Random Stories

Sooo I thought it was about time we just share some of our random and sometime humorous moments we have had since here in the Congo.

Congolese trying to speak English: One day while I (Nate) was at the office, I had to go up to the Secretary's office to ask her a question. When I got to her door I could hear someone else in there, so I decided to patiently wait outside until she was finished. I couldn't help but hear the conversation that continued inside, in English mind you. Xavier, our Director of Operations, was asking Sophie (Secretary) to buy him a diary. This is the word he used for basically what we would equate to a daily planner. Anyways, she was confused when he asked for this. She was wondering why he was asking for a cow product (dairy). Xavier is from Uganda and speak pretty good English, so he decided to explain to her that diary can be two things. It can be used to describe a planner as well as products from a cow/farm such as milk or cheese. Of course, I started I couldn't help but laugh to myself since I knew that these were actually two different words that just sounded the same. He continued to make a note of how he thought it was strange that this word could also be used to describe someone who has to poop alot. I about lost it at this point. He sincerely believed that diary, dairy, and diarrhea were all the same word. He concluded that this is the reason English is so difficult, "the same word can mean so many different  things."

Party last night:

Last night we had the Finance Department over for dinner. Most of them speak very little English, so it was good practice for a French. It also brought along some humorous moments. The first one happened when Precy was looking at our pictures. He took a look at one of them and said,"Nate, you used to be very big." We couldn't help but laugh. He definitely did not intend to be so blunt, but it definitely caught us off guard. The second moment occurred while Juvet was getting his food. Allie had prepared a salad, some bread, and vegetable soup. Well Juvet decided to not only put some salad on his plate, but also put the soup on his plate at the same time. We had a bowl for him, but he either did not understand why it was there or decided he didn't need it. The results was a plate with a salad soup mix that he proceeded to eat with a smile. Even the other Congolese had to laugh at this one. Finally, Teddy tried to speak some English with me and asked, "Is it ok if I pass the water." I looked at him with utter confusion. He proceeded to repeat the phrase, but this time in French. I still had no idea what he was talking about. Finally, he cleared it all up in one work, "uriner?" He was asking to use the bathroom. I had no idea, but luckily he was not embarrassed and just laughed.

New Congolese Law:

When we arrived in Brazzaville, one of the first things we noticed was the lack of public trash cans. In actuality there is zero. There is no trash collection services. As a result, most people just throw their trash on the ground. What makes this worse is that there are people all over the city selling small plastic bags of purified water. For about the equivalent of a dime, you can buy 8oz of purified water in a bag. As a result, these little bags were littered all over the streets. The President decided this had gone too far. He could have implemented a new trash collection service. He could have added trash cans throughout the city. He could have implemented a new law that punished those for littering. But no, that is not what happened. Instead, he implemented a law that forbids all plastic bags! This is not a joke. You can be fined now if found using a plastic bag. This resulted in a pretty humorous adventure to the grocery store last week. Because of the new law, the grocery store no longer put your stuff in bags. We had to carry all our groceries by hand into the taxi and to our apartment. We looked like a couple of homeless people carrying cans of vegetables and paper bags full of meat. It was ridiculous.

Bombs Away:

This past Wednesday I (Nate) had a unique experience at work. I was sitting in my office, and it took me awhile to notice it but I eventually realized there were people shouting outside our office, just down the road. I could hear all these men shouting, very angrily. I thought this was strange and began to wonder what had gotten all these people so mad when I head a small explosion go off nearby. I have never actually seen or heard a grenade go off, but what I heard/felt was exactly how I would imagine a grenade to sound like. I could feel the ground shake a little bit. This of course was followed by a lot of screaming and more shouting. I decided it would be best if I just stayed in my office, rather than run into the street to check it out. Well this whole confrontation lasted only maybe 5 minutes. A few minutes later, Manny (Managing Director) came down to explain to me that everything was fine. The confrontation involved a small number of people and it was now over. He continued to mention that I should be comforted in knowing that is was just a confrontation between the military and the police, no big deal.  As an American I thought that this was actually a very odd thing for the military and police to be fighting. We don't exactly see that happen very often in the States. Apparently, this is a good thing here though. At least it wasn't military vs. military, indicating a faction. How different things are here. Police fighting military is a good thing. Who knew?!