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.

I drive!

You should see the roads... and the cars...

I drive big white jeeps, with big black Us and Ns on the side. The newer models also have diving pipes on the front left (I have no idea what they are for, but they sure look like they were designed for underwater driving...)

Remember what I said about the potholes on the roads? Now it's still ok, my neck gets sore if I drive for more than half an hour from tying to hold my head in place, but otherwise no problems... but I cannot help thinking about what it will be like when rainy season comes back, and the potholes will be replaced by swimming pools. I have already understood that the long white trousers will be repatriated to Hungary during my first R&R as they are pretty useless here. I am already always dirty from the knee down from climbing in and out of the cars (and from the knee up I'm always bruised from kicking the steering wheel every time I get in the car.)

Important to note that the two paved roads are not lit up either, and pedestrians have no sense of danger and use them instead of the sidewalks. I am in constant state of alert, being worried that I will run over one of them, since I have not noticed their intent to keep on the side or at least to try walking in a single row if they hear or see a car approaching. Even more exciting are the motorbikers. They are the local alternative of public transport and taxi, there are hundreds of them, with their numbers handily painted on their helmets, in case I would want to call them (I don't). They have either never heard of traffic rules, or they consider them as a challenge. They easily come facing me on a one-way road, they take me over from the right AND the left (often one on each side at the same time), they honk instead of looking around. In their defence it needs to be admitted that they always carry a second helmet (also with their numbers on it) for their passenger, but no need to worry, I haven't felt the need to ask for a ride yet.