The Africa Countryside near Tenke Fungerume

It's Spring here. It has rained almost every day. They are very busy preparing soil and planting crops.

Bravo Camp Walmart

On the side of the road, just outside of Bravo Camp is this little roadside store. It has a lot of items made out of the green malachite rock that is here. I hear there are other stores in Fungerume, near Base Camp, but this is only souvenier shop I know of between the mine site and Bravo Camp. The prices are really high so you have to haggle them down.

What do you eat over there?

Notice it's not "What do they eat over there?" I eat at a cafeteria where the caterer is contracted to make food that even us Americans will eat. My favorite meal is breakfast. Here your looking at scrambled eggs, bacon, pears, fish patty (for breakfast???) cheese and toast. I usually get eggs, sunny side up and hash brown triangles. They also have several cold cereals. Juices are good here. I think the juice in the photo is mango.

This is where I eat breakfast and dinner. For lunch we eat near the mine office. The building in the center of the photo is the Social Club at Bravo Camp. The food is good. We can eat on the covered patio or uncovered. They light a fire in the fire pit at night. There is a lounge area where you can buy drinks (beer and soda) and watch TV. The food is different from the other cafeteria.

Here's the main cafeteria at Bravo Camp. It actually is divided into two cafeterias -- one for the "management" employees and one for the non-management. At least that's what they tell me. I think one has more native African food and the other has more European. I ate breakfast here once but I've decided the Social Club has better food.

Here's my dinner. Fries, chicken ala king (at least that's what the chef called it), pork chop, green beans, cheese and a roll. The bread is good over here. There is almost always rice or potatoes. I started being a little more leary about the meat dishes that have a creamy sauce. I'm careful on what fruits and vegtables I eat too. It's really a treat when the have red beets though. They are so sweet that I throw caution to the wind for those.

Wildlife in the Congo

Of course, deep in the land of Africa you would expect a lot of wildlife. You know, lions and tigers and elephants and giraffes. Well there might be someone in the Congo that those animals exist, but it's not here. Actually I did see a wild dog, or a jackal or hyena or something like that the other day just outside of camp. He looked at me but I was too slow with my camera and didn't get a picture. They tell me that there are snakes in the bushes, but I haven't seen and cross the road and I don't go in the bushes. Here's a picture of a crow in a tree. Then, I decided to take some pictures of some bugs. There are a lot of bugs here. I sleep under a mosquito net to stay way from them at night. The cricket are chirping loudly all night long outside.

This last photo is through the window of a building at Bravo Camp. Notice the tree is growing up through the ceiling of the building. I guess the just built the building aroung the tree. I haven't seen anything like it before so I thought I would share.

Termite Mounds

This area of the country is full of termite mounds. These are mounds of dirt where termite colonies have established their homes. The hills of dirt that I've seen are as tall as 15 or 20 feet. This one is right here at Bravo Camp near the Social Club. Some are right next to trees, some are in the open. They tell me that the existence of these hills makes the land more valuable. The dirt is a clay-like substance that can be used to build bricks. They are all over. I don't think there is a 4 square acre piece of land that doesn't contain one of these. I'm sure that they have had to plow these flat to make place for the housing.

Accomodations at Bravo Camp

When I was here in June, I stayed in the same building as I am in now. However, they have made it a little nicer. As you can see, my room has a armoire and nightstand, a soft chair, a TV (that still doesn't work) and a fridge. I even have my own bathroom. The bed is single size, but since I hardly sleep, it will do.

This is the building I'm in. My door is the first to the right. You can see I have my own AC unit.

This is a banana tree right outside my door.

Here is a shot of my door through the trees.


This is a photo of what a lot of the accomodations look like. Basically, they are barracks of prefabricated steel buildings. Below is a photo of the new buildings where the expats will be living. They are two bedrooms and about 600 square feet in size.

Johannesburg Office

I spent the day in our Johannesburg office. It was good to talk to all of the procurement people there. There was a lot of good information exchanged. The people are very kind. This office supports our operations in the Congo.















Joburg is a very large city. I was told that the population is more than 9 Million. It was kind of weird riding in a car that drives on the wrong side of the road. I rode in a Toyota with the steering wheel on the wrong side of the car. There is a lot of construction going on now because they are getting ready to host the World Cup soccer tournament next year. Soccer is of course a giant sport here. When I asked the driver who he thought would win the cup, he said Brazil or Argentina. I told him that if the US didn't win it would be Spain or Italy.





In the photo are John Klesner, Graham Leuner, Asra Altarife, Nathan Miles and Luis Vasallo.

Here are some photos of the Airport outside my hotel window.

Yes, I'm back in Africa

Tonight I'm staying at the Intercontinental Hotel in Johannesburg, South Africa. I will work in the Joburg office tomorrw and then fly out to Lumbubashi on Friday morning. The flight over was quite uneventful. I went a different route this time.

I flew on Delta from Phoenix to Atlanta and then from Atlanta to Johannesburg. The last flight was about 16 hours. Time passed by quite quickly. I actually thought the Delta business class accomodations weren't quite as comfortable as the British Airways that I flew twice before because they weren't as long and I couldn't quite strech out fully inclined and stay on the seat (bed). But of course, I'm not complaining about business classs accomodations. I've flown overseas in coach, and there is no comparison.

Now, if I can comment a bit on airline food. Most people joke about it and criticize it. I kinda like it. Here are the pages of the menu for my trip.





















It seems that they always offer salmon on flights. Why? I don't know. I think the whole world eats salmon raw. Maybe it's smoked and not raw, but it always seems raw to me and I usually take a little bite and leave the rest. That is what I did this time. But, the cream of asparagus soup was great and the greek salad was fantastic. For the Main Course, I played it safe as usual and took the chicken. Of course it wasn't just chicken, it was Sauteed Chickne Breast, accented by lemon caper sauce, presented with roasted red radishes and baby dutch potatoes. I couldn't tell what the roasted radishes were until I looked at the menu after the meal. They tasted kind of like mushrooms to me. The potatoes might have been dutch, but they tasted like Idaho potatoes to me. You probably guessed that for desert I had both the Fine Cheeses and the Ice Cream. The cheese was great and the ice cream was very rich.
For the mid-flight snack, I had a banana and a twix for a combination of healthy and tasty. I guess that was breakfast, but I was pretty stuffed from dinner.
For the Pre-Arrival meal, the flight attendant asked me "hot or cold". I said "hot" so I was served the Smoked Turkey and Muenster Cheese Sandwich. I like the pumpernickel bread but could had done without the red. The Lemon Tart was great!
Anyway, since we landed at about 5:00 pm local time, I was too full to go out for dinner last night. So, two days with nothing but airline food suits me well. I should have grabbed and extra bag of peanuts and another Twix.

Going Back

Sometimes, good times don't end when you expect them to.

I'm going back to Tenke on June 14th.

Home Sweet Home

The trip home was quite uneventful so I didn't take very many photos. The highlight was that I found Kindereggs in a store at Heathrow that I bought for my kids (and wife). Other than that, it was a lot of reading, a little bit of sleeping, a couple of movies, and a little bit more reading. My wife was happy to have me back. Everyone enjoyed the souveniers I brought. It was a nice place to come home from and I'm glad I went.

I hope you have enjoyed my adventure. I'll be closing down the blog soon.

Carrying Things Around

So, when your primary method of getting from here to there is walking, how do you carry stuff? On your head, of course. I saw a lot of people carrying all kinds of things on their heads. I didn't get a lot of photos, but here are few. Once a saw a man carrying two 20-foot long 3" PVC pipes on his head. I hope he was careful when he made those turns. I saw several ladies carrying big baskets of bananas, but wasn't able to get any pictures of them. I think one of the most interesting things I saw being carried on the head was this young man carrying a barrel. I hope it wasn't full.

Weather

One of the questions that I was asked was - What is the weather like over there? Well, it is Fall. But Lubumbashi is quite close to the equator and also at a pretty high altitude. The weather is great. They tell me that year-round the weather is really nice. Most days that I was there it was sunny almost all day long but it wasn't blazing hot like it gets in Arizona. I took some photos of some wild sunflowers. There are sunflowers growing all over and since they are Valeries favorite, I took some photos.

There is a rainy season...and it's not rainy season right now. But, on Saturday afternoon, it began to rain really hard. I'm not sure if you will be able see the rain in the attached video, but is was really coming down hard. The ground here seems to absorb the water quickly so the puddles in the streets didn't stay around very long.

Going to Church

They tell me that there are two LDS Church buildings in Lumbumbashi. I found one of them right next to the brewery where they make the beer. I went to meetings on Sunday, which was a very interesting experience. One that I think I will always remember. When I arrived, I was greeted by a young man named "Andy" that could speak English quite well. There were very few that could speak English. I'm sure I looked out of place, being the only lightskinned person in the whole building, but I felt quite comfortable and they were very gracious. They asked me to stand up and introduce myself and tell them why I was there. Then the Bishop asked Andy to sit next to me and translate for all three meetings. It was really interresting. Prior to the last meeting (Sacrament Meeting) the Bishopric member conducting asked me (through Andy) if I would give the opening prayer. I really wanted to say no, but I remembered that had decided long ago to not say no to anything the Bishopric asked me to do. So I told him I would, but it would have to be in English or Spanish. They asked me to say it in English. I'm not sure why they wanted someone to say the prayer in a language that hardly any of them understood. I guess I reminded them of visiting authories from Salt Lake City or something. Anyway, I really did not enjoy the extra attention. The meeting was very good. I could understand quite a bit of the French that was spoken. Then this older lady got up and started speaking and I didn't understand anything she said. Any later explained that she was speaking Swahili. Everyone knows Swahili and French and at least one other tribal language.

I asked about the Church in Lubumbashi. Thay have about 5,000 members. There are two Stakes and I think they said 15 wards. The people are very freindly and welcoming. They all dressed in their Sunday best. Most all of the men had white shirts and ties, some in suits. The women all wore very colorful dresses. It was a great experience to hear them bear testimony of the truthfulness of the restored gospel and how grateful they are to be members of the Church and have the restored gospel in their lives.

What do they eat over there?

A question that I have been asked several time is what they eat here. Let me say, what they eat and what I have been eating are two different questions. I can't speak much on what they eat. The fields that I've seen have planted with corn and peanuts. They use corn meal a lot. When I was at base camp, there was this food that looked like dumplings...you know, kind of like balls of something white. I asked what it was called and they told me. Something like Toto or Fofo. Anyway, a think that was made of corn flour. I saw a lot of peanut farms on the concession. Here are a couple of photos of the peanut farms in the valleys and on the hills. I was in a grocery store yesterday for the first time and I noticed eggplant for sale. They do eat vegatables, like squash and peas and corn. They also have a lot of fish here. I'm not exactly sure where the fish com from. I suspect it is imported since the DRC is basically landlocked. At the store I noticed that a one-litre box of milk was about $1.00. I decided to find some cookies to take home to my family and it ended up that the cookies were made in Brazil. I'm sure that means that they are really fresh. The poeple do not upear to be underfed or malnourished. There isn't any obesity though.

Now, what I eat is a different story. There are a few restaraunts in town that I'm told have safe food. I've only been to two...Bush Camp (see my prior blog) and the Belgian Club. At the Belgian club I had a T-bone steak, well done. It was ok. Most of my meals are taken in the diner of the hotels I'm staying at. The Vagabond Hotel is actually reserved entirely for the mining company. They pay the cook and hotel manager. Anyway, we eat really well. For breakfast there is alway a selection of cold cereal. There are also several hot items in the buffet line. Hash browns, some type of scrambled egg dish, ham and cheese, etc. You can order an omlet also. There's toast with butter and jelly also. The milk is whole. There is always a juice...usually apple.
For lunch, there are several salads. There is always a tomato based salad and a lettuce salad. I think all the food at the hotel is probably safe, but I have chosen not to eat the lettuce and tomatoes or any fruit that you don't peel that aren't cooked. The water supply is not safe here and I figure that those foods might make me sick. There is also always a selection of hot plates. Alot of cooked potatoes in various dishes. There is usually a beef dish and always a fish dish. The fish is a white fish. I'm not sure what it is except that it tastes good...but I don't eat fish every day. There is also almost always rice...just plain rice. Dinner is about the same food as we had for lunch with another dish added. We've had speghetti and pizza and different types of pasta. There are a lot of cooked vegtables like brocolli, corn, onions, mushrooms (vegtable?), carrots, etc. So, I've been eating quite well.
Desert is offered at lunch and dinner. They have all kinds of pastries that are really good. Also, if you want, you can have a bowl of ice cream with either caramel or chocolate syrup. I have to admit that I usually indulge at one meal a day.
They have several soft drinks. Most go for the Coke or Diet Coke (no Pepsi). I have found some Sprite, but I usually go for the Fanta Orange or water. The bottle does not actually say Fanta... the brand here is D'Jino. I think there is D'Jino Orange, D'jino Cola, and D'Jino grapefruit. When I drink water it is always bottled water with no ice. They stock my fridge with several bootles of water and a Fanta and a Coke. The favorite beer here is Simba - which means lion in Swahili - you know like the Lion King. Anyway it comes in large bottles and some of the folks here are know to down a few, especially on a weekend. On some evenings wine is available.

The Villages near Fungurume

Tenke Fungurume Mining company (TFM), which is 57% owned by Freeport (the company that I work for) has a concession from the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. My understanding is that they have allowed TFM to mine the property within the boundaries of the concession and TFM has to do a bunch of things for the people that live there. There are four villages that are within the boundaries of the concession. Here are some photos of the houses in the villages. Basically, they are one room grass huts. They don't have any water or electricity. It looked like they all had dirt floors. The cooking is done outside over small fires. The kids were still at home during the day so I assume they did not go to school. They had chickens and goats hanging around the houses. I am really amazed that there are people that live in those conditions. They were very happy and friendly. They waved at us when we drove by. There were a lot of little kids around the huts. As soon as they heard our trucks the parents and older children would make sure the little ones were out of the road.


So TFM built them all new homes. The new homes are made of brick and have a kitchen, living room and two bedrooms....and cement floors. They also provided outhouses with realy toilets and other washrooms where they can clean up. Of course, they also provided a big school. All of the houses are the same...except the chief's house, which is a little larger. The people seemed to be very happy to move to their new homes. They were trying to move in before the houses were completely finished.

Not all of the people live in these little villages. The town of Fungurume has several thousand people and the children go to school every day and a lot of the men and women are working or trying to get jobs at the mining operations. The houses are a little larger and more "modern" if that's the word.

Green Mountain

So, there's a mountain on "the concession" that they call green mountain because of the color. I don't know the geology of it all but I'm told that the green color means that it is high in copper content. This is a very rich ore deposit.