Dinner at Yapeco and Augustine’s

Bernt, Julienne and me, visited today the third mayor during our stay in Congo and today, naturally Lars-Ola and Lennart came along too. Previously, we had visited the mayors of Luozi and Kimpese. Two years ago on our first trip to Congo, we had also visited the Matadi mayor and it’s the same person today, Nzeyidio Lukombo Jean-Marc. We expressed the joy of seeing each other again, and told him about the activities of MSG during the last two years. We presented our plans for the future and that we wish that politicians and policymakers would support our activities. Bernt told him about the sustainable solutions to waste disposal used in Boras, that I have previously written about. When he comes home Bernt’s task will be to, together with Joseph Nsumbu, plan for study visit from Congo to Borås to acquire knowledge of their unique methods of waste disposal, the knowledge and practice of which Borås today is world-leading.

Then we went to the daily dinner party at Yapeco’s and Augustine’s. Myriam and Anita are staying at their house. They seem to feel like home, and they help to fix various things. Today, Anita made American pancakes that we ate as dessert with coffee. When we left, we got pancakes for our evening meal on the patio. Had we only had a little maple syrup, our luck would have been made​​. But one should not strive for what one can not get. It’s better to be grateful for what you have. When we were satisfied, we went for a walk, and back at Lisanga we took our daily siesta.

Then we had paperwork and preparations to do. There are rarely any idle hours. Work requires health and prosperity, a motto that fortunately have been fulfilled and confirmed in our Nordic countries.

At 5 p.m. Yapeco came and picked us up to visit an entrepreneur who we unfortunately had lost contact with. So today we went to his home, quite a long way through winding and sometimes very hilly streets of Matadi. The whole city is built on hills and deep valleys. In this landscape, it is difficult to orient oneself. The streets are narrow and there are many cars, lots of people, endless rows of market stalls that must share the space with everything between heaven and earth. Added to this is the large truck in the middle of it all. All drivers are diligent users of the car horn, and if honking does not help, they shout out their thoughts of their fellow drivers. The most complicated and chaotic traffic usually works out after a while. Luckily, there were no crashes for us today. But the vehicles of many other road users were quite wrinkled. Congolese are amazing to see opportunities in the most impossible situations. An ability that is an asset to an entrepreneur.

We parked on a hill and walked about 500 meters to get to our entrepreneur. Yapeco made inquiries for him and oriented us about where the person was. After a while, the m an showed up and arranged a ring of chairs where we could sit down. I told him that we had come to look at his work, a routine mission we do with all entrepreneurs. I opened his original business statement which was to start a poultry farm and breed broilers, an activity that we had chose to support. After a short discussion, he surprised us all when he told us that he had bought a car for the money he borrowed, 3000 USD. He had not even started the smallest of poultry farms. I made it clear to him that he is a liar and that he had deceived us. He had behaved miserably, not only to MSG, but also to the other members of his group. Because of his fraudulent conduct, he must repay the loan by next week. He agreed to come to us on Monday at 10 a.m. to settle his debt. We wrote a contract on the spot, and he signed the confirmation of his promise. A very sad story for him and a lesson for us.