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.