News about Joshua:
I had planned to spend the next week to address certain things that have been written in the media. Instead the funeral for Joshua’s grandfather is going to be our priority. Our family tried to spare Joshua’s grandparents from the media as much as we could. We didn’t always succeed. The worst was when a couple of journalists invaded their home, and the way the grandparents experienced it they also “threatened” them that regardless if they would comment on a certain issue or not, it would still be on TV the same evening. The story was shown on TV. Both the behaviour of this medium and the fact that Joshua’s grandparents have nothing to do with Congo is something we want to address to the academic selection of the press with other matters eventually. The Congo-case and the enormous media coverage have taken its toll on Joshua’s grandparents. Joshuas grandfather had some health problems and he was close to 90 years old, and the “Congo-case” has probably weakened him further. But one thing he managed to do. He was a historian and an author and has collected background information about different subjects in the past. In the past months he has collected everything he could get his hands on in the papers about the Congo-case and collected it into a file for Joshua. It awaits him when he comes home. As a firm and useful memory of his grandfather we’ve sent him two small flashlights with some who were going to Congo. The flashlights were on his grandfathers’ nightstand. The electricity is very unstable in the prison, so now Joshua will have something useful as well as a memory of his grandfather who prayed for him all the time in these last months. Joshua is better from the malaria.
News about Tjostolv:
Tjostolv is better physically, and as we understand it, also a little better mentally. He was told about Joshua’s grandfather and told the Foreign Ministry’s representative to give his friend his condolences. He has asked for more fresh air. This is only possible when the Foreign Ministry’s representative comes for a visit. He knows that there will be doctors’ with special competence from Kinshasa to examine him.
They have both had a visit from a representative from the Red Cross. He is stationed in Goma, and speaks a little English. He is in Kisangani from time to time to follow up prisoner of war among others. He has visited Tjostolv and Josh in the prison before. At this visit he was at the hospital to see Tjostolv and was going to try to visit Joshua as well.
Kari Hilde French October 31st 2009
