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??