I remember hopping around between a few parties in San Diego last New Year’s Eve. It was a fun night because I got to be with so many friends in their warm and cozy homes. What a difference a year can make! Here I am in the Congo listening to repetitive party music blaring through downtown Kisangani and into my apartment. The New Year holiday is big in Congo.
I’ve had a long day. It wasn’t particularly straining but I was en route for over eight hours to make a 45 minute flight. I like airplanes and airlines and travel in general, so although the day was mostly tedious, (some boredom relief provided by C.S. Lewis and philosophy that goes right along with a lot of what I’ve been thinking about lately) I did observe some interesting things you might (or might not) want to know about air travel in Congo’s wacky skies.
- Most civil airports in Congo don’t have any metal detectors of any kind. They might have them in Kinshasa, but I have never flown out of there commercially so I don’t know.
- When you go through a “baggage check” they almost never have you open your bag but instead just overtly ask for some cash. During the holiday season the immigration people (who register domestic travelers) and health people were hustling travelers for money too. They didn’t try to ask me for any.
- The runway at Goma is partly covered with lava from nearby Mount Nyragongo. When the plane took off today they gunned the engines before releasing the brakes and took off like a drag racer to compensate for the shortened runway.
- When planes land at Goma the passengers often applaud. I think it’s funny and I join in. I’ve heard of this also happening in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
- The airplanes park in a cramped spot next to the runway and can’t get near the terminal any longer. Our 45 minute flight was delayed over an hour waiting behind the only other big jet to take off for the day. It’s silly that they are scheduled at the same time and that they have to park one in front of the other.
- Pilots leave the cockpit door open most of the time and I like being able to see out the windshield.
- Sometimes they serve glass beverage bottles in-flight. The politicians and military officers and other assorted “big men” drink large bottles of beer. The meal on a recent flight: salami sandwich wrapped in tinfoil.
- Congolese people have to pay the government a fee and carry a pass to enter the airport terminal.
- In Kisangani you have to pay for parking even if you don’t park and then you have to make it through a military checkpoint.
- It’s a good day traveling in Congo when you make it through four or five government officials or uniformed police/military and only have to give cash to one or two. Today was a good day.
The HOPE jeep wouldn’t start today after its Christmas break so I negotiated a taxi ride into town. I smelled alcohol on the breath of the first taxi man to approach me and quote me over twice the going rate. I told him his price was too high and that I couldn’t ride with a cabby who’d been drinking. He didn’t deny it and rather seemed to get a kick out of my preoccupation. The second cabby smelled sober and cut the price in half instantly when I asked him to. Sold!
There I was in the front seat and there were about five or six people piled in the back. The luggage was spilling out of the open trunk. Fortunately the side view mirrors were broken so I couldn’t even try to watch the road behind for my backpack or suitcase bouncing into the distance. A few minutes into the ride I noticed that the fuel gage was on empty and the driver was turning the engine on only to accelerate and then coasting as far as possible. This guy had his technique down to a fine art. I’m not sure if it actually saves gas this way, but there’s clearly some economic method to his madness. I whimsically considered reducing my payment to half the negotiated fare since the car was actually only running less than half of the time. We made about four stops to let out passengers, finally buy gas in liter bottles at a roadside stand (that’s how it’s done here), and to wait for someone to come pick up a plastic bag of raw beef that a passenger had in the back seat. I was privileged to witness much spontaneous jubilant dancing when one woman was dropped off. I got to meet half of her family as I sat there in the front seat. We lumbered over the potholes down main street (Ave. Mobutu) on three real tires and a puny spare and the run down old behemoth of a jungle high rise building that I call home came into view. It felt good to be home. It felt good to climb the 16 flights of stairs, unpack, and put myself down in this chair. Home again and in one piece.
I’m in the middle of a week-long break in Rwanda and it’s done me a whole lot of good. My friends here genuinely accept me as member of their family. Friendship is a rich blessing. Cross cultural friendships are a special gift. I get to be the wacky American uncle and it is a lot of fun. I’m not often free to goof around with kids in Kisangani so I ratchet up my silliness in Gisenyi with the kids. The food here is also great and I even get to help cook in an African kitchen. I get my fill of things that are scarce in Kisangani: potatoes, green peas, carrots, cabbage! Conversations focus on another angle of Congo politics and another set of challenges. The weather here in Gisenyi is very moderate and cool. Just a few hundred miles from my Kisangani home, but it’s a complete change of pace.
This Christmas was a bit different this year. There weren’t many blinking strands of colorful lights and there wasn’t a single cup of steaming spiced cider. There was hardly a chill in the air here in Central Africa. Familiar carols were scarce and very few gifts were exchanged.
We did read the story of Christ’s humble birth and it rang truer than ever. In America we set up little nativity sets and we think about Christ’s being born in a barn as though it’s storybook perfection sitting right there on the fireplace mantle or the end table. In reality, what a rough situation this was: Mary and Joseph forced to travel by a government tax census in the 11th hour of her mysterious pregnancy. They didn’t board the Eurostar train or Southwest Airlines or even a Greyhound Bus. All Joseph could afford was a donkey. Just as they arrived Mary went into contractions and the best place they could find for her to give birth with some privacy was in the company of beasts of the field. Corrals are not known for cleanliness; rather they are known to hold a good quantity of excrement. Thankfully that’s not usually included in our coffee table nativity displays!
Christ was born into a working-poor family without noble title or privilege. The God of the universe chose to do it this way. This must be enormously significant since God cannot err. A recent census in the USA showed that the vast majority of recent college graduates’ first priority in life is to amass significant personal wealth. That first Christmas, the Creator obviously had something else to say.
I’m in Rwanda with my dear friends Pastor Simon-Pierre, his wife Caritas and their troop of rambunctious and wonderful kids. Yesterday was a very full Christmas Day walking alongside Pastor Simon. It started at church where we sang, danced, I preached, three people were accepted into church membership, one was baptized and we took communion. After church there was a food distribution for families headed by children who’ve lost their folks to AIDS. They said, “We didn’t think we’d have something to eat on Christmas like everyone else.” Caritas served a hearty meal to a group of street kids that she ran into walking down the street. We shared our meal with a close family friend who has HIV and was linked to the family through a church program Simon started called “Cacahuètes” which means roasted peanuts. The idea is that the people sponsored are not a burden but that they should become friends and their presence should taste good like salty roasted peanuts. That’s clearly the case here because there was a lot of good food and laughter. In the evening we went to visit with a refugee family from Congo. There are at least six young kids living with their mother in a tiny apartment. We met their father who’d just arrived after a long journey in the Congo. We talked about how great their home region is but for the war that has torn lives apart and forced people off of their land. We prayed for peace, went home to a cup of warm milk and drifted off to sleep.
Much love and many blessings to my friends and family, wherever you may be. These are a couple of pictures from the party we had at HOPE for our staff and their children. From our HOPE family to yours, Joyeux Noel et Bonana 2007!
I’m not going to say it’s the best haircut that I have ever had, but it’s up there for barber shop haircuts. I’m not used to posing for website pictures so I hope those who requested a visual are happy with themselves!
Today is our office Christmas party and it should be fun. The staff decided that they wanted to cook a feast themselves and invite their families rather than go to a restaurant and have full-service. I like it when they cook together. I was going to make banana bread, which is always a big hit here, but then I was stuck at work until 9PM last night. Oh well. I’ll make some on Saturday and take it to Rwanda to share with my friends there. I plan to be in the Congo/Rwanda border region for about a week visiting both Rwandese and Congolese friends. I’m excited about the trip.
Oh, and I almost forgot… here’s what I looked like just weeks ago:
I usually have my hair cut by a friend. My last haircut was in Kinshasa some months ago and it was done by Donata, a Swiss friend who directed the International Red Cross in Congo. Lately my long curly hair has been driving me nuts. I enjoyed the bozo the clown look in college but with the heat here and the lack of running water it’s not at all desirable. My problem: I don’t have any friends in Kisangani who know how to cut my hair. I’m not sure that I trust any of the thousands of little salon kiosks to cut straight blond white-guy hair either. It doesn’t help any that I have seen my share of European men walking around with freak nasty haircuts. Finally I came to the conclusion that it’s just a question of the lesser of two evils… long and curly or short and hideous.
Today I decided that I just wanted my hair cut at any cost. My friend Dieu told me that the best barber shop in town could do the job. I built up some courage, combed down my bed head, put some shoes on and out we went. The place is called Dr. Jaff and it looked alright on the outside (decent sized colorful wooden shed). Inside it was small and cramped but they had sturdy wooden chairs to sit on and there were a lot of mirrors on every wall (mirrors are rare here), so at least I’d be able to see the damage from all angles. I asked if the doctor was in. They said he was out but that a nurse would take care of me. They asked me what style I wanted and I tried to explain short but not bald. There were hundreds of drawings of haircuts for black men on the wall and one poster of four white guys that looked like the New Kids on the Block. I pointed to one that looked semi-normal and said, “kind of like that”. A few times the generator running all of the electric clippers shut down and the barber had to run outside to adjust it. I enjoyed the sparks that shot out of the power strip that was nailed to the counter. There was a fan on that kept us all cool but blew my hair all over the place and into my face as the barber was cutting it.
The final analysis: this might be the best and cheapest barbershop haircut I’ve ever had. I’m so glad that I got over myself and took the plunge. My hair is very short and I am very happy about it!
Congratulations to Sylvain and Asha on the birth of their third child, a baby boy! It seems like we’ve been praying and waiting for this guy for a long time and now he’s finally here. He was born on Tuesday the 12th of December at 3AM. I was awakened by a phone call from Sylvain at 6AM. I could hear the pride and joy in his voice as he told me that the baby was born healthy and that they’d named him Brian Mukanda Kabwanga. Wow, my namesake! I’m surprised and very honored. I stopped to visit them at the clinic tonight after work. He was a healthy 8.3 pounds. Asha has some recovering to do, but all is well. Praise God! (Click the photo page for more pictures of Brian with his proud mom and pop.)
Last Wednesday Joseph Kabila was officially sworn in as the elected president of DR Congo with all of the (Congo style) pomp and circumstance you’d expect for such an occasion. By the grace of God (and a lot of political wrangling) J.P. Bemba, the losing candidate, did not cause any trouble with the proclamation and there hasn’t been open conflict this week in Kinshasa.
I got a call at about 9PM last Wednesday from a staff member. He told me, “In a few minutes you are going to hear several explosions. Don’t worry, it’s just fireworks to celebrate Kabila’s installation as president.” I thanked him for the information and waited for the show. It wasn’t well announced and many people didn’t know it was coming. The problem: fireworks sound an awful lot like bombs. People are still tense. The memories of war do not fade fast. Much of the city could only think that war had broken out, especially the folks in outlying communes who could not see the red and yellow and purple bursts in the sky.
The show went on for about 40 minutes and just as it ended I got a call from my friends out in Mangobo. They urgently asked me what was going on and I told them not to worry at all, that it was just fireworks – and I’d seen them with my own eyes. After that brief call I was thinking about how afraid they must have been and I felt good about telling them there was nothing to worry about. Then I went to church out on the fringe of town with those same friends Sunday. I was seated next to Pastor Andre on the platform and we were talking while one of the youth choirs was singing and dancing barefoot on the dirt. He told me that they moment they started hearing the explosions Wednesday night they instantly thought of me and my safety. They had to find a way to buy phone time to call me, that’s why the call came late. I foolishly thought they were worried for themselves… they were concerned about my safety more than their own! They wanted me to know that if I was in danger here downtown that I could come to their neighborhood and they’d take care of me there. I’ve always enjoyed fireworks. But now whenever I see them I’ll be reminded of genuine care and compassion that I feel from these beautiful friends in Kisangani.
My friend John is leaving on a business trip today. He’s going to ride on the back of a bicycle taxi for a day and a half down a deteriorated, potholed fossil of a highway to reach a village where he will buy 22 bags of unprocessed rice and then load it into a wooden canoe and ride down the river with it for several days back to Kisangani. He’ll take malaria medicine with him and he promises me he’s taking a mosquito net to hang from the trees when he beds down at night. John just completed his university studies in agricultural science. This isn’t exactly the Southern California senior grad cruise to Mazatlan and Cancun. Poverty leaves people with few options.
When I sit and think about my friends in Nairobi, I am amazed at how gifted they are. They are bright, motivated, creative and kind. If I ever had a business in Kenya, I’d beg them to manage it with me, I’d make them partners. These guys are sharp. They look out over a Nairobi metropolis that thrives economically in ways that Congo doesn’t. But even these highly talented youth are left unemployed and on the fringes. There simply aren’t many jobs available to them. They can’t get married and have families until they have work and stable income. These guys are so strong in their faith and friendship, but there is a certain untamable malaise that comes from being stuck in the life-neutral of poverty.
The chasm between the world of wealth and the world of poverty is deep. But wait, let me correct myself: There aren’t two worlds. We all live in but one world. They say that we are all at most six degrees of separation from any other person on earth. Yet we can be pretty good at not noticing or downright avoiding others who are so “other”. There are all kinds of potential risks and barriers of fear, misunderstanding, discomfort, insecurity and fear that come with making friends whose lives are so unknown to us. I’m not out to lay guilt on anyone and I’m certainly nobody special, but by the grace of God and the grace of others I’ve been invited into relationships with a group of people who are tremendously culturally and economically diverse. I can’t help but testify to the blessed goodness of these friendships. They’ve taught me about their lives and they’ve taught me about mine. They help me to recognize my own poverty. And at the end of the day it’s really true: as much as we are different, we are so much more the same.
I’m learning so much and I’m nowhere near a textbook or chalkboard. I learn while sitting on the sofa sharing a snack or catching a bus or walking down the street or talking with the guards behind my building over their cooking fire. Among the lessons: poverty stinks. It’s a reality that can’t be rationalized away or blindly blamed on bad personal choices.
Most of us from the West spend considerable effort in life avoiding poverty or seeking wealth. We work a lot and we are blessed to have the opportunity to do so. Many of us in the USA are even free to choose our career from among any number of potential paths. Maybe that’s the way it should be everywhere, but from where I stand it’s such a luxurious notion. The good lives we work for often leave us with little time to even consider the real and persistent suffering in our world. We do give from our excess, but mostly to charities that alleviate suffering after a loved-one struggles and dies from that ailment- when it “hits home”. It’s the way we tend to behave and see the world and it’s not at all unnatural or malicious. The Indigo Girls put it this way, “It’s a perfect world when we look the other way.” I’m fortunate that I am in a place where it’s not so easy to do.
If you are a person who prays, please pray that John has a safe trip.
These have been some intense days. The day before my birthday a member of my staff resigned abruptly. It was on the best of terms and had to do with an educational opportunity, but it was sudden. So instead of sharing sodas and fried bananas with the staff, I spent my b-day learning the finer points of updating and managing our savings and loan data from 8AM to 6PM. C’est la vie! Just as I was settling into two jobs at once, our computers started coughing and dragging their feet and then like clockwork keeled over with viral infections! Now the database was locked inside of a sick computer and I was making phone calls on the quarter hour to one of the few computer techs in the province. A few high stress days and long caffeinated nights later the computers are talking to us again and the data is up to date in smiling precision. We’ve got the vacant job posted; applications are rolling in. We won’t replace Tony, but hopefully we’ll find a great, capable new colleague. I’m enacting some new strategies to keep the computers safer and getting good experience with our loan software- a technological baptism by fire. It’s all good and I am still looking forward to going to work tomorrow.
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