My first few days here have passed by quickly. Monday, Tuesday, & Wednesday were all orientation days, with two different trips to the US embassy in between. On Monday I worked with housekeeping. It was slow going and pretty uneventful, as housecleaning usually is;) Tuesday I got to be in dining/kitchen all day. We would start off with clearing all the tables that had fed the 400+ people in the bethel family. That ended up being my favorite part! After that I was moved into the kitchen where I helped bag greens, onions (lots & lots of sliced onions, I cried!), and sugar. I also got to see homemade peanut butter be made and dished out. The sister doing that noticed my eager looks and put aside some in a bag for me to take back to my room. Merci! At around 3:30 the brother in charge asked if I had any "force" left in me. I replied oui. So then he put me to work with the spray gun, rinsing off pan after pan as two brothers washed them. Needless to say, I was pretty wet by the end it.
Yesterday I ended my orientation with a day in the laundry. There is a brother from France named Charles who is the overseer who turned out to be a pretty great overseer. He is also very funny. He is married to a sister from Italy who is also very lovely. I haven't figured out what she does yet, I think it is delivering the mail, but she always manages to drop by now and then! Another young brother from France named Timothe works under Charles. Then there are about 20 others who also work in "lingerie". There is so much organization that goes into being able to get the laundry done of so many people, every week! I think that is one reason why I liked it. I was paired with a local sister names Solange all day who tried to get everyone to speak French around me so I could understand, but, as it turned out, she was always the first one to slip into Lingala, with everyone else quickly following in behind. It was fun to laugh at her about this;) I really enjoyed working in laundry; everyone was so nice and relaxed and the overseers were great too. I did have a pretty easy day though, as this was the same day I had to drive to the embassy twice. It turns out that not only did I arrive in Congo with an expired visa, but I also arrived with an almost full passport! In fact, that crazy arrival day in the airport gets even crazier because, technically, I had already run out of pages for them to put my temporary visa into and they happened not to pick this out. It is amazing that they did not try to get more money out of me right then and there! Anyways, the brothers here at Bethel that are working on getting me my actual correct visa told me I had to go the US embassy first and request new pages to be put in my passport so that there would be a place for the new visa. Brian called a friend he knows at the embassy and was able to get me an appointment, even though they normally only do this sort of request on Mondays and Fridays. So I went in the morning and had to leave it there, with the lady at the desk promising to call when it was finished. Thankfully she called in the afternoon and I went back in the afternoon to pick it up. It was nice to have my passport in my hands again, if only for a short time as I had to hand it over to the brothers as soon as I got back. They only have today and tomorrow to get me my new visa! I am so thankful that they are taking care of all that for me. It is a huge relief!
I am quickly seeing that my French will greatly improve here. At lunchtime I am trying to sit with new people, even though this is pretty hard for me; my comfort zone is very much to stick to Brian and Mona. But I realized today that the crew I am actually working with are all English speakers!! bummer;( Not that I do not like the crew and the work. But it would have been really great to have been working with the local brothers and sisters so I would be forced to use my french more. So another reason to really try to branch out at lunch time. I also have been invited out in service and to get togethers a lot.... so much that I think I may need a personal planner to keep track of everything! Apparently, a single, white sister from the states who can also speak french ("an American who can speak french???") is very rare... or at least I keep being told that all day long. It also seems that every single brother and sister know my name and are constantly calling it out in hello. It's nice. It would be even nicer if I could at least remember some of there names. I hope with time I will get better.
Today I started my actual job that I will be doing for the time I am here. They are re-doing all of the air conditioning units in the laundry room. It is fun to be doing something that I actually have a little experience with. Thank goodness for RBC! Today was a slow day though as most of our supplies for the job have not arrived. But they are supposed to arrive tomorrow, on 4 trucks that branch in South Africa sends up. It takes 2 weeks of driving to make it here!! Wow! Not only will our supplies be on the truck, but also many other supplies for all of bethel, as well as literature for the whole country. I wonder if this causes any excitement in the bethel family, or if it is just a normal thing to happen once a month or so. I guess I will see tomorrow.....
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