The two groups of entrepreneurs are called ‘Augustine’ and ‘Demba’ after their chairpersons. Today, the Demba group came to us for individual consultations. Bernt, Julienne and Yapeco were in charge of the meetings and I supplied them with the documentation. This morning we also had time to visit the BIAC bank. The money transfer that Ulricehamns Sparbank had helped us with on January 4th had arrived in Matadi on Januray 7th. This was a successful trial transfer, confirmed by the account statement. The bank agreed to cash our international cheque, but it turned out to be quite costly even if they reduced the fee by 50%. I tried to get them to lower the cost further, but then Mr Kiwaka started to complain about me begrudging them their salaries – me, coming from the rich world. Julienne explained to him that we are very careful with the money that is intended for the entrepreneurs – we want no costs between giver and recipient.

We will get the final cost of the cashing of the cheque tomorrow. The Matadi office was going to check with the Kinshasa office if they could go lower on the price. We talked with Mr Kiwaka, who had invited us to his home for lunch when we were here last time. Unfortunately, he was wasn´t very interested this time, and we did not get the attention that we had expected. Last time, he said ‘Our client is our king’. He certainly didn’t live up to that now. One reason might be that he was in the process of moving to Kinshasa. We met with his successor. It remains to be seen if he will put Mr Kiwakas principle to work. On Friday, we will visit other banks and look into how they treat their customers. We will turn every stone and choose the bank that gives the best terms for us and for the entrepreneurs.

Today´s group consists of four members. One member has dropped out of the group as he has gone to France to study. First, we met with Demba, the chairperson of the group. He used to work at the Church printing office in Matadi, but now he has a grocer´s shop that he wants to expand and develop. Our next meeting was with Marie France, a pastor in the Kiamvu Church, who is now setting up a café in close vicinity to the Church. Her business concept is to build up a café for ordinary people. In Matadi the cafés are run by Asians, and they are expensive, only rich people can afford to go there.

The third person we met with was Peter who used to work as a math teacher. But on a salary of $40 a month, he wasn’t able to support his family. Now, he buys and sells flour, and his wife runs a small bakery and sells bread and beverages. Peter wants go into trade in second hand clothes and to set up a sewing shop to make clothes alterations. Last out was Phillippe, an electrician who works part-time. He owns a small farm that he wants to do up and expand with pigs and poultry.

What is left to do with the old group is a joint workshop on Saturday at the Youth House. We will go through all budgets and each and every one will get to show their investment and financial plans. If we have electricity, we will use a computer and projector. It is important that everybody is acquainted with everybody else’s financial plans. Payment of loans will take place during next week, when the bank has cashed the cheque.

To round off, some thoughts: how come the large holes in the road are not mended? And why are the broken parts of the Lisanga Guest House not fixed? The Congolese are aware of all the deficiencies and the standard answer is usually that there is no money. Could it be that the turnover speed is too slow? Could more entrepreneurs accelerate the turnover? Could a more harmonious economy be created if everybody does what he or she is best at, and if they buy each other´s products and services? Or are there other reasons as to why people don’t take charge of what needs to be done? Please comment and give solutions!

Yapeco had prepared the five entrepreneurs thoroughly for their individual consultation. Augustine came at 8.00 am. She wants to expand her poultry farm from 600 hens to 3000 hens and add chicken-breeding to her business. Augustine, who is also the wife of Yapeco, opened the meeting the Congolese way by saying a prayer. Prayer is always near at hand and natural to the Congolese. Augustine will not receive as much as she has applied for. My friends, ”knallarna”, had to reduce the amounts of the loans for some of the entrepreneurs for different reasons. The assessments of the loan applications were made in the fall, and at that time we informed everybody of the sizes of their granted loans. The sum total of the loans for all ten entrepreneurs is $ 29 000. The entrepreneurs have divided themselves into two groups of five, and each group has elected a chairperson, a vice chairperson and a secretary. The chairperson will gather the group once a month and put together follow-ups and reports to post our website.

On the agenda were nine items: going-over of the completed budgets and adjustments, the detailed descriptions of the investment (what will the loan be used for), the liquidity budget, the promissory note, the personal guarantee and its regulations, the repayment plan, bank issues and any other business.

Muditu was next in turn at 10.00 am. Unfortunately, he had misunderstood the size of the loan, even though we had been very clear. Everybody has received information, both verbally and in writing, about their loans and the attached terms. Muditu grows manioc, peanuts, soybeans and vegetables. He needs a car to get to the market on time and in a reasonable way. He is extending his fields to 8 hectare, and they are located about 20 kilometers from the town.

After lunch we met with Damas. He is a farmer, too, and owns an area of 4 hectares in Kimbala as a complement to his work in the Church. Besides business, we talked about the friend relation between Baobab Church and the Covenant Churches of Blidsberg and Hökerum. The global group responsible for the friend relation will meet on Saturday afternoon.

At 3.00 pm Jean Pierre came. He has bought a lorry in Germany and he needs funds to pay the cost of transportation to Congo. He has been granted the largest loan, but even so, he only gets half of what he applied for. He will receive a loan of $ 7000. At the meeting with the bank we will call attention to his situation. The bank should make a contribution the size of ours.

The last entrepreneur we met this day was Axel. He will start a poultry farm on a small scale, as a complement to his work in the Kiamvu Church. He won´t have to start from scratch though. His predecessor had chickens and some of the equipment is already in place.

It is easy to work together with Yapeco, our man in Matadi and with Julienne, our interpreter. After a few meetings, Bernt and I don´t have to say much. They take over and we won´t have to bother the entrepreneurs with our Swedish. It all gets much more efficient. We just hand over the documentation and they explain everything. I had time to create a formula in Excel that converts the interest for the duration of the loan into flat-rate interest, making the repayments easier for the entrepreneurs as all part-payments will be the same amount. Also, we had time to do some custom-made solutions with the Excel formula.

Among the youth of Congo, there are many promising future entrepreneurs. If you make a stop in a village, right away at least ten girls and boys approach you, offering to sell you fruit and vegetables from the rich nature and fields of Congo. They are persistent, and if they can´t make you buy their products one way, they will try another way until they succeed. The whole procedure is spiced with joy and a lot of energy. If you added an education in economy and planning, Congo would get the best entrepreneurs in the world. This is probably the way Congo could progress, what do you think? Please write me a comment!

We woke up at the Guest House, in the pilot´s bungalow in Kimpese, a lovely and peaceful place. Everything that grows makes Congo especially beautiful this time of year. The temperature is between 25 and 30º C, we have daily watering due to the rain period, and in many places the soil is very rich. All these factors combined create an exceptionally beneficial climate for crops. Emy´s 4 hectares of soybeans and corn looked terrific and completely different from those dry-as-dust fields we saw only three months earlier, during our October visit. If we had problems with whirling dust on our earlier visit, this time the problem was the clay that stuck to our sandals and made them ten times heavier than they usually are. After our visit on the fields, the clay kept us occupied for a good while before we were well enough separated from the soil.

We stopped by Gothia Sport Center and chatted with the Football Manager. 200 children are active at this sports centre. They don´t just play football, the project also aims at teaching the children how to live together, cooperate and respect each other. Emy has told us before about the miracles that football does to these children´s lives. In the storeroom we saw the clothes that were presented from SVIF in October. The Congolese are probably created to play football – if you don´t have a regular ball, you make one yourself with rags and strings. There is much joy in playing ball here.

We had a meeting with Tutondele before leaving Kimpese. He told us of his development projects, funded by SIDA and the Swedish Covenant Church. They too work with loans, and have activities here in Matadi. We will try to meet some of the borrowers and find out how it works on grass root level. We also talked about brick stoves that he had taken part in developing. We have a stronger belief in the ordinary cast iron stove, considering the revolutionary effects it had on Sweden. With this kind of stove, you can bake bread, cook food and at the same time you get hot water for the dishes. And you save a lot of fire wood. That technical innovation revolutionized Swedish cooking. We shouldn´t have to invent the wheel again. Our interpreter Julienne confirms our thoughts on the cast iron stove. It is wonderful, she declares.

Yapeco came to meet us in Kimpese, and after having lunch with Emy, Yapeco and Julienne, we set off for Matadi in Yapecos Toyota Jeep. The journey was made especially enjoyable by all the beautiful views of hills and mountains. We were going at a normal speed, and right-hand traffic was applied during the entire trip. Yapeco is a balanced and pleasant gentleman to spend time with. It would of course be nice if he knew English a little bit better. Then, we both would get even more mutual exchange, I believe. Next month he is going to take a computer course in English, we´ll see if that might help. More Congolese than you think understands English, and the language is in progress throughout Congo.

I don´t have time to write any more today. I have to hurry to Yapeco´s internet café in order to publish this blog before they close in fifteen minutes. You´ll be hearing from me again tomorrow.

The day began with a thunderstorm, the lightning and the heavy rumbles were all over the place. When the rain gradually started to fall, the thunder died down. We sat down on the verandah to say our morning prayer. The pouring rain contributed to a very pleasant temperature. After breakfast, we met pastor Batinisa. He is in charge of all transports of CEC, and among other things, the lorry is his responsibility. Bernt has inspected the lorry and recorded the defects he could discover, and there were many. Boudda, the driver of the lorry, helped Bernt with the inspection.

At 9.15 am, we went to the Swedish Embassy for a meeting with the embassy secretary Andreas Magnusson and Daniel Tiveau, who is in charge of agricultural issues. We informed them about our activities in Matadi. Daniel has been working in African countries for 12 years. He told us that Congo is difficult to work in compared to other African countries. Congo has more bureaucracy which delays any decision or result. When it comes to agriculture, the rich soil of Congo can give several harvests a year. There is in other words a tremendous potential. Daniel Tiveau will send us the Congolese laws and regulations concerning loans. It felt good to visit the embassy, and both Andreas Magnusson and Daniel Tiveau had a very positive attitude to our project. They gave us good advice, wished us success and told us that we always are welcome to the embassy. We got their emergency number to use if something unexpected would happen.

We paid a visit to Diakonia, to tell them about our doings in Congo. They informed us about Diakonia´s activities in Congo. Their work focus on three areas: human rights, democratization and equality between women and men. We didn´t have time to go into detail in any of the issues. I got the opportunity to use their computers and publish my first two blogs. Unfortunately, their computer didn´t accept the website of Borås Tidning, so I couldn´t upload the blogs to bt.se, but I hope to be able to do that tomorrow at Emy´s office here in Kimpese.

After lunch at Nzo Binati we left Kinshasa for the 220 kilometres ride to Kimpese. The first part of the trip I took a nap, but little by little I woke up realizing that we were going faster and faster. Fistom really stepped on it. After a while I said to Bernt that the speed was too high. Now and then we touched upon 130 -140 km/h. I urged Fistom ”slow down, slow down” and he slowed down for a little while, but soon we were going at the same speed again. After a swerve that saved us from crashing into a meeting car, we were driving in the right ditch for a while. I again urged Fistom to take it easy. Next, he was a hair´s breadth from ramming a lorry as he – again – took a short cut in a left curve. In such a situation, it is crucial to mind your P´s and Q´s, and luckily for us, he did. We learnt the lesson that it is better when the driver and the passengers have a common language. But we still think he understood the essence of what we were trying to make him do. And he exposed both us and his fellow road-users to great danger. Bernt fell asleep and claimed that Fistom´s reckless driving didn´t affect him. But he certainly woke up when we were driving in the ditch, and the car was jolting more than usual. We passed many pedestrians, mostly children and women with heavy loads of food and fire wood. Fistom showed a degree of carelessness that shouldn´t and can´t be tolerated. We will not have him drive us again, that´s for sure. Unfortunately, there are too many drivers that share his attitude. The landscape is green and beautiful now, and the journey could have been pleasant if we had travelled in a more law-abiding way. It must have been the protection of God that got us safe and sound to Kimpese.

In Kimpese, Emy and Julienne welcomed us at the Guest House. We had a delicious dinner and very nice dinner company. We were speaking in Swedish, French, English and Kikongo. And it seemed as though we all understood each other just fine.

A few hours after midnight I noticed that someone tried to grab a hold of my duvet cover. It turned out to be Bernt, who in addition to his own, also wanted mine. After straightening things out, we went back to sleep. We share a room to cut out unnecessary expenditure. It is also a practical measure – our discussions can take place any time during the day. Thrift is at the bottom of many successes. One thing we haven´t made clear though, is whether one double room is less expensive than two single rooms. We haven´t asked the Nzo Binati Guest House management how they add up the bill. And Congo is the land of surprises.

At 7.30 am we had breakfast with Lendu from Luozi. One hour later, Matthieu came to get us, and we went together to his church, Bandalungwa. They have two services every Sunday, one in French and the other one in Lingala. We arrived in the middle of the French service. Matthieu introduced us and we told the congregation a little about our activities in Congo. We passed on greetings from Sweden, from the biting cold and the heavy falls of snow in the Nordic countries. We were present at the other service in its entirety. Student pastor Makanzu held the sermon. He talked about wealthy Sackeus who experienced an absence of meaning, but when he went to see Jesus he got a new purpose in life. Afterwards, we had a good conversation with him. And we are going to see him again when we return to Kinshasa. He speaks English. Another guy, Pico, who acted as our interpreter also speaks English. There was collection three times during the service, a surprising feature. We weren´t prepared for this, and for the last collection we had no money left. The first collection went to the choirs, the second to the congregation and the third to the poor of Kinshasa.

Our taxi driver, Fistom, had overslept and Matthieu had to hire another one. But when the service was over around 1 o´clock, Fistom was ready outside the church and order was restored. Then we went to the Prokin Orphanage and met Sebastian. He used to be a street child, and is now the manager of the home. At this moment, there are 38 street children living there. The home makes sure that they get an education, and a proper childhood and adolescence. At the age of 17 – 18, they leave the home. After that the big concern is to get them employment. An English missionary couple, living in London, founded the home, and Sebastian is their adoptive son. Most of the support to the home comes from Great Britain.

The electricity disappeared two hours ago and right now, it is hard to discern the characters on the keyboard. I am out on the terrace, and twilight is quickly setting in. The temperature is 31ºC and there is not a single snowflake in sight, wonderful. Now, Bernt came up with a solution to the lighting dilemma. He went to get one of the torches that have a generator, and I can see everything I need to see.

After lunch at 2 o´clock, we took a good long siesta, and woke up again around 3.30. Except Bernt and me, Lendo, Tutondele and a catholic nun are also staying at the Guest House. She was educated in Kiev, Ukraine. The caretaker is now trying to start the generator. We´ll see if he is successful. Boudda, our chauffeur from this autumn, is here to assist the caretaker. Oh my! They managed to get the generator going which brought about a deafening noise, but we certainly had electricity again.  My spot on the terrace is located only 15 meters from the generator, and I would be using earmuffs if I had access to any. A tiny lizard is hurrying across the ceiling above my head. She seems to be catching insects. As long as she doesn´t tumbles down on me, I am fine with that.

My journey to Congo started on Friday night. Bernt came to pick me up in Töve and I stayed the night at his house. In Bernt´s neighbourhood we got engaged in clearing away the snow. Snow had fallen down from the roofs, and we shoveled three garage driveways that Bernt – as a good neighbor – has taken responsibility for. When the driveways were cleared from snow we comforted ourselves by the thought that from now on, there wouldn´t be any snow for at least two weeks on our part. At home, in Töve, my good neighbor Kjell-Åke takes care of the clearing of snow with his big tractor. I had brought some photos of him and the tractor to show the Congolese how fortunate they are, not having to deal with snow. David had also given me photos of how Sweden looks when it ”rains” in winter. The ”rain” doesn´t flow off, but has to be hoarded up in giant chalk-white heaps and it can paralyze all activities in a developed country: trains, airplanes, big boats, cars and people can get held up by the snow, snowed in and get nowhere. This white ”rain” can also crush large, seemingly stable houses. We will try to explain for the Congolese that the word ”insnöad” (getting snowed in) have two different significations in Swedish. It can mean the physical experience of being held up by the snow, but it can also mean being stuck in prejudices and inflexible thinking patterns.

Saturday, Hugo arrived at 4.30 a.m. and had a cup of coffee with us before we took off for Landvetter Airport in Hugo´s Saab. We had bought the tickets on internet and only had to show our passports at the checking-in, and we were all set to go. We had brought just about the allowed maximum weight of luggage. On the plane to Brussels there were only about 20 travelers, but from Brussels to Kinshasa the plane was almost full, carrying about 300 passengers, mostly white people. The temperature rose with the latitude: in Brussels the temperature had been +5, in Douala, where we had a stopover it was +25 and in Kinshasa, where we landed exactly 8.30 p.m. it was +27, a pleasant temperature. The air trip had been very agreeable. Air Brussels’ service is excellent, we were very happy with all of the 7,500 kilometers that we had spent eating, sleeping and reading. I read a book that Bernt had lent me. It is called The Caravan of Crisis and is about depressed areas of the world and how people have tried to help out, not always to the benefit of the needy. We need to stop and reflect before making our contribution. The only thing about the trip that was not to our satisfaction was the price. We had tried to bargain, and we had good arguments too, but we didn´t succeed. We paid SEK 11 636 a head for return tickets.

Matthieu met us at the N´djili Airport. His good friend, the chief of police at the airport showed us into a VIP room with air-conditioning, where we waited for our luggage. We gave the staff our luggage receipts but anyhow, Bernt had to assist them in identifying our suitcases, and eventually we had all our things and were ready to go. Matthieu had hired a guy called Fistom from Kimpese to drive us. He has a small Toyota, and he will take us around Kinshasa and to Kimpese where Yapeco will meet us on Tuesday and take us further on to Matadi. Fistom drives his Toyota like most Congolese, he hoots and steps on the gas, and sometimes there are only millimeters between the cars. It seems that every driver makes up his owns rules of the road. And there are holes in the road all along. A few times, Fistom had to make a real effort to get over and past the holes. In spite of his maneuvers, the frame of the car got some severe blows.

We arrived at Nzo Binati Guest House at 11.30 p.m., where we left our things in our room and had chicken with rice, carrots and peas in the dining room. Afterwards, in the double bed in our air-conditioned room we came to the conclusion that we had not been sleeping next to each other since summer camp in Smögen some 55 years ago. The years pile up when you have been around for a while. When we had pulled down the mosquito net we fell asleep at once.

We are now preparing for our trip full steam, Bernt and I. Saturday next week, we will be leaving for the Congo. If we add up the bank accounts in Sweden and Congo, we have managed to raise 200 000 SEK to this date. It feels good to know that the money we need for the first ten entrepreneurs has been secured. Our hope is that the money will continue to come in at the same pace as during November and December, when we collected 170 000 SEK. 150 000 SEK of this amount are loans, and the remaining 20 000 SEK are gifts. Our goal is to collect a total of 1000 000 SEK during 2011, either as loans or as gifts.

Since October, when we were in the Congo, there has been a lot of correspondence between us and the entrepreneurs. Our main contact in Matadi, Yapeco, is preparing for our next visit. Unfortunately, Yapeco doesn´t speak English, and when a subject needs to be particularly clear between us, the e-mail has to go through Gösta, a Congolese man who speaks English. He works for the UN in Haiti, but he is often the link between me and Yapeco. It is a good thing that e-mail travels fast. The regulatory framework for business loans and other documentation is being translated to French right now, and will be ready when we leave for the Congo. We are also moving our website to a web publishing tool that will make it possible for people in the Congo to publish the reports and follow-ups of the entrepreneurs. We hope to launch the new website within a couple of weeks. The website matadi.hakanson.se will be the link between the Congo and Sweden. Every month, the lender will be able to see the development of his/her entrepreneur in Congo.

One issue that we haven´t solved yet is how to safely transfer money to

Matadi. I am going to Sparbanken next week, and I think they might have a solution.

The first week in the Congo, we will go over the work that the entrepreneurs have done since October. On January 17th we plan to pay out the loans, and during the second week we will meet a new group of entrepreneurs for three days. By that time, we hope to have found a few Congolese people that will be able to succeed us as course-leaders for the entrepreneurs. Our interpreter this time will be Julienne Kukangisa. She is Congolese and speaks Swedish, French and several African languages spoken in Congo. We hope that she will agree to become a course-leader for the entrepreneurs.

Congo-Kinshasa, or the Democratic Republic of Congo which is the real name, is a big country – five times the size of Sweden and the 12th biggest country in the world. The country has a population of 65 million people. Amongst the 195 countries in the world the Congo ranks number 19 in population size. The Congo has large natural resources. Best known is the copper in the province Katanga, but the country also has diamonds, cobalt, gold, cadmium, oil, silver, zinc, manganese, tin, germanium, uranium, radium, bauxite, iron ore and coal. Timber, high-grade wood, palm oil and rubber are extracted from the forest.

Rwanda and Uganda currently export stolen coltan from the Congo to countries in Western Europe and the USA and China, where the ore is used to extract tantalum which has been used in high quality electrolytic capacitors since the 60s. These are today used in for example mobile phones, PCs and DVD players.

Coltan is considered a contributory cause to the war in the Congo, a conflict that has led to approximately 4 million dead. Those of us who are consumers of mobile phones, computers and DVD players play a part in financing the war in eastern Congo. In this war Swedish weapons can also be found. The people who work in mines or in other places where this ore is extracted work under slave like conditions and they often have to carry the ore long distances. At given places trucks and even helicopters that carry false UN flags come to pick up the ore. The coltan belt is in a state of war and horrific atrocities are committed. Rape is widespread. For example are men with HIV contracted by the army, equipped with military equipment and weapons and given the task to rape as many women as possible.

The Democratic Republic of Congo have considerable potential for becoming a prosperous country, but many years of war and corruption have dramatically impaired the economy. We have to become aware of what is going on in the Congo. We play a part in many of the Congo’s problems. The Western World buys these important minerals and supplies them with weapons. The Congo concerns us all. All Congolese people must get the chance to benefit from their country’s wealth. The Congolese are one of the poorest people in the world. Your reaction, contribution and effort can make a difference.

Matadi Support Group, Bank giro account 200-8332

Bernt and I are going back to the Congo on January 8th. Before leaving for Africa, we are going to raise SEK 200.000, in order to provide for the loans to the ten entrepreneurs we trained in October. We will have additional classes with them, both individually and as a group.

Five entrepreneurs will form a loan group. In the group, the members are responsible for each other’s loan repayments through a limited personal guarantee, which amounts to 25% of their own loan. In the loan group it is essential that the members get to know each other well and take interest in each other’s financial planning.

Primarily, Bernt and I will go over their budgets. They will have to itemize their investment cost estimates, and we will go through their sales budgets and total budgets together. Their estimates must be realistic considering the amount of time it takes before their products are marketable. If you start an egg production business with newly hatched chickens, you will have to wait six months before they are old enough to produce eggs.

Before the loans can be paid out, each entrepreneur will sign a promissory note and a personal guarantee. These will be written in French and in Swedish, possibly also in Kikongo. There must be no misunderstandings and the terms have to be perfectly clear to everybody. When it comes to the rules and regulations of the business loans we will further refine the formulations to avoid any misunderstandings.

So far, we have raised SEK 90.000 which means we need another SEK 110.000. We have contacted several companies as well as individuals about contributions to our entrepreneurs. We are optimistic and we believe that the money will come, either as loans or as gifts. We are negotiating with banks in Brussels and the Congo for free of charge money transfers. All funds we receive will go to the entrepreneurs.

“The Congo, the rich country with the poor population” will be the heading for the next blog.

• Entrepreneurship – a way out of poverty
• Education and training in Starting your own business. Tool no 1
• Business loans as a help to get started
• You can adopt an entrepreneur in the Congo
• We make it possible for you to follow your entrepreneur month by month
• Matadi Support Group matadi.hakanson.se

We landed in Brussels at 7.33 in the morning and at 9.15 the plane for Gothenburg took off. Between the arrival hall and departure hall we walked about 1 km, partly on moving walkways. It was nice to stretch the legs after sitting down for such a long time. During the walk we passed a passport control and another security check. They were considerably stricter here than in Kinshasa. In Kinshasa only Lars-Ola was of any greater interest to the inspectors. He was carrying too much money. I helped Lars-Ola explain that we were travelling as a group and that Lars-Ola was out treasurer who had all our money. In the end they said they were our friends. ‘Great’, we replied. To part as friends is a wonderful thing. Lars-Ola and I didn’t understand immediately what they meant by their declaration of friendship, so they helped us act Congolese by suggesting a ‘tip’ of $20. Ok, now the penny dropped. If you are friends or family in the Congo it means that you share, or you are a bad person. As ‘knallar’ always do we bargained down the price and went our separate ways after an exchange of $10, but with the friendship intact. In Brussels Bernt was the focus of attention. He was carrying alcohol. Bernt explained that it was only for external use and that he’d be happy to give it as a gift to the inspector. He declined, took it and threw it out and Bernt was free to continue his journey.

In the Congo we had heard that there was snow in Sweden so we made sure to put on all the clothes we had in our hand luggage. We finally landed in Gothenburg at 10.45 and it felt great to walk on Swedish soil again. We were very grateful both to God and the people we had met that everything had turned out so well in the Congo and that we had got home safe and sound. None of us had had to spend any time in hospital or been kept from doing what we wanted to do in any other way. This is why I haven’t mentioned Renée earlier. Renée is a nurse and she was responsible for our health. She was also in charge of our mobile pharmacy. Maybe she handed out medicines at some point, but it was never for anything serious. Our daughter Hanna and Lars-Ola’s wife Lena came to pick us up at the airport. We continued our journey in two fully packed cars to Sjömarken, Borås and Hökerum.

The first intermediate goal is now reached in this marathon to try to get entrepreneurs going. The next step is to evaluate the ten entrepreneurs that participated in the training. Peter who due to work didn’t have time to finish his statement before we left sent it today via e-mail. All ten have handed in statements and calculated their budgets. First we need the help of a translator and then we can start evaluating each participant. The total investment need of the entrepreneurs is over SEK 200.000. We have a big challenge ahead of us to raise these funds as gifts or loans to us. But we believe that the will to help is there. Through our website we are continuously going to show the contributors how the Congolese entrepreneurs are doing. We want to make it easy for the contributors to see the results. Our catchwords are: Openness – Transparence – Results.

Today Samuel Nkailu called from The Youth House. When he called eight people were gathered, including minister Axel Biongo. He is responsible for the Matadi district of the CEC and minister in the Kiamvu church, which is Samuel’s church The entire Christian support group were getting together to plan their activities. They sent their regards to all of you who want to help support the people of Matadi.

In Töve nothing had changed since we left. Sture, our dear neighbor, had watered our plants, picked up the mail and looked after the house. Only a few uninvited guests had lived it up. When the cat is away the mice will play. During our absence the weather had changed to winter and the mice are no different from people in that they try to get indoors to where the heat is. They had left little tracks both here and there. They are the human being’s follower all around the world and from what I have understood and seen they look the same both in the Congo and in Sweden. Otherwise the animals are very different. The difference is that in the Congo you don’t just hunt them, but you also fry and smoke them, and serve them for lunch. As you might remember from Seke Lolo it’s just Bernt and Jenny who know what they taste like. I chased them with three mousetraps and matured cheddar. Two lost their lives. The hunt continues.