First Day in Kindu, DRC

My house is about 15 – 20 minutes’ drive from the airport. Once you get out from the airport, all you see is red soil. No proper road or even buildings around it. There are a few huts selling some fruits and sim cards. I don’t know how to describe the place. No proper houses are being seen from the start of the road to where I live. I saw mud houses and children running around. I will try take some photos but maybe later when the people are more familiar with my presence.

I was surprised when I arrived at my house. It’s way better than I expected it. My room is even bigger than my room in Penang. I have a table, a chair, a fan, a queen sized mattress and a cupboard. All I need to survive and to work. We have 4 bed rooms and 2 toilets here. We have satellite TV and WiFi as entertainment in the house. The living hall is pretty huge and it’s comfortable with sofas. Electricity was running when I arrived. Toilet is pretty decent and modern, the only setback is we need to flush or bathe with buckets of water. But all these are prepared by our maid, Mama Laki.

My bed

My table

My wardrobe

The view outside my room. That's Ramzan preparing water for us to bathe.

Living hall

 

I had lunch with Mr. Hitesh and Mr. Jhatan as Mr. Sahat is fasting. We had some chapatti, dahl and papadum (They are vegetarian). I was introduced to this yoghurt like drink. It looked like milk but it taste like spoilt milk. They said in India, this is a very good appetizer and it helps with food digestions. I only had a small cup as I can’t really stand the smell.

After lunch, I unpacked and started settling in my room. Took a short nap.

Dinner was prepared by Mr. Sahat. He made green beans with banana to buka puasa with, sardine with carrot and potato leaves. Very basic cooking but it was good. Oh yea, we had their local rice too. And cooking is all done by charcoal. There is no gas. We sat outside our house and talk about life, religion and work throughout dinner. It was a good first day.

 

Master Chef at work

Romantic dinner under the stars and moon

Where we cook

My boss

Shower is really different here, even though they have two bath tubs here but you can’t use them obviously. Mr. Sahat adviced me to bathe with two buckets of water as this is my first time. But it’s not that bad. Water was clean, not sure where they took it from. But I plan to follow the boys to get water if I have the chance. Imani (our water boy) have really muscular arms due to this activity. I can bathe with only one bucket of water. It’s not a problem. More on the toilets in another post. =)