Ups and Downs (but mostly ups)

I really should take more pictures around town to give you a feel for the city, but for now I'll just post what I've got and then write a quick update on a few things at the bottom.

Here's a sign welcoming people to Brazzaville from the ferry from Kinshasa.
Most of the vehicles on the road are regular or bus taxis. They are easy to identify because they're all painted green and white. You can see some in the picture above too, but this many in a row is normal. It's between $1.75-3 for a ride pretty much anywhere.
Here are Theresa and Barb- two women working with the C&MA here. Both have lived in Africa most of their adult lives. Theresa is the one we're staying with until she and Dave go back to the US for six month in a few weeks and they were in Gabon for 20 years or so. Barb was a nurse in Mali for about the same amount of time I think and has been here for about 6 years. They are both wonderful, generous, welcoming women.
Here's Sam in his laundry basket boat- a favorite toy for now.
This is a slightly anxious Sam face since the dog is so close. He's doing better each day- sometimes he lets her lick him without screaming :-)
In this one- he's backed up as far as he can go to observe from a better distance.
And here he's holding the dog's toy and ordering her to come (or stay away).

Updates:

Housing- we've got a verbal contract for a house that is divided into two apartments. We found an interested co-renter and think that the landlady will stay good to her word (turns out she's friends with the director of the NGO we're working with here). The contract won't be signed for several more weeks though- leaving us in a bit of a limbo. So hopefully it will all work out and if it does we'll move in in the beginning of July and we'll take two German shepherds to amuse Sam and add a bit more security. We'll be leaving the house we're staying in currently May 21st or 22nd and then staying in a few different places until we move in.

Work- we've had a few good meetings, but we'll probably be in a learning/waiting role for a few months. We're planning to visit the other two project sites (in Pointe Noire and Sibiti) in June and then in early July there will be another training course for potential recipients of micro-loans.

Sam- I would have said that Sam has been doing great but for the last two days he's been waking up a lot at night and has been so grumpy. I'm not sure if it's teething, itchy bug bites, a reaction to the anti-malarial meds, just his age, or something else. This too will pass...

Leisure activities- We're bored more than we'd like to be during the days- trying to scrape together things to do and not quite settled into our work routine. Eventually we'll have regular hours more or less, and a babysitter for Sam during my time at work, but for now we're less settled. That said, we've been having an easy time finding fun ways to pass the evenings after Sam's in bed. There are a fair number of card and game players- this week we played canasta, two card games I hadn't played before, a fun version of dominos (with dominos going up to 15 dots), and Settlers of Catan. We also went to a park with rides for kids which is unfortunately closed until further notice but then went to a park and ice cream shop instead. I've also gotten to see my favorite bird a few more times- the whydah there are videos of it on wikipedia (see the link).

We're awaiting approval to join a swim club which has one of the only playgrounds for kids and a kiddie pool. That will be really worthwhile if/when we're accepted.

Church- We've got a few prayer/Bible study meetings in English and then we've gone to Congolese church too. We're not sure how that's going to go- and decided to skip today since Sam was so grumpy already. Churches here go from about 9:30-1pm and Sam hasn't been able to sit through them, plus he gets super tired but won't just fall asleep. We end up taking turns outside with him, but we should be just sitting and letting others take care of him. That would be fine, but because he gets so tired he's been fussing so then there's a lot of in an out and up and down and it's a bit hard to concentrate on the French sermon even without that. So we'll see. Maybe it will become easier when Sam is just taking one afternoon nap.