Transportation in Bangui

I always find it interesting to see how people get from place to place in various parts of the world. So I thought I'd post some photos of the modes of transportation people use here in CAR. Many people simply walk, even for very long distances.

But in town, people may travel by taxi too. The yellow taxis cost 150 francs per shared ride (about 30 cents), and can have four passengers in the back seat, and two in the front passenger seat. There are lots of taxis, and they run on routes. You can also pay more to have a taxi to yourself, and to have the driver take you directly where you want to go -- this costs about $3.

The green buses are even less expensive to travel in than the yellow taxis, and the buses hold a lot more riders!

For transporting goods in and out of town, people come up with creative ways to carry the maximum possible load.Likewise, people come up with ingenious ways to carry the maximum possible number of passengers.

People also get around on bikes and motorbikes.

Small wooden canoes are used for river transport. To get to DRC, the country just across the Oubangui River, one might be ferried across in a boat like this.

When your three-year-old comes to you and says, “Mama, I put something in the toilet!” something could mean a bottle of shampoo, a soap dish, a bar of soap, a towel, a mirror, a hairbrush and a bottle of insect repellant all at the same time.

Eating Thanksgiving dinner, complete with turkey and pecan pie (!) on a hot, breezy day under the shade of tall palms and other tropical trees didn't feel quite like any Thanksgiving I've had before. The U.S. ambassador and his wife had invited all the Americans in town to their house to celebrate Thanksgiving, and it was fun to get to meet other people from the U.S. and hear what they are doing here in Bangui. There was also a nice big yard for the kids to play in.

On Friday, we got to check out the academic library that Adam and Idriss have just finished organizing. It looks amazing! Monday will be the "grand opening," when translators and others can come in and see the newly-organized library and discover the resources that are available to help them in their work.

three wonderful years

Yesterday a house full of friends sang happy birthday to John and ate chocolate cake with us as we celebrated him turning three years old. Looking at the pictures from his past birthdays, I realized the only birthday he didn't have chocolate cake was the day he was born. I didn't realize I'd fallen into a rut! This time, though, much of the celebration was in a dark room lit by only one kerosene lantern -- that was a first for John's birthday celebrations.

We're so thankful for our little boy who loves to talk nonstop with everyone he meets, play with his little brother, help with housework and give butterfly kisses. John is such a blessing to us, and we pray that as the years go by he comes to know and trust Jesus more and more.

We have travelled many thousands of miles since our last blog post. Between September and October we had the joy of being at my sister Rebecca's wedding in MN and spending some time with both sides of the family while we were in the U.S.

Now, back in Bangui, busy-ness as usual has been continuing. We are hoping to move west to Berberati in December, where we will not have an oven or stove. So Marie Claire, who was our Sango language teacher before, happily agreed to teach me some important basic cooking skills (things that girls here would probably know before age 10), such as cooking fish over a charcoal grill. I was happy to learn that it's really quite simple...although watching two small boys while doing the cooking is a little more complicated!


Adam's current job through the end of November is cataloguing and arranging the academic linguistic library here, with the help of a visiting librarian from Congo.


John and Sam are having more fun playing together now that Sam is a little older, and they are also enjoying playing with friends here. John has a lot of fun playing with his friend Louisa, who we have known longer than most of our friends here: we did French language study with Louisa's parents in France, when John and Louisa were both babies.

Thankful

Thankful for a two year old son who dances just as wildly to Rachmaninoff’s second piano concerto as he does Carlos Vives.

Sam is One!

Sam turned on on May 31! (I can't believe it's been nearly a month already -- it took this long to get the video at the end uploaded). We are so thankful for our sweet little one year old. He finished his first piece of birthday cake looking remarkably clean:


Our friends Daniel and Ceci, and their children Laurent and Audrey Esther, came over to celebrate Sam's birthday with us:

The turtle birthday headband I made for Sam stayed on for a total of about three seconds:

On his birthday evening, Sam enjoyed playing with new found companion, our neighbor's kitten Tommy: