to reach the 10 foot ceilings with no step ladder available. We will be using two 55 gallon drums, two foot lockers, a 12 foot extension ladder running between the barrels/footlockers and then put walk boards on the ladder.  It will be cumbersome to move around the rooms, but it will fit in all the bedrooms and will allow slow, but safe progress. 

Jim painting in Sue's room

We started the painting today.  The Congolese OSHA probably would have said we had over kill in the scaffolding set up, but it worked and we got Sue’s room’s ceiling painted.  The major problems were the quality of the brushes is terrible and the water stains from a previously leaking roof have burned through multiple layers of paint.  We don’t have a decent trim brush, and painter’s tape.  We’d love to find something like Kilz for sealing the water stains, but one trip in to town today by Francois did not unearth any sealer.  We’ll move to the second bedroom tomorrow, Simon’s.  He just returned today from Tshumbe, a Catholic mission, so we will have to work around him. 

Thursday 15 March 2012

Kananga "super market"

Yesterday we painted the ceiling in Simon’s room.  Today was a rest day, after three days of hard work, in the heat and humidity and some dehydration for Jim with leg cramps.  We did make a trip into town with Valentine and Francois to return filler and buy a putty knife, better paint brushes, a stiff scrub  brush for laundry washing and a few other items.  We stopped at both of the super markets.  The “super markets” consist of one room built into a gas station (one of the three working in town) that had maybe four or five rows of short shelves.  There was an assortment of goods, but not much.  The biggest surprise - we purchased two Coke Lights for about $1.25 a piece.  These are the first sodas we have had since leaving Joburg.   We saved them for later tonight – a treat to anticipate.  We also stopped to pay the electric bill, $25/month for about two hours at night, every other day.

Chinese curbing installation

Along  the road into downtown Kananga, crews are installing curbs and will install sidewalks.  The Chinese are funding  this work.  Any construction we saw in Kinshasa was the same story, the Chinese are paying for the building.  In Zimbabwe and Botswana we saw modern hospitals that had been built by the Chinese.

Friday 16 March 2012

Hallway painting

Another long day painting.  We got Jim’s room ceiling and the long hallway ceiling painted.  All the work involves working off the scaffolding since the ceilings are 10 foot with rectangular vents at the top to allow air circulation and to allow hot air to rise and escape.  Makes for a lot of climbing up and down, but we are getting it done.  Looks like we will have to put a second coat on the ceilings in Simon’s bedroom and Sue’s bedroom.   One coat does not seem to be covering very well. 

Sue painting "the boys" bathroom

Tomorrow we’ll paint the vestibule ceiling and the ceiling in Jim and Simon’s bathroom.

We’re working on blog posts for our weekend/mission travels.  Jim did some of the writing this time and Sue is selecting the pictures, but it is mating the two together and getting it posted that takes time, especially as the connection is slow with 4 computers contending for bandwidth.