Naughty or nice

I know I know, everybody wants to hear about Christmas here.

It's different. I noticed already in early December that the Christmas tree placed in the middle of the roundabout feels odd to me. Later on I noticed that something was about to happen because the road to the airport was flooded with a mass of people even thicker than the usual. I didn't think that was possible. Normally it's two lanes' worth of space filled with three lanes' worth of cars, tsukudus, motorbikes, buses, surrounded with pedestrians. Now it's the pedestrians taking up about two lanes' space, and the vehicles struggling in the rest.

By the third week of December the place started to look empty, one could dance tango in the cafeteria (except one never does tango alone, so let's say two couples could easily tango in the cafet), and those staying here founnd each other in the vast emptiness and started planning their „holiday” activities. It isn't really much of a holiday, 24 December is supposedly a normal working day, with 25 being a day off and 26 a working day again. There were rumours of an „everybody get out of here at 2” email on the 24, but I never receieved it, and spent most of my afternoon in the bank (where the simplest transaction of cash withdrawal takes 8 minutes per client, but that's another story).

So Wednesday evening we met at somebody's place, basically to not be alone and to discuss the details of the „real” Christmas party the next day.

Thursday, the 25, found me dancing in the kitchen at half past nine. Then later on, in other people's kitchens. An apron tour, Goma-style. We were supposed to arrive to the party's secret and charming location by 2 the afternoon, but the host called at quarter past asking us to pick up some tabasco on the way, and to tell that in case we had some potatos, we may as well bring them...

Once arrived to the Lake House, I managed to put on a show worthy of Modern Family, while working the pizza dough dressed up to the nines, and shouting to the people from the kitchen that they should finish that garlic bread already. Apart from this, I think I behaved in a rather acceptable way, I only had to kick off my shoes to go to the oven in the garden, and commissioning somebody to steal the wannabe Christmas decoration red tie from the wannabe Christmas tree bush happened a lot later.

There was some gift exchange as well, my household now has some wine glasses as result.

I only tell this for jealousy's/bragging's sake, but the party was originally planned to be a swimsuit lake party, but that day the weather was a bit chilly (we celebrated the three days of Christmas with cold showers, because it was overcast with no sunshine and those times there is no hot water in the house), and we convinced the boys to dress up decently so we could wear our red dresses.

The next day we all had lefotver lunch together at somebody else's, and somehow the pizza dough kept growing, so we managed to feed a few people off it even on the evening of the 26.

Then came Saturday, quiet, at home, but Sunday found us all together again, for lunch, for movies, for snacks. And Monday came way to suddenly (see also Melanie C on this topic), and I was rather happy to have another weekend before the New Year's haze so I can get some rest, but then after signing and dating many papers I had to accept that there is two days left of this year.

I have a strange relationship with time in general. After the three days of cold showers the weather became sunny, warm, shiny. This, combined wiht random days off in the middle of the week, and me having spent the last two weeks with the same ten people, always in somebody else's kitchen, resulted in my brain going to the playa, and my body really wanting to follow it. I have difficulties accepting this whole end of the year business when I feel that I should be in the Heikkilas' (dark and cool) living room, wathcing terrible music videos from the '90s. I had a (couple of) G&Ts to help this feeling, but honestly, I'm convinced it's summer.

Increasingly

So the first week of December (and the ones before that) were busy and headless chicken crazy for several reasons, mainly work-related.

The below conversation was delivered (can you deliver a conversation?) on the Friday of that week, after I got a mild sunburn on the right side of my neck. Other events of the day have not made the cut of my selective memory.

It was a reception kinda thing, by the lakeside, fingerfood and dangerously open bar. Somehow exhaustion and dehydration and stress remove my last existing filters and so I talk freely about whatever crosses my mind.

Somebody asked me the very cliché yet very relevant question: „So Kata, how do you like it here?”

To which I replied, after due consideration: „Increasingly”.

This extremely fascinating story could as well end here, for it says almost all that needs to be said on this topic. But it's important to mention, in case somebody doesn't remember, that on my second day here somebody told me that I wasn't going to last half a year. He probably meant no harm and was having a genuine conversation, but it was defining my actions and attitude for a long time. I wanted to prove him wrong more than I wanted to feel right where I am, and I also wanted to prove wrong everybody else I know was doubting me.

It is also important to state, in case somebody didn't get it, that the expression „increasingly” is accurate. And I was really happy that I found it in that moment. It is no secret that it wasn't and it still isn't always easy, and even I didn't expect it to be so. BUT! I ended up liking what I do and where I live and, most importantly, really liking who I am. And yes, I know, I sound like some tacky self-help book, but whatever. I still have no idea how I got here and what exactly I'm doing here, but I've been winging it all my life, and this time around I quite enjoy it.

Which also means, a big thanks to everybody who was on the supportive side. I knew many of you were worried for me, and not only for the obvious safety reasons (which remain, let's be real), but because you probably also thought I wouldn't last half a year. I wasn't exactly sure myself :). But here we are, me under the mosquito net, and you envying me because I can go to a Christmas party wearing a short sleeve shirt.

Shortlisted

Non-exhaustive list of things I miss:

• music
• in the car
• from the radio
• concerts
• Jason
• funky stockings
• short skirts
• men who smell good
• bridges over troubled water rivers

and of things I don't miss:

• driving when snow falls
• parking in Brussels

Random bits

Since I live a bit further and drive more (and drink my morning coffee in front of the window, watching the traffic), I've noticed that there is public transport here as well. And not only the crazy motorbikers, but minivans like the ones I've seen in Kigali. Two major giveaways made me realize that they are more or less regular buses. One is that there is always a guy hanging out of the middle door, shouting the names of the stops. The other one is that they always stop at the same spots. Mainly in the middle of the roundabouts.

I also noticed, while standing in the window wiht my morning coffee, that it isn't only the suuuper slow cars always right in front of me that have the steering wheels on the wrong side (i.e on the right), but basically all of them without the big UN sign. Including the buses stopping in the middle of the roundabouts. Which is funny if you consider that the traffic follows the continental European pattern, driving on the right. Apparently it's because most of them are ordered from Japan.

Another thing worth mentioning is that the weather doesn't really change much here, and therefore it's quite difficult to follow how time passes. I think we skipped a small dry season, so it's been raining almost every day since the end of August, and some days are cooler than others (right now I'm sitting in the living room in shorts and knee high socks, it's half past seven the evening, but the boys run around the house without t-shirts most of the time. I don't think it's weather specific though, they believe that their personal contribution to improving the quality of life should be that they don't deprive the public (me) from the sight of their magnificent torso. Today's socks can be explained by the fact that I got to bed at 6 the morning and am having a rather destroyed Sunday.), but in general we have 22-24 degrees, and that hasn't changed much since June. This makes it a bit difficult to believe that we've entered the advent period, and the fruits the market offers (pineapple, papaya, strawberries, passion fruit) don't help either.

The lakeside party yesterday and its aftermath resulted in me sitting on the living room floor at 4 in the morning, trying to convince the flatmate also known as „the kid” that for sleeping purposes his own bed is much more comfortable than the living room floor. Somehow this lead to the whiskey bottle making its way out of the fridge, and my polka dot shoes making their way out of my room, and soon I was taking salsa lessons. Which is perfectly fine. But when we stopped between two dances and looked out the window, we were stunned to see that at half past four, in the dark, masses of teenagers jog down the street. First I only saw a group of about twenty, but they kept coming, and when I went to bed at six, they were still circling. It's important to note that we live on a boulevard (asphalt and all that jazz), and if I really orced myself, I could see why they were training there, and why that hour, but on a Sunday??

Nyiragongo

The whole thing started when I came back from leave, and I was a little confused, it was 5 degrees at home, and 25 here, because it's always 25 degrees here, and the rainy season didn't end as it was expected, and I was on the road for ever, and then Monday evening the boys told me, in a very matter-of fact tone, between two episodes of Game of Thrones, that we are climbing the volcano the weekend. I think they waited, on purpose, until I wasn't in a mental state to argue with them. I only asked them why they didn't tell me before, so I could pack my walking poles right next to the Túró Rudis.

So I spent the week running after sweaters, gloves, walking poles and sleeping bags to borrow, food for two days, and time and again I was a little worried if this was a good idea at all. For this „we climb the volcano” story goes as follows: you drive about 20 minutes to get to the entrance of the Virunga National Park, there you get a briefing (always say on the trail, these three armed men are the rangers, they will lead the way, up there you will find huts, we will make three stops, etc), you have your slapping sleeping bag, extra set of dry clothes, spare water and food in a separate backpack, because it will be carried by porters (yes, I know, it sounds awfully colonial. I felt quite bad about it, but after about 5 minutes I understood that it will be an achievement to drag myself up there, let alone the extra 15 kilos), and off you go, 8 kms distance and 1500 ms difference in altitude, Those knowing me from high school or hiking times may remember my loving relationship with altitude as a whole, the others should consider that I grew up in Hungary, and have only lived in Belgium, Luxembourg, and the middle (flat) part of France.

But what would life be without challenges? And, more importantly, what would I tell to my grandchildren, if not that I have climbed the largest active volcano in Africa?

Because the Nyiragongo is active, it flooded about a quarter of Goma in 2002, the remaining volcanic stones are used in newly built houses. This part of the national park was closed in 2012 because the rebels were a little too close, and they only re-opened a couple of weeks ago, we were the 9^th team to go up. So the climb was only a side effect to it, the main goal was to see a real crater, with a real lava lake. And so we did! I thought the crater would be smaller and the lava closer, but I was wrong, the crater is huuuuge, and the lava lake is quite far down. And it's rather surreal, it looks like it does in geography books and Nationa Geographic documentaries, dark gray gooey doey liquidy stuff, with bright red lines in it, and suplhury smoke. Later, when it would get dark and the sky got clearer, we could also see that bubbles emerge from the gray lake, and when the burst, they are burning red. A smaller Mordor.

Mordor also because those who didn't have supporting tools, completed the last 30 minutes in the style of Gollum. On four, that is. And also, because the climbing takes so much energy and requires so much concentration, that the only goal you can remember is to get there. And destroy the Ring.

And also, because when the mission is completed, and after the night spent in a tent inside the leaking hut, four people under two sleeping bags, in damp clothes, eating damp sandwiches and vegan chocolate cookies, the fellow fighters show up again, and it's 6 am, and there are no clouds yet, and you can see all the way to Goma, to the lake, and in theory beyond that to Burundi, the sun is shining and the air, lacking oxygen, is so cold that you need gloves, then you feel a bit that Middle Earth has just been saved. And there will be a song to sing to the grandchildren.  

On the road

I've been meaning to give a brief description of my travels.

First of all, my journeys are long. Very long. But this is not their most important feature.

Absurdities start when I leave the office. Or even before, the morning of that day, because I usually work the day and then leave after. This means that in the morning I drag the suitcase/backpack to the car in my very serious and professional outfit, and face conversations where the guard asks me if I'm going home, to Turkey.

Then at around half past four I find somebody to drive me to the border (it would be an 8 minute walk, see map below). There I stand in line for passport control, and start worrying that I will be told that this is not a country/passport. The Hungarian passport's front cover says the following: Európai Unió, Magyarország, Útlevél. I know that everybody is Hungarian or would like to be, but honestly. Imagine the Congolese border officers and try to guess how often they see a similar text. (I'm training them with my average monthly crossing, soon every shift have seen it at least once). The latest one was rather inventive, he tried to read it out loud and figured it must have meant Madagascar.

After this discussion, he opens his big blue book, takes his pen and writes in the next empty line my name, my passport number, the date, and that I am from Madagascar Hungary. I say again: with his pen, to his big blue workbook.

Then I walk over no man's land, depending on the Ebola situation this may include a quick check of my body temperature, and then, after showing my passport, I am kindly invited to the little booth for checking the contents of my luggage. This usually starts as a serious and thorough procedure, until the find my jewelry or make up, then give me an understanding smile and let me go. I haven't tried throwing baby clothes on top of everything, but it may be a good idea.

Upon arrival to Rwanda starts the immigration procedure. It's gotten a bit better since I've requested and received the 90 day visa, but before that I always had to buy the one time entry and that made the whole thing one round longer. So, I get in line on the other side, fill in the arrival form, and wonder what on Earth can take so long, because the line doesn't seem to be moving at all. This is a common habit of lines here, that they don't seem to move. Eventually it becomes my turn though, and I can hand in my passport, the form, and my visa approval, which I printed, because for Rwanda I can apply for a visa online! Then the immigration officer asks me what country this is (oh yeah, I keep worrying that they too will question if we exist), then finds me in the system on the computer, puts a note „VISA OK” on my form, and sends me to the payment line. There I can stand around some more, answer the what country is this question, listen to the very original „Hungary? Hungry?” joke (depending on English skills and sense of humour), pay my 30 USD and go back to the first line. There I can wonder again why the line doesn't move. But once it's my turn, I get my passport back, with the entry stamp in it. That altogether takes about half an hour and by the end sweat is dripping down my back every time. Now that I have a multi entry visa, I don't have to pay every time, but it wasn't easy either. After all the standing in line and paying business, I had to wait for the visa to be printed and glued to my passport. I'm not a complete beginner any more, so I suspected it won't be quick, when the guy told me I would have to wait 3 minutes. This alone is never good news: it goes without saying that you always have to wait for everything, so if they specify it... well. I think it lasted 15 minutes at the end, but maybe they have a slow printer. Which, together with the electronic visa approval system, is worlds away from the big blue book.

And there are paved roads! This is important because the airport is a good 3 – 3 and half hour drive from the border; we usually take a taxi for that, and the first time I was in Rwanda, I was really worried that if the roads are like here in DRC, my head will fall off and everything inside me will be shaken, not stirred. I was happy to see that all roads are asphalt, and although everybody thinks (or says) that they learnt everything from the Belgians during colonial times, the roads are often in better shape than in Belgium. The country however is a lot more hilly billy, and driving style is odd at best, so my stomach is always a bit disturbed by the end of the 3 hours, but in exchange, the landscape is beautiful.

Other important piece of information is that my flight usually leaves Kigali past midnight, but the border closes at six, so even with the three hours ride I have quite some time to kill, because the airport is so tiny that they only let you in 2 hours before your flight departs. The remaining time can be spent in the neighbouring café or in the closest wannabe Italian restaurant.

After I'm finally done with check-in and security and border control, I spend about 12 hours in planes or airports. This is actually not an awfully lot of time, a lot of it is spent by listening to the emergency exit vs life vest monologues in three languages, then I wait for the food, then food arrives, I wathc a movie, we land, another airport, passport control, another gate, take off, food, etc. I'm still pretty messed up when I finally arrive, as by then I have most probably spent about 30 hours awake and 20 on the road. Not to mention that it's always summer where I start, but it isn't always summer where I arrive.  

Where the streets have no name

A very accurate and witty map of the city I live in.

from the website Living in Goma, by Anne-France White.

Till I don't know what's sane

I know many of you have been worried about my morals, and my living with somebody else's husband. I have good news for you.

I also know that others have been worrying about my smell, as for weeks I could only report on lack of water, with no real perspective of improvement. I have good news for you too.

I have moved! Yeiiii! We have a reeeeally nice flat (and I think this will be the name of it, The Reeeeally Nice Flat), real kitchen, with a fridge so beautiful that I would like to have one when I grow up and have my own apartment, slightly middle-class furniture, view to the lake AND the volcano, balconies and all that jazz.

To disturb some more those worrying about my morals, I have to admint that I recruited my flatmates in a rather peculiar way. We have newcomers arriving every other week for induction training, and some of them later continue to their duty stations, wheras others stay here. Now I very bluntly addressed one of those at lunch (I've met him once before): “Hey! You have a place to stay? No? Wanna share with me?”. The other one I haven't even met before, sombeody just told me that they know somebody who's looking for a place to stay, so I emailed him: “I hear you're looking for a flat. Wanna share with me?”. To my best knowledge none of them are married, but we have not yet gone that far in learning about each others' dark past, so I may be in for a surprise.

Those worrying about my smell need to be informed that my bathroom's tiles are pink and purple, and the shower head, for a reason yet to be discovered, glows green when I open the tap. I have two theories as to why. One is that this is supposed to be some kind of a disinfecting measure, like the violet lights in every public bathroom in Prague, when we were there with the room 36 girls. The other one is that if I come home after a long day, and may be a little irritated, I would immediately  start giggling under the glowing green shower.

It's only worth mentioning for historical data keeping, that although we were here four times last week to visit, to review the contract, to agree on moving date, when we arrived on Friday with our bags, the housekeeper/manager was quite surprised that we actually want to move in, while the curtains are not up and the I-don't-know-what isn't wired yet, and the contract isn't ready. To their defence, by the time we got back from our romantic newly wed shopping of hosuehold items, almost everything was in place. (That flatmates can have a real debate on the colour of the doormat was a surprise to me, and I've been in this living together business for quite a while.)

Without trying to make it breaking news, it's important to note that for the first time since I arrived here, I managed to sleep in until 11. That's an impressive result if I also add that I was in bed by half past ten the evening before. I would identify the lack of mosquito net as a reason to this, because, as  I mentioned before, I feel somewhat closed in underneath. Here for the moment I cannot use it, because, despite our repeated requests to install a hook on the ceiling of every bedroom, it still hasn't been done. Together with the modification of the sockets. So technically, this is a post from not under the mosquito net.

(In case somebody was wondering about the amount of stuff I had, I can tell you that for my standards, it wasn't too much. One big suitcase, one big backpack, one small backpack, and the rubber boots. Oh, and a medium size box of books, and a bigger size box of kitchen stuff. Anybody surprised? You must be guest readers.)

And the view from my balcony

About driving, life, and death

I've talked about how everybody here drives like a madman. I have since reviewed that and have to amend my earlier statement. Half of the people here drive like madmen, and the other half drive in a way that makes even me cry out loud „Really? Do we REALLY have to drive this slow? In the bloody middle of the road?!” And this is quite something, considering that I don't exactly drive fast anywhere, and here I barely shift to fourth gear. And yes, that means I barely drive faster than 30 an hour. You can imagine the type of driver that irritates even me. My other favourite is that by sunset and after, half of my fellow drivers just go on without any headlights whatsoever, may there be a dust cloud or not. Now the other half, they make up for it. With their beamers on full blast, so if I by accident would be able to see the people walking next to (!!) the sidewalk, I can still be blinded by their lights.

For a while I thought it was funny to say that people here are either not afraid of dying, or thy downright want to, but the thing is, their approach to life and death really is different. It is very much of a cliché to say that they have so many children so that some of them can reach adulthood, but when I hear that the woman in the next office has been on maternity leave for the majority of this year, because her first baby (the first this year, otherwise the third) has died at the age of two months, and then another two months later she was expecting the next one, then I start thinking that the cliché is very real. Somebody said that they value death differently, because they've seen so much of it. And that a funeral lasts three days (except if it's for a priest, then it's longer), and that's three days of party, but then it's over. They cut the music, bury the dead and move on with their lives. What else are they supposed to do?  

You get used to it

So, despite all other rumours, I live in an actual house. There are doors, windows, tv, wifi, fridge, corcksrew, that kinda things. They didn't manage to create all stairs to be the same height, and rain flows into the room under the balcony door, but the dining table is nice wood work and there is a full size mirror on the closet door. There isn't always electricity, but I've mentioned that before. There is a generator though, and sometimes they even switch it on, especially after dark. One can get used to not keeping anything too fragile in the fridge, and that a 90 minute movie can only be wathced in three takes. It gets a little annoying if power cuts of in the middle of cooking, or when you're in the shower, covered with shower gel from head to toe.
Not that the latter has happened often recently. Water running out in the middle of the shower. There hasn't been any to begin with. The only water we had in the house was what came in under the balcony door.
Ok, I may be exagerating a bit. The is a problem with the city's water reserve, and it won't get fixed before my nephew goes to school. So there is no running water in my neighbourhood. There is a solution to that, namely to buy water that gets brought here with a tanker. In theory. Because in practice, the first time water ran out, we told the guards, who were very surprised, and said they will talk to the owner in the morning, and really, we had water by the afternoon again. Except that the owner apparently hasn't read the memo about the problems with the city reserve and so he didn't expect it to run out again. So two days later there was no water left, we told the guards, they were very surprised, called the landlord, water was back by the afternoon. You guess, it ran out in two days, we told the guards, they were surprised, etc. What got on my nerves wasn't that time and again (every two days) water runs out, but rather that we have to call, they get surprised, and it takes another two days before the tanker gets around.
No need to worry though, I'm not much dirtier than on average. Humans are creative, and after the second dry spell we learned that we have to make reserves, so we fill all the buckets and plastic bottles and we can go on for another day. Three times a liter and half is comfortably enoguh for a „shower”. And there are shower facilities at work, or in the so-called gym, and at my colleagues' where I feed the cats while they are on holidays.

Of course, it would be nice to live in a place where „Do we have water?” is not the new way of saing hello.

What to eat?

That's an important question. And now that we know I still don't eat bat meat, the question is even more pressing: what DO I eat then?
Good news is, avocados grow here to the size of a smaller melon. Or a bigger grapefruit. Pineapple is at home here as well, and there are aubergines (eggplants), tomatos, bell peppers, cucumbers, and in the fruit department (avocado is not a fruit in my world) there are bananas, maracujas (passion fruit) and apples. Those are available on the local market, fresh, cheap.
In the store we can buy pasta, rice, lentils, chick peas, local cheese, sometimes foreign cheese, tuna, and then totally randomly sometimes spinach, other times cooking cream, oats, pesto, mustard.
I heard that there are two butchers, but I never visit them. I don't want to imagine what the frequent power cuts can do to the quality of cooling, and I don't want to risk. Controversially, I trust restaurants to know where to find reliable meat, so I sometimes eat it there.
So good news is that the veggie are fresh. I personally love ratatouille and aubergine, and could live for weeks on avocado. I would just get a tad bit bored.
And this is exactly what happens here: what we eat is rather good, it's just always the same. Most probably the cook at the canteen shops at the same market as everybody else, and as a result the canteen offers the same food as you can have at home. Except they peel and slice the pineapple, which is rather convenient.

Probably due to this not too diverse diet I always feel hungry, or at least I always dream about food. Which is strange, especially if I also tell you that for reasons yet to be discovered (either the climate, the water, or the canteen) I constantly feel like I've swallowed a balloon and it's all in my tummy now.

About the ebola

Yes, there is ebola also in DRC. It is a different strain than the one in West-Africa, and thus independent from it. It would have happened in DRC even if it hadn't in West Africa. And sadly here it's more or less common to have an outbreak every three or for years. Which also means that they know what to do: isolate, stop spreading. And this is exactly what is being done in the Équateur province, which is about as far from here as Luxembourg is from Hungary. Except that traffic is a lot worse. By which I mean there are not many roads.
The other thing you need to know is that ebola is not airborne. It can be contracted by eating infected meat or by direct contact with infected people. So I still don't eat bat meat and keep body fluid exchange at a record low.

I know that it's a serious thing and I'm not trying to joke it off. I'm also trying to not create any panic, and I know, that from afar all that can be seen is that thousands of people die of ebola in Africa. And it's all true, except Africa is huge, and the thousands are dying on the other side. I could throw in a few statistics showing how many more die in a year of malaria, typhoid fever and other tropical diseases, but it doesn't make the whole epidemic any less tragic, and then you would just start worrying about malaria (I'm taking preventinve drugs) and typhoid fever (I'm vaccinated).

Everydays

Disclaimer!
The below only reflects my personal views, they should under no circumstances be considered as those of my employer, my neighbour, my flatmate, the guard, or the market lady. And they are not trying to be an exhaustive, correct, un-biased description of the local people, those who work here, their friends or against-workers. I just tell what I see, and how I see it.


Other disclaimer: some of you may not find some of the stories brand new or unheard of. It's because some of you readers are occasionally listeners as well, and sometimes I need to feed you with witty stories between two lectures on the ebola.


So. I knew from the beginning that I would be a visible minority here, but I didn't expect the children on the street calling me mzungu (white person) every time walk by. First I thought they tell me in case I didn't notice, but later I learned that it's just their way of addressing me, they actually have something to say after that. Most of the time they probably just don't understand why I'm walking on the street when I could be in my white jeep as usual. Or they can't quite figure out why I came here, at all, but I can't really tell them that it's a bit like it was on the Camino, when somebody pulled the most cliché question of all Northern Spain "why are you walking to Santiago?”, only to receive the most cliché answer of all Northern Spain "I hope I will know by the time I get there”. I couldn't possibly say this all in swahili anyway.
Another disclaimer: anybody who can't stand my naive blond girl ways, should stop reading right now. Those who want to prove me narrow-minded and un-PC, … well, I haven't shared this blog with them :)
Thing is, it's a bit embarassing now, but it was a surprise to me when I first saw a wedding procession here. I don't know what I was expecting, I probably just didn't think about it at all, but that one Saturday when I saw the cars with the ribbons and all that jazz, I was puzzled that hey! people get married here too! I never considered that Goma being a non-family duty station for the internationals doesn't really stop the people actually living here having a family.
After that, the wake after a death wasn't that much of a surprise. Actually, I think I accepted it more easily that people also die here. There was even something funny in it. Not in the fact that people die, but in that my colleague couldn't really sleep for four days (nights), because the priest of the neighbouring church passed away and the wake lasted four days. Nights, actually. With music and singing. And loudspeakers.

The other day I was contemplating on... school uniforms. I often see children going to or coming from school, and I have noticed that depending on the schoo the attend, they have skirts and trousers of different colours. The girls are always in skirts, but the boys are not always in trousers. I've been trying to come up with some pattern to explain this, like age or height, but then I decided that the mothers must be making the uniforms at home, and it depends on their skills. Skirts are a lot easier to produce than nice fitted trousers. I think.   

Dedicated to Gina. And inspired by Shari.

When I write these posts, I often think about Kadri, the Estonian girl on my Camino. For a while I thought she was Finnish, because of the way she spoke English, and now I had to think twice whether her name wasn't Siri instead. So much for not working along stereotypes. She had a blog she started for her family and friends at home, about her experiences on the Way, but soon she decided to stop posting. She told me it worked against every purpose the whole walk may have had, because she spent all her time thinking what she would write about and how she would phrase what she had to say to make it sound interesting and smart and witty. It's a bit like the constant urge of ou r times to take pictures of moments and events and places instead of just being present in them.
Yes, I also kept sort of a diary with notes. But my notes were mainly about songs that played in my head. So the day we decided to ditch the (relatively, you stop being picky fast in such conditions) hot Irish guy and take the bus to León, I was humming Gina dreams of running away and then the following lines in the unique gibberish every decent Hungarian kid used all through the '90s when singing along Anglo-Saxon hits. What a discovery it was when we understood what those songs meant. And very often, what a disappointment as well.
What I'm trying to say is that I often feel a bit like that: I collect and store every impression and experience with the mental note that this would have to figure in my next blog entry or witty facebook post. And for the time being, I quite like this way of looking at life. Some of you told me that if nothing else, this year is going to be a good opportunity for soul-searching, for finding out who I am, who I want to be and other Big Answers to Big Questions. Thing is, I kinda like who I am, and if nothing else, this all is getting me closer to who I may want to be. Which is, as you all know, a drunk writer in Spain.

Sunday morning

The average one
The average Sunday morning starts on the average Saturday evening, when we gather at somebody's place who has a kitchen bigger than mine and thus can cook for more than two people. It also often means that somebody came back from somewhere where good quality meat or other goodies were available and now wants to share their joy and meat. Yesterday it manifested in some lamb from Kinshasa. Plus my flatmate was driving so I could afford to make good friends with a sparkling wine named Jacqueline. Jacqueline is a good girl.
Average Saturday evening means that you eat at somebody else's place, so you get home last. At least last among those in the apartment building having a car. This is a bit iof a problem because there are too many cars and not enough parking space, so if I park last the evening, nobody else can go anywhere afterwards, and for sure I will not be the first one willing to leave on Sunday morning. So the guard comes upstairs and bangs on the door until I get up, go downstairs, let the other car leave and park mine back. This usually happens between eight and half past eight. Luckily today the upstairs neighbour decided to destroy his entire flat as early as 7, so I was up anyway. Although, he probably heard my thoughts contemplating that I should kill him, because he paused his hammering until eight. I appreciated that.

The other thing that may be important to know is that on weekends you never know when you can cook or shower, because as long as there is daylight, they won't turn on the generator, even if the electricity cuts. I know, I don't need light for showering, but thing is that water doesn't come up to the second floor without electricity, and it just drips really sadly from the tap like it has prostate problems.

And more pictures

Pictures from the weekend

Bobo

Bits and pieces

To answer questions you didn't ask


I'm not in the desert! If you look at the map of Africa, you can see that only the top third is yellow, the middle is green. Those of you who remember geography classes in high school also know that equatorial climate comes with a significant amount of rain. Here in principle we have two rainy and two dry seasons; and supposedly we are in one of the dry ones currently (until about September). I'm not sure how much it weighs in that we live on the shore of a lake the size of Luxembourg, 1500 meters up. No, not on a mountain. Just above sea level. There are hills and volcanos around here and they are visibly a lot higher.


I haven't quite seen aboriginal animals of any kind. In Uganda, the first week, I've seen a few monkeys, but that's about it. No elephants, no giraffas, no lions. I'm not too upset about it though, I am rather fine with the sight of goats and lizards. Actually the lizards can be considered as aboriginal. They run around on the walls and it's good because they eat the mosquitos and other insects. We had a tiny one in the office for a week. We named him Bobo; he was a very curious kind, running around all day and listening to what we were talking about. It must have been a tad bit boring for him as he left after a week.



The lack of my jungle adventures is due to my reluctance to go to the jungle. In any sense. I'm quite comfy walking or driving to work and back. Sometimes I even make a detour to a shop or a restaurant, and on weekends we often have a BBQ in somebody's garden or just food and drinks in their living room. I don't know if it's going to change with time, but right now I don't feel the utter need to go and see more.

I am what I am

So after the first weeks (months! On Saturday it will be 8 weeks since I arrived to Africa!), people here know the following about me:

• I like football
• I like cheese
• I like my pretty shoes
• I like kitchen activities
• I feel strongly about the proper use of the subjonctif and the present perfect
• my family includes a high proportion of underage heartbreakers.

I have no secrets, really.

What's different

Somebody could have warned me that my ideas of taking a shower will promptly and deeply change. I try remembering what I learned in physics in primary school every time I wait for the stream to go from shy with prostate problems to agressive. I know, I will get used to it and one glorious day I won't get even slighlty irritated when I'm standing there covered with shower gel, waiting for the electricity and/or the water to come back, and I won't even notice that in terms of water temperature my choices are Mordor or Iceland, and even that is not a real choice because I don't get to control which applies when and for how long.

I knew that many items of convenience won't be availble. Still, it's very different to hear about it, to believe, to imagine than to actually experience and learn that if there was no big bottles of water in the px yesterday, then there will be none tomorrow either, and in fact there will be none until the new stocks of supply arrive. And that we will know immediately, as the news spread fast: Shoppers got cheese! The super fast news don't necessarily tell you that a piece of parmesan cheese may cost you 20 dollars, and I'm only sharing it with you because it's a very valuable piece of information, that those same 20 dollars could buy you about 20 kilos of tomatoes on the market. Or 40 avocados. But don't think Delhaize size avocados, here theye are the size of a smaller squash. And sooooo good.

It's hard for me not to understand the language. Most locals I have to deal with speak French, but I just realized that I've never lived in a place where I didn't understand the local language at all. It's particularly tiring in cases when I think I'm being talked to or about, and have no clue whatsoever. Or when I hear the guards outside and cannot work out whether they are fighting or just having a conversation.

It's tiring to have my stomach shrink and in general all of me immediately be in a state of alert every time I have to leave the compound. It's not because I'm afraid that somebody will hurt me, but I'm always very nervous that I will run over somebody. There are impressive masses of people on the roads, they move by their own obscure rules, and sometimes I wonder whether they are not afraid of getting hurt or they actually want to die.

The very distinct presence of silence and noise, or rather the the presence or absence of noise is a very odd phenomenon, and depending on my mood it can be very interesting or extremely irritating. There is a curfew in place from midnight, and as a general rule there aren't many people outside. That creates a silence so deep and sharp that is almost scary sometimes. Then life starts again at 5 am, and with life come all noises from birds, roosters, guards, children, cars, the deaf neighbour, and it goes on until midnight. The default level of noise is a lot more elevated than what I'm used to and what I can happily accept. First I thought it was a question of manners or medical conditions (being deaf, ie)to shout on the phone and blast the radio, but I am becoming more and more convinced that it is a general behaviour. Our cleaner is generally a quiet type, but even he turns up the radio volume as if he was in competition with the deaf neighbour. Or maybe he really is in competition with the deaf neighbour. I usually try not to mention how the noise affect (bothers) me, but I've heard several, more seasoned migrant workers that this continent as a whole is noisy beyond the possible limits of getting used to. (Typical, and also tells a lot about how easy I am to read, that one day when the neighbour was blasting their music (they always do), I told my flatmate in a rather irritated tone „In my country they could never get away with that!”, to which he answered with a witty half-smile: „Which one of your countries?”)

It's like a dream to me

The first week, on the way to the IDP camp we talked about our first impressions (it was my first week then so all I had was first impressions). My colleague described her first couple months in Kinshasa „like a dream”. I thought, give me a huge break and gin tonic, it's not that wonderful all the time (ever).

Later I understood though. Dreams aren't necessarily wonderful. They just happen to seem logical and self-explanatory when you're in them, no need to find a common language, everybody understands each other, there is nothing strange about the location suddenly changing because everything happens for an acceptable reason and has acceptable consequencies. Within the dream, that is. It's only after the awakening that the reasons seem odd and the consequencies completely weird, the people cannot know each other, and why was I wearing a bikini top in the middle of winter.

Living here is a similar experience. If I don't think about it, days have a meaning and the meaning makes some sense. I get up, I'm happy that (if) there is electricity, make a coffee, a tea, drink the row, get dressed, go to work, etc, and there is nothing extraordinary about that.

Now when I remind myself where I am (usually by the very sophisticated „Africa, wtf”expression), I don't really know what to do with the whole idea. It feels a bit like looking back on a dream where Patrik was chasing Shari's cats while Ryan Gosling was working in Zsolt's garden and I was making the tomato-cinnamon salad in the kitchen with Cindy, and it was all perceived as very much normal.

Old habits die hard

I went to a happy hour that felt like any given stagiaire party relocated. So I acted accordingly, let somebody by me a mojito, answered the where are you from where you work questions when asked, made some witty comments about Suarez and discussed locations of tattoos that hurt less than others. Then pulled a very classic, very cliché „you speak Hungarian?! I'm so happy to meet you! Let me give you a hug!”. Yes, I went there. In my defence, just the day before I listened to the French speakers in the lunch break discussing how their offices are divided by the language barrier and although everbody can talk to the other, somehow the English speakers only hang out with the English speakers, and the francophones with the francophones. The weekend before I was dragged (invited) to an Ethiopian afternoon (great food) because the wife of one of them didn't want to be the only one who doesn't understand the language. So while I tried not to be sarcastic when the French told each other that one time they were surrounded with English-only colleagues for a week before they finally found a Rwandes who spoke French and how much of a relief that was, I did pretty much the same when my (other) Kosovar brother introduced me to a Canadian who was born in Transylvania to a Hungarian-speaking family.

It needs no further explanation, but is worth mentioning that everybody from the Balkans counts me as family. It goes without saying.

Then I went to Kigali. It's in another country. I had to cross a border. My good old post-communist trauma kicked in the moment I saw a border officer. I still feel nervous even though I know well that I have the appropriate visa and ID card from my work, that I have enough money and can talk to both the officer and the bus driver on the other side. The lump in my throat/stomach wouldn't go away until I got on the bus that would get me to Kigali. Then I started being nervous for other things.

The funny thing is, I also noticed I have a very different old habit when it comes to border crossing. The good old Schengen attitude. I acknowledge and appreciate a state border, and understand that these two countries have had a relationship that wasn't always particularly friendly, and I accept they have their procedures for a reason. But somewhere deep down in my subconscious I still expect to be able to walk between Goma and Gisenyi like it's Steinfort and Weyler.

How time is ticking away

In a very strange manner. Days go by fast (happens, when one has the luxury of going to work at 08.30), by the evening I'm so drained I want to sleep by half past nine (and most often I do indeed crawl under the mosquito net), but weekends can be cruelly long (especially if a neighbour blasts Céline Dion from nine in the morning), and at the same time it's really hard to believe that it's only been a month since I've arrived to Africa and barely three weeks in DRC. I don't know if it's because the whole setup is so absurd that my subconscious decided it's too much to handle and it's better for all parties concerned if we take it one day at the time.

This very same time also has a slow motion way of moving. I noticed early on that I am probably the only one in the entire mission who doesn't smoke, and soon after understood why everybody else does. It kills time. Those who have a lot of work during the day smoke all through the evenings because time suddenly finds them. In some sections there is work to be done on Saturdays as well, or any other time when it's necessary, so when they sometimes don't have to work, people have difficulties finding something to do. In my first temporary lodging the „you won't last six months here” guy one Saturday afternoon just got into his service car, wearing very commonplace grey sweatpants, and drove to one of the three stores. Not because he or anybody else needed anything, but he was bored. There are many events organized, the expats find each other and even a Sunday lunch could become quite a social gathering, but sometimes that hour between the two football games can be very, very long.