This sundaymorning we missed out on the first ceremony on french because we had a problem with the car and therefore we attended the one on kikongo. I´ve a lovehate releationship to these ceremonies. I dislike them because they go on forever and I only understand about twenty words. But I love them because it is then the older population of Matadi attend, for example the old ladies with wooden stick, colourful clothes and more gaps then teeth in their mouths. Also it is there that the fantastic choirs are performing. In the beginning of the ceremony I were performing a little bit on my own and played guitar and sang Swedish songs as “jag blir så glad när jag ser dig” and “ han håller hela världen I sin hand”. Add that I followed and repeated after them when they were leaving their collect and you might understand that I became pretty popular.

At the Thursday it was an election for the churchpresident. This was being done behind closed doors and therefore there were no observers, which was my title there, allowed and I found myself once again having some sparetime to spend in the peaceful cosy house of Gunnel. This is yet another thing that is different from Sweden. At home it´s often the case that no one wants to be in charge and it can even be difficult to find members to the board in churches or other compounds but here it´s almost like a real presidentelection with campaigns with propaganda, bulkSMS. At about four o´clock I started to here some blow whistles and singing and I and Pauline went to se where the sound came from. The resource was the neighbours that was celebrating the result from the election. It was the current president that was chosen for another period and because the neighbours were his family this was obviously good news for them. They where singing and dancing and their happiness had effect on me too so I joined them in their celebrations and danced, clapped my hands and sang with them.

The finalcermony was supposed to be hold on the thursdayevening but because this with organising and keeping time isn´t really the congoleses best side it was hold on the fridaymorning. It was then supposed to start at half past eight, in the end my watch was showing half past twelve when we took our seats in the church to begin the ceremony. Meanwhile we had been waiting I found a englishteacher that spoke really good English. It was actually the first englishteacher I´ve met here that speaks well at all. At two o´clock the church was finished and we went home to gunnels house to eat some dinner and rest before the journey back home the day after.

Then on the saturdaymorning we went to Matadi again. Me and Yapeco were joined by a nice reverend from the synode and together with their good company and the beautiful sights outside my carwindow I had a very pleasant journey. At five o´clock in the afternoon we were safe back in Matadi. I can conclude that it have been a wonderful week where I met many lovely people, both Swedish and Congolese, seen a lot of Congos countryside and had a really peaceful and relaxing time. Now I look forward to a new week with englishteaching. To be continued…

Wednesday me and Bertil went on a trip to Kingoyi. It is a route of only 100 km, but it took us four hours to get there. The road was in a unacceptable state by Swedish standards, but I was in a great mood to be traveling again and to see the African countryside. We were traveling in Gunnels big pickup and besides me and Bertil there were two drivers and a woman with her child who got a lift out with us to their beanplantage. The view on this journey was unbelievably beautiful with mountains, plantage and beautiful colours. Here on the countryside I also noticed the poverty more than I have done before, probably because it just is more obvious here. The day for the people that live here consists basically of going up with the sun, work all day out on their farms and then come home when the sun falls and start cooking supper, which is the day’s first and only meal. Since there isn’t any electricity in these villages they cook it over an open fire. Despite all, people seem to be happy and positive but I cannot help but think that it seems like an incredibly heard life with much work and little rest and pleasure for them and I am grateful to have been born in Sweden, in the late nineties and into the family that I have.

Kingoyi was a cute little village with beautiful scenery all around it but it was a bit cold because of its location up in the mountains. After eating some food in the old missionstation I took my goodbyes of Bertil who would stay to continue his journey from there into Congo-Brazzaville the next week. Me and the two drivers and a few passengers who hitched a ride with us then began our return to Luozi. It was a great trip back to Luozi where I spoke some French with the nice drivers and passengers or sat in peaceful quiet and just looked out of my window and were philosophising. Days like this, I am so glad I made this travel down here to Congo and took the opportunity that were given to me to see this country and culture in a way that I could never possibly have done otherwise.

The journey to Luozi began at the Friday because we would first travel to Kimphese and meet up Bertil Åhman who would also attend to the conference. We arrived in the evening after some problems with the car but when we arrived Bertil was waiting with a tasty eveningmeal in the pilotvilla which is, just as it sounds, a villa where pilots lived in the old days. It is located in a neighborhood where it before were living missionaries, doctors and teachers. It was a real little idyll, and I was overjoyed to be speaking Swedish again, have it peaceful and quiet around me and to discover a small Swedish librarie.

On Saturday, when we had traveled a few kilometers from Kimphese on a good asphalt road we took off on the bumpy, winding dirt road that would take us up to Luozi. There were great views from the window and the road was in really good condition for being this road and 100 kilometer long road took ONLY 2.5 hours but when we arrived at the ferry so began our bad luck. A vehicle that would run on the ferry could not handle the ride and got stuck with the front wheels on the ferry and back wheels in the water and mud. We arrived at the ferry location at 12 and then it was just to sit nicely and wait. Because the road was so dirty we were quite covered with dust, and I was no longer the moundele with blonde hair but an orange figure with red hair. So the first thing we did when we arrived was to refresh ourselves in the Congoriver. Then time went on, hour after hour passed and no success with a rescuework could be seen and there was also no information, time frame or similar. The amazing thing in this situation was that the Congolese did not become irritated or stressed, instead they took it all with a great calmness, sat quietly and wait or walked around happily and making conversation. I had also a really nice time and talked with the Congolese, my conversations in French are getting longer and longer, walked along the beach or sat in the sun and read. At five o´clock we finally were allowed on to the ferryboat and on the ten-minuteride that transported us across the river to Luozi. There was Gunnel and waited for us and we went to her home and ate wonderful food. Bananaplants, Kwanga, beef, rice and a deliocious saka-saka.

Monday morning I was “free” because there would be lot of decisions at the Synode, and I have neither voting rights nor can speak Kikongo. Instead I went to the market with mama Pauline. Pauline is a woman who works for Gunnel here. She is a lovely person and because the women in the market know her they gave me permission to photograph so now I have a lot of wonderful photos from there. In the evening I attended, however, in conference. First we went through the financial report and then the service began. All in all, I was sitting on a hard pew in five hours. This is challening my patience i can tell you. organization is certainly an area that needs to be changed here to help them to streamline their operations and develop faster. Any decision takes forever and it’s way to many people who want to make their voices heard, necessary or not.

After it was over we went home and ate an late eveningmeal and then went to bed. I really like Luozi and it is a cozy and lovly little village. Gunnel live a little bit away from the center, and it means that we had it very quiet and peacefull around us and with the nice lawn outside, the view of the Congoriver and Gunnels generous hospitality it could ´nt be that much better.

This week I have been teaching lesson eleven, entertainment and lesson twelve, travels. I´ve also tossed in some grammar such as singular and plural and verbs in present and imperfect. The verbs are a bit tricky offcourse and especially because there are so many irregular verbs in the English language but I can anyway feel that the students understands how important it is and that they really are trying to learn.

This Friday me and Yapeco are going to Kimphese and Saturday we´re continuing to Luozi where we´re going to spend a week at a churchconference. I think it´ll be great to come out on the countryside again and if the journey becomes even close to as good as the ones to Sanda and Mbamba I´ll be happy enough. They´ve told me that we´ll be travelling on a ferryboat across the Congoriver and that is something I certainly is looking forward to. In Luozi there will be some swedishspeaking people and it´ll be nice to talk mynative language again.

Each forth lesson I´ve given the students a paper with “words of today”. At the front- and the backpage is two columns with words. One column for each lesson with the most important words and phrases that I then base my lessons from. Now when I´m absent for a little bit more then a week I´ve given the students the homework to learn all these words by heart, from lesson one to lesson eight. When I come back I´ll have a little test for them. This is a good opportunity for them to really learn the words without the papers to help them. After all that´s how the real conversations are made.

Here in Matadi my life is rolling on and it is a situation that I find myself to enjoy. Except that the lessons are getting better and better I have started to spend my spare time here in the African sun either with taking a walk and photographing, reading a book in a sunchair or talking with someone from the family. Add to that that I every day are served delicious food it makes it nearly impossible to not like the life I’m living right now.

In school I have this week been teaching about the clock, school and the house. I have used exercises as Memory and Pictionary etc. The eveninglessons for class 4 are now moved to begin at 16 o´clock instead of 17 due to the repeated powerberaks. This way it makes it possible to fulfil every twohourlong lesson even if there is no electricity.

Together with this little blog I´m publishing two pictures of class one and two. The classes are not complete because some students couldn’t attend at this classes because of work etc. At the moment it is about 15 students in every class.

Due to these powerbreaks and afterfollowing disconnections to internet at Yapecos office I now deliver two blogs whereas the second one is a few days old, I hope that the readers can have indulgence with this. There are very many positive factors here in Congo, but there are also some major problems, it is partly the availability of water, the non-existent space for garbage and current. How are they supposed to be able to work here and especially internationally if it becomes as this week, and the power is gone for a whole week? This Sunday the trip went to Mbamba, one of the most loveable places I´ve been to. We where late and therefore we could only attend to the last hour of the service but it was wonderful. In the hymns the men had one voice, the women one and the children one and a little while I almost thought I´ve come to heaven. Yapeco asked if I wanted to sing a song I Kikongo and as usual I weren´t late to say yes. I have actually learned a song in Kikongo “tonda tonda tonda jesu” and that was the hymn I sang. After that me and Yapeco stood infront of everybody so they could come and shake hand with us. When the service were done we visited Yapecos old classmate and they served us sugarcanes and oranges. Meanwhile visiter after visiter stepped by to say hello and give me gifts. The very much appreciated gifts were eatable things like potato, Kwanga and peanuts. Back in Matadi we were served my favouritefood: Fumbua, kwanga and chicken with bananas to dessert It can´t be better then that!

Last Sunday it was time for a roadtrip to Nsanda, a village about 45 minutes from Matadi. We spent the day there and came back around half past four. It was a lovely day and it was wonderful to get away from the city for a little while and see the countryside of Congo. In Nsanda we attended a long cermon. They didn´t have a real church and the cermon was proceeded outside in the nature under a roof made of straws. I thought it was fabulous to spend the day outside in the sun and listen to the fantastic African choirs and it became even better because Julienne were there to make a fantastic job by translate the four hour long cermon for me. For me it was also nice to be able with Julienne to have a real long conversation in Swedish, the first real one for three weeks. Because they now are buldning a church in Nsanda and today was the day to ….the first …. It meant that it was some extra procedures then usual.

In school it is now lesson number six and seven that´s on the schedule. Lesson number six I’m teaching pronouns, clothes and adjectives and number seven it is some more verbs, weather and grammar. It feels like I’m really getting the hang of it now this thing with the teaching. Now when the level is a little bit higher then before it´s more fun to teach and I also think that it´s more beneficial for more students. But for the future englishteacher here in Matadi I would really suggest to divide the students after their knowledge in English. You may think it´s unfair that way but I think that at the end of the day that is the best way to make as many people as possible learn as much English and develop as much as possible. That will make the waitingtime shorter for the ones that´s a little bit faster and give them a chance to move to a more advanced level and it will give the ones who needs it more time and space to really learn the basics.

I have discovered that I´ve forgotten to mention my lesson number four. To make it short so did I teach them the colours and animals. This lesson also included a song or two and one of them was the Swedish song written by Astrid Lindgren ”lilla katt” translated to English. But as I’ve told in the last blog I have now reached lesson five that is about questions, some grammar and verbs. In my opinion is it more fun to teach and it also feels mighty important. As exercises I use ”fill in the gaps” and draw a line between the English word and the French. But I have a mayor problem with the teaching and it is the powerbreaks. In the day it isn´t troubling us because the sunlight is enough but in the evening after six o´clock it is to dark to read or write. Unfortunally there are as many nights without light as with so therefore the lessons become only one hour long instead if two. And the problem gets even bigger if, as yesterday, the whole class except one pupil arrives almost an half-hour late. With only a half-hour too go it´s way to short to teach all the things I want to teach, especially for them who from the beginning knew no English at all.
The other day I were an hour early for my lesson and no pupils had arrived yet but what had arrived were about twenty other kids that were more than delighted that I were on my one and they all wanted to introduce themselves and talk a little with me. Because I´m not exactly a star in speaking French and I couldn´t find anything better to do I found it to be a perfect moment a kickabout. Therefore I played some football with them to their big delight and to my delight the ball was decorated with a Swedish flag. A contribution from Matadi support group maybe?

I can now definitely say that I like the morning lessons better. In the evenings, it is more middle-aged men who participate and no children, and fewer women, even if there isn´t anything wrong with the men, they are a little bit harder to teach. They know more English from the beginning, and I had prepared myself for that the students would not speak any English so I’m not really prepared for how I should proceed. For the lesson material five, starting today, I have therefore raised the level a little bit and added some more grammar and we go this lesson also to query words and verbs. I have also tried to come up with some different exercises of different difficulty levels. Though afternoon classes feel a bit trickier to teach it is anyway a great interest. This week has been about fifteen students in both the morning and afternoon, and we have even been set up extra tables and chairs so that everyone can access location. The record we broke yesterday with seventeen students.