Golf of BZV

Today is the 2nd day I go to walk the BZV golf course with Maurice the pro. It was so hot not like last Friday we went after rain so it was a lot cooler. But I manage to satisfy Maurice with many nice swing that he approved of. If it remain this way I will wake up earlier and go before 8 am in order to finish a little bit before 10 am before the sun get too straight over the head. This golf course has almost no level area and the green are very irregular. One need to get two caddies if I want to know where to aim because there is no flag planted at the hole. One caddy will be for the golf bag and the other one hold the flag to put into each hole as we go. They can not leave the flag permanantly in each hole because the flag got stolen. The fag has no number on it so it is up to us to know which whole we are right now. This is quite a labour intensive golf course arrangment that I know so far.

On the way back we stopped at the pottery workshop in the OMS compound. The artist potter came from France from Alsac region . He brought the kiln with him. He use all the local l'Argile. I will soon forget a lot of english word. Honestly , I don't know what is de l'argile in english. The word that came to mind right now is Kaolin which is finer quality than we can find here in Congo. Anyway, they don't have any Ragu and I am not too interested in what they have.
From my visit to Anias Legall yesterday ,I got a long list of phone numbers of people to call. Today I started with the pedicure name Blanche. I called her and she want to come today after lunch. I have to go tell the guard that I am expecting someone today. The guard asked me You are expecting a white or a black person Madame. It was hilarious that I have to explain to them that I am expecting a black lady name Blanche (white)and that she wears a red shirt and a black skirt.

After some confusion Blanche finally showed up at the corner of the street. She is relatively clean and like to do this kind of work like Rosette the pedicure I use in Pointe Noire. She told me that before the civil war she worked in salon very elaborated with Baleneo, Salle de gymnastic , Sauna, sea weed wrap and many other services . Sound like an institutes with complete soins de beaute. Very cleaned and very well run. Too bad I did not get experience that salon. It must be something so 'in style' like in Paris but better because they can train more people and congolese are very gifted in doing this kind of care. They have massage, Sauna, Whirlpool and everything. But the civil war has destroyed it all. Not only these thing but the schools and many other city's structures. The war lasted for 6months and enough to destroyed and scared away most expats who loose their faith doing anything in Africa for a long term. How can they invest in anything long term here if all around them only look just in term of today. But the chinese is everywhere now and they are capable and will change the face of Africa. If there is any progress to be made in this continent it will be with the new generartion of metis may be half black half chinese. Their home is here and they want to make it work with asian set of value and vision mixed with the old french sophistication and philosophy.

B B Q chez Rita on Sunday

We ahve BBQ with Rita family today. It rain the whole night so there are a lot of flies and this little insects we are not used to from Pointe Noire. It is not mosquitoes but it suck blood and leave infected itchy skin for a long time like mosquitoes. Franklin is lucky he wore sock and tennis shoes so he did not get any bits I got million of them all over my feet. I need to get two kinds of pommade. The first one is to prevent the insect to bite again and the second one to calm the skin so it will not itch to death. We have a good time and did not come home too late. i got to practice the whole sequence of yoga today which is good. Tomorrow will do the same.
On Monday , I request the cleaning guy about my sock .So apparently it has disappeared.I need to eb more careful. The light bulb brigade did not come today. To change ligt bulb here is quite a protocol and ceremony. They first need to come to check which are the bulb grille ( their way of saying the bulb eed to be taken out) when they find which light bulbs are grille. then proceed to unscrew the bad bulb. This is done under teh supervision of one superviser and one guard who has to accompany them everywhere in the building in case they take some thing from the house.
Then they take the bad bulb in a plastic bag and go back to the company to exchange for a good bulb to be replaced. They need to present the bad bulb to get the good one.The company can not send them the approximate amount of bulbs because they will sell it or take them home for themselves. That explain the reason why the guy who never clean up after himself clean up teh broken bulb and take the pieces with him. Because he need to proof at teh company thet he really did broken one bulb.

Dinner chez the Bel Air

Yesterdays was Saturday the 27 of Oct. I met so many new people. First we need to leave the building to let the guy come to spray insecticide outside and inside. We plan to go with 3,000,000 CFA to pay for the plane tickets at Ethiopian airline who refuse to accept check or credit cards. In Ethiopian airline office a chinese girl Zhou Xiao jye call me, "Aunty what company do you for here in Congo". After I talk to her with my helpless rusty chinese her colleague showed up from behind the office counter and we continue to talk in french which was easier for me but I don't want to forget my chinese so I ask their phone number and promise to call them when they have a break. They said they work 6 and a half days a week and only have half day holiday which is Sunday afternoon. And they have to work one whole year to get one month holidays to go back to China. Wonder if anyone else I know have such schedule. The 6 and a half days work week was mainly doing their own work and they have to spend one an d a half day to work on week end mainly to correct the work of teh congolese. They found that to be more effective than teaching the locals to do thing correctly which they find helpless and too much time consuming. I think this is scheduel for unmarried people. Don't know what is the schedule of the married people who have family.

Then we went to look for houses again with Jean Claude the courtier of Myriam who ask for taxi money again. But now he got lucky because Franklin paid for his taxi .So ,off course before he leave he started to ask for transport money to go back home. Now Franklin should know better not to pay from the start but I took the wallet away and tell him to walk home. In the end he left. I was thinking of the caddy at the golf course in Poinet Noire , how they like to get a ride in the car to go home or get a free ride from Diosso back to Pointe Noire. We have places enough in the car for them to come with us but after we said yes all the other guys jump in also and it won't take long bebore the car get overloaded with people hanging from every part of the car to get a free ride. As long as they can arrive safely there will be no trouble but if something happen to any of them we will be deep trouble. That's why we are told especially for a rented car that they will not insure the passenger we take in the car. That mean we should not take people with us more than we can be responsible to take them safely to the destination.

This is another reminder that I need to get the chauffeur's driving license copy at the Europcar rental next week. AFter we got our ethiopian airline ticket we went to the market to get flower for Sylvie for diner to night. It was great to see big big bouquets of rose de porcelain. So difficuly to find in Pointe Noire because they don't like sea breeze. Rose de porcelaine grow well here near the river.

The guy sold us 3 bouquets for 3000 and he also charge for emballage. Typical of the local they never say before how much thing is going to cost. They expect that we will always pay for whatever price they ask. White people are like elephant ,teh local reason that they need to tear them apart inpieces.

I plan to have the chauffeur take a look at wicker shelve on the way to the market. Will take a look at that on Monday.

Evening we went to diner. we have french onion soup and racqulette. Wonder if this is correct spelling. We heat cheese in in the center piece heater like fondue swiss or chinese fondue and we just put the melted cheese on saucesages and other thing in the plates like broccoli, potatoes, ham ectera. Swiss seem to have many system to do this. Like the meat we got at Pi Sumalee hotel also look a little bit like that. We have a long conversation about life in Africa. All the guests are grand voyageurs who have been to many countries in Afrcia. They particularly like Namibia and South Africa. To see the whale in the tip of cape of good hope looking towards india ocean one need to go there before December so sometimes between October to December. This are the most animal lover group I met so far. They really enjoy talking about about their encounter with animals in their natural habitat and how entertaining it was to see them in nature and how different it was to see them in the zoo, in captive. We are fortunate to be in Africa and still can have this kind of encounter. Animals once roamed the continant of Europe and Asia also but today we only see less and less of them in scattered reserves or in the zoos. Africa is the only continent left in the world where we can really see them as our equals. Not absolutely equals because we have a car and drive fast but peopel in Africa are so knowledgable about leaving the animal alone in nature that we feel like we are one with nature rather than some one looking some creatures from the safety of the other side of the fence. Still there is one animal that man still cannot capture and put on display in teh zoo. That is whale.

The detective book of McCall Smith make me want to go to Botswana and South Africa again. the first time we went with the kids we did not really see it as intimately. So this is one place we will certainly go back and I will definitely go to Kinshasa and Namibia before we leave this continent.

Professonalism I

As far as writing is concern ,I consider myself an amateur. Eventhough I like to write and continue to attend so many workshops and journal everyday, I still do not trust myself enough with any piece I write. I always feel safer if my daughter , who is a native english speaker,go over the english grammar and spelling mistakes ecetera before I let any one read my piece. But now ,I am more daring and I trust myself more. I did not wait for my daughter to edit my piece before sharing it with peopel on the blog. I just type whatever come to mind and publish my thought right away. I share my thoughts, ideas and opinion not the a perfect piece of literature.

May be because I only trust the professionals. There are so much conditions to be a professional. One is expected to perform thing right the first time. Because the pro get paid for their work. And they are usually trustworthy. Take for example DHL or Federal express. They are pro in the art and business of documents delivery. Especially from Africa ,where we are now. If our documents are handle by DHL we never worry that it will not reach the destination and we also happy to pay the price. They deliver professional service . That is what they do for a living.They have specific standard and system that we can trust and predict the result. Some pro even take a step further. The MI group group or AGS the international professional movers , also provide insurance . This is further guarantee. It rid the client of all the worry and uncertainty. There are so much peripheral service they provide like follow up on your package or shipment 24 hours a day on line. We know exactly what happen to our stuff and where and why.

Professional can usually charge high price. We pay for their professionalism, their standard that we trust.

Amazingly this same rule also applied in Africa. In Congo here we have a professional cook and a professional chauffeur. Professionalism is especially so true here. Our professional cook does marvel with his sauce concoction that I dare say hi s sauces from cocktail sauce,spaghetti sauce ,plum sauce to even chocolate sauce for dessert are better than all the sauces in restaurants in town that I have been so far. He is so professional and interested in cooking that he devour all the recipes cook books that I brought with me during his break. As a professional he only cook but he will not serve or wait table so when we have guests we need to do the serving ourselves or orchestrate the serving for him. He like to wear his chef uniform and over see things in the kitchen and he love to clean up. That was our first cook. He hired him because the maid that we thought could cook some simple meal for us broke all our china.

Our second cook graduated from the cooking school in BZV and has been trained in a professional catering company in a real professional kitchen for at least 3 years before we hire him.This cook is a bright young fellow who can portion the food into beautiful artistic arrangement of individual plate. We don't know what he does in the kitchen but he really can serve with style. His plate is always well presented and very pelasing to the eyes. Even when he serve us fresh fruit like water melon. He will carefully section the fruit and take out all the visible seeds,cut the red flesh from the green part and serve. Having the two cooks make us realise that there are many specialties among cooks from local cooking school specialised in kitchen and restaurant management. Off course there a more to running and managing of kitchen and dining room than cooking and serving. How about buying ingredients, shopping for produces and utensils, washing and ironing the table cloths and over see the cleanliness of the table , China, silver ware,napkin ecetera.
In this regards ,we experience the high degree of professionalism here in Africa like we never expereince anywhere else. In the U.S.A. and in Europe this life style had become obsolete, the thing of the past. Life in upper hemisphere of the world has become too rush to be worrying about the crease on the table cloth or the burnt at the corner of the souffle dish. But here in the African continent one country , Ethiopian, just celebrate the year 2000.There is still time to savour things that has been long lost and evaporated from our high acheivements society of the digital world.

Diplomatic protocol in Brazzaville

For american style person like myself it is quite something to contact people here in Brazzaville. Off course you ahve the cell phone number and you can call any one you want on the list once you get the list of a handful of expats wifes in the city. But after that when you need to go see them it is quite a big deal. You need to present yourself in front of the gate with high wall. Then you have say who you are and what business you have with the person in side then they will give a call as security measure this is a good practice but the mssge did not get through to the person you want to see it sometimes stop right in front door of the person's office. Today I went to see some one in South African embassy. After giving the guard in front door the name and id card and got the visitor batch we went inside and sit in the waiting room. We wait for a long time ,the congolese guy in front always say Mr Linda is busy with some one. Finally I decide to call him on the cell phone and when he pick up the phone he had no idea thatw e were waiting in there for sometimes already. Anyway we got to talk with him and we are set to go see the house tomorrow. The big step we got today is that we get to see the house of Lilliane and found a very good agent. I think this kind of house will be great to get but we only in 2nd position. The first one is some one from European union. I don't want to deal with the first real estate agent we got from teh street. taht was the worst. He always show us the opposite of what we want and now taht I know what is available and who can I deal with I am very happy to deal with Antoine.

Salon V I P in Brazzaville airport

I was in salon VIP the first time in the Brazzaville airport more than 4 years ago when we first move to Congo. It was very dim room some of the airconditioners work at half capacity and it smell very african. Coming from outside one is the easy target of mosquitoes. A fresh new smell not uet blend in with the rancid of old worn out leather sofas and dusty carpet in the VIP room. The most scary of all is the bathroom. There is no water and the toilet never work. The door never close properly but one need to go one need to go. I just close my eyes and my nose and bring a lot of tissue paper. This is Africa, Even the locals say that. Do not expect much what you want ? thi is Africa.
But that was 4 years ago. Now in in Pointe Noire, The CHinese has just finished the new airport with new salon VIP with new leather sofas that are still clean because they are all new and we can see their original colour.All the air conditioners work to their full capacity and believe it or not the bathrooms are still clean and the toilet works as well as the bathroom door. For how long? Don't ask me. We did not get to use the new Pointe Noire VIP room very often because there are so much formality to get in to use it. First you havet write a letter to the authority and get teh permit which you need to pay. I don't know how many people the company need to pay in order to get a stamped paper permit to the VIP for the pacific date at the specific time. Meaning if teh plane has any delay or there is any change in teh flight , the whole process need to be done again from writing the letter and payment to all the officers concerned. Toward the end of my stay , I change my flight schedule very often so I did not get to use the VIP room that much. But this time I am impress that they even have the carousel for suitcases and the trolley .
I walked down follow the group of ministers to the door of VIP room. The officer at the VIP door bow downhe greet all the bigs shots who walk in through the VIP door and as he see me so low that his head almost touch the groud. Welcome Welcome, misters the Minister and african miisters after ministers walk through teh door then he saw me walking down the corridor following all the big shots ministers. He point at the direction of the stairs and say for you is that way. I walked down at the direction he point and yes I saw the protocole of the company wait for me there. I wonder how the VIP room has become after one year of use. WIll I still recognise teh colour of the leather sofas. Are there really any maintenance at all here. I also wonder about their garbage collection. I ahve never seen one either.

Typical Sunday in Brazzaville

I woke up at the time that I don't want to know. Luckily water came back so I could wash my face , brush teeth and use the toilet. I have 2nd thought about that house in Mpyla but will go look at the house of Anais today or will see with Lillian. The plane tickets of my husband and myself are now secured. He only need to do the one of teh two girls back to Bangkok this year end. I am glad that my husband will join me end of the year to vacation in Thailand. ANd I really will ahve to book Krabee for them asap.And we still also need to go to Korat and see Pi Kosol, Pi Amorn and many others. Well how about Janelle and John are they already there in Singapore and I did not hear back from Arunaa either. One can only do so much in a day and I feel like practicing yoga this morning. If I don't do it now it will never get picked up again. I will also go to yoga class chez Veronique Goblet on Thursday. The girl near the airport is so simple and I saw her house already. WHat are the new house I can look. In Mpyla that area could work for me. Or where else could I see. O.K. there is this guy Maitre De Villers . He did get anything back yet. So who else do I look again. It is like in Thailand when there are so much Farang came to Korat. my father also built 4-5 houses for Farang. It was not to their standard but it was the best they can find there in Korat. I remember the farang taht I saw. Even a black family,now I am in teh same situation. But believe it or not I am the farang in search for a rented house.I will not do much for this any more.This is only for 3 years and now we already spend 4 months in the Chevron apartment. Will the owner finished teh house or not the broker doesn't know and I feel that we might be ready to negotiate with the people now. But before that I want to talk with
the owner today if possible.

Saturday in Brazzaville searching for a house

Well this is my first Saturday in Brazzaville that I feel really here. Everything had been packed move from Pointe Noire to Barzzaville. And today we did go to purchase our palne tickets direct flight to Bangkok. From Brazzaville to Adis ababa and direct to Bangkok. It will be and adventure and I am surprise to see that the ticketing clerk were quite efficient. i even feel like working some where in the computer or ticketing or something in this city. They ahve quite a lot of thing to offer. I am not too sure if I should do that as I am always absent. but if I can help why not. I am not sure if I will do some benevole or something but I am sure I can do something for sure. There are more to do here than in Pointe Noire or I can go practice golf again. So we got our tickets and confirm but we can not pay by credit card so we can only pay cash on Monday when teh bank will be open. Teh african chauffeur I have is rather unreasonable and I am not too keen about keeping him. It was not common

The City Life style

I have been wanting to live in a city like San Francisco. Moving from the suburb of Danville /San Ramon area to the city life. But again the universe send me to Brazzaville. Like when I ask to be by the beach , the universe sent me to the petroleum town of Pointe Noire. There must be the reason why I am here and I want to cross teh river to Kinshasa asap to visit the old compound where I use to be. I already ahve my golf bag. That also I want to do. Going to play golf. May be I will find a good teacher here what I can have in Pointe Noire. We will see. But first I need to find a house. My husband has found a chauffeur for me. Not very professional like Armel, the one trained by Willy in Pointe Noire but nevertheless. Ramane is really a jack of all trade. He use to be and still is military person with certain political inclination. He use to work with the president company doing the security for his trading office in town. I think he has problem of payment and has been providing service without getting pay so he quit.Then he do the garage to repair cars and again it is very difficult to get paid for service you gave in Africa. So he prefer to work with expats and render his service through an agency. That's why he end up as our chaufferur right now. HE seem to know every street and every car in Brazzaville. We will see what's next. I also met this guy Jean Claude who ask that I pay his taxi for him to come to meet me at the Meridienne hotel. That is strange and Ramane my chauffeur also agree on that too. Fulvia, I think got the service of Destin the contractor guy to drive her here and there and Ramane use to be the fill in for Destin when he is on holidays. I am quite surprise when he asked me to sit next to him instead of staying behind like most of the time. Anyway, I don't mind and I can see Armel also not wanting lift suitcases. I can see how pretentious thsi cadres are. And that's African. I think the mentality of this habit in Thailand has die down already. Anyway, I think I found the house that I like and it is very city style and I can't believe that I will like a house that has no yard and no swimming pool. I think my children will not like it for sure. No place for sun bathing but they can do that somewhere else. Like the Meridienne or Olympic or go to Kenya or what. My two girls will probably come for a little bit but I don't think my son will ever come to Africa again. He is fading from from our routine life. We just meet together 3 times briefly over the holidays season. And even that, I feel the energy of that is fading too. Meaning I will have my life back more and more. Children they are all going their own ways. Only the two us left together. So the house must reflect that kind of life style and not have to think about the children bedrooms permanantly all the time. Anything that is not this Chevron apartment will be o.k. with me. WOnder if I still have Dian ( PA Deang) myspace page. I like to look again. She has her life the way she like now and she went traveling to many part of the world looking for her companion. I like the Burmese restautant I went with Pa Deang and Dini before we came here. Africa , Africa, I am sure I will be finished with it soon. Today I learn about the good president of Congo Marien Guabi. They have his monument up, they name a university and square and road after him.He must be a good president and he was assasinate in his own house like Gabila in Zaire. These AFrican countries still have a long way to go toward leaders as states man. So far we know only Nelson Mandela.

Local politics Brazzaville

Actually this is not the country politics but the office one. I am glad to finish teh packing and now back in Brazzaville 4th floor office again. I can feel the tension that has been building upver the years with Willy and the locals. Each time there is a change of expats they start to ask to do this and that. But they are not capable to to organise anything so in the end it was Willy who has to organise all that. This year they want to do do much and there are a lot more expats and expats houses to atke care. I wonder if Willy will be able to do all. I remember how we have to work with the locals here. They really need details instruction and guidance. Actually they need supervision every step of teh work. WOnder what will happen if everything is leave to them to organised. Actually tehy have to fall back to the white people again. Like RDC they still need super power for support before they can do anything. RC Congo right now want to get China involved. They want support from China that's why right now this year, I am going to go to Thailand with Ethiopian airline. A lotof Congolese Chinese people travel this route and avoid Europe all together. I am very keen on having the house in Brazzaville soon. I went to see Myriam yesterday and after seeing her ,it look very promising that I will get a house for sure but I have to keep looking. I have enough connection to do all these. Also I need to get pedicure and MAssage and many other peripherals service. I don't want to go to salon. There are less expats here than somewhere else. Lilianne De la Court has an old house on river bank. I think it is more romantic and less violent than teh sea or teh ocean. We did enjoy the ocean for 4 years. Now the people I have diner with last night want to go to Malonda. They don't like to go away for Christmas. It was a good idea because they can do so much in Pointe Noire and relax. Now that there are 4000 expats at least in Pointe Noire , there are more activities than before during Christmas time. I am glad we decided to go to Thailand. And in March go to Belgium to take care of teh registration. I think it is important to do that and I still don't see the bill for Isabelle's schooling yet.Did Franklin organise everything for the plane ticket yet. I will ahve to do mine myself. i prefer. Now everything is stuck. I want to buy rice today. WHat kind of rice do I want to buy. Do I need to explain everything to the cook. Can he do thing the way I want. He is polite but eh doesn't know much what to do. Wil he definitely follow my instruction. I wonder what kind of thing he is going to make. What elase do we do next. May be I have to go down and let them know what to do. There is no way to call or anything. And they don't want to come up and bother me. I think. My intention today is to find the correct house. I am not going to stay in that unfinished one that Sylvie show me.

arranging the move

I am sitting in teh 4th floor dining room waiting for the car to pick me up to go to Maya Maya airport on my way to go back to Pointe NOire to pack. It was funny the first time I arrived in Pointe Noire, It was so sad and I thought it wouldn't work but I really enjoyed my stay and for now I think it is better than here in Brazzaville,the city. But I havw yet to discover Brazzaville. Not sure if my children will think teh same way. If we find the house and all and move in get thing organised, we might still be o.k. I am impressed with teh french lawyer yesterday and I feel good about getting a house form him. He must ahve a o.k. house. i am sicka nd tired of the agence immobilier.They really do not understand what I need and I decided not to work with them any more. tehy can talk all day long or listen to teh amount of maney and calculate in their head what tehy are going to receive but other than that they don't realise what we need. Luckily here in Africa , landlorad and tenant and tenant can specify I only want white people and a long contract. I am glad to say that I onlt want to work with white agent who will understand my need. I am not even sure fi I should even talk with Farnklin about that. In California ,you talk like this your licence will eb at risk right away. they want real estate people to be colour blind. This will never work here. teh way people live here are so difference and what is acceptable to one might not be the case with other. Anyway, I prefer my hosue in Poinet Noire so far but who knows I might find something more interesting here too. I will ahve to move first and start my exploration.

Last night I read teh BBC report saying Brazzaville is the worst city in world to live in and I really agree with them . But they also say that Pointe Noire is one of teh at risk place to live also. That ,I don't agree. But that was old assesssment. I am not sure about right now.

In Brazzaville

Today is Oct.4 and I am already on the 4th floor of Chevron office apartment in Brazzaville.I arrived since yesterday Oct 3 but was too tired to do anything. Actually today ,I suggested to my daughter to go practice yoga and I should also do that. There are so much thing to do and so much to put in order. But first we need to find the house. This is not going to be easy. We are renting from the Chevron office right now and I have to walk up and down stairs everyday. Better than nothing but tomorrow we are going to take a look at the 3 bed rooms apartment. may be it will be better for me. I change my life style a lot eversince I come to Africa. I will see Fulvia soon and may be will also see the people who do yoga also. MAy be I will do it for an hour right now. It's great to back with my husband again and I keep in touch with daughter.We are not too intersted in bringing too many thing to Africa. I feel like retiring soon. Kids are bigs now and they have their own way more and more. Now I want to take acre of myself and my husband. Actually how about finishing teh 3 track of the light body's volume. I am not too jetlag but will email to Sylvie and ask about yoga first. I need to get into teh swing of thing.

In CDG Novotel

Finally I am back in this Novotel CDG again. Finished the writing workshop in Scotland's Lendrick lodge and got so inspired to do fire. I even suggested to have firewalk as a part of the workshop next year and Steven is ready to organise it as optional. My experience in Sterling was not that great, There are no parking and in Edinburg airport, I can not check my suitcases through to Brazzaville so I have all the two big suitcases with me here in the room to night.Wonder if I will be fit enough to go to Paris tomorow or not. Too tired and not intersted in doing any more shopping or sight seeing. If I can see some freinds I would make teh trip especially but Liza is already gone back to U.K. may be I will just spend teh day rearranging teh suitcases and find out about how to check teh big suitcases in or get a taxi to take me to the terminal. With these two big suitcases, I have a very hard time coming to teh hotel with the tube. Also , I need to call teh bank for Isabelle account wonder if she got any news from HSB yet. She did not reply about the mail. And I want to set up the on line group for the Scot writing workshop