Where to begin... Life here has been comfortable, albeit a little slow as I wait for the rest of the Canadian team to arrive. The weekend was pretty relaxingm involving much hanging out and talking with family and their friends. I've definitely been working on my french, and am at the point now where I can have a decently intellectual conversation despite the stumbling and occasional pauses to come up with the right word. I've been asking a lot of questions of people to guage their impression of the upcoming elections. There seems to be a lot of hope, in the sense that everyone seems to want good things to come out of it, but not a lot of people have faith in the current government or political system not to interfere and manipulate the results. I've made a conscious effort not to divulge any kind of political opinion, especially yesterday when I met one of the legislative candidates, or when we see campaign ads on TV (which everyone watches religiously, just like in Canada). It's been hard, as in my head I have some strong commentaries to make. things like: "you can't be serious, this guy wants to be president?!" But alas, I have the strength to keep those thoughts to myself.
I've learned quite a bit more about Congolese history, particularly in terms of the general population's perspective on history, as opposed to the "official" version, or the western perspective. On the whole my research has been pretty accurate, but lacking in the sense of knowing what the average person thinks. Right now the Congolese economy is in shambles, often making even an education useless. There simply is not a lot of commerce goin on to sustain any large level of employment. Most people do some small work or roadside sales to earn enough to eat, but little more. Because of this the roads are littered with merchants and tiny stalls selling everything from loaves of bread to cell phone cards. Ah yes, the cell phone, I almost forgot. Everyone has a cell phone. Okay, maybe not grandma, but they are more prominent here than in Canada. Land lines, I've learned, are simply unreliable and expensive. So everywhere you look there's someone selling minutes (which here they refer to as "unités").
I've been waiting for cuture shock to set in, and I'm starting to get impatient... not that I want it, but if it's gonna happen I'd rather it happen before all our election observer training this week. I've been very conscious of how much I don't understand here, and came fairly well prepared for the fact that I would experience things that I just could not expect. I suppose it's helpful that I can communicate much easier here than I could when I was in Thailand five years ago. That, being my first overseas travel, and first major stay outside of Canada hit me pretty hard. But that sense of isolation is less here. It also helps that I've had this last week to get over the jet-lag, and adjust myself to the climate and food. On that front all has been well. Congolese food is delicious, and they're taking care to feed me well. We drink a lot of instant coffee, and I'm glad that I wasn't surprised to see an entire fish on my plate (it was actually quite good). I've even come to enjoy eating "foufou," the local food that is essentially corn flour and some other local flour mixed with water to form a stiff... umm... substance. okay, bad description, but good eatin'. The weather's been good too, pretty much a hot Winnipeg summer. They make fun of me for thinking it's hot, because this is winter here, but I can live with that.
The rest of my group arrives tonight, and our training begins tomorrow, I'm sure things will be getting much more interesting very soon, and I'll update again as soon as possible!

-joel