The missionaries in the DRC mission are paid a certain amount per month since they come from such poor circumstances.  Bus fare and a telephone are added to that sum, and then they are housed in missionary apartments that are usually, if not always, several levels above what they have lived in all their lives.  In other words, they have a flush toilet, running water, a shower and 3 meals a day instead of one.  A few come and live behind the Cahoon's in a little house for the 3 months before they are to leave on their missions.

     Today I was looking at papers that had been filled out for a group from Uvira to go to the temple in Johannesburg.  On one of the forms where a signature was required was a fingerprint of a woman instead of a signature.  It blew me away that an adult woman in this day and age was illiterate and could not write her name.  It turns out, 60% of the people here are illiterate and cannot read or write.

     We drove to Uvira, Congo last week to visit with the branch president there.  He is a wonderful man, so faithful and dedicated.  he has kept his little branch not only going but growing for the last 2 years with no budget from the church.  They are now about to split his branch into 2 branches.  The bathroom at this branch is an outhouse with stand-up features  and a bucket of water to wash it down.  I can tell you from experience it tests the thigh muscles!

We had a training meeting for the 3 branch presidencies last night and I don't know how we are going to survive here without them.  So much of what goes on is dependent on David and Jill.  We have so much to learn, to master, to understand, to do.  The scope of this call is bigger than what I expected to be doing.  For all intents and purposes, Gary is the Stake President/Mission President in this area.  We have 5 branches we are trying to help and 10 missionaries.  Gary has to do the interviews and the setting apart for missionaries leaving from here.  (That's another 5 coming up.)  We are in charge of the apartments for the missionaries and all repairs and maintenance.  Also for the branch buildings and their projects.  We pick up missionaries at the airport in the middle of the night and get visas and passports for missionaries and temple groups.  We go pay for electricity and rents for the 2 branch buildings and for the missionary apartments.  We are also responsible to pay the 10 missionaries and 3 prospective missionaries each month.  We are expected to go to presidency meetings for the 3 branches and often have to do some teaching. There is always someone calling or knocking at the door.

There is a new couple

who has arrived in Bujumbura.  They are here to serve as Humanitarian missionaries.  He loves dancing and so, for a going away party for the Cahoon's, we held a dance in both buildings.  Everyone smiled and laughed and had such a good time.  It was just what the members needed.  They did not realize that we had fun times in the church.  We taught them to do the electric slide line dance, the chicken dance, the YWCA dance and a bit of a waltz.  At one of the branches, they had 3 young women perform a traditional native dance.  At the end, everybody sang "God Be With You Till We Meet Again" as the Cahoon's went around the room and greeted and kissed everyone 3 times on the cheeks.
After the dance, we took the elders for an ice-cream at a little market.

Earlier in the day, we taught our 1st English class.  It was fun!  The last thing we worked on was learning a hymn in English to perform for sacrament meeting.  The elders are so cute, and they sing as if to break your heart.  So good!

Our Burundi adventure was just interrupted by another kind of adventure.  Gary started peeing blood.  As soon as we let the PA in Lubumbashi know, she sent us orders for tests to be performed here in Bujumbura.  We went to a small but clean hospital for blood and urine tests. This is a photo of that hospital and its waiting room.

We went there without an appointment and were seen promptly.  Everyone was very kind and the tests were administered in a professional manner.  The next day we returned for the results.  They were good (which was bad) and that ruled out any simple problem like an infection or parasite.  On learning of the test results, the PA then made an appointment with a urologist in Johannesburg, South Africa, started conferring with a doctor in Salt Lake, and booked us plane tickets to Johannesburg.  We left for the big city on Monday, April 14th.  Tuesday we met with the Dr. who was Indian.  We found ourselves in a crowded office with blacks, Indians, Muslims and one other white guy.  The Dr. was great!  He did an ultrasound and told Gary he had a prostate the size of Texas.  It is 4 times the normal size, a duck egg instead of a walnut.  It is pushing on the bladder, and being very vascular, tends to bleed with the friction.  Just to be sure that was the problem, he scheduled a CAT scan and a cytoscopy for the next day.  Gary was admitted at 6:30 the next morning, and we spent the day in a 6 bed ward mostly waiting , but receiving the 2 scheduled tests, one at 10:00am and one at 2:30 pm.  Gary spent the day joking with the nurses and making them laugh.  Some fellow senior missionaries we met in the MTC drove 3 hours from where they are assigned and hung out with us for a few hours at the hospital.  When Gary was released, we went out to dinner with them.  It was fun to be in Johannesburg, but I was very excited to head back to Bujumbura.  I missed all the green and the birds singing in the morning.  Johannesburg is just a big city, but we were grateful for the medical help available there.  Here is the hospital we went to.

Gary is on meds now, and hopefully that will be the end of the prostate saga!

We flew back to Burundi on Saturday---Yay!!  We're back!!

One thing I have loved discovering here is just how much the church does for the community at large.  I mentioned that the Church donated a large number of wheel chairs for those who needed them, and I spoke briefly about the latrines they are providing for 6 schools.  But also in the last 2 years they have donated an operating room to a local hospital, taught hygiene to local schools and built a water system that catches water from a spring and pipes it to local villages.  Right now the new humanitarian couple is working on plans or the next projects.  They have between 2 and 3 million dollars to spend in this area.  Isn't that great!  Below is a sign which labels the water catchment program.  L'Eglise de Jesus Christ des Saints des Derniers Jours is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints:

While we were waiting for the dress to be completed,  I took some photos of the people passing by.  Notice the boy with the eggs on his head, the woman with the baby on her back, and most especially, the man with the live chickens being held upside down.  He came to the car to see if we wanted to buy one of his chickens.

Want a fresh chicken, lady?  I can put it right there in your car.

Today (Saturday) we went to find fabric for me to have a formal Burundi dress made.  We found a pretty fabric in a shop down on Mission Street. We paid for the fabric, about $33, and then had it made while we waited.  There is a group of seamstresses out in front of the fabric store using treadle machines who can whip up one of these dresses in about 45 minutes.  They are one-size-fits

-all dresses.  The only measurement they take is from your waist to the ground.  And you must pay them for sewing up your dress.  A whopping $3.20!  It was a fun experience!

     Lake Tanganyika is the world's 2nd deepest and 2nd largest ( by volume) lake, second only to a lake in Siberia.  It is 420 miles long and 4,820 feet deep at its deepest.  Due to the lack of circulation at its deepest, the water there is oxygen deprived.  There is a large male croc who lives in the northernmost area of the lake who is a notorious man-eater.  (that is in Burundi, near Bujumbura!)   He is rumored to have eaten as many as 300 people from the banks of the Ruzizi River and the northern shores of Lake Tanganyika.  He measures between 20 and 25 feet in length and probably weighs in at over a ton.  Gustave is approximately 60 years old and sports 3 bullet scars on his body and a deeply wounded right shoulder blade.  The last confirmed sighting was in February of 2008 by a team from National Geographic.  Swimming anyone?  There is also a movie called Primeval based on Gustave.