Learning about the Congo River and so much more

I received an email from my twin sister, Mary, today expressing surprise about the view from Bryan's office window.....the river was her interest and so I looked up on line and found information about the Congo River.....that it is the 5th longest in the world and the 2nd longest in Africa.....only the Nile River is longer.  It is also the deepest river in the world and is nearly a mile deep. It is anywhere from 1/2 mile to 10 miles wide depending on site and time of year.  I think there have been recent expeditions to learn about the fish and other information that has been made into documentaries.  This river has a falls named after Stanley and another after Dr. Livingstone.  There is so much information about it on the internet and so interesting.  Someday we hope to be able to fish in the river......catch and release or giving it to the local people.....

Whenever we go to town we see two interesting sites along the river....one is a sunken ship that is from the war, I believe.....the other is an industry that has grown up where the people gather the bamboo and logs that float down the river and then use them here in the area.  There is a place that has stacks of this wood at the side of the road.  This is recycling at its best.

We went to the school in Mphinda (pronounced Pinda) and helped with the children's crafts yesterday.  it was very hot and the schools do not have electricity so do not have fans.  It is amazing that these children can wear their school uniform.....street clothes covered with a white lab coat.....This school is very poor and so there isn't a full uniform like the other school we go to.  We made lanterns from paper so the children needed to cut along the lines, glue on "gemstones' and then it was stapled together.  They also colored flowers that had the petals with numbers one to five....and the petals that were colored and cut out had dots like dominoes to five and they were to match these.  Some of the children were immediately able to do this but others could not seem to understand the concept or perhaps didn't yet know their numbers.  The age difference in these classes are quite wide.  The teacher is really amazing to keep all these kids focused and learning.  By the end of the time there, it is like we have been to a sauna.....but enjoyable and I believe worthwhile for the kids and encouraging for the teachers as this portion of Angola is so poor and lacking in natural resources.

I spent the remainder of the day working on the English language teaching materials for Wednesday.  I am working on pronouns.....and in the class with the drivers we have students that speak some English and several that seem to be lost......I remember when my kids went to the International School of Bangkok and there was an immersion program for non English speaking students into the classrooms...I was so concerned that my children would have a more difficult time in the long run because they would not learn all they needed to know due to this immersion program.....well....here I am and I believe everyone is benefiting from the slower pace and the need to go over and over what we have learned before.  Interesting how our perspective changes.

I tried sweet potato fries last night.....the sweet potatoes are white and they begin to darken before I can finish peeling them. They also made my hands very sticky....I wonder why....Anyway, I guess I had too many because they didn't get crisp and I must admit, this is the first meal I have cooked that Bryan said, "Maybe we don't need to repeat this recipe".  We had hamburgers with the soft fries and they were good.  No hamburger buns but I had stopped at the local bakery and bought bread that can double as buns.  I still need to get eggplant to try the recipes that were sent to me......It is always an adventure......and encourages creativity to make the meals different.....and palatable.....