Last night, Lidia, a lady I met here in Kinshasa , who works with the CDC in Atlanta, joined me for dinner at our hotel here. We ate outside in the dark near the pool under this little shelter. The bugs were flying and the good news is...they thought Lidia was tastier than I!! Had a great visit and hopefully, began a new friendship. She is here working for just a week trying to help get programs going to ensure better health opportunities here for folks in the DRC.

Not sure why the photos are lining up this way and not letting me wrap text around them...but, the photo below is part of what I had for lunch today. Rather hard to see, but this is called Mbimzo in the Lingala language, which is one of their languages. Most speak French and either Lingala or Swahili.    What is this dish you might ask??? These are caterpillars cooked with sesame seed, tomatoes and eggs. Yup...caterpillars. Crunchy and delicious...I went back for seconds! Look closely...you can see their little bodies and the segments that make up this creature.

One of the guys in today's session wanted me to have a photo of myself training. He really liked how I wore my headset and held my pink microphone!! Had a great day. Yesterday was broadcast executives and producers and today, was dedicated to print journalists and media executives. We had one media owner who kept explaining to me that I didn't understand. 

One of the guys in today's session wanted me to have a photo of myself training. He really liked how I wore my headset and held my pink microphone!! Had a great day. Yesterday was broadcast executives and producers and today, was dedicated to print journalists and media executives. We had one media owner who kept explaining to me that I didn't understand. He kept trying to explain why it is OK to have a full page "article" paid for by a company. I cannot speak French but I could pick up that this article was all a one sided glorification piece. Clearly paid. The owner explained that this is journalism and I thought it more like advertising and it should be labelled as that or labelled paid content. Some of the other execs were laughing...he thought this much easier than actually selling content or selling ads. Not one of the 13 papers I flipped through had any paid advertising. So, we moved on and ahead and by the end of the day, the majority got the concept of creating sustainable business plans/revenue streams etc. Can't wait to read their evaluations. Based upon yesterday's evals, I spent more time today working on marketing, branding and sales while not ignoring Business and Journalism Ethics. Yesterday's photos of the group turned out horrid. Folks are supposed to send me some so I can post.

Here is a photo of the folks in our group today. There were three women who attended and I did not hear their voices at all until after the meeting and the group photo shots were done. I offered the microphone to each of them. Asked each questions indicating I wanted to hear their voices and their opinions...several times. At the very end, all three came up, hugged me and asked if we could take a photo together. I did..and then, all three, using our translator, explained how happy they were that I used them as examples of encouraging everyone to speak up and out. In this country...women ask for permission to shop, spend money, give advice, offer suggestions.

As we discussed diversity, equity, fairness and more..it was so easy to include women, youth, older people, folks from tribes in their planning, their decision making and execution. This is the print group and the photo is awful but so much better than yesterday's. The lighting was terrible in the room and I am hoping I will get some better photos from one of the Embassy folks. Off to dinner...more later.