Hiatt's in the Congo

 We are moving next door into Sam and Amelia's old house and Darius, Leoni and Basil are moving into our old house.  Cory and I spent Friday night moving most of our stuff over.  As it got dark, the patio started being covered with cockroaches.  I saw about 5 of them so I had Cory get the bottle of Raid and we sprayed them.  Then I noticed more coming out of crack in the cement.  We sprayed down the crack and they started coming out of the crack like a scene from The Mummy.   Cory and I each had a bottle of Raid and we were spraying like crazy.  I bet we killed at least 30 of them that we could see.  I dumped a packet of poison down the crack, and I hope that helped.  Because the house has sat empty for 2 months, the sewer lines have run dry and that is perfect breeding ground.  We went in the house and turned on all the faucets, showers, flushed toilets and then sprayed some more.  The next night, I didn't notice any....

Cory and I were dying at this car...it screams American Redneck! It is so sad to me that they advertise skin whitening cream.  Be you and be beautiful! Common site to see cars driving down the center of the road.  They can not for the life of them stay in a lane.   Also common to have taxi's and people in the middle of the street.  Notice the yellow taxi in front of us in the center of the road. Here we have  bus that broke down and was blocking the lane for 2 days. People just ride where ever they want.  Apparently this guy was helping keep the load on. Also notice the truck is in the middle of the road so no one can get by him and the yellow taxi stopped in front of us, blocking that lane as well!  

 One thing I have come to perfect down here is baking bread.  The bread here isn't good at all, so I will bake a batch of bread and it will last Cory and I about two weeks.  Yesterday in the office, Blaise mentioned my bread and wondered when he would get some.  I told him I would bake some bread for him so I decided to make some for all they guys in the office!  I truly love them and I'm kinda like the honorary mom/grandma of the office! I made 6 small loaves, one for Blaise, Richmond, Leslie, Nephi, Ragheb and Morne and then a bigger loaf for Dona and his family.

 While I was home, Buddy had a sore on his tail.  Kaylee, Aaron and I cleaned it with hydrogen peroxide and Neosporin and wrapped it so he wouldn't chew at it.  It healed.  Then he started getting them on his side and he would chew at them.  I gave him a couple of baths, brushed him out and did the same thing as his tail but it wasn't working.  A week after we left, Aaron took him to the vet and this is what the vet said: Buddy has moisture dermatitis. It's when the fur gets wet and matted and never really dries and he starts scratching at it and biting it cause it's uncomfortable. Then it causes big sores. They gave him antibiotic and an anti inflammatory because both sores were infected. She shaved him around the sores and gave them a good scrub.  Sadly he has to wear a cone. Here I thought I was doing a good thing giving him baths and it was making it worse! Kaylee and I have such tender hearts when it comes to our dogs...Buddy got to come inside ...

 When we got back, Darius & Leoni had left for South Africa for 2 weeks so we were able to puppy sit Basil!! We love having him over.  He was in desperate need of a grooming, so we did that and cut it extra short.  We think he looks handsome.  He loves to be outside and he will either sit on the bench or the front lawn and just look at everything.  He loves to chase butterflies and the stray cat at the compound.  He also sleeps in the funniest positions! Basil sleeps on a blanket next to the door to the patio on Cory's side of the bed. One night, about 1:30, there were some gunshots outside and it scared Basil and he ran over to my side and hid between the bed and my nightstand.    He gets so excited when Cory comes home...he jumps off the chair and starts wagging his tail. Before his haircut! He can barely see, his eyebrows are so long! After! Like I said, he sleeps in the weirdest positions! One night, Basil was clearly agitated, so Cory pat...

 We are in the dry season and it is awful!  It hasn't rained here since beginning of April and wont until end of October, beginning of November. The air is full of dust and smoke from all the burning of garbage. everything is covered in dust and ash.  On the job site, the dirt has turned into 3 inches of dust.  It is like walking in red flour. We have all decided we like the rainy season better. The one good thing about the dry season is the temperature is very mild.  It is pretty consistent...every day.  The only thing that changes is a breeze might kick up a little bit but that just adds to the dust in the air! And because we are so close to the equator our sunrise and sunset stay right around the same time every day.  

 Here we go again!  Our journey back is always a long one!  We started out at the Salt Lake Airport, where our flight left at 3:30 PM.  We had a 10 hour and 15 minute flight to Paris. Every time we f back we have TONS of stuff that everyone wants us to bring back.  This time we checked 5 bags.  If it had just been our stuff it would have been 1 bag! I love it thought, I feel like Santa Clause when I get there.  Everyone just orders their stuff and has it delivered to our house. The menu for this flight! For dinner I had the Three Cheese Manicotti and Cory had the Whopper we bought in the airport...they don't have a kids menu on the plane!  I actually quite enjoy the food on the flights. For breakfast I had the Three Cheese Quiche and Cory had the Baked French Toast. We landed at the airport in Paris and it was a cool 63 degrees.  We got off on the tarmac and then road a bus to the terminal.  Here we had a 12 hour layover. We found these ...