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In our new project in Mabala 30 200 bricks were fabricated, which is the amount we need for the school building. A well had to be dug to get water for the fabrication of the bricks for the school building. A simple shed - made from sticks and leaves - is built for the fabrication and storage of the bricks. Next, the bricks will be burned to make them strong. Mme. Annie oversees the work.

In the beginning of March, Wolfgang and Jean flew to Nioki to start our new project there. They again stayed at a guesthouse of the company SODEFOR who agreed to give us free accommodations including a cook whenever we visit Nioki. We met up with Joachim, the project manager of the NGO BBK, who we are working together with on this project, and with the local representatives Annie and Leonard. Annie is the head of the BBK in Nioki and school directress in Mabala. Leonard has 10 cows, something we had not yet seen in other parts of Congo. We wish more people would breed animals to improve the supplies for the local population. We discussed with them how we could help the area the most and decided to build a secondary school with emphasis on agricultural and veterinarian training. This will benefit the whole Kutu region as they don’t have any school of this kind. For the location of the project we chose a 40 hectare piece of land between the city Nioki and the village Mabala. This will enable pupils from both places to visit the school easier and the territory is big enough to teach agriculture on site. If we receive enough funding, we’d like to build a small boarding home there in the future, so young people from surrounding villages can also come and learn how to do agriculture and then go back to their villages and teach there what they have learned.

In the Health Center, four exterior doors and six interior doors as well as 12 windows were manufactured and put in place.

All the inside walls of the Health Center are finished and plastered. Since our manager Jean is still in Kinshasa due to his diabetes, we asked our “ADH Congo” members Gilbert, Andre and Francois, if they could meet him to discuss the future of our project. Because of Jeans health problems, the plan was for him to move to Tshikapa, from where he was supposed to make regular trips to Mushapo to oversee the work better that way. Unfortunately he got a relapse and is not able to relocate yet into the countryside. For now our school director Pierre will oversee the construction work and the school. (Picture, from left to right: Gilbert, Jean, Andre and Francois, meeting in Kinshasa)

The inspector from the Ministry of Health in Kamonia came to visit our Health Center which is under construction. By now the outside and inside walls of the building are all the way up to the roof. The outside walls got covered with a coat of cement mix to protect them against the strong rains. The inside walls are being plastered at the moment. Four rooms are finished, six more need to get done.

The building of the new Health Center is almost finished. the team in Mushapo though and gave us the following report. The walls of the Health Center are all the way up now. The exterior of those walls got covered with a coat of cement to protect the walls from the rain. This is very important as the Health Center is standing quite a bit apart from the school buildings and is exposed the most to the rain and storms. We still need to plaster the interior walls, lay a cement floor, place the doors and windows and paint them. We hope the Health Center can be finished and start operating soon to avoid any more children’s deaths there. In Kinshasa we bought mattresses for the patients of the new Health Center. We thoroughly wrapped them for protecting them on the challenging transport to Tshikapa via truck. In the meanwhile, the mattresses were brought to Mushapo via bicycle transporters.

Robert showed us the progress with the construction of the Health Center for Mushapo. The walls are almost completely put up. There is an urgent need for a quick completion. The following example underlines this urgency: “Our school director Pierre in Mushapo asked us to come and pray for his daughter who had a huge red spot on her neck, about 10 cm in diameter, which looked like some kind of blood infection. He told us that many children suffer from this same problem there. The poor girl was in horrible pain and had missed school already for a week. Since our medical center is not in operation yet, there is no doctor or Health Center nearby, unless you walk 35 km through the bush to the next bigger town. After praying for this sick girl we went to bed and moved by it all I couldn’t go to sleep and started to cry. Pierre has nine more mostly little children in his care. Three of them are his own, the others are from relatives who can’t take care of them, something you find often in Congo. Anybody who takes such children in his home and cares for them is a hero in my eyes.” (Wolfgang Schmidt)

We managed to make the following progress of construction in Mushapo lately: The water tank is finished and waits for the new rainy season. The cement floors of school building 1 and 2 are finished, the 3rd building is still under construction. Its walls are already up to the level of the windows. The roofs with wooden supports are done for all 3 toilets. In addition, the roof with wooden supports is done for the Health center and the laying of the foundation will start. For the cement floor and the foundation of the health center, we need more gravel and will pay local workers for the transport to the construction site.