Badibangas
Don’t believe I’ve mentioned that my precious baby brother Brent has been devoting much of his time lately to helping people in the Congo to get out of poverty by starting and running small businesses. Well, he has, and we’re exceedingly proud of him.

This happy Yuletide grouping shows him at home, with the beneficiaries of a related project: the Badibanga family, formerly of Kinshasa, now of Orem. They arrived with very little in the way of belongings, stayed a while with Brent and Mimi, and have received a lot of help settling in from their friends, neighbors, relatives, etc.

Yes, as you might have guessed, Francis’ and Nicole’s little Mimi is named after ours.
alt
, Nicole, Brillante, Brent, Bitner, Mimi, Francis
Francis needed a way to commute to his new American job. Neither Badibanga drove when they arrived in the US. Both do now, but, Providentially, my need then meshed with theirs: I needed a suitable new home for Hepzibah, my treasured 1993 “city-bike,” mounted on whom (before my balance failed) I had for a couple of decades put 3000 miles a year, largely visiting family shrines around New England. This collection includes pictures of several ancestral dwellings and gravestones, with Hepzibah parked in the margins. I’d previously offered her to Bethany, but she (Bethany) was enthusiastically on board with the redirection.

Somehow, I doubt that this old world contains another Hepzibah Badibanga. Although African onomastic creativity just may already have been up to the challenge.
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