Halloween and a Pink Latrine!

Happy Sabbath to all of you!
This week has been a very busy one -- not enough time to do everything we needed to do, but still enough time to take a few pics to share with you.
We begin, and end, with our projects. Below is Aime (pronounced Emmeh), who is an employee of the Mission, and an excellent driver if you need someone to find absolutely any place in Kinshasa in a hurry. He is also a great one to take the sisters shopping when the husbands refuse! His connection to one of our projects is his shirt. His wife has been going to the Stake Sewing Project classes, and learned how to sew, and here is her first completed item -- worn very proudly by her husband. We are thrilled at her progress, she is thrilled with her accomplishment, and Aime is thrilled with a new shirt! This sewing project has been an amazing success!! This picture was taken on Oct. 31, which leads us to the next picture....

Our own President Jameson being a grandpa to the prematurely - born Ariel, son of another of the Mission employees, Thierry (pronounced Teery). Ariel is three months old, and a whopping 8 pounds almost. Look at those fat cheeks! President J is loving his 'grandpa duty' while parents are busy elsewhere, which leads us to picture #3........

Halloween is not celebrated here in the Congo. But some individuals, who will remain unnamed, wanted to know more about our strange customs on Oct. 31. So the Hatches and Jamesons hatched up a plan....have a Halloween dinner/party for the couples and mission employees AND their children (whoops, not the couples' children -- sorry), and introduce them to Halloween!
Binghams were given the assignment to find a pumpkin. But there really are no orange pumpkins in Kinshasa. We looked high and low for a large round squash. We finally found this interesting squash and hoped it would suffice. The Jamesons were thrilled, and as you can see, Mr. Green Squash made a delightful jack-o-lantern, cut by President Jameson himself. The children were amazed what that squash turned into, and then when Sis. Jameson inserted the candle and turned out the lights, their amazement turned to astonishment. The next activity was to go Trick or Treating down the Mission Home hallway, stopping at each doorway and yelling "Trick or Treat!!" First these little Congolese children were taught by Sis. J to say "Trick or Treat!" in English. They learned VERY fast. Then they were off down the hall with their parents in tow. Guess who had the most fun??? (Elder B and I gave the parents a little secret lesson on how to "taste-test" their children's Halloween candy after the kids went to bed...a tradition in our home. Is it in yours, too?) Finally, a loud game of "Don't eat Pete!" with peanuts. We learned the next day that one of the children used her candy-filled bag as a pillow that night, and another said, "Can we go trick or treating tonight?" AND a dad did a great job snooping in his sleeping son's candy bag.

Now on to the latrine (toilet). As you know, most of our projects are hand-dug wells, and we combine those with a school latrine and rainwater catchment project. As the latrines are constructed, we check on their progress. Below are two of the latrine stalls. Yes, those are merely holes in the floor. Your feet straddle the hole and .....well, you get the picture. That's what is used here. But take a look at the tile on the walls!! This is a palace-
On this particular latrine project, I jokingly said, "and the girls' latrine you'll paint pink, the boys' you'll paint blue, right???" JOKINGLY. Color is not gender-based here. Boys wear pink and flowered clothes. Baby boys are dressed in pink as often as any other color. Pink shoes, too. So the color thing was an unknown to them. However, this sweet engineer made sure my wishes were carried out. When we arrived at the project yesterday, the engineer and workmen were dancing they were so excited to show us the painted latrines. The boys' was the brightest blue you can imagine, too. (sorry, Elder B forgot to take a picture in all the screaming (mine). Do you see why we love this mission? It is a blast!

This picture just had to be taken. She was sitting on her mom's lap, and her grandma was nearby. Grandma asked if we could please take this picture. (She doesn't have an extra ear, that's her brother right behind her.)
Below is what became of our beautiful Waters of Mormon spring. It's moving along, almost finished. Just wanted to give you a different view since last week. Notice the little girl hauling her water away. She'll still have to do that, but the water will be clean and unpolluted when the spring is completed and running normally again. The open box is where the water will be collected from the hillside. It will be covered. The two pipes at the bottom of the picture will be the pipes from which the clean water will flow. The runoff will be diverted to form another Waters of Mormon pool below the spring so the children will still have a place to play, swim, and bathe.
Next Saturday will be our first official Bingham project closing turning-over ceremony for one of the projects. The following Tuesday will be two more. We are on a roll! Hopefully a video will be taken with our amazing new camera and we can attach it to this blog. Until then, have a wonderful week. Here's a great thought to think about:
"Every one of us is more beloved to the Lord than we can possibly understand or imagine." Elder Robert D. Hales, Oct. 2011 Gen. Conference