Last night as I drove home from work they appeared to be setting up for a big event at the house two doors down from our office. I assumed someone was throwing a big dance party. I turned the other way out the gate and drove around the block.
This morning as I drove to work I drove down the road past that house without thinking twice. I rolled slowly right through the wake that was still in progress… right past the neighbor in his casket. OOPS. Nobody seemed to mind, but OOPS still.
Growing up in the USA, death was rare and strange. In Southern California it almost didn’t exist. People tended to have memorial services instead of funerals and cemeteries were well hidden from view, some probably were paved over with condominiums awhile back. Even the elderly in general were seldom seen out and about, they aren’t as respected and listened to like they ought to be. So Cal markets itself to the young and over-active, and to the middle-aged trying to pretend they are young – medicating and sculpting themselves to cheat away old age. I think they even ship elderly people inland. Some have stuck around in Orange County, but again they are playing a funny role. You’ll see them at the swanky malls in spike heels, big old designer sunglasses and day-glow suntans.
Here in Congo, if the elders are sparse it’s because of war and disease. The life expectancy is hovering at about 40. It’s hard to fathom until you live here for awhile and you start to sense death all around. In the last year I’ve been handed at least six death certificates for HOPE clients. A pastor I know lost a young child, so did a HOPE staff member in Kinshasa. Just recently a staff member here in Kisangani lost his mother to something that would have probably been treatable elsewhere and another staff member lost his older brother who’d already lost his wife – the children are completely orphaned.
Now somewhere in all of this there must be a balance. The society I was raised in seems to abhor aging and the society I live in just hopes to live long enough to earn some wrinkles. Southern California seems to avoid death and Central Africa is inundated with it. Clearly dying is a part of life and though I am thankful for that potent lesson, I’d like to see fewer people getting short shrift, especially those kids.
In the past couple of days I’ve learned a couple of little lessons the hard way:
My kind Malawian military friends give me extra provisions from their camp. Included are a few bags of pudding mix and the chocolate one had a small hole in it. I transferred it to another container and there was some that wouldn’t fit. Perfect opportunity to whip up some pudding, no? The instructions were for making enough pudding for a platoon, so rather than crunching the numbers I just eyeballed it. It was all going fine until the mixture hit the temperature where the agent that congeals the stuff kicked in. I went right past pudding to something like rubber.
Lesson: Don’t play around with pudding, do the math. Or at least remember that there’s never very much powder in the little boxes that Bill Cosby sells.
Last night I remembered that the notebook computer I recently received for work came with a small surge protector. This is a good thing for those of us who don’t enjoy the idea of our computers burning down. I went and got the protector from my desk and tried plugging it into a new powerstrip I bought in Kinshasa. There was a loud SNAP! simultaneous with some impressive sparks. I drew back, but what next? I tried again to the same result. Before Congo there’s no WAY I would give something like that a second attempt, but stuff pops, sparks, and smokes here all the time. I recently saw the AC adapter for a friend’s external hard drive burn out and leave a puddle of juice on the floor. Also, most computer accessories are dual voltage. Awhile back, my computer guy bought a wireless router from me that had stopped working for the fifth time. He was tired of fixing some minor configuration problem in it for me so I sold it to him so he could promptly fix it and sell it. He told me later that when showing it to a possible customer, he plugged it in and POW blew out the adapter. That sale wasn’t accomplished.
Lesson: Check the voltage before plugging ANYTHING in for the first time. You might just ruin two or three things at once.
The electricity just flickered back on as the sun sank into the depths of the Congo River. This is a good because it means I can read tonight. The electricity has been less stable than usual these days. Candlelight doesn’t cut it for reading. The other option is my halogen headlamp. That lights up a book bright as day and simultaneously functions as a homing beacon for every living flying insect in the house. Yep, draws every one right onto my forehead. There’s not room for all of them between me and my book.
In the spirit of elementary school show and tell, here are the books on my reading stack in no particular order than bottom to top:
- Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith – Anne Lamott
- A Severe Mercy – Sheldon Vanauken
- Let Your Life Speak – Parker J. Palmer
- Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving From Affluence to Generosity – Ronald J. Sider
- A Future for Africa: Critical Essays in Social Imagination – Emmanuel M. Katongole
- Paris: The Biography of a City – Colin Jones
Time for a delicious dinner of spinach porridge and bread followed up with some reading, both courtesy of the electric company.
Among the best things about being away for a few weeks is coming home. After another air tour of Central Africa (at least the Congo part) I landed in Kisangani. Stepping down the tail steps of the 727 into the heat and sun, it felt good to be home. As I made my way into the terminal several of the guards waved or nodded and some called me by name. “You’ve been gone awhile! Welcome home Mr. John!” Again, more good feelings.
By the way, I don’t know if I’ve ever explained here that the name Brian often doesn’t roll off of Congolese tongues too easily. I’m told it’s fairly common in France now and they have an anglicized pronunciation. In Congo rather, I’ve gotten a lot of quizzical looks when I introduce myself as Brian. Even some good friends call me “Brown” or my favorite “Brahmps”. The most common iteration of my name is pronounced Breeante, which in French is “Brilliant”. This works here since many people are named after positive characteristics. I’ve never looked in the mirror and thought “Brilliant!”, but I will take it wherever I can get it. To make a long aside longer and effectively get to the point… in some cases I cut the confusion by using my middle name: John. I always wanted to get more use out of it and now I am fully accustomed to responding to either one. People here have and use lots of names so nobody thinks it the slightest bit odd.
There were only three or so of us who got off the plane in Kisangani and the UN bus driver very kindly told us that he’d prefer to wait for another flight coming in from Bunia in another 45 minutes but he worked it out for two of us to ride with the guy who had a car waiting. I had a nice conversation in the back of the Handicap International Landcruiser with a new UN transportation agent from Cameroon via the mission in Haiti.
Meanwhile the staff back at the office was waiting for me to call from the usual bus terminus in town. Instead the guys from Handicap dropped me off right in front of our gate. I pushed the door open, stuck my head in and yelled, “Hodi!”, Swahili for “Hey, can I come in?!” The guards welcomed me with great big smiles, handshakes, hands on shoulders, and tapping of temples: right, left, right. The sounds of our greetings then sent ripples through the office building. The entire credit field staff was there as usual on a late Friday afternoon. I heard the insides of the building erupt in shouts of joy and the whole staff poured out on the porch. There were about 20 handshakes and smiles and 90 taps to my temples. We all gathered in a big circle in the reception and I said a few words thanking them for their good work and the jubilant welcome. A few minutes later I found myself in my office, my temples still stinging. I sat for a moment to savor that feeling. As life goes, there will undoubtedly be days to come when I will need to draw from that overflowing cup.
My seven day planned visit to Kinshasa became twenty-two days. I went for some work meetings, for some dirty Kinshasa air, and most importantly to arrange a visa issue. The visa wasn’t resolved at the Congo immigration office as quickly as we’d been told it would be and it wasn’t wise to return home to Kisangani undocumented. I always have to consider the extremely remote possibilities of political insecurity or appendicitis or some other tragedy which could require me to leave the country quickly.
Congo has taught me volumes about patience, this episode included. The staff here in Kisangani did a great job minding the store. I was working from Kin, in touch with them every day. About halfway through my absence, they started letting me know it was time to come home. I felt the same way but anyone who has been through this kind of thing knows that visas are a part of your life where nations have much more power than individual citizens of the earth.
The upshot is that I got to work closer for a time with my colleagues Peter, Nate, Pascal and other great people on the Kinshasa staff. I got to work with some interns learning about rural microfinance in village savings and loan associations. I got to swim and play several games of volleyball at the American school there. I enjoyed a sliced salami and cheese sandwich most workdays with Peter. I ate yogurt. There were ups and downs just like life out here, but it was a massive change of pace, unplanned and not asked for in such length- but I am very grateful nonetheless. I’m thankful to Nate and Peter for their hospitality.
Sometimes when we came home on the weekend a whole troupe of neighbor children would stream into the yard running and jumping, singing and playing games. These are some of the cutest kids on the planet. Right in the middle of one of the world’s largest cities - choked by dirty air, widespread poverty, and failing infrastructure of all kinds, these kids hold court and joy abounds.
This is a post from awhile ago, I’m just now getting it uploaded…
This morning I undertook an ambitious project. The idea for it wafted into my mind late last week. It wafted in on memories of steaming, juicy, delicious vegetable quiche served by a friend in Kinshasa some months back. I searched out recipes for quiche and crust online, seeking the simplest ones that don’t require sun dried tomatoes or asparagus or other flashy gourmet ingredients. I studied the crusts without shortening since I can’t get it here. I knew that it could be possible that a sudden egg or cheese or vegetable shortage could steal this project away.
Chase, the summer intern here from the USA, contacted his Southern mama to get her recipe for crust and he took on that part of the dish.
Yesterday the ingredients were finally all assembled, even nutmeg. I woke early this morning to wash all the dishes, clean the kitchen, and start cooking. I wish I could tell you that the quiche is now baking in my tiny oven, filling the apartment with the sweet smelling anticipation, but the mission was aborted. I made the fatal mistake of not cracking the eggs into a separate dish before putting them into the mix.
There was an odd ‘garbage dump’ odor about the eggs to begin with and it appeared that one was cracked in the bag of eggs. This seemed to me to be fairly normal. Odd odors are not uncommon here and I hadn’t yet bathed, so I figured maybe it was me. It turned out to be the last egg to crack that was rotten and I managed to drop some of its gray poison into the bowl. I’ve never smelled such a thing. This egg outdid every stink-bomb I ever smelled in elementary school, and I think those are made with rotten egg. One bad egg took our quiche down.
While I stood in the farthest corner of the kitchen actively suppressing my gag reflex, Chase tried to fish out the bad egg but it was impossible to achieve success to our satisfaction. I added up the total investment of time and money in this grand culinary splurge of a quiche and realized that we’d be better off losing these eggs for the risk of turning out a sour quiche that would make us both sicker than sick. So I dumped the eggs into a bag and Chase went out to buy more and salvage the effort. Most everything is closed on Sunday, even street kiosks, but he went around asking people and found a place to restock. Now we’re cracking them one by one into a separate bowl. The dream of quiche is alive and well...
Here’s a picture of the delicious quiche, from crumbly crust to cheesy crown:
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