Monday, August 2
Dave, Erich & Michele discovered that a portion of the house that had already been painted needed to be scrapped before they could continue with their painting project. The humidity and sun had caused the paint on the bricks to peel. That slowed down progress. Luke serves as Dave's translator with the workers but Erich has pretty good English.

Got an update on Deborah and Paolo's wedding and some details of the Sunday gathering at Deborah's home. Sounds like two lovely events with many friends in attendance.

Tuesday, August 3
More scrapping and painting for Dave and the work team. More food storage work for Diann - most of the foods in cardboard boxes has to be taken out of the box and put in plastic zip lock bags.

Notes on food: All the produce has to be washed in a bleach solution before consumption; many of the veggies are canned; all of the meats are frozen; pamplemousse (a grapefruit soda) is a favorite for both of us; chips are eaten within a two month period of arrival before they get stale; we always drink bottled water that has been through a clay filtering system; we cannot brush our teeth with tape water either - now that is difficult to remember! but realizing the possible consequences we adapt quickly; fruit trees on the property are banana, lemon, mango, papaya and there are star fruit and coconut on the station.

Wednesday, August 4
Exciting day in this corner of Gabon! The interim president, Rose Francine Rogombe, was in Lebamba to officially mark the beginning of construction of 32 miles of paved highway between Lebamba and Ndende. It was an unofficial holiday here. However, Keir worked all day and was not able to join us and at least 2,500 other people in the festivities.

The Gabonese workers at the hospital and on the station had the option of taking the day off and most did. Just as we were leaving the house Joanna's househelp, Evelyn, got a phone call with an update that Madame President had just left Libreville and was flying to Mouila and would take a helicopter to Lebamba and was expected to arrive at 11 AM. Most of the locals had been standing at the site since 8 AM awaiting her arrival.

When we got there, we were directed to park in a restricted area and were ushered under a tent erected for dignitaries and took our seats there - much to our surprise. Our group was decked out in our best Gabonese outfits and consisted of Joanna, Luke, Sarah, Meladee (the maintenance supervisor's wife) Amanda, Forrest and Emma Kelly (Short term missions directors - dad Tim and son Zach were in Libreville).

It three hour event was filled with speeches and more speeches. The Chinese construction company, Covec, displayed a huge Caterpillar Road Grader which Madame President started and posed in - thus cutting the ribbon. The Gabonese Military were in very visible as well as the Gabonese Secret Service.

The son of the late President Bongo who is one of the 23 candidates for president made the rounds in the crowd and warmly greeted Dr. Dave Thompson as he passed our group.

As we left we saw the 3 presidential helicopters leave the makeshift helipad and noticed that one helicopter flew over Bongolo Hospital.

It was a great fete for the people of Lebamba and for us as Americans. We felt privileged to have third row seats!

On the way home we purchased fresh tomatoes and fresh greens for cooking and for salads... all of which are just coming in season here.

Luke and Sarah had dinner with us at the Triplex and are sleeping over and will stay for breakfast through lunch tomorrow. It is so fun to be able to spend quality time with them. Tonight we had 3 desserts again (canned pears, a granola fruit bar baked by Joanna, and Twizzlers). L&S loved it. We each won a game of Uno! And we sorted some baskets from the basket man! What a joy to be with L&S!

What a day!