La vie de la famille Le Bouder

Sunday October 4th, 2009.

Mae now talks about herself as a third person. She will say Maye this and Maye that. She likes to add Madenn to all her sentences, almost as a grammatical component or a fill word. She has not fully mastered how to place words in the proper order in a sentence yet and add all the keywords of a message together one after each other. For example, Madenn mal pieds (Madenn hurt feet) or Nono sale Madenn (Nono is dirty Madenn).

Her list of vocabulary is now incredibly diverse, including words such as (A)beille (bee), (l)Apin (Rabbit). She knows a lot of animals including Ephant (elephant), )hippo)potame, (c)anard, (d)\auphin (dolphin), Loup (wolf), etc. She can also refer to the swing as assoi (balancoire) or count in no specific order (un deux rrois six..). She can recognize one color so far and sometimes will pinpoint others but it is till random. She knows Jaune (yellow) and Bleuuuu (as in Bebe Bleu). Vert is still a distant third.

She loves to sing and repeats a couple of songs she learns at school, including Frere Jacques (sonnez les matineeuuu) and "dansez dansez, sautez sautez" a local song. She loves to jump and asks me to "saute Maman, saute" all the time. One of her favorite words though is still Choooocolat to ask for her milk. She has mastered the word "bulle" because she likes playing with bubbles a lot as well as the word TELE!

Madenn is also making huge progress, mastering the subjunctive in proper context (I was impressed by that one) and counting now until 5 in the proper order. She also uses complicated words she stores in her brain and then use in contexts she thinks are appropriate ... so today she can up with two funny words: She makes up names for a lot of things, mainly her teddies but sometimes also rocks or people. So today she was telling me a story about a friend of Nono whose name was Ratataille and that she had to go to the doctor and that the doctor was called Medicare.... How did she hear that one and remembered to use it in a medical context... your guess is as good as mine.

I love the way she builds her sentences sometimes... tonight when I gave her her apple sauce for dessert but didn't bring her a clean spoon to eat it with, she calmly informed me that "Maman je ne peux pas manger ma compote avec une cuillere sale!) in a very diplomatic way as to tell me nicely but Mum what were you thinking... this is simply impossible, I cannot eat my apple sauce with a spoon I have already used to eat my entree! Best of all, tonight she created this cute word .... We went to the beach today with Fulvia and Willy and we ate orchins purchased right there on the seashore. We asked Madenn if she wanted to try to eat “Oursins” in French. She did Which was a first and then went on to play. Tonight while I was bathing her, she asked me who had brought the "oursons de la mer" for us to eat… which I thought was very cute as instead of understanding "oursins" (orchins) she had understood "oursons" (bear cub) and had recreated the word "Bear cubs from the sea"! How poetic kids can be!

Mae is starting to talk, repeating many words and expressing herself well enough to minimize the crying and screaming she has used so far to get what she wanted. Here are a few of the words she can actually master as of today June 9th 2009. I have tried to put them by order of first appearance. She can say the following clearly:

papa = Papa; Enco(re) Mamie = Maman; Tiens Annie = The maid; Donne Ca; Attend; Cassé; Non; La-bas; Veut pas; Assis; Veut Ca; Bateau (de la chanson Bateau sur l'eau) Pas dodo; Gateau; Bye Bye; Chien; Betise; Cochon = anything that remotely looks like one (including horse, cow, etc.)

Words almost perfect:

Bebebeu = Bebe Bleu (Madenn's doll); Babon = Biberon; Pallion = Papillon; Baden = Madenn; Ayon = Avion; Azo = Oiseau; cacacouche = ma couche est pleine; gododo = Gros Dodo; A Boi = A boire; boiboi = verre/bouteille; biki = Biscuit; Pati = Parti; Bavo = Bravo; Bababoum = badaboum; eci = Merci

Words that have come and gone: Po = Pomme; Oui; Ba = Banane; Chat

August 18th, 2009

Let me make a small update on how much Mae's vocabulary has improved in a matter of weeks.

She can now express herself in small sentences including a noun and an action verb such as "Mets Maman", "tiens adenn".She has also added quite a lot of words to her repertory including feelingsor state of being such as "bebe pleu (pleure)" or "y dort" (il ou elle dort).

But in any case, here is the list:

- Pleu (Pleure) - Tourne - Veut plus -Dort - Il est ou? - L'est laaaa! - Wouala!!! - Velo - suce - Pote (Porte) - Mechant - popopo (Hippopo) - Tete - Mal la - Bobo - Yaout (Yaourt) - Caion (camion) - mange - mache (Marche) - Aussi - Moi - Melon - Bouchon - Ramasse - Bain - Ballon - Viens - Atu (Voiture) - ici - Descend - Monte - Saillon (Savon) - isci (Biscuit) - oussette (Poussette) - mate (Tomate) - Hum c'est bon - Ah! - hihi (fini) - uillette (fourchette) - uier (Cuillere) - gade (Regarde) - Sac - Coq , Coco (oiseau de facon generale mais plus particulierement les canards) - Tombe - A moi - Mesi (Moi aussi) - aueuvoi (Aurevoir) - mille (mouille) - ciiales (Cereales) - Maison - ussic (Musique) - Ahhti (Parti) - Bebe - ieu (yeux) - nez -ouche (Bouche) - Pied - maide (tu maides) - Content

 

 

Tonight there is a very sorry fellow on the plane back to Europe! He surely didn't see it coming... and the price of his mistake is probably hard to swallow. One week ago, I received the following email from a friend:

----- Original Message -----
From: Hidden for Privacy reasons

To: Hidden for Privacy reasons 
Sent: Tuesday, May 19, 2009 4:26 PM
Subject: Message d'alerte Sécurité : SECURITY FLASH

Bonjour à tous,

La présence en ville d’individus incontrôlés et armés est confirmée.
Certaines personnes non identifiées, peuvent tenter de procéder à des contrôles d’identité, en se faisant passer pour des policiers en service. Sous couvert de menaces ou d’intimidation, ils peuvent être amenés à rançonner les personnes isolées.

Il vous est demandé de redoubler de vigilance, et d’éviter les endroits non peuplés et non éclairés.
Vos véhicules doivent rester fermés à clef. Si vous étiez témoin ou victime d’un tel acte, appelez la cellule de veille de la SCAB, qui peut immédiatement envoyer des agents d’intervention sur place, ou appeler la BAC (BRIGADE ANTI CRIMINALITE), et signalez l’endroit où vous vous trouvez (nom du quartier, immeuble, ou endroit public facilement identifiable)
Merci d’insérer ce numéro d’urgence dans vos portables.

Cellule veille /opérations SCAB : xxx xxxx.
En règle générale , les policiers en service la nuit, en ville , portent un uniforme.
Les policiers de la Brigade d’Intervention , sont armés et identifiables, portent des combinaisons noires et écussonnées , ils se déplacent à plusieurs dans des véhicules Toyota bleus foncés, arborant la mention BAC ou Brigade D’Intervention sur les portières.

MERCI DE FAIRE PASSER LE MESSAGE A TOUS VOS PROCHES.

Mr. X

-----------------------------------------------------

Translation:
Hello everyone,

The presence in town of individuals out of control and armed has been confirmed.
Unidentified individuals impersonating police officers might try to verify IDs. Using intimidation tactics or threats, they might try to extract money from isolated individuals.

Please we ask that you are even more careful than usual and that you avoid going to isolated and dark areas. Your vehicules must be locked at all time. If you are witness or victim of such an act, please call SCAB which will immediately dispatch security agents on site, or call BAC (ANTI CRIME BRIGADE), and identify the area where you are located (name of neighborhood, building, or public area easily identifiable). Please add this emergency number to your phone address book.

Cellule veille /opérations SCAB : xxx xx xx.
As a general rule, on duty police officers at night in town wear an uniform. Officers from the emergency unit are armed and can be identified by their black uniforms and badges. They always stay in groups and drive dark blue toyotas with the logo BAC or Intervention Brigade on the car's doors.

Please forward this message to friends and family. Mr. X.
------------------------------------------------

Well, people did as told and this email rumor has spread like wild fire through the entire expat community of Pointe Noire. Guenin Clinic and Total sent their own versions of it. Everyone was talking about it, speculating, enlarging the rumor... it had become the big news on the town. There isn't a newspaper for Mundele here, so people rely a lot of hearsay to find out about what is going on in the City. It would be a lot easier to read the local newspaper, but who would bother? Word of mouth works just as well and obviously its modern version through email too!

Since this is quite common and is being used for everything from announcing the potential close in September of one of the 4 major supermarkets of the City to the death of Bongo one or two days before it is officially announced, I didn't panic and used my common sense. I sent it straight to the only person in Pointe Noire who can, without a doubt, verify if this information is real or not: our invaluable Willy, chief of security at the company.

Here was his answer, soon followed by another one from Total (forwarded to me by a lady whom I know at the French Consulate and with whom I discussed the matter while shopping at the local supermarket...get the picture... spreading like wild fire???)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Willy's response:
Bonjour Magali,

Pls. delete, as this is a whole story, I will tell to Madenga so he can explain you.
Thanks anyway.
Have a nice day.

Willy
----------------------------------------------------------------------

and the response from Total:

----- Réacheminé par XXX/Corp le 20/05/2009 08:55 -----
XXX

19/05/2009 19:47
A: Hidden for Privacy reasons

cc: Objet
RE Tr : Message d'alerte Sécurité : SECURITY FLASH !!!!Lien

A tous,

Après enquête auprès de personnes compétentes et crédibles, cette information gonfle exagérément la portée et l'importance d'un fait divers dont la réalité n'est absolument pas de nature à changer le climat de calme sécuritaire que nous avons la chance de vivre aujourd'hui à Pointe Noire, grâce en particulier à l'action des forces de sécurité congolaises.
L'auteur du mail "d'alerte Sécurité", qui désormais circule dans la communauté expatriée de Pointe Noire en y semant l'inquiétude, est actuellement confronté, par sa faute, à des ennuis avec les autorités locales.
Il est donc recommandé de ne pas colporter ces informations mais au contraire d'en minimiser la portée auprès de celles et ceux qui en auraient eu connaissance.
Bien cordialement.
X

The gist of it is: after further research we have found out that the content of the rumor is not valid. Please discard!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You would think they would have thought of doing this BEFORE sending it to their entire database (there is at least 5000 people working at Total alone!)

In any case, Willy said we had nothing to worry about so I just let it go and tried to stop the damage around me. It didn't stop there for the poor guy who sent the message though. He was asked to board the next plane back home! Better double think about what you email or say to people as words can have serious consequences.

Wow. It’s been nearly 8 months since our last update. It’s been awhile, but we are still here and we want to continue to keep you abreast of our latest adventures. But before we do, I guess we should start with what we have been up to since our last posting: • Nov 18 –Dec 10 – We travelled to Maryland to spend some time with the family, enjoy Thanksgiving and time with Mammy, and to organize our annual shipment to the Congo. It was a busy time. • Dec 10 – Jan 2 – We travelled to Paris to spend Christmas and New Years with Magali’s folks. Busy with the Xmas shopping, but we had a great time. The girls got to spend a lot of time with their cousin Gabriel, while we caught up with some friends, either in person, or by phone. Some of whom we’d lost touch with since high school, but found thanks to Facebook. • Jan – Back in PNR, it’s a really busy period for me, because of taking 7 weeks off, and then coming back just in time for the year end close, which lasted until late January. The big milestone is that Mae started going to day care in January: first for a couple of days, and now 5 days a week. • Feb – Nothing special to report. It just goes by in a hurry, since we’re all running around. • Mar – I’m off to Houston for 2 weeks to train for my new position at Chevron. I’m still in the Congo, but doing higher level analysis. I took the opportunity of being in the US to catch a night of Bill Cosby standup. It was awesome. Meanwhile in Congo, Magali organizes Pointe Noire Accueil’s first party for Saint Patrick’s day. It was a huge success. I come back for two weeks, and we’re in April, off to Maryland. The huge news is that Magali’s association is incorporated in Pointe Noire (more on that in a separate update). • Apr – We’re off for the better part of the month spending quality time with the folks in Maryland from the 1st through the 19th. Magali and I get a couple of days of alone time at the beach, it feels good not to wake up at 6am for a couple of days, and we also get to celebrate the fact that not only are Steph and Mon going to have a baby, but also Steph just got hired to his new job in Congress, and he got to meet Barack Obama in person during the Summit of Americas in Trinidad. That rocks. And that brings us to today. We will try to write more than once every 8 months for now on… so be sure to check out for news regularly.

This morning, I was victim of my first, and hopefully, last attack in Pointe Noire. As I was driving back home, just before turning the corner onto Cote Sauvage our expat neighborhood, driving on paved and safe roads, a guy suddenly left the sidewalk opposite to us and threw a big rock at the car. He could have caused serious injuries if he had either hit higher right at the window or just a few seconds later right at two taxis coming the opposite way to where I was driving. Fortunately no one was hurt. I just kept on driving as I saw him throw the rock. He was definitely aiming at me. But by keeping my cool (and not reacting actually), I limited the damages and any potential reactions stemming from his action. Everyone stopped, looked alarmed at the loud noise the stone made upon impact. I think some of the taxi drivers yelled at him but since I drove away, I am not sure what happened next. I figured it was best to remove ourselves from the area. Our car is a big SUV so the guy just aimed too low at the back door, making a big dent and scratches to the body of the car but that was it. If he had hit the window a little higher he would have hurt Madenn. But since it didn't happened and there is nothing I could have done to prevent this incident, I won't dwell on that. One thing is for sure though, once again, I realize that life here can change from safe to dangerous in one millisecond, wherever we are in town. What is ironic is that I see this guy almost everyday around town. He is probably a beggar, mentally unstable based on his behavior and the ragged dirt colored shirt he wears without fail. But even if I hadn't noticed him before, now he can be sure that I will pay attention to his whereabouts one thousand miles away!

While it may look quite intimidating at first to take a taxi in Pointe Noire if one focuses on the way they drive, the lack of published information on prices and the difficulty of explaining where one wants to go in the city, since there are little to no street names, it stays the most convenient way of getting from point A to Point B. I found out that there is a whole culture about taxis here. They have different names based on the shape of the car. You can climb in a Titanic, a chicken leg, a coupe, a donna benja, or a tcharman, etc. Each represents a specific model of the same car make, a toyota corolla. Most other brands of car cannot withstand the strain put on the motor which runs non stop in 30 degres heat from 6:00 a.m. to late at night. It seems toyotas are the only cars able to withstand the hard driving conditions here, sand, rust, mud, holes in the road, etc. For expats, it is a little different... one element we add into the mix is how difficult it is to get replacement parts... Nissan would be the easiest and most reliable, Toyota a little harder and any French or German brand is just a headache. Taxis here don’t follow the most basic rules of safe driving including staying in a single line, using blinkers, and most of the time your taxi will not have seat belts, suspensions or even sometimes breaks but you can on the other hand expect leopard prints on the seats, orange reflective stickers on doors and handles, a radiator statue glued to the hood and flashing disco lights or inflatable beach buoys stuck to the rear window. Some even have very sophisticated sound system with stereo speakers on each side of the passengers seats. The windows of the taxi I took last week couldn't go up and down anymore because the handles had disappeared but when I asked the driver to open the front window for some air, he pulled the manual handle from somewhere between his legs, reached over the back of his seat, plug the handle in the hole and turned the glass window down! He would do the same if I wanted to bring the window back up! What amazes me is that I have seen taxis submit to technical controls and pay fees. They have to do it every three months! If they don't comply, they can be penalized or even forbidden from driving. I guess the controls are pretty lax and controllers mostly just check papers! Next to their left legs is also where they keep their change, under the mat. You see many drivers have been robbed by negotiating a price with someone talking to them through the left hand side window while someone would reach inside the cab from the right hand side window and take the money stored in the glove compartment. Drivers now know better! But customers can be really tricky. Ulrich, our driver, told me the following story. This guy agrees to drive a group of four people to a far away destination. Three sit in the back and one in the front. While the person in the middle has his hands on his knees, the other two put their arms around his shoulders. They have a large sports bad they place between their legs on the floor. At some point during the trip, they ask for the music to be turned off. They seem like nice customers and they engage the taxi driver in good conversations. They pay for their ride and leave. A little while later, the taxi driver wants to listen to some music and try to turn on the radio. Nothing happens. He then realizes that the customers have stolen his really nice sound system by unscrewing the speakers from the roof of his cab. While they were talking, each guy on the side would unscrew the opposite speaker and stuff it in the bag. The job of the guy in the middle was to keep the driver's attention away from what the accomplices were doing. There are two types of taxis. The 100-100 (cent-cent) and the normal taxi cab. The first one is mostly on the main thoroughfare and can only be identified by its continuous use of the horn. If the taxi honks every couple of minutes, it is a Cent-cent. It got its name at the time when the fare was 100 CFA (20 cents). It is now 150 CFA (30 cents) to climb in. This taxi stops as many times as needed along the road, to pick up a customer or drop off one. Everybody else on board just waits until they reach their own destination. Mundele “white folks” usually don’t take 100-100, as a result, taxis don’t even bother looking for white customers along the way. The traditional taxi asks usually 700 CFA ( $1.50) for a one way trip. If it is required to stop several times, it can ask to be paid for each leg of the trip. Same thing if you have a lot of carry on baggage or if many people get into the cab at the same time. In that case, taxi drivers will usually accept to negotiate an hourly price (3,000 CFA the hour) and take you to as many places as you wish. They will even agree to look after your groceries but that may be to your own expense.

If you have known me for a while, you are probably aware by now that I am a fan of lists. I just came up with a new one: The expat web sites list. It summarizes all the sites I have found so far tailored to the expat community. There is a lot of us out there! I wish I had known that when I was 15 and I was wondering who exactly I was, French, International, from no where in particular or everywhere all at once? These sites speak my language. www.expat-blog.com www.femmeexpat.com www.vivrealetranger.com www.expatway-magazine.com

When time allows, I like to go and walk on the beach with the girls. It is just across from the house so it is easy to decide to get some fresh air on a whim. We don't walk far, from one end of the Cote Sauvage to the other. It usually takes us a half hour if we stay on the paved road but on Sundays, I take one extra step and actually go and walk on the beach, across the road, past the row of nice restaurants lining the seashore. The beach could be very nice with soft white sand, a large perspective on the sea and the nice restaurants along the road but nothing is done to enhance it. It is very dirty, as everyone leaves their trash behind. As a result, we always keep our shoes on to prevent walking on a syringe or any other rusted piece of metal. I also never allow Madenn to swim as the current is very strong and the waves quite treacherous. Plus there is a large sewage pipe, to the right of the hotel Twiga, which dumps dirty water into the sea. I don't feel this is the best environment for a swim. Of course one has also to deal with the foul petrol odors sometimes coming from the sea (one can see the platforms from the shore) or from the trash on the side walk but despite the environmental flaws, I still enjoy walking on the beach. Looking at the sea is always a beautiful sight, wherever it is, and the breeze is still refreshing helping us change our minds from the nitty gritty details of daily life. Walking on the beach, especially on Sundays, is a show in itself. In France, people go to the Champs Elysees to see and be seen, in Pointe Noire, one goes to the beach on Sundays evenings. Families with young children dressed up in their best outfits mingle with young trendy adults and happy swimsuits clad youngsters. Everyone walks along the sea shore checking out everybody else. High heels cross bare foot, long skirts brush against short shorts. Sometimes people sit and look at the passing crowd while enjoying a nice treat bought from one of the many vendors walking up and down the beach. You can get ice cream from the guy pulling his bicycle in the sand, ringing his bell. Or smoked shrimps on a skewer, cookies, and other nick-knacks held high on the vendors' heads. Kids go and swim in the waves while adults watch from nearby. Others ask the many photographers for hire to take their pictures. They will pose with the crowd as background. Since Mae is still too little to walk and because I cannot take the stroller in the sand, I carry her in a baby sling, my Moby Wrap. Securely and tightly wrapped in lavender fabric on my chest, her legs tangling in front of me, she enjoys the sightseeing. As a matter of fact, as soon as I place her in it, she stops complaining and start looking around. But everytime I use it, it never fails to attract comments and stares. I believe most are positive as this sling is very similar to the way they carry their children on their back. People are surprised to see Moundele (white folks) carry their kids the way they do. They also think it is clever because their children are always on their back and not in front. Every single woman on the beach looks at me when I walk with Mae in the baby carrier. Today we spent an hour there and the comments and stares didn't fail. Two young preteens actually ask me if it would be ok for them to take a picture with us. I agreed of course but thought it funny that we were an attraction ourselves. While I like to go and look at people, I never thought that I would be interesting to look at too! It is only when I walk by myself with the girls that people come up to me. I realized that it is not that common for white folks to walk on the beach with the crowd. Probably because they don't want to be pestered by the locals. But I found that except for the odd loony who tries once a trip to get money or anything from me, people are usually nice and polite. Usually white folks stay behind the fences that delineate the hotels' property, playing volley ball on the clean sand or sipping a glass on the front terrace, watching the human sea from afar. I, on the other hand, enjoy watching people from up close. In return, they are intrigued by my presence on the beach. They are also very attracted to the children, always greeting them, smiling and saying hello. Madenn is a little overwhelmed sometimes by the attention while Mae doesn't care. I always ask the older one to say hello back but usually I move on with my walk. Sometimes like today, one person will venture and ask me a question. They always broach the same concerns. The most common question is: Is Mae a girl or a boy? It is a very logical and understandable concern. Baby girls here usually display some exterior signs of their gender: earings, pink all over, bows and lace. They are also usually more petite than my baby girl is. So since Mae doesn't show any signs of being a girl Or a boy for that matter, she stays a gender neutral baby which is something they are not used to. So they ask the question to be able to categorize her. The second most common question is how old my children are and what are their names? Sometimes someone will even ask if they (both of them) are my children. Today for example, this man was very eager to find out about one thing: Is it very common for "white folks" to have children very close in age? I hadn't realize until today that the fact that my two girls look so close in age (even though one is walking and the other isn't) was so intriguing to Africans. It turned out that it can be quite a topic of conversation. According to this gentleman, for "africans", it is frowned upon to have babies close in age. People say that the couple is too much in a hurry! So he was quite interested to find out why and how common it was for "white folks" to have children close in age. His take was that because of our better living conditions we could afford to have children at a greater pace. I explained to him that the rest of the world is no different from Africa. It is white folks in developed countries who are an oddity. Everywhere else I told him, women give birth and raise their children, clean their house and cook and sometimes even work full time all by themselves. And yes, some choose to have children close in age but they do it fully aware that they will have to work hard as they don't have all the help we have here, maid, cooks etc. And yes, in the developed world too, people practice birth spacing too. The result of this discussion didn't surprise me as I had already realized that our common stereotype of large and populous african families is so off the mark here in Congo. People nowadays can't afford to have a lot of children, so they wait, sometimes a long time before having another one. They think just as we do before they add to their families. And if they do, they either know fully well what they are getting themselves into or they are just not educated and responsible enough to know what they are doing. Just as in our countries! Isn't it interesting that while we characterize African families as large, they picture ours in the same way too? I think both the man I met today and I were glad that we had this conversation. And when he realized Madenn was being bothered by the loony I mentioned earlier, he graciously took his leave hoping for us to meet again another time. We both went our way a little more enlightened on the other's way of life and culture, thinking that after all, we may not be so different than we think we are.

Being responsible for the house maintenance, I have noticed that there are very specialized workers in Pointe Noire. We have the guys who come and clean the air conditioning units once a month. By hand, using a damp cloth and a bucket. We also have the guys who come to fix the internet connection. The guys who come to fix broken doors or handles. The guys who come to look at our electric system and those who only work on air conditioning units' failures. Not to be confused with the guys who clean the air conditioning units! We also have the guy who comes and cut our grass with a manual lawnmower (different from our gardener who cuts it by hand!!!), the guy who comes to herbicide our palm trees, the guy who come to collect our coconuts, the guy who comes to fill up our water tank and oil tank, etc... My favorites are the guys who come every month to check if we have any broken light bulbs. The assistant usually carries one tool, for example a ladder, or in the case of our air conditioning unit guys, a screw driver. Today workers came to the house to caulk our bathtubs. They proceeded in breaking down the old seals around the bathtub with a simple chisel and ... their fists as hammers! I leant them mine as I quickly concluded that it would go a little faster and a lot less painful! Now except for the guy cleaning our swimming pool, every other company always sends two guys minimum. Most workers take off their shoes before coming in, even if it means showing off socks with many holes. They all clean after themselves, using the dust pan and the mop like pros. They all show up in overalls too, the green ones, the bright orange ones, with the name of the company stamped on the back. Usually, you have one guy working and one guy there to assist. The second guy spends most of his time just watching the first guy do his work. Then, of course, you also have the nanny or maid watching the guy watching the guy working. The third person is very important because one of the first rules an expat learns here is that you never leave an outside person alone in your house. It protects you against potential thefts. So you always ask your employee (usually the maid but in my case, it is the nanny) to just stand there, follow them around and watch the guys do their work. And in the case of my nanny, she also likes to give them orders. Even so, one is not protected against thieves. One expat lady (who has since left the country) told me a true story. She had some workers come to her house and consequently dutifully asked her staff to watch over them. Not only did they follow them around but the guard also searched them when they left. One of the workers had somehow managed to hide one of her son's little cars in his shoe. Quite a stupid thing to steal when one's job is on the line. Anyway, while I try to keep the house tidy, it is quite impossible with the girls to do so. I have accepted that some things will probably disappear... so far, I have only noticed a wash cloth with little green bears on it was missing. My staff is either honest (which I tend to believe) or very clever. I was told to watch for the "Nigerian Method" for example. This is a more subtle way of testing the boss's awareness of his/her surroundings. One moves an object to a different place (usually near the original location) every few days. If the boss doesn't say anything or doesn't bring the object back to its original location, the object ends up missing entirely. In my case, they could be stealing in front of me, I wouldn't even notice. Most of you know how much of an airhead I am. Even my children remind me of things to do now. By the way, Mae, our champion eater and poop maker struck again. This afternoon she produced a bright fluorescent green poop which puzzled her nanny enough that she had to show it to me. We racked our brains to figure out what had happened and our conclusion came down to the following..... crayola wax crayons do brighten every kid's creation, even in a baby's diaper!

Today I went to see Maman Marie, the social worker, and took the time to look at the pictures of malnourished children they saved over the years. What she told me was so upsetting I have to share it with you as well. I knew that children die today in Congo because of malnutrition but I had no idea malnutrition itself could be caused by pure obscurantism and stupidity. First I have to explain that Maman Marie and the social department only deals with extreme malnutrition. She can barely afford to help the most severe cases with the meager resources she has but she tries her best to help bring these children back to a healthy weight, back to life actually. She explained to me that malnutrition generate two extreme diseases in Congo, Marasmus (a wasting disorder of malnutrition and partial starvation which occurs in infants and young children as a result of severe protein deficiency and insufficient caloric intake) and kwashiorkor (/kwash·i·or·kor/) (a severe protein and caloric intake deficiencies. Symptoms include retarded growth, changes in skin and hair pigment, edema, immune deficiency, and pathologic changes in the liver). The two diseases were very easy to distinguish on the pictures. Some of the kids were pure skeletons and others were so puffy that they almost looked obese. I actually met a set of twins almost two years old who looked very very skinny, small with a head too large for their bodies. Their mum had come to see Maman Marie for some food. Sometimes, people here are so poor that they can't afford to eat every day (like Floriane) and this renewed state of extreme poverty generates malnutrition and sometimes death. At the hospital, the first time we went, we met a little boy, who, at three years old, weighted less than Mae at 8 months. He looked no more than a year old, couldn't walk and suffured from many ailments. We attracted attention to his case because he looked so bad and the staff agreed that he probably needed a transfusion which we paid for. But as many children in this hospital, it was very difficult to find a vein because of his state and and they eventually didn't manage to save him. It was my first encounter with death at the hospital and the first realization that even here in a country rich with oil, people still can't find enough money to afford to eat everyday. These deaths I can understand but the case of the water child I just don't. While showing me the pictures, Maman Marie pointed to one baby and said... this is a water boy. I asked her what she meant. She explained that there is a belief in Congo that there are other worlds than the living word. "Living things" dwell in the water for example and sometimes get lost into our world. People believe that when a child is sick since childhood, it is because he still belongs to the water world. That he hasn't left that world entirely because he still owes a debt. The family usually go and see a traditional marabout, medicine man, who can talk to the invisible world and instruct the family on how to cure the child. Usually the family needs to do ceremonies to appease the water world and to ask it to leave the child alone. Many rites are performed including dressing the child all in red. Other ceremonies (which were explained to me by Ulrich, my driver) involve paying the debt back. The marabout determine how much is owed: 30, 100, 5,000 or even 10,000 CFA. An important detail (mentioned by everyone I talked to), is that the sum needs to be collected in 5 CFA coins. The family then needs to bring the amount due to a specific place, again determined by the marabout (location from where the child is supposed to have come from) and have a "party". They dance, give candies, lollipops, popcorns (anything children like) to children (real ones hanging around) and at some point during the ceremony, they need to throw the coins and candies in the water. This ceremony is very nice and well but in the meantime, the family lets the child literally starve to death. Because they cannot determine what is wrong with the child and think that it has something to do with the invisible world, they just stop caring for the child and justify his/her state by the association with the fantastic world. So they stop feeding him/her if he refuses to absorb food, don't bring him to the doctor and of course don't give him modern medicine. 10,000 CFA thrown in the water rather than used for feeding the kid, this is madness! Ulrich also mentioned another stupid ceremony he himself refused to perform against his family's wishes. His older son was often sick when he was little, with fevers all the time. He was told that he had to perform the following rite to stop them. He had to go to 10 different dumpsters and collect a dirty manioc leaf (used to wrap around the manioc they eat as bread every day) in each one. He had to place them all into a basin (without cleaning them) and then dip his child into it! He flatly refused despite another man's assurance that this ceremony had worked for his daughter!!! Traditional doctors and social pressure are dangerous for people with credulous souls.