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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.

During the school holidays, our manager Jean took his entitled vacation to visit his family in Kinshasa. Our school principal Pierre will temporarily replace him during his vacation in order to supervise the work in Mushapo, especially the ongoing brick production. The manufacture of new bricks for the third school building and health centre is still running at full speed. Preparations are also being made for the new school year, to which we expect around 400 children in our primary school and 100 in our high school.

The new water reservoir is nearly finished: A deep pit was dug, interior walls were build out of bricks and faced with cement. Rainwater is collected from the roof of the school buildings and conducted into the reservoir. For this purpose, trenches were omitted. Additionally, plumbers embedded water pipes into the earth and connected them. Now the water can be obtained from the reservoir as required. Furthermore, the work on the new toilets has started and the production of thousand new bricks for the upcoming new buildings is running at full speed. Unfortunately, there were also many setbacks this month. Two children died of typhus due to the lack of medical care. This makes us all even more grateful for the prospect of the soon to be developed health center in Mushapo. It is urgently needed there. The land area, on which we will create the new health centre, is prepared for the construction at this moment.