Merry Christmas!

To keep with my annual tradition, I didn't send out any Christmas cards yet again this year. However, because I'm feeling rather Christmasy today (seeing how it IS Christmas), I just wanted to take the time to wish you all a wonderful and merry Christmas! Also keeping with our annual tradition, we went for a swim after opening our presents. I can't believe that this is our 7th Christmas in Africa! Through this picture, I hope that I can share some of our nice warm weather for all of you who are shivering through a white Christmas.

There are many African gray parrots in Kinshasa. These parrots were hanging-out in one of our trees, eating palm nuts, and making quite a racket while I was visiting with Steven and Lindsay today.

The boys can hardly contain their excitement to open presents as they wait at the top of the stairs. Their excitement began around 3:00 a.m. as they crept, one by one, into our room asking if it was time to open presents yet. Finally, at around 5:45 a.m. we relented and the fun began. This pictures reminds me of how when we were growing up, we had to line up from youngest to oldest in the hallway before we dashed into the living room to open presents. One year when my sisters and I were teenagers, my parents gave us the go-ahead to run into the living room. Well, my youngest brother, who was probably around 4 and at the front of the line, was trampled by the rest of us in the frenzy (think of Walmart after Thanksgiving). Anyway, he started to bawl. We were then rounded up by my parents, and we had to wait to open our presents until he settled down. Of course, it was all HIS fault that he was knocked-over!

Anson did a little victory dance every time he opened a present. At one point when he opened a little stocking-stuffer present, he gushed, "This is what I've always wanted!!!" Charles then asked, "Is it really what you've always wanted?" He responded, "Nope." I think you had to be there.

Anders thrilled over a book about guinea pigs (he received a pair for his birthday last week).

Soren opening "Action Replay," while Anson does another little victory dance in the background.

Little Discoveries

You may ask, "Kristen, why ever would you post a picture of perfectly good cooked carrots and rice on the floor under a china cabinet?" That's a good question. I'd have Anson answer that for you, but well, he is currently grounded because of we had a little disagreement over what the definition of "I ate all of my vegetables and so can I now have my dessert?" is.

Happy Birthday Anders!

I would like to wish Anders "Happy Birthday!" He has such a sunny and easy-going disposition, and we are glad that he is part of our family.

Anders decided months ago that he wanted a baseball cake. I didn't argue with his choice because, trust me, baseball cakes are MUCH easier to decorate than Pokemon, Hamtaro, rocket ship, or Transformers cakes (made them all).

Anders also picked out this baseball pinata back in July. We received it last week when the Congolese government finally released our consumables shipment (we shipped it from the States 5 months ago). Because the U.S. government will not pay bribes, the customs officials take their own sweet time releasing our various shipments. Fortunately, items shipped through the pouch or the DPO are not affected by customs officials and their "lunch money" requests.

Notice the smile - all he wants for Christmas is his two front teeth! Plus one (and almost 2) of his bottom teeth. When he smiles and you can't see his bottom teeth, he looks like a little vampire. He doesn't like it very much when I call him "Edward Cullen."

America's next great baseball slugger.

To make the pinata experience even more exciting, we decided to have the boys hit it while Charles delicately balanced the it on his head. Well not really, but Charles did wear the pinata around for a little while. He even walked into the kitchen and started to speak with our chef, Simon, with a completely straight face. Simon thinks that we are all absolutely insane!

Again, happy birthday Anders! We love you!

Return to the Jardin Zoologique of Kinshasa

Today we returned to the zoo with my friends, Ingrid and Christine, and their boys. I finally remembered to bring my camera, and so for your viewing pleasure, please find attached pictures of the world famous Kinshasa Zoo that I promised last month!





Arthur, the zookeeper, was our guide for the day. As we walked through the zoo, he had several monkeys and apes perform various stunts for us (everything from dancing to doing back flips). After their performance, Arthur reinforced their behavior with ice cream cones and bread.

Notice that this crocodile enclosure has partially collapsed on the right-hand side (Torden, Lance, Anson, Soren, and Anders). And yes, there is still a crocodile in the cage.

I can't imagine why this wouldn't be a good idea.

These are the wild cats (Genet) that come into our yard at night.

On our way home from the zoo, we came across a massive rally of THOUSANDS of women marching down the main boulevard (Trente Juin/30th of June). The DRC has an absolutely abysmal record of violence of all kinds against women. The severity of the atrocities that Congolese women face is unbelievable and heartbreaking. I agree with what Mia Farrow has been saying - that the people of the world care more about this region's gorillas than their fellow humans. I'm glad to see that the women of this country are organizing themselves and taking a stand!

Although I was glad that the women were bringing much needed publicity to their situation, it did take us TWO HOURS to drive home (it is typically a 10 minute drive from the zoo to our home). Fortunately, the boys had their Nintendos, and I brought plenty of snacks and water. However, after about an hour and 15 minutes, Anson started to freak-out that we'd never, ever get home. He eventually fell asleep and we obviously did get home.

The Olden Days

I've just celebrated another fantastic birthday with my family and friends! For the past several years, I've dreaded the day (although I did enjoy the presents, cards, and cake). However, this past summer I was complaining about getting old, and my sister, who has ALS, replied, "I wish that I could get old." Open mouth, insert foot. Actually, I want to thank her for saying that because it has completely shifted my perspective on living and aging. It's not merely okay to get older, it's GREAT to get older! I'm also trying to enjoy all of the moments that I can (plus, I'm still working on my mantra of "Why not?" - please see "And it Was Long Like a Weasel"). Anyway, the week before my birthday, my friends and I were having our weekly Friday lunch gathering. Ingrid reminded everyone that my birthday was coming up the next week, and so then someone suggested that we go out dancing the night before my birthday. I commented that I had to get up early the next morning to get the boys ready for school. Someone then asked me what time I had to get up. "5:30 a.m." They then told me in that case they'd have me home by 5:00 a.m. What could I say?



On the night of our adventure, Bibha arranged for the bus from the British Embassy/High Commission to pick us up. School bus by day, "Party Bus" by night! Our first stop was at a local restaurant where we ate "cossa cossas" (heavenly prawns). We ate and visited for a while, and then we headed off to the Black and White Club. Me, being the wild woman that I am, ordered my regular water. However, my friends decided that I should have a virgin margarita since it was the eve of my birthday. It's a darned good thing that we had that bus transporting us, what with all of that fruit juice and sugar from the rim coursing through my veins! Anyway, Ingrid arranged with the DJ to play "Happy Birthday" (well, it was actually "Bon Anniversaire") at midnight for me. We obviously looked like we were having a great time, because someone bought us a bottle of champagne. I didn't have any, but my comrades reported that it was "absolutely divine!" We had such an absolutely fantastic and crazy time that we decided that we need to celebrate birthdays more frequently. Nimet decided that it will be her birthday next weekend. Who's next?



Thank you my dear amis!!!



Here we are arriving at the club around 10:30 p.m. (Bibha, Meeja, Kristen, Carolyn, Nimet, and Ingrid). Respectable, are we not?

It is now after 1:00 a.m...

On the day of my birthday, Charles made muffins for breakfast, Soren wrote me a very thoughtful card, and Anders and Anson kept on wishing me "happy birthday!" I really enjoyed hearing "Happy birthday, Mommy," and then getting a big hug all day long. I am so lucky to have 4 wonderful men in my life! Charles also made ostrich with raspberry sauce for dinner, garlic prawns, and an absolutely wonderful chocolate-mint cake. Charles also gave me the perfect gifts - a trip to South Africa (Pretoria and Cape Town), as well as a gift certificate to my favorite B&B in Park City for this upcoming summer.

I also really appreciated all of the cards, emails, and phone calls that I received from family members and friends. I had an absolutely wonderful day!

All of this talk of birthdays and aging reminded me of some of the recent comments by my dear children. A few days ago I was telling my boys how we didn't have any television stations devoted solely to cartoons when I was growing up, and we didn't have cable TV, a VCR (never mind a DVD or a Blu-Ray player), or a microwave when I was their age. Anders then earnestly asked, "Did they have electricity back then?" At bedtime Soren enjoys having me tell him stories about when I was young. The other evening he asked me to tell him stories about my life in the "olden days." Admittedly, I am no longer a spring chicken, but the OLDEN DAYS?!!!

Let the Holidays Begin!

Soren and Anders performed in their school's Christmas concert this past week. I enjoyed watching them perform, and in some instances, I won't name the child, stand on the stage and look rather uncomfortable. Of course, the children had to be at the school at 6:00 P.M., at the height of the evening rush hour traffic, in order to get ready to perform.

This is a picture of the road on our way to the boys' school. This road is SUPPOSED to have one lane of traffic going in this direction. However with a bit of driving magic, KAZAM!, it now has 4 lanes of traffic going in this direction! Amazing! Yeah, this is one of the reasons that I have a driver.

I just can't figure out why the back wheel fell off of this truck...

Anders' enthusiastically performing "Island Noel."

Soren (in the blue and while polo shirt) singing "Joyful, Joyful." When he performed at his last school concert, he kept on hiding behind the children in front of him every time that I attempted to take a picture. It was so funny! No such luck here.



Last Saturday we hosted a bit of a belated Thanksgiving dinner at our home. We attended the Embassy's dinner on Thanksgiving day at the Ambassador's Residence. However, we do enjoy hosting our own Thanksgiving celebration every year. Why all of the trouble, you may ask? Left-overs!

Meeja used to work professionally in the catering/restaurant industry in her prior life (pre-embassy). She was absolutely wonderful with helping me out with this event. I'm also grateful to all of my other fantastic friends who helped out as well. We couldn't have done it without you!

We had about 35 people in attendance, and it was definitely worth all of the work.

Survival of the Fittest

Today I volunteered again to chaperone another one of Anders's class field trips. However, instead of visiting snakes, this time we went to the bonobo preserve that is approximately an hour's drive from the school. We first met at the school where the children were assigned to various cars. A little German boy, whom I'll call "Rolf" was one of the passengers in my vehicle. Anson also came along for the adventure. Before exiting Kinshasa, we had to drive through a few market areas. The attached pictures are a bit blurry (we were driving, and thankfully and amazingly not stopped in traffic), but they are very typical of what most African markets look like.

About a half an hour into the drive, "Rolf" mentioned that he didn't feel too well. I turned around and asked him if he thought that he might throw up, and he nodded his head "yes." I immediately went into panic mode looking for a plastic bag, or anything that resembled a plastic bag, in the car. I am not particularly good about tolerating vomit, and Anders usually gets sick himself when he encounters such behaviors. I certainly did not want that sort of chain reaction in my vehicle! With no plastic bag to be found, and not wanting to stop in a busy market area, I started hollering for Mamba (my driver) to roll down the back window. Unfortunately, in a crisis situation such as this, Mamba's typical response is to lock-up and get flustered. I then practically dove into the back seat and unrolled the back window just in time to save the upholstery. That done, Rolf was as good as new, and back to playing the Nintendo DS Lite.

Once we exited Kinshasa, we were off the pot-holed roads and on to the dirt/mud roads. I was very happy that it hadn't rained for a few days, and so the roads weren't quite as bad as they usually are this time of year. But, as you can see, they still were a bit boggy!

The bonobo preserve is a very large and well-maintained property. It is built to help rescue orphaned bonobos, as well as to help educate the public on the bonobos' plight. Unfortunately, the great apes' numbers are dwindling due to poaching (usually for bush meat). Three of the four great apes in the world are found in the D.R. Congo (bonobo, chimpanzee, and gorillas), but the DRC is not a particularly stable country.

Here is a picture of a very large and somewhat confrontational male bonobo. When the guide brought the children near the fence, this bonobo started to get a bit agitated. He then ran down to the edge of the water, scooped up a handful of muddy dirt, and threw it at the children. Mud-slinging is not solely reserved for political campaigns! Pandemonium ensued when the children started screaming, running around, and throwing handfuls of dirt in response, while the bonobo threw several more handfuls of goop (at least it wasn't something ELSE that bonobos are known to throw!). The teachers then tried to coral the panicked children, while one of them shouted at them to stop "behaving like bonobos" (I think that they were worse!). Once the children calmed down, we continued our nature walk through the preserve.

Here is a picture of Anson right after the mud episode. He got hit right in the face with dirt, and it even went down his shirt!

Rare albino bonobos caught on film. I decided to take them home...

This is a picture of a typical medical clinic/hospital in the DRC (this one is near the preserve). While there are some larger hospitals within Kinshasa, you definitely hope that you NEVER have to go to one!

Virtual Tour of the Homestead

This is the front of our house. Sub-Saharan architecture tends to be rather boxy and unimaginative, but the garden is great! Part of the interior was remodeled a few months ago, and so I'm very happy about that as well.

One of the things that I really like about our house is all of the trees. There is an amazing variety, and a LOT of them.

This is a picture from one of the "wild" areas of our yard. Part of our garden is manicured, and we have several large grassy areas (it costs $15 per week just for the gas for the lawn mower). We also have a few sections of our yard that is in a more "natural" state, which are absolutely perfect for hide-and-go-seek.

This is the entry way to our house. These plants used to be a lot more dense and bushy. However, my gardener decided to trim them up and thin them out for whatever reason (he explained to me in French, but unless someone is talking about apples, rice, or water, I have no idea what they are saying).

This is our dining room. From past experience, we decided that a carpet under the table is not a very good idea with three boys. Notice the lovely towels draped over some of the cream upholstered chairs. Tres chic! There are double doors on both sides of the dining room that open up to our back yard.

This is from the top of the stairs. The large piece of tan and black cloth is called kuba cloth, and I bought it at a local market. The fabric is made out of raffia, and then the black and tan pieces are hand stitched together with orange raffia. There is also a piece of kuba cloth on the dining room table.

This is our living room. We have 4 sets of doors that open up to our garden and so we get quite a bit of light in the room.

This is my room. It is long and narrow, and it has a weird lay out. However, it does have long balconies on both sides, and so there is a lot of light in the room.

Notice the wild monkey that lives in the garden. Oh wait, it's Soren! There are many, MANY great climbing trees (if you can avoid the biting ants). Soren likes to swing out of this tree like Tarzan.

I took this picture of the Congo River from my back bedroom balcony (I know that it is hard to tell that it is a river, but the light area beyond the trees is indeed the Congo River). Our back yard goes up to the razor wire, and then it is our neighbor's yard that has been taken over by the Congolese police/military in the name of "national security."

These are my favorite flowers that grow in our yard. I don't know what they are called, and so please tell me if you know!

We would love for you to come and visit us!

"There Were Three in the Bed and the Little One Said..."

Okay, so our nightly ritual goes something like the following:

(middle of the night) Anders tiptoes into our room and whispers, "Mommy, I'm scared." I roll over, he quietly climbs in, and sleeps on the very edge of the bed.

(middle of the night, but a bit later) Anson barges in the room, jumps into the middle of the bed, proclaims that we taking up all of HIS space, and he pushes the rest of us out of his way. Charles then climbs out and finds another bed, while Anson and I fight over the "preferred" pillow for the rest of the night.

The other night Anson again climbed into the middle of the bed in the middle of the night and announced, "Mommy, you're squishing me! Squ-ishhh-inggg. That means squishing!" Yeah, a 4-year-old is now defining words for me. I have officially entered the "not-smart-parent" phase of the child-rearing years. Whatever happened to the old adage that "Children are to be seen and not heard?!"

Over the River and Through the Woods it's to Brazzaville We Go!

I took a picture of our yard from the boat - the picture's not great, but it was the best that I could do considering that we were traveling rather fast on a small boat. You can't see our house but you can at least see our trees!


Yesterday I went on an outing with our embassy to Brazzaville, R. Congo (the country across the river from us). We took one of the embassy boat, and the expediter at the embassy was able to clear everything at customs for both countries. This was really nice considering the chaos that is typically found in sub-Saharan customs offices. Our first stop was to Le Memorial Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, and boy was that exciting! It is a large, marble mausoleum that houses the remains of the founder of Brazzaville. We were given an 80 minute guided tour of the facility, and we were even accompanied by the local press. We really wanted to sneak away to a patisserie across the street, but well, we were kind-of scared of being caught by our tour organizer (yeah, I sound like I'm in middle school). We then went to a craft market, and as unbelievable as this may sound, I actually did not buy anything (gasp!). I did have my eye on a pair camel skin ottomans with cow horn legs (these would have been the perfect accents for my room of death-and-carnage complete with Nguni hair rug, leather and fur pillows, etc.). However, the vendor and I couldn't reach an agreeable price. Oh well. Our final stop was to a restaurant on the river. The food was okay, but I really did enjoy visiting with everyone. We then loaded back up in the vans and headed back to the river.

Carolyn, Kristen, and Meeja in Brazzaville

The Congolese version of Carnival Cruise Lines.