Interesting article on phones and internet in Africa

This is a fascinating article called Digital Africa. Just thought I would share it with you. It is truly amazing how in the past 6 months everyone here is suddenly accessing the Internet on their phones and using Facebook. Enjoy!

First pics in Congo

Here are some photos of Maria's first few weeks in Congo! They include a lot of other firsts for her, such as eating, drinking, and growing teeth! There are also some from our favorite annual Independence Day bash at the American Embassy. That wasn't a first for Maria because she attended last year in utero :o)

Diaperless Baby

Have you heard of diaperless babies? Infant potty training? Elimination Communication? These are all terms referring to a wonderful method I am beginning to discover by which you teach your baby to go to the bathroom when prompted rather than passively in a diaper. I had heard that in some places this is a traditional wisdom that has been passed down through the years. In China for example babies wear split pants, so the mom can just open them up when the baby needs to go. They make a sound like “psssss” which signals to the baby that it’s time. I first heard about Americans practicing this from a missionary here in Congo who did it with her baby. She piqued my interest with the words, “By 10 months she never went poo anywhere but the toilet. She still had occasional potty accidents, but she didn’t need a diaper, just underwear.” Fascinating!

I looked it up online while I was still in the US and tried it out a little when Maria was just 3 months old. The first try was very encouraging! I took her to the bathroom just after she’d eaten, which is a typical time they need to pee. I held her over the sink and a few seconds later she pooed! That was a lucky break which gave me courage and interest to continue. I would occasionally take her to the bathroom after she’d eaten and she would usually potty, but beyond that I didn’t know how to catch when she needed to go.

So I’m here in Congo now and with the tile floors feel like it’s a good place to try out the practice more thoroughly :o) But I still haven’t been quite sure how to get started. Today Espérance noticed that Maria’s buns were a little raw. That would be my fault because I’m becoming more and more stingy with changing her disposable diapers in anticipation of running out and needing to make the painful change to cloth diapers and all the fun that entails. So I spontaneously said, “Well, just leave her diaper off so she can air out a bit and we’ll see about this whole diaperless thing.” You don’t really have to go diaperless because you can just remove the diaper when they need to go, but so long as she’s wearing one I’m not sure when she’s actually going. I need to learn approximately when she goes and how she indicates that she’s about to go and also be able to make the sound while she’s going so she’ll learn to associate it. It’s called “Elimination Communication” because you learn to recognize your babies’ signals about her need to eliminate and she learns to recognize your signal for her to go.

At the beginning of the day I was only able to anticipate the obvious times—just after eating and upon waking from a nap. I would take her to the bathroom and set her over the sink and say “Ts ts tssssss” a few times, wait, and say it again when she would actually go. A few times I also saw her going while she was lying on top of a cloth diaper and was able to make the sound while she went. Much to my great astonishment, by the end of the afternoon I was able to take her to the bathroom a few times when I just thought maybe she might need to go and made the sound and she instantly went! The things I read did not indicate how long it would take to learn, so I had no idea that it would only take one day of this practice for her to already associate the sound and be able to choose to go!

It makes me marvel at my little baby, realizing she’s probably capable of much more than I give her credit for. It also makes me wonder why we either spend a ton of money on disposable diapers or else a ton of work dealing with cloth ones?? Even if I only do this part-time, it could still cut in half the number of diapers I either throw away or have to wash. Plus, if a baby is capable of this, why would I want to stifle that? It makes both her and me more aware and less passive, and I feel like it’s creating a special bond between us already.

I confess it’s not all rainbows and unicorns. It does take a lot of attentiveness and some trial and error. There were a few mishaps today (including some pee on the couch…), but overall it was an exhilarating debut to our diaperless endeavor.

Cute pictures

Here are some really cute pics of Maria that my friend Crystal took just a couple days before we left for Congo. She is still in the editing process, so these are mostly rough ones, but they're already adorable!

Maria is now 5 months old (had to think twice when someone pointed out she's almost half a year already...crazy!). They grow fast at this age, so even just in the two weeks we've been in Congo it seems like she's changed so much. She can now put her pacifier in her mouth by herself (sure, it's a little hit or miss...). Whenever you stand her up on your lap she immediately starts bouncing, which expends an unbelievable amount of energy....the person holding her gets tired before she does though! Thankfully we brought a jumper seat that hangs in the doorway, so sometimes she can get her energy out all by herself. She has now eaten avocado and started drinking apple juice (I was going to wait until 6 months at least to give her anything besides mama's milk, but she's not pooing anymore and the doctor said to increase her liquids because of the climate change). Surmounting the time change wasn't as painful as it could have been; I was imagining her going to bed at 6am (10pm Oregon time), but usually by midnight we've been able to settle in for the night. Just in the past couple days she seems to be showing some preference for mom over other people. Of course it's been great the way she'll just go to any old person and smile at them, but it's also kind of sweet to know she likes me especially :o)

Current pics

OK, here are the pictures from April and May in my Facebook album.

Maria is growing by leaps and bounds! In the past week she has started to be able to grasp toys. She'll be 4 months old in a few days.

I've been gearing up with swimming supplies for our return to Congo. My mental health contingency plan is to go to the pool every weekend :o) We've got a baby bathing suit, a floatie tube for Maria to sit in, a foam noodle, and baby sunglasses!

My Maria

Hey everybody! Sorry, sitting at the computer isn't a luxery I get much these days! Maria is now over 3 months old! I've posted some more pics on Facebook:
March 2011
These are from her second month of life, but I'll get some recent ones up soon.

It's really fun being a mom. I enjoy seeing Maria develop new capacities on a weekly, even daily basis. She can smile now, look at the pictures in a book, and bat at toys hanging above her. Such fun!

More Maria

Hi! Here are some more pics of Maria's Weeks 2 and 3. Enjoy!

For more photos of Maria see our FB album

some pics from January '11

Here is a new Facebook album of pics from the past month or so.

Some pregnancy pics and advice

Here I am at 39 1/2 weeks.

We've been steadily getting ready for a home birth and setting up all the stuff for baby. I can heartily endorse the store Once Upon a Child and other "gently used" children's clothing and accessory stores. Babies don't wear out their clothes before they out grow them, so you can get lots of stuff in great condition for a fraction of the price you buy it new. If the items are on clearance you can get nice stuff for $1 or less. I also recommend registering at Target because you get a whole bag of coupons and even a $20 gift card for photo products on Shutterfly.

I also highly recommend the following books:
Ina May's Guide to Childbirth
The Sears Birth Book
Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way

These books are full of great information for helping you prepare for a positive birth experience (regardless of whether you choose a home or hospital birth, a natural or a medicated one). There are so many things we can do to prepare physically and mentally. I definitely feel like a home birth is the easiest path to having a good experience, but everyone planning a hospital birth just needs to work twice as hard to get educated about your choices and make a plan for the doctors to follow. There are many interventions for which there is not informed consent, so you have to know what they plan to do before they do it if you what to decline (For example, a lady in Salem was shocked the other day to receive her baby into her arms and see that a monitoring device had been inserted into its scalp. No one had told her about internal fetal monitoring and she was appalled!).

I've come to see that my health and the health of my baby is my responsibility and I should never give myself unquestioningly into someone else's care. There are sooooo many options for birth that I had never even thought of before. Did you know that at the hospital (at least at mine) they wash your baby by holding it under a stream of water and scrubbing it with a brush? You can opt to not bathe your baby until you go home, leaving its protective coating on and avoiding the risk of staff infection (you KNOW how common those are these days!). That's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of choices and risks which need to be investigated so that you can make the best plan possible.

I know a lot of pregnant women, so I just thought I would share some of these resources because I want everyone to have their very best experience!

Christmas Tree pics

Here's an album of photos of Esperance's very first adventure in Oregon--hunting for a Christmas tree!

Esperance's first days in America

Here are some Facebook photos of Esperance's first week here! (plus a few random ones he included from Brazza)

He's had enough of English by now and thinks we're all speaking Chinese instead. (I know the feeling well from my years living abroad.) There have only been a few things that he hasn't seen before, namely the garbage disposal in the sink and the skywalks for pedestrians downtown. He also has noted that the architecture is different here than in Europe. We haven't spent much time in Portland yet, but when he saw the city lights and the big buildings he said, "Now I really feel like I'm in the US!"

The relatives were duly impressed with how he handled 17 people in the house on Christmas Day, joining in the festivities like he'd always been among us. The two of us even serenaded the group with a rousing rendition of Feliz Navidad, as well as a song in Kikoongo. Good times so far!

Thanksgiving 2010

I came home just in time for the most delicious holiday of the year! See pics here.

There are some distinct advantages to being pregnant at Thanksgiving:
1) I wear pants with an elastic waistband
2) My baby bump covers for the food pooch ("This is all baby, I swear!")
3) I WANT to gain weight
:o)

First Anniversary photos

Hey everybody! Sorry for my disappearance these past few months. I was vomiting most of the time, so you'll have to forgive me :o)

Here are some lovely photos of my first wedding anniversary celebration with Esperance this past weekend.

Random thoughts on life in Brazzaville

Here are a few thoughts I've been wanting to share with you. They are completely unrelated from each other, but each represents a little slice of life in Brazzaville, Congo.

1) The 50 year anniversary of the independence of Congo is coming up August 15th. To prepare for this illustrious event, the city has decided to tear up and replace most of its water pipes and roads. The end result I'm sure will be fantastic (at least for a month or so until new pot holes form), but in the meantime I'm getting really tired of seeing "detour" signs everywhere I go; there are basically only detours left to drive on, no straight road to anywhere. You literally can't drive into certain neighborhoods now. I'm sure that one day I will go to leave my house and I simply will not be able to! My friend Barb has had to stop going into the prison on Fridays because she literally would have to jump over a ditch to get onto the property (guess that's one way of doing security--build a mote!). For several weeks the route between my home and work (along which the aforementioned prison lies) felt like a military training course; I gave myself points for every danger safely avoided and daily new obstacles of holes and piles would form. But now it’s impassable and I have to brave the main roads which take me out of my way and put me onto the path of policemen who want to pull me over. But the 15th is rapidly approaching and I’m hoping they’ll be able to finish these ambitious projects in time.

2) The main (pretty much the only) supermarket in town smells like a hamster cage. This is actually putting it in kind terms considering the cute and cuddly connotation of hamsters, so let’s just go with “rat butt”. I took a poll amongst my friends and they unanimously used the word ‘urine’ to describe the notorious odor. Now this smell is to be easily explained in most of the small boutiques in town—they have cats to keep away the rats and these cats raise their babies under the shelves in the store so the store literally becomes a litter box. But the source of the supermarket smell is less observable, although I did look at some food the other day whose packaging had clearly been chewed open…probably not by hungry customers. Thinking about this makes the muddy, pungent open-air market seem a whole lot cleaner to me by comparison. At least those sweet market ladies aren’t trying to sell me something a rodent has previously gnawed on!

OK, people, you know I love Congo and don’t complain very often, so you’ll allow me this one post, right? I’m only supposed to say good things about the country, so here’s my positive spin on the ranting of the previous paragraphs—Thank you, city planners for working on all those rough roads that lie between my house and place of work. That will make my commute totally awesome! And thank you, super market store owners for being willing to operate in this country where conditions make doing business difficult. I’m glad you’re here!

House-Hunting: Starting from scratch

Well, the other couple has decided they're not ready to commit to anything since they still have some months before they get married, so we're scrapping the duplex idea. Back to square one!

I hate house-hunting. You spend so much time and money and still come up empty handed. I'm ready to pitch a tent.

Our Dream Duplex :o)

OK, these are all the photos I can get up at the moment (spotty Internet connection). So basically the house still needs all the fixtures (sinks, lights, etc.) and the walls need painting and the floors need tiling. So it will look a lot prettier in the end than what it is in these photos.

This is the living room. Will be a little bit of a squeeze to get a dining room table and couch and buffet and all in there, but I think it can work.

This is the big bedroom. Big enough

This is the bathroom. It's pretty small. They still need to add a sink and a shower head. I guess the room will get pretty wet when you shower (note the hole on the floor on the right). I'm assuming it will all get tiled.

This is the kitchen. It's pretty tight quarters but I think we can swing it.

House-hunting in Congo Day #365

I realized the other day that it has been a year since Espérance and I starting praying for a house! God has not left us homeless; au contraire, we have had some good times these past 7 months of marriage. But we’re STILL praying to find a house to settle in!

The other day we happened across a real estate agent (so to speak…the system is different here…it’s a bit like in the US, only really confusing, if not chaotic…) who wanted to show us a house he was sure we would like. What really sealed it for me was it apparently was 2 houses being built on the same lot which was funny because my colleague Angi and I have started joking (and praying) that we would find a duplex so we could live together when she gets married at the end of the year to her DR Congolese fiancé (the Ameri-Congo club is growing! Sorry, we’re very elite so you probably can’t join). Well, this house he was sure we would like I was able to eliminate after looking at it for about 3 seconds. It was lovely when we walked in since it’s brand new, but the so called “modern kitchen” only had enough space for a sink and counter top (guess the fridge and stove would go in the living room!) and in order to take a shower in the bathroom I’m pretty sure I would have actually had to be standing on top of the toilet. No thanks.

I was really regretting the $20 I had paid to the realtor as we went to look at another house with him today. But much to my surprise, he showed us something very interesting! Our dream of a duplex apparently was not so far-fetched after all. There is one being built by a Congolese Parisian lady and they have offered it to us at a reasonable price! The dimensions are smaller than I was hoping for, especially for the kitchen, but could work out with some careful planning. The most amazing part is there is an underground water tank and a pump, so I would have water flowing in my house!!!!!!!!!!!! This is more than I had hoped for. It’s a bit further out than the other house we had looked at, but is on good accessible roads and is maybe a 10 minute walk from a bus stop that would take me to my work. There’s a place to park my car and there’s already a good sized wall all around. There’s no place for planting trees or grass, but we could always install planters and pots to grow vegetables and flowers. There was power when we were there so that’s a good sign.

The fact that it is unfinished is GREAT for 3 reasons: 1) We can have it made to our specifications, 2) We’ll be the first people to live in it, and 3) Hopefully the owner will be ok with finishing Angi’s side more slowly (it needs even more work that our side) so that it can be done just in time for her wedding and she won’t have to pay rent until then. This is practically miraculous if it works out because who would have thought we could find a duplex with both sides available and the possibility of delaying Angi’s move for over 6 months?!

Please pray for Angi and Rémy and Espérance and I to make the right decision! We need to get back to the owner asap (Monday?) because houses go very quickly. If Angi and Rémy are undecided or decide not to take it, it will be hard for Espérance and I because we need to know who would end up living next to us. It’s a hard decision because it’s not PERFECT, but it’s close enough to what we’re looking for that it’s not easy to turn it down either. What do you think?!!

I'll try to get some pics up soon...

Easter 2010

He is risen! He is risen indeed!
Il est vivant! Il est ressucité! Qui? Jésus!

I celebrated Easter, as I have for the past 4 years in Congo (minus last year when I was with my mommy at Saint Joseph's!) at the Cathedral up the street from my work. It's the most important holiday on the liturgical calendar, so the service is replete with dancing girls, beautiful music, and an air of holy festivity.

Afterwards (and the great part is the mass is over by 9:30am!) I scurried home and made lunch for my beautiful family (as inlaws are called in French) plus my girlfriends Angi and Mikhal.

The meal was a great blend of American/Congolese. Mamy (my mom-in-law) brought fried chicken, Mikhal made cheesy mashed potatoes and green bean casserole, Angi came with dessert, and I prepared safou, rice, and deviled eggs. Espérance has deemed the eggs no longer a holiday food, but rather something I should make a couple times a month :o) I was happy that everybody seemed to like everything on the table!

Hints from Jello-Weez: The Joys of Mapeline

Hint #2 The Joys of Mapleine

I grew up on Mapleine syrup. I’m sure there are Maple snobs out there who only believe in real maple syrup, but probably most of you grew up on some other kind of goopy fake version like Mrs Butterworth. I can’t stand it when people take that cold goopy stuff out of their fridge and expect me to put it on my pancakes. I’m rather a fan of the easy to make, hot off the stove batch of Mapleine. It’s economical to boot.

One of the things I enjoy about Mapleine is using up the leftovers over the next few days. One obvious way is to just keep making pancakes; my helpful hint concerning that is you can keep leftovers in the fridge and just pop them in the toaster to reheat! Reheat your syrup and you’re good to go. Other tasty treats include: mixing it with plain yogurt (yum!!), using it as a sweetener for your tea, and poaching eggs in it (à la Quebecoise! Check out this article on “sugar shacks” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_house). For the eggs I would not recommend using syrup in which you have put blueberries—turns the eggs black! (Thanks, Mom, it was delicious, but…). The syrup is also superb on oatmeal. Bon appétit!