Amelie au Monde

Documentary Visuals

2011-01-22T14:50:00.004-08:00

A few photos to share. In sepia below, with the link to my album here.

Example of a three stone fire, used the world over.

It is not unlikely that these little girls have never been photographed.

Their "patron", who paid for the schooling their widowed mother can't afford, died last year in the earthquake. Now they stay home all day.

Your friendly blogger, in our Port au Prince apartments.

Enquête

2011-01-12T19:31:00.002-08:00

I can think of no better way to celebrate the birth of the new year than in the joyful presence of babies. Baby goats mewling like kittens, playful puppies with colorful strings bowtied around their soft necks, and especially grinning, goofy Haitian toddlers who can’t tell if they want to inspect me up close, or from the very safe vantage point of Mother’s Bosom.

I want to inspect them right back, which is why I am pleased to return to Haiti, eight months after my first and admittedly hectic survey experience. This time around, I am leading a sleek, savvy team of three, and in the course of the next eight days we will have travelled the four corners of Mercy Corps Haiti’s small world, surveying 100 families or so about their energy resources and needs.

In the northern reaches of the Central Plateau, the situation is grim. Manque – “lack” – is a word we hear too often as we go about our quietly measured business. Hinche is the capital of the department that encompasses Haiti’s great dam – le Barrage Peligre – but its people benefit not at all from the electricity it provides to southern cities and the capital. Five kilometers outside of centre ville finds us in the countryside, where women use propane lamps at night to protect their children. From voodoo spirits perhaps, but mostly from the wild creatures that roam Haiti’s undeveloped countryside.

The opportunity to observe the families we are surveying is enriching, but their situations are excruciating. If I could adopt every one of the babies I met today, and tend to all of their needs, I would. If only I could do so for the whole country.

Cookstoves!

2011-01-12T19:29:00.002-08:00

In rural Haiti, the commonest cooking mechanism is with “twa roch difé”, a three stone fire. Cooking, like most other activities, takes place outside. Firewood is collected in most households. As we are learning, for many families this task takes up to two or three hours per day, and might require the participation of all family members (or, whichever child is closest by when chore time comes along).

When asked – what would you prefer if you could have any power source to do your cooking? – the family chefs are split. About half would go for good old electricity. The rest, women after my own heart, would go for gas all the way. Cooks quicker.

Anniversary

2011-01-12T19:28:00.000-08:00

Today was declared a day of morning in Haiti, and offices and businesses in Port au Prince are closed. Most Haitians have at least a friend or family member who was directly impacted by last year’s catastrophe, but here in the Central Plateau business is more or less continuing as usual.

The day is on everyone’s mind though, and the radio talk shows are speaking of little else this week apart from reliving tales of the earthquake – and the report of OAS’s election recount turnaround. Celestin, in or out, and whose business is it to tell us?

It’s a historic week for Haiti. I feel lucky to be in the midst of it.

Sunset in Port au Prince

2010-07-25T16:06:00.002-07:00

Plato Santral

2010-04-30T21:44:00.004-07:00

Photos are in!

It's been a busy couple of weeks - kicked off the survey in two towns with two very different groups of displaced college students. Site visits and community mobilization to begin kicking off cash for work projects in Hinche and Mirebalais, spot checks to meet locals and ensure survey methodology, lots of trips to buy water for everyone, lots of time spent jammed into a car, literally and figuratively boxed in: this afternoon I was in the middle seat of the Land Cruiser, behind me a stack of five boxes full of surveys and CVs, squeezed between a couple of solid dudes with heavily accented English, protected in the front by Nixon, my Close Protection, and the driver.

Enjoy some photos. Stories to come - perhaps in the verbal form! I'm home in a week (fingers crossed....)

What's Up

2010-04-26T19:08:00.007-07:00

In Congo I had all the time in the world for composition. I even filled a whole composition book with said works!

In Haiti I have all the time in the world for work, work, and more work. I was quite proud of myself at the end of last Thursday, upon realizing I'd been steadily at it from 630am till I snapped my computer shut and turned on my head lamp to journal, at 930pm. Mostly I was proud to still be in one piece!

Here as a solo support team, and only for three weeks (okay, 24 days and I am counting), I find I'm not at all bothered to put in such hours.

Tonight however, after a long weekend of Planning, I'm taking a pause. For once, I have a moment to share a bit about what I'm actually doing.

We won a pretty significant grant from the Overseas Disaster Assistance arm of the US Agency for International Development. The purpose of the grant is to go towards supporting families displaced from Port-au-Prince towards the country's geographic middle (specifically, a region called Central Plateau, plato santral in Creole, which I love for the unintended philosophical reference). Our goal is to provide economic opportunities to displaced people (IDPs) in order that they might establish themselves away from the capital; at the same time, many of these IDPs are staying with relatives or friends - so-called "host families" - and while they are welcomed with open arms, their presence is depleting the already limited resources of their hosts. So, part two of our grant is to provide assistance through "cash transfers" to the host families: We give them money, they use it to resupply their most crucial stocks.

In order to lay the groundwork for this programming, we need to create a basis for comparison: get a picture of how things are today, before the grant's implementation, to be able to contrast it with the close of the grant nine months from now, to measure our effectiveness. At the same time, we have to identify host-family households, learn about specific needs of host and displaced folks, and all the while we're hoping to learn about other needs and issues in this area to prepare the ground for future programs. Sounds like a lot, right?

The way we are going about answering all of these questions is through a survey, taking place in two towns in Central Plateau as well as the surrounding "communal zones." We are working with two groups of fifty displaced college students (all Haiti's universities are in Port-au-Prince), one in each town, to actually take the survey to the people. Realizing how short-staffed our Haiti office was a few weeks ago, I received a slightly panicked-sounding skype message: Amy, can you drop everything? We need you here, stat.

Okay, not because I am some brilliant and oft-tested Baseline Survey Implementor, and mostly because I'm a youthful warm body who can drop everything at a moment's notice and take off for the better part of a month (good thing I haven't got a cat), to Haiti I flew, less than a week after word came.

I'm typing this from a tropical hotel called Wozo Plaza, a few miles north of Mirebalais, the southernmost town we're operating out of in Central Plateau. This hotel is posh: there is internet.

Tomorrow morning we kick off the survey with our second group. The first group began last week, in Hinche, the "capital" of Central Plateau. The students are energetic, demanding, raring to go. All of us are learning en route, but somehow I'm the one ostensibly in charge.

I'm two years' done being a student, so should be well capable of this right?

Watch this NOW

2010-04-24T09:56:00.006-07:00

About a week after I took on Haiti duties at Mercy Corps I came across this film produced by NOW (good old PBS), called Saving Haiti's Mothers. I wanted to send it out as a beacon to all who followed me in Congo: I was amazed, so much of the footage could have been in my clinic, what we were doing, but here this was a program on Haiti.

Though it hit the airways in late January, the producers were working on this documentary short well before the earthquake, so it is focused on maternal health issues in an (already) desperate situation. I recommend watching it because it will give some insight on what I've been up to in the last couple of years, as well as the situation I'm dealing with in rural Haiti, up away from the earthquake (but still reeling from its impact). I guess once you get pulled in to these critical problems, it is difficult to back out. And why would I want to?

Amelie est rentrée au monde!

2010-04-14T10:19:00.007-07:00

That's right folks, I'm back at it. New longitude, new hemisphere, still sweaty and full of lovely accents: I'm Haiti-bound, for a three week stint for Mercy Corps.

Because I'm an NGO-worker now, I get to stay in hotels, will have access to air conditioning and a blackberry, and while my laundry will most likely still be done by hand, IT WON'T BE DONE BY ME! Coming from the convent, this sounds like quite a rich life.

I will get to escape the capital city for this adventure, in fact directly from the airport we head for the Central Plateau. For Mountains Beyond Mountains readers, I am proud to say this province houses, among other things, the Zanmi Lasante health complex . No, I don't get to weigh babies this time, but I can guarantee some pretty good stories.

Westward Bound!

2009-12-31T10:59:00.000-08:00

Just Out for a Swim

2009-12-24T00:13:00.004-08:00

My last Sunday Mass here, and the last Sunday of Advent, I’d decided I wanted to celebrate somewhere special, so I was up shortly after six am to be out the door on time for Mass at Our Lady of Sorrows, the Catholic Church at Makala, Kinshasa’s epically overcrowded, medievalesque prison (a nice bit of Disney irony, makala means coal).

The prison is fascinating, terrifying, and extremely difficult to write about – I’ve tried. I’ve visited several times in the course of this year, and since several of the Sisters do work there, I have gotten to know a good deal of its goings-on. You will be reluctant to accept some of the stories I might share, but I invite you to ask me about it all the same. In a climate such as Congo’s it is hard to be a passive watcher, and my friends here have asked me to share their stories. Incidentally, if anyone has White House or high-level Justice Department connections and could get me an audience with, say, President Obama, they would be all the more grateful.

The prison is in fact only a few kilometres from the convent, rather centrally located but accessible only by a terribly careworn and virtually unnavigable road – in the best of conditions. One of Kin’s famous torrential rains started up shortly after Mass, while several of us were sitting around, chatting in the nun run library. We stuck around for an extra hour until the rain began to ease a bit, and then took our leave.

Except – we couldn’t leave! The road beyond the prison’s fearsome gates had developed a full-blown river on the side facing us, so wide and deep and fast that to cross would require great desperation, advanced swimming skills, and an extra change of clothes on the far side.

The three of us combined possessing a shortage of the above elements, we crossed back to the outside prison wall to commence a water-logged adventure towards home that tops perhaps my favourite experiences of this whole year. Navigating gulleys, quicksand, barriers of trash and muck, complete-stop-no-move-in-sight traffic jams, road-topping waterfalls, all in our Sunday best, I was so gleeful I could have crowed.

I didn’t get to have my last Sunday afternoon swim at the pool, but I sense that Congo is preparing to let me go on the highest of notes.

If only we could have walked on with our prison-bound friends, those gentle, articulate caged lions, by our side.

For an unnamed mother

2009-12-19T00:28:00.006-08:00

from Stories that Can’t Be Summarized

A woman was transferred to Lisungi on Thursday, labor in crisis, she died quickly.

She’d been in labor for two days, it was her first child. Our doctor concluded that the infant had clearly been dead for days. Its body was decomposing, poisoning the mother.

She had gone into her local health clinic complaining of a fever that had gone on for days. Things went slowly in the delivery room, and after two days of agony the decision was made to transfer her our way; the transfer document stated simply “complicated labor”, a run-of-the-mill justification. For the most part, the competent Lisungi staff is able to deal straightforwardly, and successfully, with these cases.

But this woman, her ankles were swollen, severe oedema, elevated blood pressure: together, these are signs of eclampsia, an occasional and life-threatening complication of pregnancy. Standard procedure here in such a case is delivery by Caesarian at 38 weeks. She was at term. Our mama was “primi parte” – her first pregnancy – and into her 30s, already a trigger for extra monitoring. Her health clinic hadn’t even bothered to tell her to have an ultrasound done. It’s not that she’d failed to comply, citing the occasionally prohibitively expensive 15 dollar cost; nobody had even bothered to tell her it would be a wise idea.

The transfer note claimed “BCF positif”, that a foetal heart beat was present. And yet as that note was being written this woman was slowly dying from septic shock, poisoned by the decomposing fetus that was left to Lisungi’s nurses to discover.

But, hadn’t this mama signed up for CPN? A program whose fundamental purpose is to latch onto the high risk pregnancies, to prevent family disasters, to transform insanely high mortality rates into an environment in which the success stories dominate? So how could this have come about?!

Negligence. One of the flash words in this country, it sends chills down one’s spine like an explosive lightening storm so close it’s setting off car alarms in the parking lot outside. Even those frustratingly few people who know better, who have been educated, trained, sensitized and are now looked to by the shocking numbers of those who’ve had no such formalized luck, can’t always be bothered to follow through on simple tasks of quality control. But it’s not just that. There are so many people needing help, needing health care, needing to be checked up and followed through with, and there are so few capable hands. I see it daily at our own clinic, one of the best low-income health providers in this vast sprawling city-province, and in my own work. Today, Friday, we had FIFTY women come in for their monthly check up. Even with a staff of four running relays through the exam process, those last women, the late-comers, didn’t all get weighed. Two or three hadn’t had their blood pressure checked – our team’s manual monitor is broken, and the classy electronic one we borrow had to be returned to the surgery.

Negligence happens, and you just pray that those who slip through are the cases of least risk.

This mama was not though, and her warning signals could not have been louder. The nightmare of the matter is that she had no idea. As far as she was concerned, she was doing everything right. She’d signed up for and faithfully participated in the pre-natal care program, she’d put herself in the so-called capable hands of her local health center. Month after month she came, the warning signs were recorded, and yet nobody said anything. As if nobody had even noticed.

Expectant mothers, the first timers who are already in their 30s, have the shiniest, happiest faces of any of the women we see. Maybe they’ve been waiting, to be a little older and more settled before starting their families. Maybe they’ve only recently been married, and are now so full of joy to be beginning the journey of the call of their gender. No matter what, it is obvious that among any of the children being born on any day here, those of the older women are certain to be loved, to be cherished, in a way no harried 28 year old mother of six could afford.

Imelda, my boss, the chief of the maternity, is as professional and tough as any military nurse. She supplemented some of the story’s missing details for me on Friday morning. Always kind, always direct, I’ve rarely seen strong emotions reach her surface. Sharing the particulars, her eyes were bright with tears.

La Dot (the dowry)

2009-12-19T00:25:00.000-08:00

My coworkers didn’t want to hear about Americans’ boring Engagement traditions. And they were right – so what, you give a ring, everyone smiles, there’s maybe a party but that’s it! Not even a machete passed across families. In Congo, every tribe (there are many) has very precise requirements, and it can take years for the amorous husband-to-be to save the money and collect all the goods. Sure it’s 2009, but you don’t see old ways thrown aside here.

I happened upon a perfect example, tucked into one of my record-keeping notebooks in the office one day. Both families were from Bandundu, a province upriver from Kinshasa. The dowry was recorded in 1983 but, reviewed by a nurse who was married only three years ago, is perfectly contemporary.

Dot: 800,000 Zaires, 2 chèvres (goats), une machette, une bouteille de wisky, 2 paquets de lame.
You might say the fellow got off easy – since his fiancée was already pregnant !

Cookies!

2009-12-16T22:40:00.002-08:00

Power's back on, strong enough to warm the oven! In keeping with the Walters women December tradition, I baked a dozen of my slightly Congolesed chocolate-chip cookies: the flour had to be sifted to get the worms out, the eggs come from my old home's convent business, and since I haven't got chocolate chips, there's some German cocoa powder thrown in for taste. Of course, I'm sick, so I can't actually taste them myself, but at 6am in the kitchen, I was still pretty contented!

Rationed...

2009-12-13T01:17:00.004-08:00

From September.

Rationed
My iPod – slowly disintegrating, every charge is full of mystery regarding the outcome. Will it freeze mid-screen, necessitating a burn down/recharge to be useful? Will it play only at half speed? One never knows.

Drinking water – I managed to come with a water bottle, but a bit small and prone to sweat profusely if the water is too cold in proportion to ambient temperatures. Part 2 though is the clinic’s bathrooms are awful, an embarrassment to the health care operation, and until I got special permission to use the director’s (spotless by comparison) private loo, I had a no-bathroom rule. Thus, 10 ozs a day.

My USD 20s – there’s not really ATM access around here to replenish, only hope’s for the care package.

Physical touch - this one’s hard : I’m a hugger by nature. My hair does get felt up pretty often – people are fascinated by my French braids.

Reading material – until I discovered the library, I was on a strict diet. Limited to so many pages a day, no reading at bedtime, plans to reread everything I’d brought.

Not Rationed
Bread – (We’re poor, this is a staple – breakfast, and snack)

Potatoes – especially at the beginning: four meals in a row? Eep. I had to learn how to – politely – put my foot down.

Powdered milk – unfortunately, we buy it 50 kilos at a time!

Vehicle and noise pollution – sorta speaks for itself. (Sects. All the non-DEQ qualifying cars that don’t go straight to heaven.)

Water – when it’s running, we know no limitations to its use.

Dust, dirt and sand – it’s everywhere, and no matter how clean you were at the start of the day, you’re bound to come home streaked with soot.

Only in Africa – This Week's Edition

2009-12-02T07:58:00.001-08:00

Ever since RFI (Radio France International) was chased from Congo this summer (undermining development efforts, according to the information minister), my morning world news has come from BBC Africa. The cozy all-Africa news program recently instituted an “only in Africa” segment, in which listeners write up a little experience of theirs that could happen nowhere else: A tiny village with just one phone, busy with lines of people waiting to call relatives all over the world; overcrowding at football matches thanks to widespread bribing; celebrations of flush toilets (oh wait, that was the UN).

This Monday night I had my convent-spiced addition. Here in Kin we all live behind gates. Slide-bolted from the inside when we’re home, double-locked when we leave – and, at night, there’s an additional brick-sized padlock fitted into place. All the doors leading outside from the house are padlocked at night. Is it even worth mentioning that doors are made of iron, windows doubly enforced? There’s an art to window bars, to feel fashionable as opposed to imprisoned. Like my parents’ cuckoo clock, it doesn’t take long before one scarcely notices any of this.

Well the one vital detail regarding padlocking yourself in at night is that you make sure you lock the KEYS in with you too. This has never been an issue. You don’t take the keys with you, thus they’re not lost, and everyone sleeps here at night anyhow.

Except.

In Kinshasa, the tradition around funerals is that the event starts one late afternoon when the body is brought out, lasts all night, family and friends staying up to watch over the deceased, and ends after the next day’s burial.

A family, long involved with the Missionary Dominicans of the Rosary, was mourning the passing of its matriarch on Monday, and da Lili called that evening to say she was staying the night. It’s a bit of a trip, and close to the school she’s headmistress of anyhow. It wasn’t until we’d padlocked the front gate at the end of the evening that, standing around and looking at each other dumbly, we realized nobody had seen the padlock key today. Well, who opened up this morning?!

Yeah, da Lili. She took the keys with her too, something she’s never done, no one’s ever done!

So there we were: locked into the convent, imprisoned by competing local norms.

Good thing the ambulance driver (we health workers’ morning ride) happens to live close to Lili’s school. Assuming we didn’t have to flee a fire, we’d make it out all right.

Only in Africa folks.

The Shower-Cap Clap

2009-12-02T07:54:00.000-08:00

When I was little, I was convinced shower caps were one of the coolest inventions in the world. It helped that my mom, who permed her hair in the day, wore ‘em on showering occasion, and since I always wanted to do everything just the same as mom, of course I had my own.

I don’t think I’ve seen a shower cap since the sixth grade, so it’s been a hugely entertaining return to the rainy season for me these last couple of months. Last spring I either was just never out and about in the rain, or the women of Kin have come to a greater level of respect for their coifs, but taxi on down a pedestrian-filled boulevard when the heavy drops are just getting going and you’re bound to see it in action: the shower-cap clap.

(Anti-) Measles Campaign

2009-11-23T09:09:00.014-08:00

Last week Lisungi participated in the opening of DRC's relay-style measles vaccination campaign. I've never seen the clinic so busy, or full of sobbing five-year-old boys attempting to take flight. It was a huge success, with over 2000 children in our little quarter of town vaccinated.

This sort of vaccination campaign is so necessary in a country like DRC, I couldn't imagine anybody acting to oppose or stall the proceedings. Apparently though, Congo's east is just such an alternate reality; according to Medecins Sans Frontiers (er - Doctors without Borders), which has been a big part of the measles campaign, their vaccination stations were attacked by, go figure, Congolese armed forces who'd been given a heads-up on the program's plans. Read about it here.

Workin on the photos....

Putting together the game plan.

(The game plans)

Mama Janny, the nutrition counselor (she also talks about family planning. and is very popular for it.)

Prelude to possibly my favorite scene from this year: three month old sucking on big brother's ear as he, held down by three women, gets stuck with a needle.

(photographing vaccinations is hard, if you don't want to disrupt the process)

Our War on Drugs

2009-11-18T08:31:00.000-08:00

One of the ways Lisungi distinguishes itself as a health clinic for the poorest is through its vaccine program. A highly untypical move in a city where everything comes at a price, here we provide the vaccines free. When I began work in the spring, families had to pay 50CF (less than 10 cents) for the needles, but even that has now been abandoned.

Somehow, because we refuse to charge for the vaccinations, this has put us on the bottom of the national vaccine program’s distribution list. I guess if you’re not bringing in profits, you’re not a priority. Personally, being familiar with the view from the back of the pack, this fact would not disturb me. Unfortunately though, when it comes to anti-polio administrations and yellow fever prevention efforts, when you’re at the bottom of the distribution list, what happens as often as not is nothing. No distribution. We’re not the bureau’s priority, so if they run out before they get to us, tough. Moreover, they give us crap because we service all the families who come for vaccines, rather than patently refusing all children from beyond the limited horizons of our neighbourhood, advice the bureau gave us with increasing aggression throughout the summer, matching our refusal with patronizingly random vaccine allowances when we could get them. Oh, you want 200 DTCoq? We’ll give you 50 – and make it last till the end of the month too, cuz this is it baby.

All this to say that in taking the option for the poor, in reaching out to those who otherwise would grow up unvaccinated and so very likely disabled in some capacity, we’ve managed to become the bad guys. The distribution program arbitrarily penalizes us – and the mom’s pissed off too, because why the hell does her month-old child still lack a TB vaccine that’s supposed to be administered in the first days of life?! And moms wasting scant time and cash to transport out to us (because of course most of the families come from beyond our football-field size health zone) to be told to come back, I know, I’m sorry and angry too, but please keep trying, please don’t give up, please help fight with us to protect the life of your child, to break this cycle of disease and poverty, of desperate sprints to the emergency clinic when it’s already too late. Stay with us. You’ll get that shot.

Better than Duct Tape

2009-11-18T08:07:00.000-08:00

African women all up and down the continent, even the chic-est most modern of them, will have at least a couple of dozen swaths of fabric amongst their clothing and accessories: wear one as a wrapped skirt around the house, add a second (its match) to head out. When Congo was Zaire, the pagne-and-libaya was mandatory national dress, and while women are now free to come and go dressed as they please, it’s still a well-loved standard.

That second piece, the second layer, of cloth has magical qualities, I swear. It pins a baby to your back and you can walk for miles; it ties your purse down at the market, so when your hands are full it won’t get lifted. Twist it up snake-like and settle it on your head under thirty pounds of corn flour, you’re set for the uphill walk home. The pagne fixes, mends, patches, protects, defends, and reminds – a toddler lost in the crowd has but to spot his mother’s familiar pattern and he’s home safe.

This might seem to you to be nothing but a permeable weave of cotton and dyes, but I’ve seen its magic at work. Driving home in the rain (the downpours have begun once more, and often show up with little more than five minutes’ notice), I saw a pagne that had become an umbrella; a mama, walking home with her hoard of primary schoolers, was unprepared but not defenceless. Like I said – better than duct tape.

Some Things Can’t Be Summarized

2009-11-05T23:37:00.001-08:00

I’m sure more than a few of you noticed my October postings failure. Given up? Sick of writing? Found better things to do? That “end of the year” mood change, wanting to just finish up and get going?

No, a bit, sure, ha! no!

Now it’s November and I’ve got another nice little stack of chipper stories for you, colorful photos and cheery commentary about life as usual on the moon (just scroll down!).

But you’ve maybe figured out, here and there, through unsaid intentions, or slips in the mood, that in the work I do, the life I see and live myself, all is not joy and laughter. A lot is complicated, is frustrating, and I’ll admit I often do not deal masterfully. I have the luxury of editing, of selective sharing – I whine, I cry, I rage, I Just Don’t Understand, I refuse to understand, I don’t even see…Were I to act honorably and write this all in French, make it accessible to actual Congolese, I’d no doubt receive a heck of a lot of teasing – and criticism – and all would be justified.

This year I’ve started to actually see myself growing up; in Congo where sun and rain combine to make plant growth visible to the naked eye, so I’ve seen some of the slow, painful moments of recognition and understanding that give rise to (the beginnings of) maturity. Being 23, this of course makes me quite proud. Being 23, this of course makes me nostalgic for that age of freewheeling recklessness, oh for even six months ago, oh the weight of the world...

Plenty of what I’ve talked and written about thus far has influenced this new visible growth. But I’ve tried so hard to keep the blog entries brief, readable, catchy. And you know what? Some things can’t be summarized. All is not readable, brevity necessarily impacts the telling of The Whole Story, or even what stories I choose to tell, to share, or even to reflect on by myself, during those great star-filled powers-out evenings on the front step.

And this bothers me. Not sharing the hard stuff is probably not the right way to go. These October thoughts silenced me in a way – I needed to think about where to go now.

Even this story – since August it’s been nothing more than the title and a blank page in my writing notebook. The point of my blog has been a question on my mind all year. For family and friends, those who want to keep up on my life, I think you’ve more or less been well-served. But the questions that come up when you’re 23 and Out In The World for the first time really, who wants to read about that? And what about living as a missionary in an incredible, insane place like the Congo? What lessons can come from this? For me plenty. My life is taking shape, and there is resonance and meaning that I never even thought to seek before here it was already upon me. But what about for you? And what, for others who could never place Congo on a map, who wouldn’t be certain which continent Kinshasa sprawls on? Can a sprawling, story-filled internet watering hole have any place, any value, beyond those directly connected to me?

I’m 23 so of course I like to think the answer is a big fat YES. In two days I’ll be 24, which means I’ll have to become reasonable and realistic – and admit, Probably Not.

But if those of you who know me haven’t figured this out yet, I’m a dreamer. And I can hope. And so I’ll keep writing. In 7 weeks I’ll be home, painfully and joyously transitioning into my next Nomadic Posting. It’s likely I won’t be in an exotic city where my simple geographic location makes for a worthwhile year of blogging tidbits (sigh – if only!). So I’ll probably lose 97 percent of my audience!

But for you three percent who are as thrilled as I by the hearts we touch in a shrinking world, who want to see what a passionate young thinker is going to discover, dumped back into the west but with a soul that’s no longer prepared to be held within strict boundaries, keep on reading. For the rest of you, I promise the exotic locales are only beginning. Check back periodically – I’ll give you all fair warning.

“Congo” Means Ants

2009-11-05T00:47:00.003-08:00

Okay, not literally, though the French word, fourmis, which I’d never managed to remember thanks to lack of use in prior lifetimes, will now assuredly be the very last word contained in my aged brain, pinging my thoughts even on my deathbed. For that matter, souris (mouse) and cancrelat (cockroach) will undoubtedly be close behind.

There are ants and ants and ants here, and no matter how clean you think a space is, if you live here long enough you will notice an eternal doubt creeping into the space between your ears – that is, if you haven’t already abandoned the war and turned over your stake in civilization to the able legs of the ant hoards.

It didn’t take long for me to lay the boundaries of my personal ant hostilities: Ants could have the outside, of course, they could have the main rooms (not a mapped out part of my territory), eventually they were allowed access to my floor as long as they kept to the perimeter, and, because I figured it’d be easy to hose them off in the final showdown, they were even permitted shelter in the tightly coiled leaves of my basil plants.

However, food, sheets, desk services and walls are mine, and I will fight mercilessly to maintain my borders. I was never one of those tots who found delight in provoking the world’s myriad National Geographic beasties. Mostly we left each other alone, on occasion (when there was no alternative) I could heroically void a space of some unwelcome critter, but the rare times ants and I crossed paths more prominently than sharing dirt for our footfalls, we could greet each other silently and go our separate ways.

Not this year. This year I have broken down new barriers and come to accept my job as an ant-assassin with glee. I have become ant-smoosher extraordinaire, with fingers so adept they’ll unconsciously squish anything small, blackish and seemingly mobile. I’ve spent many an afternoon scrubbing ash flakes off my fingertips (everyone burns garbage here, and with Bandal’s small properties ash is part of the deal if you want to be outside) as a result…but have high hopes that the squashed-ant tracks running around my room will, one day, teach the hoards to avoid this viciously anti-ant little missy.

Widowhood, RDC

2009-11-05T00:39:00.001-08:00

In a country where one of the first “personal” questions a new coworker might ask you is whether your parents are still living, it is not a surprise to learn that the state of widowhood is as much an inevitable proposition here as that of an American woman suffering from depression: if you’ve managed to avoid it thus far yourself, you certainly know five or six less lucky.

Dying from old age is as rare an occurrence as meeting your One True Love (in other words, depends on how you characterize things) and yet, in a culture where a wife is commonly at least several years younger than her husband, becoming a widow leaves one looking at a long future of uncertainty. If she is lucky, nobody in the extended family will have had their sights on her house and home, and perhaps she will even have a couple of good-hearted filial-duty performing children and their families living with her, ready to see her into a gentle fade out of her final years.

Unfortunately, what I hear about more often, are those families where bickering and selfishness characterize relationships (small world), and a new widow is in a terrible situation. Who holds the deed to her house? This is often the one meaningful possession – and if her husband didn’t plan carefully before his death (nobody generally expects to join those grim statistics after all; when you’re feeling vigorous it’s easy to disbelieve you might drop dead next week) the Family Elder Brother (he’s the one in charge) might have already scooped it out of the family safe, and already have plans for renovations.

Modern, educated, salaried city people here use banks, maybe have investments, write wills, and keep copies of their valuable documents. They are a mighty minority. Others are sometimes forced to hide them on their property, or carry them constantly on their person. If you’re robbed, good luck defending a legitimate claim to your holdings. Such is the risk of the Congolese widow!

So I liked hearing of the Catholics’ solution to this critical insecurity: the widow can bring these papers to be held safely by her parish priest. If she likes, he’ll make the declaration as early as her husband’s funeral. The property of Papa Mosengo, now deceased, is held fully in charge under Mama Mosengo’s name. And just so none of you Mosengo family members get any ideas, I’m holding the deed and you’re NOT going to get it!

My Unending Amusement: the Commute

2009-11-03T02:32:00.000-08:00

Okay, it’s not the commute itself I find so amusing – an hour each way in the rumble seat of a Toyota Land Cruiser, on these roads, simply doesn’t allow for napping, so instead I people-watch. And in a place where the people are so colorful, I collect images. One of the favorites is shirts. Second-hand clothing imports are as common as, well, dirty feet, and the flashier the better, no matter what unknown English phrase or advertisement is scrawled across. The most tedious, I’ll point out from the start, are the muck of Race for the Cure shirts to be found. Go figure, with the popularity of the event in the US there is no shortage, and turns out Americans don’t feel so vital a need to hold onto the memorial. Perhaps the foundation should just send the souvenirs straight to Africa, and skip the middle men!

Now the favorites…and yes, as a Washingtonian, my interests are clearly skewed:
Cutest
Pike’s Place Market drawing on a five-year-old

Biggest ‘Aha!’ Moment
The pretty purple – and curiously familiar script – drew my eye first to the back of a rather short young baby-totting mom; it was for Politics and Prose, one of my favorite bookstores in that other Washington…

Hippest Old Dude
Papa Vicky, the night watchman at my first home, liked to wear his (my) favorite shirt once or twice a week: green and white, it declared support for the MSU Viking Marching Band. (Okay, I was about to say Go Montana! and then I decided to look it up. Nope. Michigan. Which leads me to…)

Most Abundant (In a Good Way)
Shirts from Michigan! I have never seen Michigan so well represented…well, anywhere! Which means the state has been on my mind a lot lately. UM School of Public Health voicing its call? Wait and see!

Most Fitting
“Let’s Hug it Out” written across the proud chest of a teen girl;
tied with
Another proud young person, this time a fellow on the roadside selling full-size freezers, also on the roadside. Shirt, white with blazing pink sequins declaring his status as “Homecoming Queen”

Most Adorable – and Disturbing
3.45kg three-month-old (for those who don’t deal in metric, that’s a healthy birth weight) in a very small, very old school, black Portland Trailblazers sweatshirt

Most Inevitable (Coming from Oklahoma)
‘twas July 1st, driving up the clinic’s entry road, when I caught sight of a girl in an Eskimo Joe’s shirt – Stillwater, Oklahoma baby.

Most Valuable Slice of Wisdom
“I’m not 50: I’m 18 with 32 years of experience”

Biggest Coup
All in one day, coming and going: Extremely pregnant mama walking to the market, her protruding belly covered by a bright T with a colorful orange slice painted on declaring “Squeeze me!”; at work, a newly pregnant teen sporting a shirt for Veterinary Dermatology of New England. Website? Itchydog.net;
on the other end of the day, a fellow unknowingly advertising for the Mukilteo Lighthouse Festival. I’ll bet you I’m one of two people in Kin who could place Mukilteo on a map and – I wanna go to the festival!

And Another!

2009-11-03T01:52:00.004-08:00

Latest Picasa album is up. La Vie en Rosaire...in other words, documentation of the colorful Dominican sisters I live amidst.

D’you Voda ? Call me.

2009-11-03T01:31:00.000-08:00

Congolese have a unique approach to cell phone service, at least to my Western eyes: to make use of all the various deals and discounts provided by the main cell phone networks, most people-about-town have at least two different phones, and possibly enough SIM cards to support the networks’ array. The maintenance of three, or even four, cell phones are not unheard of, especially for big business men (is this number Tigo? Celltel? Vodaphone? Lemme pull out the right appareil), but by then locals are able to recognize it’s bordering on the ridiculous. A tv comedy troop in Kin has been seen to poke fun at Senate members, staging mock floor debates in which the speaker first empties his pockets of, and then responds to calls on, his various and ever buzzing phones. Not two, or four, these “Senators’” phones have bred and multiplied until they take up the entire speakers dais.

Photos, Updated!

2009-10-08T07:37:00.007-07:00

So folks, internet has been pretty speedy lately and now that power seems to have returned (knocking on wood), I've been able to update all those partial photo albums. It's worth taking another look, so I'm reposting the link. Click HERE to have a look!

(Okay, the Lisungi album hasn't changed, I'll be undertaking another photo week sometime this month, and give a heads-up when there's more to share there!)

Laundry Day

2009-10-08T03:39:00.001-07:00

I am reposting this spring's laundry story, since I've finally got photos to match! For my little photo story, click here.

Mireille walked up to me the other day. “Amelia!” (I love the inflection of my greeters here) “Do you know how to wash your - ?” Huh? What’s that? It appears that here the word for “clothes” is different, and we had a go-round about that.

Well, it turns out that a lesson on hand-washing was in store for me – which I greatly appreciated since, as usual, it’s completely different here.

Cold water, bar of soap, beat up the shirt for a while, squeeze it out, hang it up. Pretty straightforward once you get the hang of it…Of course, Mireille, two months my junior, has been doing this for ten years. I…suffice it to say that if I don’t want one of my many “sisters” here to step in and take over for me (out of pity, shock, or desire to tease me), I have to do my wash on the sly!

Some photos, for your amusement….

She Who Drinks Water

2009-10-07T07:12:00.000-07:00

In DRC, at least to French-speakers, I am Amelia. I prefer this over Amy because my “real name” somehow does better with the francophone lilt. One of the sisters I live with though, for whatever reason, prefers to call me “Amélie”. Emilia (pronounced same as mine) is a Spanish name too, but whatever.

In Lingala, “ameli” means “she drinks”. When I first arrived my new compatriots made light of this in terms of my own name, to great mutual delight. Sometime this summer, the ambulance driver (-slash-electrician) got it into his head to nickname me “Ameli-mai” – she drinks water. My pointed non-reaction got him over this quick; enough with the names already!

Last Monday an ailing Coco (a grama) from our neighbourhood, accompanied by her sister, arrived at the convent at 7am sharp in order to be driven to Lisungi, participating in our morning commute. We normally leave at half-past, so Txaro and I left them in the salon (the front room) as we each finished getting ready. At 7:30 on the dot, the ambulance horn came blaring from the street.

“Amélie!!!” Txaro cried, still never really convinced that I’ve made the connection between the horn and our departure.

The two women jumped, startled by the force of the sudden question. “Non, ma soeur!” the sister hurried to respond. “Ameli tay!” Panicked by the violent demand, they both denied that the patient had been drinking.

I stepped into the room. “I think some introductions are in order!”…

How To Spot A Zairois

2009-10-03T00:43:00.000-07:00

One of my tasks as Public Health Volunteer is taking charge of the tetanus shots. Every pregnant mother is supposed to receive it – two, for the first timers – which means I’ve gotten lots of practice. These vaccines are no joke. They’re painful to get, and stay that way for a while. Because so much of a mamma’s day requires the productive use of all body parts, we tend to give it in the left arm – does less damage.

I’ve noticed that an awful lot of women have big scars on their upper arms. The scars look like big smears, as if the skin had turned to putty or been burned, and it worries me to try to stick an injection into that space. Often though, I don’t have to – women with four or more children, and thus five tetanus shots, are considered CV: completely vaccinated. And, these multi-parters are typically in their 30s as well.

The other day I finally thought to ask what on earth these scars were about. Oh, these? Ma Yollande, one of the team’s nurses, asked, pulling up her own sleeve – she’s got three. Vaccine scars, everyone born before 1980 sports them. Thanks to some peculiarity of Congo-Zaire’s vaccine program in the olden days, everyone receiving the small pox inoculation bears the mark.

It was bad too, Yolla continued: you had to take care if you traveled into Angola, to keep covered. Anyone who saw the scar would immediately recognize your nationality. And not everyone wanted to be friends with the Zairois.

My Stalker Just Wants a Scholarship. And – Some International Relations Issues Cleared Up

2009-09-26T01:49:00.001-07:00

Now and then the comers and goers at Lisungi take more than a passing interest in me. Sometimes it’s touching, sometimes diverting, and, on occasion, a boundary is crossed and someone gets told off. A new dad, Jean-N., came in a month or two ago, hoping to talk to our chief nurse about why his wife, +4 on the malaria scale (i.e. grave), had to have an emergency c-section. He appeared not at all put out to find me instead, and has become unfortunately something of a routine visitor. By chance I managed to miss a number of his early visits, or be actively working, or on my way out the door. About 3 weeks ago though, he stopped by at 3pm exactly (official “end of shift”), and, caught off guard, there was nothing for me but to settle into the long, likely frustrating, conversation he’d been long alluding to desiring.

As frequently happens with men around here – women are either more discrete or just less curious – he barreled his way through the start of our entretien with semi-offensive (to ME), overly personal questions. Feeling an icy layer of frost spreading across my mouth, but wanting to be polite, I was managing to answer as vaguely as possible, when he suddenly hit upon “well, what do you think of our country?” Not the most unusual question, but this time around I rather perversely lashed out with this whole anti-Chinese/everything “squinty eyed” pickin’ bone of mine. And you know what? He gave me the first reasonable explanation and analysis of the situation I’ve heard to date.

There are two big reasons that Congolese are not big fans of Chinese, he began. One has to do with language: it appears to locals that our neighbors to the East, those who’ve made the move to RDC at least, have fairly consistently failed to make any effort at learning any of the local languages and dialects, and thereby making no effort to come across the culture barrier. I suppose especially in a country like this, where facility in language runs deep, the failure to catch onto something so simple as, in the very least, Lingala is easily grounds for utter derision.

At the same time, a significant part of the Chinese presence here – and Jean-N. added Indians and Lebanese into the pot at this point – are merchants and shopkeepers. Their wares are cheap – but so is the quality. Chinese (“Asian”)-made goods are renowned for their inability to hold up, and this has become a metaphor of crapiness for all things Asian, including the people themselves.

I certainly don’t agree with the daily insulting performance that is the outcome of these points, but it seemed a little less insane to me, so the ice melted and I even warmed up a little.

At which point, my friendly male visitor got down to business: All this is fine and good, but you know what I really want in life? (head shake) To go to America – I’m looking for a scholarship to do just that, and since you’re American and all I just know you and me, working together, we’ll seal my fate for the better!

While this is certainly not the first time I’ve been asked for this sort of help, it’s still a little frustrating. He asked in such a sanctimoniously deserving way, as if there was a certain inevitability about our paths crossing, all he had to do was ask and he’d receive. Out of respect for his well-reasoned answer to my China-flare-up, I didn’t walk out then and there, but rather spent some time thinking through with him what sort of options there were, creating a little research-game-plan, and offering to spend some time myself searching for immigration/visa lottery information, but mostly emphasized that there’s NO magic carpet, I don’t know much more than the next guy, and it’s really up to him and his willingness to research his options seriously and act accordingly.

I refused to give him my contact information (I’ve learned this form the Sisters – it can get ridiculous. Txaro’s not the only one who’s had to change her number once or twice), but took his, and promised to follow up. Which I did – I’m now a semi-expert on the US Diversity Visa program, and I shared all I found. But – for Jean-N., this isn’t enough. In the last two weeks (a period of time in which suddenly I’ve been getting to leave the clinic around 130 or 2pm rather than the typical 530-or-so) he’s come by nearly daily, leaving verbal or written messages with my coworkers. As I’d feared, though, hoping better of the guy, hadn’t completely expected, he’s gone crazy with my email address too – three messages already this week. The boundary has been crossed, and, next time our paths do too, he’ll receive (albeit the gentle version of) the telling off.

It may or may not include the line “I am not your salvation!” Perhaps, to be culturally appropriate, I shall recite it in Lingala.

Episode 34

2009-09-18T00:25:00.001-07:00

Everyone can rest easy again: Marina has been located, and although she’s been in an asylum, it was only “nervous shock” and she’ll be as good as new soon enough. Especially now that Ricardo, her husband, finally learned the truth about her pregnancy and has returned from his exile in Madrid. Unfortunately for everyone, while the newborn child is alive and well, he was kidnapped and then abandoned by “the Masked Man”, alias of Julio, Marina’s ancient nemesis thought dead from drowning when he jumped off an Acapulco harbor side cliff to evade the police, and didn’t turn up though they swept the whole bay.

This is the nightly drama I’ve come to live since joining Community Elikya – and since the story of Luna came to its delightfully wholesome conclusion back in August. The sisters speak about Marina as if she’s our next door neighbor; it was a HUGE disappointment the other night when the power went out and for some reason we couldn’t get the generator working in time for the latest. We had to get the electrician (who conveniently is also the ambulance driver) in to look at things ASAP. I’d never have guessed that my introduction to Latina American telenovelas (dubbed of course in French) would take place while living on Africa’s west coast…but, some things you’ve just gotta learn to flow with…

What 30 Bucks Will Get You…

2009-09-12T01:29:00.000-07:00

In a Congolese supermarché:
1 Pyrex baking dish
1 kg baking sugar
1 box imported German baking chocolate, powdered
200 grams Parmesan cheese
1 package rice cakes, on sale
1 chocolatey treat, also from the from the discount shelf

Alternatively, what 3 bucks will get you at the street market:
2 large cucumbers, fresh picked
3 tomatoes of varied quality
½ dozen oranges, trucked in from Bas-Congo
4 medium loaves of bread, baked this morning

You Call it Corruption: I Call it My Kids’ School Supplies

2009-09-12T01:24:00.000-07:00

My American friend told me, at the library last week, she’d read our Congo had recently ranked as number one on an international corruption index. We both agreed that this sort of thing is a bit difficult to measure – as a rule, payments don’t produce receipts – but then again, what a thing, of all the activities on earth, to rank first in.

At the same time, though, it’s hard to be surprised. In a normal country, being a bureaucrat is often a thing to aspire to: good paycheck, stable job, if you don’t rock the boat you could coast into a good retirement. In Congo, government functionaries just have this one problem: Not Getting Paid.

Who does the government justify this to? No one – it doesn’t need to. Whatever the government does, or fails to, it appears the heavy hitters of foreign aid, or in the very least wonderfully sketchy multinational corporations, will continue funneling money in and around. Local pressures, of course, can scarcely be depended on. Workers can hardly afford to strike (though they do and will…unfortunately undermining themselves as always by returning with victory-in-name-only, perhaps finally receiving some meager portion of the back pay, unable to go any longer without even the feeble partial salary bribingly offered as recompense).

So how can one survive in a position of petty semi-power when there’s scarcely an official paycheck in sight? You got it: dirty money.

The return to school this year has been especially difficult in Congo – tuition costs are rising (there’s no “free” public school in the broke down state), and with a downward hurtling exchange rate, the big impact here of The Financial Crisis, even uniforms and school supplies have become virtually unaffordable.

And there you go: in the bleak, simplified world I’ve created, what’s the alternative? Play it “clean” by western standards, living in misery and providing the world another half dozen illiterate, undereducated citizens – or accept what the system has made almost inevitable, and wear the country’s Number 1 pin with pride?

However outraged, I know which one I’d pick.

Follow-Up

2009-09-12T01:22:00.000-07:00

Myriam’s tale, obviously, is not entirely unique coming from the poorest neighborhood of a poor capital of a broken country, but neither is it hopeless. I once defined “Lisungi”, the name of my clinic as “aid”, but even just in the last week I’ve learned more about the title as well as the philosophy behind the work done, the approach to patients, and how some of these unhappy situations are solved.

Lisungi has a deeper meaning than simply “help” – it has to do with people working together to create a better situation on both sides. Thus, patients don’t simply come in, demand service, and head off again; here relationships are established, and people come from all corners of the city not just for the low price of ampycillin – or an inexpensive cesarean.

In Congo all health care centers are legally obligated to provide the first step in care whether a patient can pay or not. In other words, stabilize a wound, pack ice around a strain, make sure the patient’s still breathing. At some facilities, if money – a substantial amount – is not provided forthwith for the cost of treatment (everything down to a single surgical glove or a cotton ball must be accounted for, in advance), that’s it.

At other centers, especially ones with an emphasis on children, a story like Myriam’s is much more common: the life saving treatment is provided, and then the patient is “detained” until the account is settled. What is not so common is Lisungi’s approach to account-settling. True to its name, there is a “help us help you” attitude. Mamas who can’t pay (those go hand in hand – if there’s a papa around it’s much more likely there will be cash around to pay these bills) get put to work. 6000 CF bill? (Standard – the cost of an IV perfusion treating malaria.) You work for us for a day and we’re even. Laundry, sweeping, scrubbing, mopping – in a place like this there’s always work to be done. The hands are willing, everyone maintains their dignity, and precious lives are protected until the next round.

More photos!

2009-08-30T01:53:00.003-07:00

Internet has returned to the convent. Don't know how long this one's gonna last so I'm taking advantage! These are from my "One Photo Per Day" album...enjoy!

Your Hostility is Palpable

2009-08-20T03:09:00.002-07:00

Ordinarily I am a huge fan of showering. Here, this pleasure has deepened: After nearly four months of bucket “showers”, moving to a house with almost dependably running water, day or night, I saw a transformation of my original deep appreciation for overhead showers blossom into a full-blown love affair. It became common for me to be seen entering the outdoor shower not once but even twice in a given day – this because, reason number two for the great depth of my shower love, in the blazing hot oven that Kinshasa likes to call “normal daily weather patterns”, there’s not a single part of life better than cooling off under a cold-water shower.

Unfortunately, Kinshasa is only cooking-hot nine months at a time, and while I’ve been delighted with the cooler temperatures of the last several weeks for other reasons, the sad truth of the matter is that cold showers are no fun when you’ve already got the stray goosebump.

I discovered recently that, far from being the only person to acknowledge the fact, this “winter”-time displeasure with showering is rather a region-wide phenomenon, occasionally indicated in quite a pungent way. One of the city’s evening news teams gave a report on locals’ reluctance to bathe quite as frequently – closing with a plea, for citizens to gird their loins and, if nothing else, suds it up for the public good.

Photos of the (unphotogenic) outdoor shower here.

The Greater Benefits of A Good First-Aid Kit

2009-08-20T03:08:00.003-07:00

My nine-year-old cousin Teri gave me a first-aid kit last Christmas to help prep for my trip. While (toque madera) I haven’t found any routine use for its contents, it has proved indispensable. As you might expect, I’ve had a couple of exotic takes on the usual clumsy-Amy slips and trips.

I used up half a dozen band-aids back in March, sopping up after a shredded thumb: I was helping prep for the giant quarterly batch of convent papaya/pineapple jam (it’s DELICIOUS!) the night before I started work at Lisungi and, misjudging the distance, ran my hand down the grater instead of the unripe papaya.

In April, walking out of Easter Vigil Mass at 12:30am, focusing on keeping my candle alight in the face of a breeze while at the same time dodging and weaving through the other pedestrians trying to stay with my group, I failed to take consideration of the plastic-covered surface I was about to tread on, and broke through a jagged-edged hole, scraping my leg to the knee. Lucky thing my tetanus shots are up to date – and for the ready availability of alcohol cleansing pads and first-aid cream! The scars have by now (mostly) faded :).

With the dry season comes an increase in dust, sand and grit layering just about everything – and within it, a particularly nasty creature called a “chique” (pronounced SHEEK). People tend to avoid going barefoot around here, and even sandals pose a danger, as the chiks work their magic and imbed themselves under the skin of one’s toes, laying eggs and starting a family if you let ‘em. I cheerfully noticed a couple of weeks back that I’d caught one myself – made me feel like I really live here – and Isabelle cut it out for me, demonstrating the steps so I’d be able to do it on my own in the future. Since I obstinately boff around in my Chacos regardless of the season or YaTxaro’s lectures, we all understood that this was likely only a first among many.

Yesterday evening, inspecting my chipping toenail polish, I noticed another dark swollen lump, black in the center. This time I was all ready with the tool kit: grabbing a couple of toothpicks, some TP, nail clippers and of course the necessary alcohol wipes and band-aids, I went to work.

This my friends, is Congo. (Thanks Teri!)

Excerpted from my journal: Wednesday, 12 Aug.

2009-08-20T03:07:00.000-07:00

…Yesterday YaCharlotte and I headed out of work a little before 5pm…as we stepped into the taxi for UPN, I spotted a goat, tied in amidst the luggage on top of a taxi-van, taking in the landscape. I was delighted. Less delightful, but no less fascinating, was that our vehicle was more or less taken hostage en route by a big thuggish-looking youth and a couple of friends he called to help him. He ran along beside the car, holding firmly to the passenger doorframe (windows were down of course, making this easy) and with all the traffic it’s not like we could just speed off. He was yelling at the driver, banging on the roof, jumping onto the hood, and altogether being a nuisance. I wasn’t particularly nervous, beyond realizing how potentially vulnerable the bunch of us were, should someone decide to take over our car and what have you – even the roulage [the traffic police] did nothing to intervene and try to figure out what was going on. Charlotte and the other passengers convinced the driver that we’d better head to the police station, for his safety, to sort things out there. I, lost of course, kept quiet. Turns out the hoodlum was accusing the driver of having run into him that morning, and fleeing the scene. Everyone was mad and in typical Congolese style, the five or ten minutes we (me and Charlotte) spent devant les polices, every single person was talking fifty miles a minute. Except for me – I just watched…

Lisungi: Case of the Week

2009-08-20T03:05:00.000-07:00

Kiesa, the ten year old HIV positive deaf-mute who’d come in for (this was disputed) a case of variole…
Her grandmother brought her, early in the morning, to the convent asking for help. They knew she was HIV+ – her biological parents had died of AIDS – but she’d never been treated. She was so ill (and potentially contagious – one of those diseases everyone’s supposed to be vaccinated against here, but you just can’t assume) she had to be kept in isolation…which, here, as a deaf-mute, was more or less her lot in life.
She came in on Thursday, and died on Sunday. As so often happens, family members who couldn’t be paid to give a damn while she was alive came out in full mourning support.
The incredible clinic staff, which prays every morning to open and conclude the daily staff meeting, which immediately knows, as if of a single mind, the moment a special case crosses the clinic’s threshold, was devastated.
Her death was too sudden, she was with us too briefly…and this happens too often.

I’m on Vacation!

2009-08-15T02:44:00.000-07:00

Okay, not really, but it IS August and any normal person would have at least taken off for a long weekend at the beach by now. Around here, I don’t really get to do such a thing, at least not without cheating reality and calling a trip to the pool, or to the river, so much more! However, I did recently find out that I’ve got access to a pretty swell American-style English language library, and as a result the month of August has thus far taken a gigantic turn…for the better, I can’t say, but in order to assuage the guilt I feel at my utter collapse in productive writing time, having been replaced by headlamp-wearing reading-under-the-covers late into the night, I’ve decided I’m simply taking a break.

You all should too. You deserve it!

Love,
Amy

Typical Situation?

2009-08-06T09:12:00.001-07:00

Finished with work the other day – with a couple of hours to go before we were set to leave – I took the opportunity to settle down in the outer room with a book. To my surprise and pleasure, I was shortly joined by a mama carrying one little girl, another at her side. Her daughter had been sick in the clinic for nearly a week she told me, as the little girls looked on shyly. The other tyke belonged to a friend they’d made in the course of their stay.

Without agenda, with no inevitable sob-story-can’t-you-spare-something ending, she began to tell me a bit about herself. I was a bit confounded there was no “give a hand?” message – that this mama was so matter-of-fact and pragmatic about everything made me wonder how many similar cases there are these days in this country.

This mama, Myriam, explained to me that she was orphaned as a small child, her parents and most of her family dead, she and her little sister were raised by Catholic Sisters in another part of the city (this was why her French was perfect, poor and under-resourced as she was). She was fairly young, maybe five years older than me, and had four other young children…unfortunately, the husband was nowhere to be seen. He’d stayed around long enough to weigh her down with the standard allotment of children, and then disappeared to the East. To get by, to make sure her children at least don’t starve, she grows salable crops on her little piece of squatter-land on the side of our mountain. She normally sells enough to be able to feed the family, but it doesn’t always stretch far enough to get to her mouth too. As for any other needs – well, she pointed at her own outfit and said there hasn’t been money for clothes for a year. In other words, she and her children are the picture-perfect definition of Just Scraping By. The family that can’t face a crisis and be sure of coming out intact on the other side. When her little girl got sick, Myriam couldn’t very well leave her alone at the clinic – here it’s bare-bones service and children are often treated from their mother’s laps. This meant, however, two weeks of zero income.

Two weeks you wonder? But didn’t I say the little girl had been sick for less than a week? Yep, I did: she’d been well for a whole week but they couldn’t leave yet. No money to pay the healthcare bills – about 6 000 CF, or eight dollars – and with no husband or family or income to help out, no one could be sure when they would leave.

Myriam told me all of this without much prodding, she seemed eager to share if only as an excuse to strike up a conversation with me (yes, in other words I am a celebrity in these parts). She didn’t want money, and didn’t even seem like she was looking for sympathy. All she did want, it turned out, was a photo: me, her and her little girl. Embarrassed I couldn’t do more (or wouldn’t? this is not, unfortunately, a glamorous story about how I saved a family, much as I thought about trying to, and continue to wonder what I should do in cases where the cost of an Elephant’s sandwich could keep a desperate family afloat, at least until the next hole appears in its meager raft. I’m still bothered by my failure to act, still trying to decide what level of involvement I ought to have with the people I work with or see on the street here…afraid that if I start I might become nothing but the green and white dollar sign I’ve tried so carefully to avoid…), I happily obliged with the photo.

I can only imagine how we looked – the typical image here, me smiling, the gorgeous Congolaise looking somberly in the vicinity of (but of course never directly at) the camera, and the poor infant, in tears because of the paired frights of a scary camera, and being arms-length from an alien.

Seen and Heard at Lisungi

2009-08-06T09:08:00.000-07:00

A mama ducked in after we’d finished weighing, wondering when it was time to sit her son down for his 9 month vaccination: deaf and mute, she’d missed every time we called her son’s name, and we’d just assumed she must have abandoned her card. There’s no structure in place around here for deaf-mutes, no one knew sign-language and she was illiterate; couldn’t tell us her name or her son’s, and we couldn’t find their file. She was on the verge of tears, or at least as close as anyone here gets. Imagine the isolation, frustration and anxiety of the complete inability to communicate or be understood – in a country that does very little to help such “handicapped” people – and what strength she must have to persevere in the face of it: we finally solved the puzzle by weighing the little boy once more, and comparing his weight to the stack of charts we were searching among. We finally found his card; it was obvious – she hadn’t missed one monthly weighing yet.

Well-Dressed Sister

2009-08-06T09:05:00.000-07:00

The female Catholic Religious here, for the most part, are no longer in habit. However, they continue to be easily distinguishable from the rest of Congo’s female population: this is very Congolese, they’ve got their own dress code.

All Congolese Sisters, outside the gates of their own home, wear a foulard (a scarf folded in a very specific nun-like way around the head), a large metal cross denoting their particular congregation, and a very traditional, conservative (and therefore warm) take on the national dress: a blouse with puffed-out, elbow-length sleeves, and a matching pagne.

Now in Congo, sporting one pagne only is a pretty casual way of dressing. You’d wear only one pagne to do housework, but for any sort of going-out activities, another one is typically added; it really does make the outfit look “finished”. As a result, the fact that Kinshasa’s religious uniform only entails a single pagne makes the women look…well, a little unrefined.

Not at my house though: the Missionary Dominicans of the Rosary, as it was explained to me early on by the Superior, preferred to look more like the veritable mamas of their nation. So they sport the full double-pagne get-up. While undoubtedly it is occasionally insupportably warm – in my opinion at least, it can also be pretty hot.

Setting the Scene, Briefly

2009-07-30T08:53:00.000-07:00

While I imagine many of you are more or less in the loop on what’s going on with me these days, I wanted to share a couple of updates to help clarify any potential confusions in the details of the stories I share.

The day I left for Kinshasa, the sister whose community (house) I was originally intended to live with (she’s the director of the health clinic) left abruptly for her three-month long, once-in-three-years “leave of absence” in Spain. So, from January until late May I lived at the Provincial House – where all official Missionary Dominicans of the Rosary D.R. Congo/Cameroon provincial business takes place – which also happens to be the Postulate, the first level of initiation into the life religious for girls and women discerning a religious call.

So in May Sr. Txaro returned, and I said goodbye to chickens, kittens, quiet nights and life on the top of a mountain, to move into Community Elikya, situated in one of the hotter, hipper and more happening parts of the city. I also started working more-or-less full-time at Lisungi, a healthy change form the three-partial-days-per-week program I’d been started out with.

My new quartier, called Bandal (short for Bandalungwa, don’t ask me what it means), is about as different as can be from the old, and I love it. It’s down in the valley of the city-province, which means the heat can be suffocating. Luckily July is also the middle of Congo’s dry season (aka 68 degree “winter”) so for the time being I’m not kept up at night by the heat.

I get to go running here, but it’s about the least peaceful running you could imagine considering the cat calls, jeering, chasing children and general buggery nature of the population, so I save runs for the days when I’m feeling particularly sociable. I’ve also started to get about with some level of independence, a huge confidence booster on successful days, incredibly exhausting on others. I’ve planted a garden which is hobbling along painfully thanks to the lack of both sun and rain that comes in the dry season, and have high hopes (perhaps once the sun returns with all its previous ferocious might) of making both pesto and zucchini bread. We’ll see how far I get!

In some ways I’m busier, in some ways it feels like I have nothing but free time, in the very least, there are still plenty of tales to share.

Don’t Beep Me

2009-07-30T08:50:00.001-07:00

Congolese women are very protective of their bodies. I can say this with authority because I was told this authoritatively by Congolese women. I’ve seen it too though – apart from the ankle-length pagnes and baggy t-shirts worn for casual activities, almost everyone (female) apparently wears some sort of culotte (say, the equivalent to biking spandex) no matter what gets layered over. And, should you show unintentionally some bit of your midsection or back or thigh – it’s called “beeping”. To beep this way is a no-no (I’ve learned this one from experience my friends).

On the other hand, there is a kind of beeping that, once I knew to look out for the word, turns out to be all the rage. Here, communication technology jumped over landlines (nobody here has a “home phone”; there’s no such thing) and went straight to cell phones. And to operate your cell phone, you’ve gotta load it up with minutes – no cell phone plans, just pay as you go. Obviously, in a country where money’s tight even when you’re lucky enough to have plenty to eat, nobody wants to waste those precious minutes. Thus, beeping: dial your friend, let it ring long enough that he sees it’s you calling, but hang up before he picks up. A lot of information can be passed along this way – be there in 5! All’s well! Call me, I have no minutes! Beeping is texting, simplified.

At the same time though, the penchant to beep can be an irritant to some. If an unknown number beeps repeatedly – a clear indication of a desire for you to call him – what d’you do? Waste your money calling someone you don’t know well enough to have plugged his info into your phone? Surely not! But what if it’s the cute boy from the party who really wants to ask you out but hasn’t got enough cell phone credit?
What a dilemma.

Afraid of the Dark? Don’t Move to Congo

2009-07-20T08:50:00.000-07:00

In my new house on the other side of town, we don’t face nearly the number of power cuts as my former home. It’s great! We watch the evening news as we eat dinner each night, drinking our cold, refrigerated water…occasionally I’ve even managed to sneak off to check my email!

However, while the power cuts are not nearly so frequent, they are much more profound. At the old house, you could be fairly certain going to bed in the dark that by dawn things would be back in order. Here it is not the case – my first three weeks (update – same holds true, nearly two months on), we’ve never had power on Sunday, but often the blackout will spread: start Saturday night, flicker once or twice Monday morning, if we’re lucky, dinner can be cooked on the stove Monday night.

Walking through a blackened hallway to my blackened room one night, I suddenly wondered whether Congolese children suffer from imagined monsters under the bed like so many American kinds. Here, the option of a night light might work about half-time, if you’re in the right neighborhood. There are parts of the city though two and three months into no-end-in-sight power outages. Candles aren’t a great option – in fact, I know a number of households in which they are banned outright for safety reasons. So I suppose those little ones are left to cower under the covers, er, mosquito net, huddled around whichever siblings with whom they share a bed!

White Powder for…Wisdom?

2009-07-20T08:37:00.000-07:00

Being a former Belgian colony, Congo’s education system retains some vestiges of the old-time francophone style. This means that students in “sixième secondaire” (equal to American high school seniors) spent four days at the end of June shut up in special testing centers, competing for their subject-specific National Diplomas in Literature, Bio/Chem, Maths/Physics, Education, etc. Rigorous tests these, in which the high scorers rarely receive more than 85 or 86 percent.

The exciting development for 2009 is that now test results are made available online, and can even be texted to your phone! Apparently this has greatly increased the efficiency of disseminating the outcomes, because already last Sunday the festivities had begun for those who’d passed – and the celebrations have continued, day and night, all week.

In Congo, obtaining the Diploma is quite a big deal, and students and their families want their successes to be recognized. How better to do it, someone long ago appears to have decided, than by powdering the head and face of the newly-Diplomad, and, while we’re at it, everyone else in their family?!

So walking to and from church on Sunday, we knew exactly who to congratulate – sort of. All the students were out on the street cheering and making a powdery mess. But Congolese families are big. I’ve simply decided that congratulating my neighbor’s next-younger-sister, indistinguishable in age or celebratory status from her newly-graduated sibling, is as good as congratulating La Nouvelle Diplomé herself!

I'm Halfway!

2009-07-11T06:02:00.001-07:00

Halfway WHAT you ask? Halfway through my Congo year! Mathematically this may not make sense, but as I pointed out recently to a good old friend of mine, as pink is the new black, 11 months is the new year: my plane ticket is set, I’ll be flying into Boston mid-morning (after 24 hours of AIR travel, mind you) on December 28.

Some of you may have noticed that my blogging has taken a sudden reversal, from extreme non-posting to a whole lotta posts at a time. This is partly to do with the fact that, in my new neighborhood, there’s plenty of access to cyber cafes to fill in the gaps when home internet fails (a lot, as usual). At the same time, my goal with this halfway point was to have posted all the stories that I wrote in the first half…a lot, judging by the number down below. I write in real-time for the most part, but the lag between writing, then typing, then posting has occasionally and frustratingly been months.

With Life in Plastic though, we’re all caught up! From now on, my present-tense stories will actually be from the present.

The photos are another story…I’ll keep posting them when it’s possible, and maybe even give ya captions to boot! It’s a bit humble I know, but just think of ALL we’re gonna have to talk about, when I get home, in 5.5 months! :)

Life in Plastic

2009-07-11T05:54:00.000-07:00

At home I blogged about the bane of plastic. Here…well, enjoy a couple of the more entertaining uses, for better or worse, of that magical product:

A plastic baggie used as a fire starter for our charcoal cooker, one electricity-free afternoon (we DO have both paper and kerosene here; apparently it was just a matter of personal taste).

Woven-plastic feed and sawdust sacking – we recycle them, square by square, into dishcloths and scrubbers (they’re surprisingly effective!)

A plastic bag folded in half twice, as substitute for the traditional rolled-up pagne, used as head-padding to carry a 20-kilo sack of corn flour. (I don’t imagine it was a very comfortable substitute…)

In my office at the health clinic, we use an old 1.5 liter water bottle, top sliced off, to store needle sharps and vaccine caps. I’m not sure why, as we have both a garbage can and special sharp-boxes; it’s more like a decoration (a bit macabre. I prefer fresh flowers myself).

A personal plastic favorite of mine: it’s not as if people don’t have purses, or they are limited to only the richer folk. It’s just – some people prefer to stick to the heavy-duty plastic shopping bag, black, two-handled, gender-neutral, works for any occasion. I don’t know where these bags come from – they’re marked with “Vive la Congo” and images of footballers instead of an actual brand – but once obtained, they’re guarded carefully.

Typical Sunday Morning

2009-07-09T05:07:00.000-07:00

Kinshasa is very hilly, as I’ve pointed out once or twice, and as we climbed (in the Nissan 4X4) one of the steeper ones going home from church this morning, the “typical” passers-by seemed worth noting if only for the current banality of such a line up.

First, walking carefully down this sharp descent were two little girls carrying water – the bigger one with the bigger jug on her head, looking every step as if she might lose it all and come rolling down, Jill-like. A little further on was a woman walking alone, carrying nothing but a chicken, dangling by its feet. Beyond her was another woman walking in the opposite direction carrying a plastic UNICEF bag – these bags are all over, though I never see them in the hands of actual children (UNICEF: United Nations Children's Fund).

Lest one think it’s only females who take to the streets hauling things from here to there, as we crested the hill and turned left there were two teenaged boys with their backs to us, each carrying a large, brightly-colored cooler on his head. My first thought was “for a Sunday picnic!” but it’s much more likely they were full of frozen fish, on the way to be sold at market. The most notable pedestrian however was a short, slight mama who was really weighed down: baby tied to her back by a pagne, one hand carrying a half-full case of soda bottles, the other lugging a large plastic bag filled with water pouches*. One tough mama!

*Water pouches? Yes, here there is bottled water but that’s too much of a luxury. Your typical person in need of cold clean water buys it in the form of an iced-over sealed plastic pouch, which he opens by biting off a corner with his teeth and drinking as it melts. Ingenious…but, to be honest, not much of a temptation….

Race-isms

2009-07-09T04:59:00.002-07:00

I’m not entirely certain why it bothered me so much, when one of the interns declared her unambiguous preference of Europeans over Americans. Perhaps she was just talking this way to provoke the American in the room (that’d be me). I sort of hoped so, since her primary justification was crap: never having visited the continent or the country, she focused on examples such as the recent showing provided by athletes at the Olympics. The Americans are so full of themselves, she pointed out. “Everything’s so big and exaggerated – I much prefer Europeans.”

Then she went on, over the next several days, to sing me every American gospel song she knew (a lot), make me write down the lyrics to Amazing Grace (I unfortunately couldn’t get beyond the first verse…), and generally glorify the great music that comes out of – you guessed it – the United States.

By these comparisons, she should have come out at least net neutral regarding my fair country. She refused to listen to my argument that you can’t categorize a country (especially one like the US which, with its 50 states, offers at least as many personas) by its athletes …who at least from what I’ve seen are often happy to give off a cocky attitude, American or not! In my head though there was a deeper layer to why her declaration was so frustrating. Now granted that my total experience of European Life, Culture, and Attitude is minimal and limited to discussions with French, German, Dutch and Norwegian folk who aren’t necessarily any more representative of their continent’s spirit than I of mine (if one person can ever take ownership of such a thing) but over the course of several years a picture has slowly begun to build in my mind that when it comes to Africa in general and black Africans in particular, you’d be hard pressed to find among at least those Europeans I’ve managed to encounter such an unhesitant declaration of support as provided by my Congolese friend for the continent to the north. In speaking of future plans to take off en Afrique, I was often met by a wrinkle of the nose. The Germans and the Dutch cited statistics of its Great Danger, preferring Latin America “instead.” My French host “parents” would preface their anti-black statements with “of course we’re not racist but…”

I am not so naïve as to claim that Americans are the most welcoming and loving creatures of these two groupings, but I do happen to think that were Goetha (the intern) to make a voyage around the North Atlantic, her view might change a bit. In the very least, most of the Americans I know (again, perhaps an entirely unrepresentative population but still) happen to be enthusiastic about people who come from other nations and cultures, enjoy learning about and talking to new people no matter from where they hail, and are eager to share.

I certainly don’t want to denigrate Europe, but the veritable melting pot of the US is more than just the fact that we represent every shade, tribe and nationality managing to live together and forge a new identity even as we retain important pieces of the old.

It is the fact that we seek this. We look to enrich our own lives and family traditions by experiencing those of others. We are not compelled to eat only the food of our parents and theirs – we are just as happy with a fork as with chopsticks or our own fingers. We may not have the most sophisticated reputation as world travelers, but I’m happier to be considered as a loud-laughing overly eager if gentle fop, than as snobby, or unable to reach out to others.

So while it pleases me when locals tease that I’m Congolese now too, and it makes me laugh when others run through European nationalities trying to pin-point my own – Spanish? Italian? – I’m pretty happy deep down to be American, with all that title entails.

Oh, and if anyone can write down for me the rest of Amazing Grace, that’d be great.

Worms

2009-06-27T08:19:00.001-07:00

At lunch, Aimée asked Julienne, the house nurse, “have we got enough of the hebberligibbit? It’s time to take The Cure.” Oooh, I thought – this sounds mysterious. The cure for what? I demanded. Everyone paused, Aimée looked to Julienne for a description. My curiosity mounted.

Julienne began to explain to me what “taking the cure” meant – i.e. following through on a medication’s requested frequency. I get that! What are we taking The Cure for?!

Ahem. Intestinal worms. In a similar way to taking preventative malaria meds (or so I hope), here every couple of months we take the worm-cure. Because as carefully as we filter and treat our water, our produce, and our persons, we can’t filter out everything.

I’d long since put down my fork, recalling with displeasure a recent conversation with a co-worker at Lisungi. In response to my complaints about excessive bread consumption (really, every meal? Is that necessary?), she pointed out that people who eat a lot of bread tend to end up with worms as well. My stomach was hurting – could it, could it be - ? no, right?! Do people who’ve got intestinal worms even notice it? If I come home with worms, will I be stopped at the port of entry for failing to declare the import of foreign or exotic species?

My handy copy of Where There Is No Doctor should be able to provide some of the answers…

But I prefer to depend on The Cure.

Speaking of Worms

2009-06-27T08:17:00.000-07:00

Incidentally, the French word for worms (verre) is the same as the word for drinking glasses. At the start of April I finally convinced the house to give me my own little chore: I became the official drinking glass cleaner. It is half a good-meditation-in-silence-and-water time; the other half, however, I concluded would be an excellent task for some future trouble-making child in need of a creative punishment. To clean and dry 14 drinking glasses twice a day, after a month I was ready to apologize for any crime you might want to accuse me of!

The main problem I had with this little chore of mine (though I hesitate to call it a “problem” lest I seem to be complaining; I prefer to consider it a lesson in fortitude) came from the reason our drinking glasses had to be cleaned separately in the first place. They tend to crack and break easily: those glasses remaining must be handled with care. Out of 13 cups though (the unlucky 14th house member gets to use a metal cup instead – unbreakable, but sort of unappealing), I counted two without a single chip, crack or sharp edge.

I got to know these glasses quite well in the six weeks of tender handling I devoted to their care. I dreamed of washing them once or twice; a real disappointment since I spent enough time with them to begin with and would have preferred my dreams find less over-done subjects. My fingers, though, suffered the most. Already constantly battered and bruised thanks to clothes washing and vaccine-bottle opening, the first dip of my hands into the soapy water always stung. By the end though, my wounds had doubled. Both washing and drying, those soft fingers I tend to be teased about failed to protect themselves from the inevitable nicks and cuts handed down by the verres. An unfortunate moment to be reminded of the other kind of verre, and the many ways they find to penetrate our flesh.

All the Ways You Can Weigh A Baby

2009-06-27T08:13:00.000-07:00

Typically we use the standard UNICEF scale (it’s all in metric here of course), which involves strapping the infant into a sack – making sure the arms and head are in the right place so she doesn’t fall out is a main part of the job, especially working with some of the newer mamas – and hanging it from the scale: a bit like a sack of apples, or a couple of chicken breasts. However, this scenario is prone to necessary adaptations. For example, if a child refuses the sack-of-inanimate-objects role, and fails to hold still, sometimes it is impossible to obtain a correct measure. The choice is to remove him from the sack and try again in a few minutes when he’s “calmer” – or, from time to time, we’ll march down to the office where the “grownup” scale can be found, and follow the old mom-first-then-mom-plus-baby mathematical formula. In theory, this is a pretty straightforward approach, but somehow when dealing with five or six kilo babies they always come out lighter when held in mama’s arms!

It happens too that, in having to take two transports and walk a mile and a half to get to the center, mamas come so late the scale’s been put away and the room, too full of pregnant women here for their formation, can’t support re-setting up the process. The solution is simple: strap the baby in the sack and hang the scale from your hand instead. But recall the 1 kilo equals 2.2 pounds. When you’re holding a 9 kilo baby looped to a scale hanging from your outstretched arms….well, it’s motivation to keep up with a little gym routine, to say the least!

Big Women, Big Wigs, Big - Whiskers?!

2009-06-27T08:10:00.002-07:00

I have yet to be asked what women here look like. Actually, there are many questions I have yet to be asked, in no small part I’m sure due both to my generally-incommunicado status as well as the fact the most people I might know tend to be busy enough that they (YOU) aren’t coming up with questions about my life every five minutes…at least, that’s how I justify the low number of comments I find posted on this here blog! :)

All the same, it’s interesting. Most people here, as you may have caught on, are black. Other than that though, and perhaps because I live in a city where people have come from all over the country to settle, there is a pretty rich variety of people to be found. It is not uncommon to be in a group where a woman stands well above 6 feet, and is seated next to a friend who’d have to stand on her tiptoes to look my own mama in the eye. I’ve imagined that all these women in their “home” villages would be in company with others more or less their own size, but I don’t honestly know, and nobody really comments – for the most part, it’s no big deal.

What is a big deal is hair – it’s not just my own personal fascination which finds me commenting so frequently; here, the presence or lack, particular style, choice of the real stuff or the fake – all of it matters. For the Religious, there’s no question: it’s real, and in public it’s covered by a foulard, a scarf. For everyone else though, anything and everything goes. I never thought much about wigs and false hair – it mostly seemed like something for old proud balding people, and for teenaged girls who wanted to rebel, but not too much. Here they’re a common sight; I suppose the way braces, or sunglasses, or t-shirts are, at home.

For all the time women spend prepping, cleaning and coiffing the hair on their heads, I would typically imagine they’d spend equal time on all their hair. But I’d be wrong – for all the acceptance of unnatural dealings with the head, everything else is let be. And I mean everything. It’s not just that I’m the only gal I know who bothers to shave her legs or pluck her eyebrows. No – the part that’s really thrown me for a loop is the bearded women, who let it be. At home, we tease on occasion about experiences or foods that’d “put hair on your chest!”. Here, womenfolk have that hair.

I have no intention of bringing up this subject in conversation, so for all I know there is some sort of rite of passage that leads to the fuzz (and, no kidding, occasional full-on whiskers), and only specially chosen women can sport it. All the same though…some days I just don’t know where to put my eyes! If I come home with a goatee of my own – well, dears, feel free to ask. It’s sure to accompany some exciting bit of anthropological detail.

Secrets and Wives

2009-06-21T00:35:00.002-07:00

At the highly anticipated and long awaited (by me) Event a few Saturdays past, I imagined there would be a record showing. After all, we'd been giving the women invitations for their husbands to come this day, for going on two months. All that pregnant mamas receive in formation during their half-dozen pre-natal visits to be boiled down to a five-or-ten minute speech that also covered the importance of prevention, protection and testing for HIV. And of course, the test itself. The day of the event: a total of 14 men showed up. Disappointing in itself, when you consider the fact that we see upwards of 50 new preggie women per week, this was a terrible showing.

The next week, we continued giving invitations. This time though, the rendez-vous was for 8am the next day. After handing out 14 or 15 invitations on Wednesday, I was pretty amazed to see that 10 husbands showed up on Thursday. What a transformation! I put on my Public Health Researcher's cap: So what changed? A pretty straightforward conclusion seemed to be that the next-day business was something everyone could remember and respond to, as opposed to some far-off meeting whose invitation might be easily lost in the shuffle of papers and life.

I put this hypothesis to Mama Anny, the Chief of Nursing who is more or less the Big Boss at Lisungi. She listened to my theory, the sat back in her chair.

“The fact of the matter,” she began, “is that these women are liars.” I frowned. Seemed a rather harsh start to things. “After they pay for their CPN files, we don’t charge a dime” – a pretty cool system by my estimation. Also means a huge increase in those able to participate in the program: it’s hard to turn down free. “But these women don’t tell that to their husbands. They say they need another 8 000 CFs (about $11) every time they come in for a check-up.” I was starting to have an idea of where Ma Anny was going – the women who lie this way don’t, obviously, want their husbands to find out the truth of the program. So they manage to “lose” the invitations en route, or just keep them in their little file for us to see every time they come in. And, none the wiser, the husbands never show up.

For Mama Anny and the other nurses, the Saturday failure was the last straw. No more of this truth-dodging for some extra cash in the pocket, they decided. So, that Wednesday as we passed out invitations, Mama Mapassa (my chief - head of the Maternity) explained (in speedy Lingala of course, thus the mystery for me) that none of the women would be allowed to return for her next check-up until her husband had come in to meet with us too. Yowch!

So suddenly my world of women is becoming a little less so. I can now expect to stab holes in my fair share of menfolk – and the Public Health research cap is back on, wondering just how many of our Soon-to-be-Mamas are going to quit the program, now that it is no longer quite the same sweet deal.

Chinois

2009-06-21T00:08:00.002-07:00

Headline news these days is the paving of Boulevard 30 Juin, the main thoroughfare in Kinshasa proper (needless to say there are no freeways here). It was in bad shape, so its repair is justifiably newsworthy. The reports ignore what’s been going on on the side of the boulevard to prepare for the paving, however: nearly every one of the giant trees that outlasted their Belgian planters, and provided much needed shade and relief for both pedestrians and the eyes, has been cut down.

Both of these projects, the road resurrection and the tree assassination, have been provided thanks to China, whose interventions in this country are all around and only tolerated because, well, because Congolese people are incredibly tolerant…and in desperate need of paved roads.

Tolerant only means they allow it – people complain a lot about what “those Chinese” are doing in this city and around the country, and I’m beginning to discern distinct flavors of racism mixed into the conversation. Racism – or maybe just an incredible fascination with this “exotic” yet increasingly present people. In some ways, “the Chineeeeese” have become something of a voiceless scapegoat here – unable to defend themselves since they’re as much a mystique as a reality, and never here in person to listen to the ridicule.

A conversation about AIDS turned towards the East as one of the postulants declared SHE heard the Chinese were responsible for engineering the disease – that they were trying to create a chemical to make their eyes top being slanted, and created the virus instead. My arguments couldn’t sway her; if only for the pleasure of such a story, she was immovable.

“The Chinese will eat anything – even earthworms!” Earthworms? Yeah, the things we use to catch fish, they eat! And have you seen the brochettes they use to eat with? I don’t know how they manage to pick up more than maybe a grain or two of rice at a time. It must take forever to eat a whole meal!

My personal favorite, if the heart-sinking feeling I get every time I hear the words “les chinois” can lead to such a thing, is the explanation of what it means to “pull a chinois”: You know how when you’re constipated and trying so hard your eyes go slanted? Yup, you’re pulling a chinois…

I would continue with these sour-or-silly anecdotes, but I don’t want to. I’m just not certain how to act when stories, or jokes, like these are told. It’s a very new experience for me to be in a place where some “other group” is so much picked on, deservedly so or not.

So I share these anecdotes – with the hope of obtaining some perspective or insight on the matter. Is this perhaps a “third world thing”? Or an outcome of being in a comparatively culturally “homogenous” society? (Yes, ignoring here that DRC’s a land of dozens and dozens of languages and dialects…here people don’t identify with hyphenations like at home – nobody’s Congolese-Chiluba.) Should I laugh along and fume quietly? Or perhaps declare in my own Kennedyesque speech that we’re all Chinese in the end?

For now I stay quiet, occasionally incredulous, occasionally ashamed.

All the Rage in Kinshasa

2009-06-13T23:55:00.002-07:00

Hip hop music is as popular in Kinshasa as anywhere; my coworkers have fancy cell phone ring tones that we all sing along to, and for the English language songs I am occasionally asked to translate. "Do Me" is a particular favorite; I danced to it at a 13 year old's First Communion celebration last week, and woke up to its cheery tones at 5:50 this morning. Give it a listen - remember, "do me" is idiomatic enough that those Kinois who know some English still don't exactly know what they're demanding...

Safe Sects

2009-06-13T03:38:00.001-07:00

Okay, mostly I was just really entertained by the title. I will say, though, that in this part of the world, sects are as present as…well, chickens. No matter what part of town you live in, if it’s outside the upper crust old colonial downtown your house is likely to be no more than a stone’s throw from one revivalist house of worship or another. Kinshasa’s a pretty darn religious place – it’s pretty much universally taken for granted that you go regularly to some church or another – but the sects tend to be held in derision by Catholics. Mostly, from what I’ve heard, it’s because of the hours they hold: the Catholic churches are clearly for working folk, with 6am daily Mass that’ll get you out the door before 7 and to work on time. The sects? Daily worship starts around 8 or 9 – or maybe 1:30 or 2 – and on weekends it demands the whole day. Who can keep such a commitment? Clearly, not someone who’s keeping a job, too.

Scrubs!

2009-06-13T03:30:00.001-07:00

Chantal met with Lisungi’s substitute director a few days before I was to start, explaining that among other things she needed to ask about Dress Requirements. Well, I hope they’re not too rigorous, I said to myself. I’ve barely got a week’s worth of clothes – there’s really not a lot of flexibility in my work outfits!

Turned out this is not an issue, for I, as every other Lisungi staffer from the doctor down to the resident floor-mopper, wear scrubs. I suppose it’s to distinguish the staff from the patients, quite reasonably. All the same, I don’t feel any less ridiculous, the white poli-sci BA parading around as if I know enough about health care to take your life into my hands!

Although, I could probably mop a mean floor if demanded.

Maybe it’s Just Because I’m Running A Hug Deficit..

2009-06-13T02:52:00.002-07:00

But in celebration of my Year of the Woman I’ve decided to take a minute to share some of the pleasures in life women here in the DRC have to offer each other. In this part of the world, people lean on each other happily and with a sense of pride. If labor, or its fruits, can be shared, it will be, with plenty of laughter and grace. In the US we might call it a “sense of community”; here, it’s just life.

Some of my favorite images thus far: mamas assembled for CPS weighing and vaccines – who, disregarding the fact that they may have never seen one another in life, sit chatting and joking away as if the oldest of friends, to the point that we have to shout to be heard above the din: the event is clearly not just about baby’s anti-polio protection after all! The mamas with twins who never come alone – there’s no need with friends, sisters or little neighbor girls all happy to lend a hand.

Women here haven’t got the same reserved sense of personal space as at home. I was a bit envious one night to see two postulants sitting face to face, the younger with her arms resting comfortable in the elder’s lap as her head was tilted and turned for its coif. In fact, to style one’s own hair – for those who know how – seems even a bit anti-social. That time is meant to be shared!

Here, women nurture and tend to one another as the most natural thing in life – not to say it’s not, but it certainly feels different here to watch as “the outsider”. The post-natal preparations to leave the Maternity for home are some of the most intricate, and intimate, of processes. Stuck late at the clinic one evening, I watched as a new mother, surrounded by nearly half a dozen sisters and friends, was transformed. As one friend tended to the infant, another painted the mother’s nails while a third braided her hair tightly to her head – the fourth was preparing her “wig” (see Big Women, Big Wigs…) which took half an hour to sew into place. Few people here could afford to even think of spa-pampering, but who needs to when your friends have already stepped in to take care of everything?

I know the ease the women of the country have with each other comes too from the fact that, here, no one is sisterless; coming from 8- or 10-sibling families, no one even considers what life would be like otherwise. Me…I daydream about days with my own friends-of-life, the sisters I have created, and am trying to live without for the present…

Disaster at the Convent (Thanks, Unfortunately, to ME)

2009-06-03T06:32:00.006-07:00

Sunday mornings are, by a fraction, typically the slowest mornings of the week. The house sleeps in – maybe until 5:30 even – and the early hours are much less frantic than usual. So, waking up one Sunday to an angry, shrieking postulant was a bit of a shock. Though, tragically, not as big as the shock that met us as we stepped out of bed: water, everywhere, up to our ankles in places. In the course of the night it had poured out of the bathroom, made a sharp left into the corridor, and filled every single bedroom but one. Mama Mila (the 75 year-old resident Spaniard whose grasp of French is not strong enough to defend herself in such a situation) awoke to find her shoes floating in Lake UPN.

Rewind to Saturday afternoon, and a little background: in general, every time I visit the bathroom I give a try to the flush toilet just to see if water’s come back on. Usually it hasn’t, but on the rare occasion of running water in the daytime, the call goes up across the entire household. Lucky day this Saturday – the toilet flushed! I went to the sink to turn on the hose which we use to fill the bathroom cisterns. I hadn’t yet managed to master that complicated instrument, and couldn’t figure out how to open it up. So after fiddling around a bit, I left the hose (nozzle safely facing down into the sink) and headed out back to spread the good word. But out back the water wouldn’t run either. This happens sometimes as well; the toilets will flush but nothing else runs. I’m certain there’s a very logical reason, but it all seems so mysterious!

So back to the bathroom I trotted – but found it equally difficult to decipher whether or not I’d closed the water access to the hose. Okay, I figured – leave the nozzle safely pointed down to remind myself to check with someone when there’s a chance (on Saturday mornings my “side” of the house tends to empty out). The only problem was, upon returning home that day, MaMila – not knowing why in tarnation there was a hose in the sink – put the bathroom back in order, and I completely forgot to ask.

Which means that on Sunday morning when I heard the first sloshing footsteps, the cry of “what in the world?!” and looked down to see the depth of my room had suddenly shrunk by a couple of inches, my heart just about fell outta me. I jumped out of bed and headed out back with my neighbor Vero (the “young” sister), confessing with huge embarrassment – and lacking most of the right words, as I realized I’d never learned how to say “hose,” and both “tap” and “sink” stayed in 4th year French class. (For the curious: tuyau, robinet, and bassin, all now indelibly imprinted on my brain.) Rounding up buckets, rags, and a few of the less-perturbed postulants, we settled down to work fixing the mess. I was torn – half of me extremely upset to be the reason for so disastrous a flood (turns out I’m the only one who doesn’t keep books, shoes and school papers stacked up on the floor)…but the other half having to clench my jaws shut to keep in the bubbles of hilarity that kept trying to slip out. If I were a postulant, I kept thinking to myself, I’d be in SO MUCH trouble right now – the only reason I’m not is because, as the cute-but-witless volunteer who can’t even light a propane lantern, I can’t really be held responsible for such gaffs.

And so it was with great shame and a bit of nervousness that I offered myself up for the public struggle session at lunch.

Everyone at the table burst out laughing.

Seeing my astonishment, and the giant “???” floating above my head, the sisters began telling their own stories of leaving the tap open and running by accident. Aimée, preparing the water to bathe one afternoon after a long day of classes, completely forgot about the water and took a nap – so spent the rest of the afternoon mopping instead of relaxing as planned! Petro got up one night to fill the cisterns (water typically runs at night if it runs at all), went back to bed and didn’t remember the cisterns until morning. Lucky for her, MaMila was up that night too, and shut things down before it was too late!

So rather than upset, it was the hilarity that turned out to be shared among all. And, in being responsible for this particular flood, it appeared that I was finally beginning to be initiated into the life of this country! Nonetheless, I am now extremely careful when it comes to running water. Mopping up the lake was ridiculous!

Des Petits Conseils, and Tidbits

2009-06-03T06:29:00.000-07:00

1. Scratch your nose, rub your eyes – anything requiring fine motor skills – before the car gets moving. Otherwise, you’re liable to poke something out in the course of driving over the ENORMOUS potholes that here are called “road.”
2. Not that the paved parts are much of an improvement. Rain here means exclusively “torrential downpour” – there is no middle ground drizzle – and at least the dirt roads can suck in the water. Paved parts become rivers and lakes unto themselves…and can swallow up whole cars (we’ve seen it on the news! It’s true!)
3. Don’t fall asleep in church – one of the mamas from Protocol, who patrol the aisles during the homily will pinch you awake; from what I’ve seen this is NOT a pleasant experience.
4. It’s okay to send your kids to church by themselves. The community will happily act as a parent: the other day I saw four siblings, age range something like eight to 14, sitting together in front of a mama (not theirs) who forced them to sit up straight, spread ‘em out so they couldn’t tickle each other, and monitored their behaviour the whole service. Impressive!

A Couple of Unique Images

2009-06-03T06:23:00.001-07:00

1. A plastic bucket with a huge rip down the side – being sewn back together with a needle and thread.
2. Fifth dinner in a row, power cuts out after the first course. (I recommended that we start eating a half hour earlier, if the blackout was going to be time thus!)
3. A blue butterfly (er – mariposa – er – papillon) dead on the refectory floor – pushed out onto the front porch, it was devoured by ants within the hour.
4. Traffic jams to the extreme – a two-lane road completely stopped. Not one but several bright people behind us, seeing a gap in oncoming traffic, pull into the other lane in an attempt to gain a few meters. Except, NOBODY ELSE IS MOVING, so they can’t get back in, and as a result jam up all the cars, in both directions. And here – this is banal!
5. Money being counted out – literally in bricks. 25 bills per stack, 25 stacks per brick, stick it in an envelope and that’s the week’s grocery money. ($1 is equal to something like 700 Congolese francs at the moment. CFs tend to run in the 100-500 bill range, but I’ve seen bills for 10 CF…that was 2 cents when I was under the impression the exchange rate was a bit more in Congo’s favour!)
6. “That car is dead.” Congo imports used cars; it’s an unusual day if you don’t see a half dozen pulled over – or dead in the middle of the road – while you’re out running errands.
7. All the locals, including toddlers who can barely walk, carry Kleenex in abundance; wipe down your face, your chair, your Fanta…
8. Rice in the salt shakers! It’s so humid here, the salt would solidify otherwise.
9. Anything can be carried on the head – including a full-size fan, and a solitary 2X4!

Mama nabiso? Mama nabino!

2009-05-30T08:10:00.001-07:00

Or, my mama? YOUR mama!

The first lady of our country, Olive Kabila, is – well, in my opinion, she’s not very first-lady-like. In a semi-drunken reality-tv-esque news screening on the night of Congo’s soccer championship win, she declared herself after a long, rambling and tear-filled monologue, to be the mother of all of us. (In her early 30s, she gave birth to the first Kabila heir shortly before my arrival here.) Many scoffed to hear such a claim.

I had hesitated to name the house’s cats, not wanting to risk feeling too much attachment for the animals in a country where I may have to be ready to eat ‘em for dinner, but seeing the enormously pregnant belly of the younger female, and the incredible witless joy she shared with the world in the days after her accouchement (is this a word in English? She gave birth, I mean to say), Olive somehow seemed a natural fit.

It wasn’t until a week or two after The Births that I realized just how fitting such a name was. After the Big Mama cat of the house abandoned her own newborn twins, Olive undertook to become the mother of all in earnest – feeding and clothing the entire population.

Well, in the very least – both Olives have taken to their mothering duties with all the energy and vigor one could hope for. As for me… I’ll stick with the cats for now.

Twins!

2009-05-30T02:08:00.002-07:00

I don't know if it's the result of consistently large families or if there's something in the air (I'd better watch out), but I'm beginning to see that Congo is experiencing a long-running epidemic of twins. Considered quite an auspicious event - parents of twins (mapassa in Lingala) are refered to for the rest of their lives as Mama and Papa Mapassa - an unscientific survey of my companions the other night found that four of us either were a twin (or, in my case, the daughter of!), or were the sibling of twins. The fifth, while not directly related to a twin, told of a paternal uncle who had fathered FOUR sets of twins!

I'm actually quite curious to see what statisticians have to say on the matter: is it typical in a society in which families consistently number upwards of eight or ten to see twins in such large proportions? Or is RDC a special case?

In the clinic we see as many as three Mamas Mapassa each day - typically accompanied by a sister or a good friend. Strollers don't really exist here (recall the lack of roads, which sort of nullifies the expectation of sidewalks), and even little-baby-twins are difficult to carry by only one person.

The funny thing is, with all the talk of twins, and all the twin babies I see, I have yet to see with any certainty a pair of twins out and about. What's the deal? Does the "twin connection" not fly here? Are they avoiding each other?!

Mixed Signals

2009-05-24T06:36:00.001-07:00

I waved a lazy lobster-handed greeting to Albertine - and she came up to stand expectantly in front of me. Smiling uncertainly, I sent her on her way. I held in a wink one night at dinner, wanting to share a special moment of joy with a friend across the table but not certaine how she'd react. I gave a man waiting outside the gate the "underwater okay sign", thumb and fore-finger making a circle with the other fingers extended out - and he looked at me, startled.

Yep, turns out that even in this country, where at parting one cries "Bye-o!" and most teens can cite J.Lo or Will Smith, some things are just plain different. Through several conversations and a lot of laughter, I'm finally beginning to grasp what means what. The "underwater okay"? Try to avoid it - it means "zero" - and give a thumbs' up instead. Winking means nothing, except maybe something's caught in your eye. Our hand signal for "come here" is the same - but when your palm is turned in, it means you're angry. Palm turned out (my "lobster-handed wave")says come here, nicely.

The kissing sound we use to call house pets and small children is used impolitely by guys on the street, to call girls or their fellow street friends. (To greet each other, guys bump each other (albeit gently) on the forehead, first left then right then center.) A soft hand clap is a voiceless "thank you", or the start of a beseeching question. Things given or received with two hands are done so as a sign of respect, or great appreciation. I'm still working on what's meant when someone makes a fist and hits the upper part of it with the flat of the other hand: sometimes it's just to emphasize what's being said, sometimes it's a softer and more musical hand clap, sometimes it means "all gone" or "it was full" - a lot of choice!

The gesture I struggle the most with, though, is the one that normally (at home in the US at least) isn't considered a "gesture" at all. It's simply a comfortable position when you're sitting doing homework and only one hand is needed: here, to be at a table, holding your chin propped up by your hand, is a sign of sadness. People will invariably stop by to ask "what's wrong?!" In a country where it's impolite to have hands below the table at meal-times, it doesn't leave one with many options!

Go, Suck an Egg!

2009-04-24T00:29:00.007-07:00

Or, how we pass our electricity-filled evenings.

The convent runs an egg-filled business on the side (thus, you may recall, the presence of the chickens). At first I was a bit shocked – and also extremely impressed – by the enormous output of the house’s tens of dozens of hens. I mean, I understand that Congo’s climate allows for a heightened production of many things, but a collection of 300 plus eggs twice a week?? There must be magic in our water!

Well, I quickly learned that many of these eggs are purchased from small farms and growers around the paroisse, but no matter, there is still much hard work to do: In preparation to sell the eggs, every Wednesday and Saturday, to a supermarket in the city, each and every egg must be hand washed. Among other things, I now appreciate a fuller meaning of the phrase “chicken shit.”

After dinner most nights (at least when there’s power), this is how we close our work.

At the Laundromat

2009-04-24T00:28:00.003-07:00

Mireille walked up to me the other day. “Amelia!” (I love the inflection of my greeters here) “Do you know how to wash your - ?” Huh? What’s that? It appears that here the word for “clothes” is different, and we had a go-round about that.

Well, it turns out that a lesson on hand-washing was in store for me – which I greatly appreciated since, as usual, it’s completely different here.

Cold water, bar of soap, beat up the shirt for a while, squeeze it out, hang it up. Pretty straightforward once you get the hang of it…Of course, Mireille, two months my junior, has been doing this for ten years. I…suffice it to say that if I don’t want one of my many “sisters” here to step in and take over for me (out of pity, shock, or desire to tease me), I have to do my wash on the sly!

Some photos, for your amusement….

(photos to come my friends, I promise)

La RDC n’est pas une Poubelle

2009-04-24T00:17:00.001-07:00

« DRC is not a garbage bin » is the public service announcement that plays nightly on the tv. « Together, we can clean up the country!»

Sometimes I find myself doubting the truthfulness of this statement – in certain parts of Kinshasa, and if you squint just right, you won’t see the refuse that seems to grow from this fertile soil along with plants and trees. One problem is apathy on the part of the citizens (hence the PSA), but more seriously, from what I have (or rather have not seen), there is a lack of infrastructure connected to Waste Management (Congo could use some of your direction Dad).

HOWEVER – I want to take the opportunity to point out a space in this subject where Congo’s actually got the US beat: bottle recycling. In a country as hot as Congo (believe me), where clean water is sometimes inaccessible and rarely cold, a chilly bottle of Coca-Cola becomes something even a sworn avoider of soda-pop happily looks forward to.

The first time a Coke bottle was put in front of me in the course of a day of errands, it was explained that you always have to wipe down the lip of the bottle before the first long swig. People are very careful about this too, putting the Kleenex that everybody around here carries to good use. It’s to prevent typhoid – a good, healthy action which I accept…but why would my bottle of Coke have typhoid risks?

The answer came quickly, as the mama who’d sold us the drinks came by to gather the bottles. The system here is wonderfully straightforward: for every crate of soft drinks you buy (they’re “delivered” in plastic crates that hold about 20 bottles or so), you hand in a crate of empties*. The bottles (glass, think classic Coca-Cola style) are reused over and over until, I suppose, they dissolve into thin air . What a great solution to meeting the demand without producing a whole lot of waste on the other end. Way to go, Congo!

Of course, even the bottle caps have another end – typically, in the dirt at the feet of the drinker. DRC sometimes takes to innovation only slowly, it would appear!

*Yes, I realize this system is not unlike – and perhaps came as a result of intervention by – Germany and probably a number of developed countries. Not the US though…

Mama Marguerite

2009-04-24T00:15:00.002-07:00

Every morning, our daily bread supply is delivered by a gorgeous, aging mama in brightly colored peign, carrying the neighborhood loaves in a large basin the rests on her head like a fabulous (though futuristic) coif.

She knocks softly on the outer door, and as I am often the only one close enough to hear, I let her in regularly. “Bonjour ma fille” she greets me – hello my daughter.

Though I have been here a month and more, we never formally introduced ourselves until last weekend – I, too shy, she, waiting I suppose to see if I was to become a permanent addition to the flock.

Mama Makwala, she enunciated carefully to me. I repeated it back with equal care. “C’est le nom de la famille” she explained – her family name. Her name is Marguerite.

I grinned – my grandmother is named Marguerite as well! I announced.

She looked thoughtful for a moment, then smiled. Putting down her load, she stood up and shook my hand. One more piece of evidence that we are all connected.

One is Obliged to Mention Soccer, Sooner or Later

2009-04-24T00:13:00.001-07:00

Seeing that I am in Africa – or, I suppose, seeing that I am anywhere in the world – soccer is a common dinnertime conversation topic (even living with “the nuns”!)

The African National Championship is set to take place shortly, and qualifying matches have been taking place all over the continent since my arrival in Kinshasa. The fabulous news is the DR Congo has made it to the final round – or at least that is the conclusion I came to after hearing the cheers of the neighborhood late last night. The gents who run the power supply picked a lousy night to cut us off: people were forced to gather around their battery-operated radios, getting the play-by-play from reporters.

This morning I tuned into BBC Afrique (have my own battery-operated radio here!) to see if there would be an update. Unfortunately, soccer news has been steam-rollered by news of the ICC’s decision regarding Omar al-Bashir in Sudan.

In case any of you were wondering, a lot of people here are pretty opposed to ICC’s involvement in this matter. It comes down to two main arguments: a) If al-Bashir, why not George Bush for his actions in Iraq? (I sigh, roll my eyes, frustrated that my eloquence in French is not up to par with my political scientist’s explanation of why that is never going to happen) – why is it always the Africans is their point. And b) mad because their voices (one might cynically insert “as usual”) are being ignored.

The AU (African Union) declares it does not intend to participate, will not assist in ICC’s plan to get neighbors involved in the hunt to arrest their colleague (though of course no one disputes the principle that he’s a schmuck).

Hearing that already nearly a dozen aid agencies are being expelled from Sudan as a result of the announcement, it appears that the short term impact certainly isn’t improving things.

Maybe the ICC should challenge al-Bashir to a duel. Or, even better – to a soccer match, winner take all.

Update, thanks to internet lag: Congo beat Ghana for its first championship in 35 years, on the International Day of the Woman (it’s a big deal here and we women are taking responsibility for the victory thank you very much). In a sign of just what a different country I’m in: the whole place took the next day off to celebrate, and the president is very kindly giving an “envelope” (that is to say, a wad of cash) and an SUV to each player. Humph!

Apologies!

2009-03-09T04:26:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers,

Due to the unpleasant fact that both power and internet access have suddenly derailed in my part of the city (here we roll our eyes and say 'puh! Kabila's Congo, REALLY'), I've gone silent. Apologies! Will post when possible; as usual, I've lots to say.

In addition, while I have many photos to share, I have yet to figure out HOW to share them. So, cross your fingers for progress!

Finally, thanks to many for your entertaining comments! My goal is to have this blog be at least a little interactive, so I apologize once more for not responding; keep the comments coming! If there are any particular questions or issues you want me to look into or talk about, let me know! Your ideas help me to connect here, too.

Much love!
Editorial Staffer, Amy

What Are You, Chicken?

2009-02-23T09:17:00.001-08:00

Inspired by a 4am wake-up call:

Our chickens seem to suffer from an unusual level of peer pressure. Perhaps this is a normal occurence, tolerated by chicken-owning folk the world over, but I happen to find it remarkable.

The chicken coop is just behind the house, and holds somewhere between seventy to one hundred chickens. From what I have been made to understand, the average chicken coop is reasonably quiet - the chickens, after all, are mostly focused on egg-laying. Gossip is kept to a minimum.

Much of the time, our coop fits this description. But every once in a while, the world turns on its head. The coop will be entirely peaceful - and then suddenly, something will spark. One hen starts shouting. Hearing her, the ten surrounding will join the call, and within perhaps a span of ten seconds the whole place is in an uproar. You can hear them everywhere in the house, and it is quite a jarring experience, no matter the time of day or night. And what's at the root of all this yelling? No point asking them, since the hens will just look at you blankly, pointing out that everyone else was at it too, so there certainly must be a good reason.

The most hilarious part, to me, is what it takes to calm these ladies down. The other day I happened to be out back when an explosion rocketed through the coop; I stuck my head in to see what was the matter. Nothing, of course. Sr. Véronique, who was next to me, explained that to calm them down, you have to - stand there and talk to them! I didn't believe her at first; I figured it was just one of those moments of incomprehension that descend on me occasionally. At any rate, that's the sum of it: the hens work themselves into a senseless frenzy, and in an equally senseless resolution you've just got to go in there and chat them up a bit. They settle right down.

Were I male, at this point I might be inclined to consider making a misogynistic remark about what lessons this could provide regarding interpersonal communication. But I'm not, so I'll leave you with a closing task: if you were in charge of the 4am sooth-session, what would you say?

White

2009-02-16T05:54:00.003-08:00

I read in the Economist recently that there has been a spate of killings of albino Africans in some sub-Saharan countries - that soothsayers use their dried body parts for potions and spells to sell to desperate people. This is horrible, and really kind of frightening - it's a whole new level of being a target for one's skin color.

I saw an albino girl the other day, just a few years younger than me, dressed in her school uniform. I've never seen an albino in real life. I stared.

This of course feels entirely un-politically correct to write, but I thought the contrast would be compelling: Today, for the first time, I went by foot to the local market (with Monique, one of our postulantes; I still don't go anyhwhere alone). I felt, today, the way the schoolgirl must feel often - a bit exposed, a bit overwhelmed by the attention, a bit like a trailblazer.

Yup, I'm real. Yup, there are a lot of people who look the same as me. Yup, I believe it when you say you've never seen someone like me before. (And, incidentally, NO I am not Chinese, I'm American! - to locals, anyone whose not black is indistinguishable, and there ARE Chinese people here, in greater abundance than "whites.")

Actually, thinking about me versus l'albine - I probably had more fun.

SchoolDaze

2009-02-15T07:28:00.003-08:00

I have been thinking about how we define School.

At home, in the US, we take for granted that school, even in the poorest, shabbiest, most under-funded of them all, will (duh) have doors and windows, chalkboards and whiteboards, desks and chairs, a cafeteria, a principle's office, some sort of gym or playground, and, increasingly, computers for teachers and students.

But how much of this is necessary - be it for kindergarten or our top universities?

As a tour guide for several years at the University of Portland, the focus was on our newest, nicest buildings, our technology-filled classrooms, the carefully tended lawns. But do these things actually add value to one's education - the reason, after all, we attend school?

How much value does your education have if you achieve the highest level in your field, devote years of hard work, spending countless hours reading, writing and working odd jobs to pay the cost - but have never been in a classroom that had power, your essays are all penned by hand for lack of an alternative, and the signs designating your particular university were hand-painted? Do any of these things matter?

They shouldn't - should they?

But all the same - sitting outside the Saint Martin de Porres Centre de Rapprochement Scolaire this afternoon, celebrating the fact that UNICEF had just provided two dozen shabby desks (Don du Japon) for 40 students who had until today used plastic lawn chairs and each others' backs as seat and desk, I couldn't help but to feel mixed about the potential success of these programs.

I guess, slowly, I am pulling apart my rules, definitions, universal truths - in light of what I am beginning to see here is normal. I'll tell ya how I do.

World-Citizens for Obama

2009-02-07T01:44:00.001-08:00

- You are from the US?
- Affirmative.
- Obama -- you got to watch the inaguration?
- Eh -- yes!
Too complicated to explain that I was flying, somewhere over Montana, that it seemed as far away for me as for you, here.
- We watched the election! It played on all the news channels. This is a wonderful thing, Obama.

I think so too - in no small part because the welcome I receive now is so different from what I have experienced under other regimes. It is nice to be liked because of my president, if people are determined to react to me based on who is in power at home.

At the tiny schoolhouse Soeur Petronille brought me to last week, the twenty-five grinning, scrubbed-clean faces above matching (in general outlook if not in age, cleanliness or style) white polos and navy trousers welcomed me loudly.
"Bonjour Mademoiselle!"

They only began to learn French this year; their teacher explains, it is the first time any of them have been in school. Have not yet taken up geography.

"Do you know where Amelia is from?" Petronille inquirs.
All turn to me, eyes large.
"Somewhere quite far from here."
"Oui," I affirm.
"Do you know who the President of the United States is?"
Hands shoot up, scholars anxious to prove knowledge gained.
The little boy, two rows from the front, is selected.
"Joseph Kabila!" he shouts.
Giggles all around - Congo's president might relish having command over the US, if only temporarily.
A little girl, no older than eight, tries next. Pause, intake of breath, "OBAMA!"

Exactement. He is our president too, they tell me.

Small-world Syndrome?

2009-02-07T01:37:00.003-08:00

Driving through the 'burbs the other day (you might think a hurricane blew through. Here, no sweat!), as usual I had my eyes glued on those we passed.

Small world, or coincedence? A teen-aged girl, in paigne (cloth wrap skirt), flowered, and t-shirt, purple - "Cheer" writ large across the front in white letters, subscript CRHS.

Fellow purple-and-golders, are we being replicated? Our school, of such renkown as to have supporters even 7 000 miles away?

And a bit more detail:

2009-02-03T09:01:00.004-08:00

First, I'd like to apologize for the bad spelling and grammar you are about to see - French keyboards move around some of our more important letters and notations, and until I am once again used to this format, I must choose between efficiency and correctness!

I have now been in the community for a full week, and could probably talk your ear off for an hour about what is going on! My picture of an urban living situation, somewhere on the 6th floor of a slum high-rise downtown was blown to pieces as we drove partway into the city after the airport, and then veered off due west and drove into the foothills far on the outskirts of Kinshasa. Congo, a bit like the US, is divided into many regions and provinces and it seems that we are closer to Bas-Congo than downtown Kin. I prefer this - 8 million people is a rather overwhelming number, and to be a little separated, at least for the first few months, is helping me to ease in.

I am set to begin work at a health clinic located in this quarter, but have not yet even visited - "petit à petit" I am told frequently; we're going bit by bit into this experience, and to be frank it's probably better that I am in no hurry. There is enough to adjust to, and it eases the pressure to know that I don't have to start working right away, too. The sister (Txaro) with whom I will be working was pulled home to Spain on short notice - she left the day I arrived, just a few hours ahead of me - and it was decided she will take her "congé" also, her long break at home that comes every couple of years. As a result, she will not return to Kin until mid-April, and I will live here in the provincial mission-compound until then.

The community has been incredibly warm, generous and kind to me. There are close to a dozen postulants (sisters in training, I suppose you could call them) here; when I first met them all I was certain the youngest couldn't be more than 15 or 16 - but it turns out she is in fact 21 and most of them are at least my age if not a bit older! I've been reflecting since then on why I thought they were so young. In part, it is because they are told what to do, and how to do it better, a fair amount. They act in some ways as if I'm more grown up than them, and maybe in some ways I am -? I have lived more or less on my own for several years, travelled independently to different parts of the world, and, as a college-graduate, am occassionally begrudging in the rare instance of being ordered to do something, or change something.

Here, though, I am happy to be told what to do (though mostly am left on my own, to "study" - reading lots of books, learning Lingala and attempting spanish as well)! It is a wondeful introduction to the city and the life of the sisters here, to start out at the provincial house. I'm just afraid of getting to like it a bit too much - my life is a bit like paradise (though a rather hot and sweaty one), with all this free time, enforced rests and even snacktime! :) We pray together in the chapel every evening, which has fast become one of my favorite times, though I've had to remember to pull out the bug spray before heading over, as 630 is prime mosquito hour! I went to the local Mass on Sunday - apparently on normal days it goes for two hours; for special occasions, like Easter coming up they have warned me, it can go for more than twice as long! And last night we drove into the city (this takes at least an hour when there is no traffic; there is almost alwyas traffic) to attend mass at the cathedral, in honor of the journée consacrée, which happened to coincide with the archbishop's first anniversary...that was an experience that will warrant it's own entire posting!

I very concretely feel that there is nowhere else I should be than here right now, and am constantly amazed by this. After a week, I am still waiting for the other shoe to drop... as much as anything (and probably especially in light of the fact that I don't feel I have been doing much to contribute in a concrete way) Every day I feel surprised and blessed that the community has welcomed me, so inexperienced and untrained in many ways, with such open arms and loving hearts.
I suppose this is what the journey is about, after all...

Before the power goes out...

2009-01-30T12:30:00.000-08:00

Well I have made it! I've been writing in my spare time some delightful (and rather long) future posts. I say future because at the moment I am suffering paranoia that I hope will go away once I've been here a while longer and get to know the patterns of things. See, in the three days since my arrival the power is either on in the morning and goes out right around when we need it to see, or just finally springs to life at night. In sum, we have one outage per day. Today, though, we have had an outage and, just at the end of dinner, a return to light! As a result, I am convinced I am blogging on borrowed time and so trying to be brief!

So, briefly: living "in" Kinshasa turns out to be a loose approach to describing things. First, consider Kinshasa to be the size of the greater Portland metro area. Then, put me out in Hillsboro, but up on a hill, and take away all functioning public transit systems and, while your at it, most roads. Take away power lines, winter weather, garbage trucks, store-fronts and all enclosed shopping in general, speed signs, "farm land" and automatic garage doors. Then, add a lot of dirt and potholes, rather large hills spreading off into the distance, the Congo River over top the Columbia, security guards and drivers all referred to as "Papa so-and-so", chickens, and a whole bunch of Pentecostal - well, we've been calling them "sects" and I'm not really sure how to translate, so just make sure that they sing most of the time and especially around midnight.

There you are folks - my little piece of Congo! It is warm, but apparently it's the rainy season too which means heat is counterbalanced by torrential downpours. I have been eating a lot of fish, and a couple of rabbits too. I think I may have cooed over dinner yesterday actually, when I was taken to meet the animals. The women I live with - only three or four are full sisters, the others are in training, are incredibly warm, generous, thoughtful and funny. I feel bad - humor and jokes are about the last thing to make sense in a new language, and they make a point to explain out everything to me if they see my eyes go crossed in concentration. In some ways this is exactly what I have hoped for all these months - which is to say, I am SO GLAD I made it!

Peace.

Departure: T minus 21 days

2009-01-01T14:55:00.000-08:00

Dear reader:

I almost have something to say! But not quite - still no visa, no tickets, no specifics on what I'll be doing. I know my address, but will not be able to receive mail. I have emailed my community, and they have emailed me, but somehow our emails never respond to what the other brings up. A black hole of communication, which will hopefully be resolved by physical presence.

I have been coming up with topics on which I will write, in the coming weeks and months. I am still undecided - will this be a travelogue? A political opinion page? A photo gallery? A lot depends on what is possible. Which, as usual, means I'm waiting. And you too. By the end of this year, we will perhaps have become the world's most patient people. Not a bad thing to aspire to!

I am excited to see, and to share with you. I hope that you will join in on this process, respond to my thoughts, participate in my life. Please keep me in mind, as you switch on the light over the sink, fill your Nalgene with clean, cold water, and step outside onto your paved street, buttoning your jacket against the chill.