The boys in Kimbemba
The night was short of sleep – I spent quite some time on paperwork before I went to bed. After two hours sleep, at 3.30 am, the cock of our hosts the Diamfunisas started crowing. It turned out that the hen house was located just outside our bedroom, and we couldn´t close the window. At each full hour and half hour, he ran around flapping and screaming at the top of his voice. Never before has a cock been as loud as this one, as far as I can recall. The thought crossed my mind, that if I had had a machete, it would have been very tempting to chop off his head. But I would never kill the cock of our most hospitable hosts. At breakfast, the Diamfunisas apologized for the behaviour of the cock, and told us that he will be locked away next time we stay there overnight.
We had the usual porridge and medicines for breakfast. Then Yapeco, Bernt and I went to the bank to withdraw a sum of money for Emy Miantezila. It was a Swedish donation specifically made out to benefit his activities. At the BIAC Bank, we made the withdrawal in a cash machine with a VISA card. We talked to Emy and his son David, an agronomist, about agricultural projects around Kimpese. In order to proceed, they will look into a number of important issues until our next meeting, on February 24.
Nganga Diamfunisa is building a small hotel with eight rooms and a restaurant. He showed it to us, and he reckons that he will be able to open in March or April. It is an attractive building in the center of Kimpese.
Sam from the IME hospital picked us up and drove us the 100 kilometers to the ferry stop in Kimbemba. The drive lasted for three hours on a surface that is everything but a road. Sam is used to the Congo roads and drives as fast as the car can handle. He has a Toyota Land Cruiser, a sturdy jeep with a 6 cylinder diesel engine. On this distance, you can´t use anything but off-road vehicles. The trip is not comfortable, but we reached our destination, somewhat shaken.
The boys whom we met last June, and whom we gave the New Testament came and talked to us for a while. We didn’t quite understand how they could know that we would be there at this day and hour, but then we saw that one of the boys, Honete, helped out on the ferry. He must have notified the others. We asked them to email us if there was anything they needed, but they told us that they didn´t have access to the internet. We had an agreeable half-hour trip by ferry over the Congo river. On the other side, we were met by Gunnel Jönsson.
We are staying at Gunnel Jönsson´s house, where we have a whole appartment to our disposal, but we take our meals together with Gunnel. Yapeco is staying in a guest room in Gunnel´s appartment. In Luozi it is quiet and nice, and tonight we have electrical power which makes everything easier. After dinner we planned tomorrow´s meeting with the new entrepreneurs. Robert Diabiyanza came to fetch parts to his chain saw and medicine. Daniel Bimpe, workshop owner, came to book a meeting for Wednesday. An evening sandwich rounded off the day.
