It seems that African travel stories often revolve as much around how you got to your destination as what you did there. This is one such story.
If there is a hell, I believe it is like a never ending check-in at Njili airport in Kinshasa. A never-ending check-in process would be only a slight exaggeration from the actual check-in process at Njili airport in Kinshasa. It may very well be the worst airport in the world. It may also be the only one in which it is standard procedure to hire a protocol, a man (in this case paid $100/person by my employer) whose job it is to get you to the gate with your luggage, and if you're lucky, dignity and sanity in tact. This seems to be accomplished through a shady but apparently legitimate and legal system of bribes from one checkpoint to the next. This particular airport experience was surreal, starting with a good hour of so of milling around the check-in area which is adorned with the scent of stale piss and advertisements for the national airline with has been blacklisted by international airline safety regulators. We were due to take off in 3 hours as are the hundreds of other fellow travelers but none of the dozen security guards laying around has yet even considered positioning themselves at any of the numerous counters and desks. So we mill.
When one security guard finally saunters to a desk and plops down with an elaborate sigh, luggage, elbows and insults went flying as harried passengers jockeyed for a position in the line where they would spend most of their day. Despite trying to not get separated from other teachers, I found myself between 2 giant Congolese,. The bald, pinstriped man in front of me has positioned his elbow one centimeter from my left eyeball. The bejeweled and bearded woman behind me has her disconcertingly large, squishy breasts pressed in the back of my neck. Both of these people look wealthy, yet it appears neither has taken the plunge to purchase deoderant.
The next few hours consisted of being shuffled from desk to desk where official after official would ask for the same documents and handwrite your details each time on forms to be boxed up and left in an office to rot.
After a final official scrutinized my vaccination card which he did not seem to notice he held upside down, I was sent to "security." Last time my carry-on was inspected in this airport, I was detained over having a few corn kernels in a plastic bag left over from my standard traveler's breakfast of popcorn. They demanded to know what the unpopped, black kernels were. I asked my friend how to say garbage in French (I later remembered it's "poubelle") and he said, "poulet." I knew it was wrong but I said it anyway. "It's chicken," I told the guard. They made me hang around until I asked them if they wanted to keep the dud kernels. They did and I carried on my journey through the airport.
This time I remembered to throw away any corn kernels before going through security but it didn't alleviate much. When baggage is inspected, it is not for dangerous objects, but for anything interesting the security guard might like. In fact, he moved razor bland and scissors in my carry-on aside to inquire about a packet of bath salts I hoped to used if I came across any clean bath water during my travels (Kinshasa water is brown). They "inspected" my wallet next, presumably to see what it contained should they find a reason to solicit a bribe from me. In the absence of metal detectors or scanning machines they just grope your chesticles and you on your way.
I was the last teacher to emerge into the gate area. The principal had already opened a bottle Jack Daniels and most of my colleagues were already half-smashed, trying to obliterate the airport from their consciousnesses. The plane should have already taken off, but as always at this airport, the flights don't leave because no one is a the gate- they are all caught in the maze I had just emerged from. We sat around for while longer until round II of groping and carry-on checks where a guard tried to steal my $30 2 liter metal water bottle. I insisted that he dump out the water and give the bottle back but he was stubborn and drunk, partially from our duty free Jack Daniels which he had pilfered from our little party. I finally said "Let me help you" and I gently took it from his hands. He put his fat, greasy ginger in my face and in a wave of liquored breath, told me to never bring a bottle to the airport again. I went to dump it in a plant and he shouted at me to pour it right where everyone was standing. Within 5 seconds we were standing in a 2 L puddle of water and when I boarded shortly after, I left wet footprints from the door to seat 14C.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Monday, December 13, 2010
More Rain
I got mauled by the rain today. A 40 meter roundtrip dash to the French teacher and back (to ask her to teach the kindergarteners in my classroom instead of hers so they wouldn't have to walk in the rain) left me a sodden, demoralized mess. I dropped by mud-wrecked sandals by the door and borrowed a swimming towel from one of my students.
While my children were were occupied with French songs, I was shivering, indecent in the bathroom while my clothes hung to dry on the towel rack. After my brief sabbatical ended, I spent the rest of the day damp and barefoot.
At lunch the little girl I refer to as the UN Interpreter approached me and said in low tones, "For one thing, you have no shoes on. And first of all, your leg is dirty."
While my children were were occupied with French songs, I was shivering, indecent in the bathroom while my clothes hung to dry on the towel rack. After my brief sabbatical ended, I spent the rest of the day damp and barefoot.
At lunch the little girl I refer to as the UN Interpreter approached me and said in low tones, "For one thing, you have no shoes on. And first of all, your leg is dirty."
Thursday, December 9, 2010
It's Time
The rainy season is here, even though as I type right now with blinding sunbeams slanting through the spaces in my curtains, it is hard to believe. But when the storms sweep in, walking becomes more like swimming, and the pounding sound of rain on the roof shatters any concentration I once had.
Last weekend it rained so long and so hard, that, I stayed in bed for days, reading book after book, emerging from my mosquito netting only to make zucchini fritters and look out the window.
Our campus has turned technicolor green and the running trails are overgrown with bush. The mosquitos are out in thick clouds and the Nairobi eyes or acid bugs I have been hearing about have started to emerge (they land on your skin and when you attempt to brush them off they excrete a rash-producing acid). Meanwhile the black flies have been retreating and spend the last moments of their season crashing kamikaze style against my eyeballs, or in the case of one, in the back of my throat as it rode it on a gulp of mid-run oxygen. It's wings beat damply against my uvula for several minutes before curling up and dying yet refusing to be swallowed. The cockroaches drowning beneath my leaking roof routinely crawl out from between my walls, flip onto their backs and die a slow, leg-wiggling death.
Mango trees which dot our campus are a truly generous thing, especially after the rains start. But high up in the trees, the most unreachable fruits turn golden, then rot, before falling dozens of feet to the ground. These are known with a mix of wonder and fear as mango bombs. It is only one reason why it is dangerous to walk under mango trees. The other is the slime underfoot, slick and emitting the rotten mango smell of sewage and vinegar. In my own garden, which once gave weeks of bountiful salads, the tomatoes first began growing to the size of my face and before turning red, dropping off the vine with rot, or else growing to the size of marbles, turning a freakish, speckled pattern and dropping off the vine in rot.
The enormous snails creep up my steps in the damp evenings leaving behind trails of slime for me to find when I come home at night. I have stepped on one in the dark and the sensation of my flip flopped foot cracking open the shell and sliding on the rubbery body was more than a little disgusting.
And when the sun peaks through after hours of rain, the dirt path in front of my door is clogged with lizards rejuvenating in the brief and brilliant sunshine, which sounds pretty good to me.
Last weekend it rained so long and so hard, that, I stayed in bed for days, reading book after book, emerging from my mosquito netting only to make zucchini fritters and look out the window.
Our campus has turned technicolor green and the running trails are overgrown with bush. The mosquitos are out in thick clouds and the Nairobi eyes or acid bugs I have been hearing about have started to emerge (they land on your skin and when you attempt to brush them off they excrete a rash-producing acid). Meanwhile the black flies have been retreating and spend the last moments of their season crashing kamikaze style against my eyeballs, or in the case of one, in the back of my throat as it rode it on a gulp of mid-run oxygen. It's wings beat damply against my uvula for several minutes before curling up and dying yet refusing to be swallowed. The cockroaches drowning beneath my leaking roof routinely crawl out from between my walls, flip onto their backs and die a slow, leg-wiggling death.
Mango trees which dot our campus are a truly generous thing, especially after the rains start. But high up in the trees, the most unreachable fruits turn golden, then rot, before falling dozens of feet to the ground. These are known with a mix of wonder and fear as mango bombs. It is only one reason why it is dangerous to walk under mango trees. The other is the slime underfoot, slick and emitting the rotten mango smell of sewage and vinegar. In my own garden, which once gave weeks of bountiful salads, the tomatoes first began growing to the size of my face and before turning red, dropping off the vine with rot, or else growing to the size of marbles, turning a freakish, speckled pattern and dropping off the vine in rot.
The enormous snails creep up my steps in the damp evenings leaving behind trails of slime for me to find when I come home at night. I have stepped on one in the dark and the sensation of my flip flopped foot cracking open the shell and sliding on the rubbery body was more than a little disgusting.
And when the sun peaks through after hours of rain, the dirt path in front of my door is clogged with lizards rejuvenating in the brief and brilliant sunshine, which sounds pretty good to me.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
How to Ask for Something and Not Get It
In DRC I am learning the art of asking for something you have no intention of getting. Let's start with school supplies. Now my school really likes bureaucratic and lengthy systems. Example- How my kindergartners get lunch:
Step 1: Come in the class in the morning and indicate if they brought lunch or are buying.
Step 2: If they are buying, ask them which of the two meal options they would like.
Step 3: Field their questions about various choices. "What's a beef carbanado?" (You might as well ask me what wicket is) and "Is rice and beans that spicy thing I don't like?" ("No, that's chicken curry.")
Step 4: Ask them if they want juice.
Step 5: Tell them you don't know the damn juice flavor and they can commit to an unknown flavor or else drink water.
Step 6: Tally their choice.
Step 7: Write their name on the juice list.
Step 8: Give them a necklace with their meal choice of the day to keep in their cubbyhole.
Step 9: Enter cafeteria lady.
Step 10: Hand over the tally and juice list.
Step 11: Label juice boxes with juice-drinkers names
Step 12: Cross off the dollar amounts of various lunches off of children's lunch cards.
Step 13: Fill in forms of how much money each student has left.
Step 79: Several hours later, children have eaten lunch and after briefly considering walking across campus to eat with the other teachers, pass out in the reading corner.
Requesting supplies has fewer steps, but is no easier in practice. First of all, the supply closet opens once a day and once a day only. That is at 3:30 pm so if you need something, you better know the day before. And when you do order something, be prepared to have to reorder it the next day and the next as your request is continually screwed up from your dutifully filled out request form. For example, I asked for a notebook and got a grade book, I asked for an ink pad and I got an ink cartridge, I asked for sticky tack and I got a thumb tack, so I re-requested with the brand-name Bostik and was given post-its. When I finally stuck a sample on to the request form, I was told that "this thing" does not exist in Kinshasa. The thing is, every time your request is messed up, you have to wait another 24 hours for the next request to be filled. I once waited 3 days for a pencil. The best (by which I mean worst) was when I requested paper and they gave me one sheet-literally. Why on earth would I use a piece of paper to request another identical piece of paper?! Really, this goes far beyond a language barrier. My classroom is completely out of erasers but I'm afraid to ask for more for fear that I am going to get a bunch of razors in my mailbox.
Of course my neanderthal French also contributes to my not getting things I ask for-even something as simple as a name. When I first met the custodian in charge of my classroom. I introduced himself and asked my name. He apparently didn't understand my busted French so he clarified, "Mon nom?" and not realizing what had taken place, I called him Manome until I was embarrassingly corrected.
Asking for things in the grocery store is futile if you don't know the right nouns. Craving popcorn, I approached a man in the store and said "Do you have popcorn?" (This was all in French except for the word 'popcorn'). He looked confused. I said, "I don't know the word in French but do you have these small things that say pop pop pop?" "Do you play with it?" he asked me. "No," I said, "You eat it." He looked baffled so I went on to say, or at least attempted to say, "It is a little thing from corn. You put it in a pot with oil. When it gets hot, it says, 'pop, pop, pop' and you eat it." Now he looked absolutely mystified and like he wanted me to go away. So I did, and eventually found a bag and brought it back to the guy and asked him what the word for this thing is in French. The name was so wordy and long and I repeated it several times to remember. Later, someone told me that popcorn in French is pop-corn. Maybe the man was making me say, "Help, this small, white girl is bothering me."
Step 1: Come in the class in the morning and indicate if they brought lunch or are buying.
Step 2: If they are buying, ask them which of the two meal options they would like.
Step 3: Field their questions about various choices. "What's a beef carbanado?" (You might as well ask me what wicket is) and "Is rice and beans that spicy thing I don't like?" ("No, that's chicken curry.")
Step 4: Ask them if they want juice.
Step 5: Tell them you don't know the damn juice flavor and they can commit to an unknown flavor or else drink water.
Step 6: Tally their choice.
Step 7: Write their name on the juice list.
Step 8: Give them a necklace with their meal choice of the day to keep in their cubbyhole.
Step 9: Enter cafeteria lady.
Step 10: Hand over the tally and juice list.
Step 11: Label juice boxes with juice-drinkers names
Step 12: Cross off the dollar amounts of various lunches off of children's lunch cards.
Step 13: Fill in forms of how much money each student has left.
Step 79: Several hours later, children have eaten lunch and after briefly considering walking across campus to eat with the other teachers, pass out in the reading corner.
Requesting supplies has fewer steps, but is no easier in practice. First of all, the supply closet opens once a day and once a day only. That is at 3:30 pm so if you need something, you better know the day before. And when you do order something, be prepared to have to reorder it the next day and the next as your request is continually screwed up from your dutifully filled out request form. For example, I asked for a notebook and got a grade book, I asked for an ink pad and I got an ink cartridge, I asked for sticky tack and I got a thumb tack, so I re-requested with the brand-name Bostik and was given post-its. When I finally stuck a sample on to the request form, I was told that "this thing" does not exist in Kinshasa. The thing is, every time your request is messed up, you have to wait another 24 hours for the next request to be filled. I once waited 3 days for a pencil. The best (by which I mean worst) was when I requested paper and they gave me one sheet-literally. Why on earth would I use a piece of paper to request another identical piece of paper?! Really, this goes far beyond a language barrier. My classroom is completely out of erasers but I'm afraid to ask for more for fear that I am going to get a bunch of razors in my mailbox.
Of course my neanderthal French also contributes to my not getting things I ask for-even something as simple as a name. When I first met the custodian in charge of my classroom. I introduced himself and asked my name. He apparently didn't understand my busted French so he clarified, "Mon nom?" and not realizing what had taken place, I called him Manome until I was embarrassingly corrected.
Asking for things in the grocery store is futile if you don't know the right nouns. Craving popcorn, I approached a man in the store and said "Do you have popcorn?" (This was all in French except for the word 'popcorn'). He looked confused. I said, "I don't know the word in French but do you have these small things that say pop pop pop?" "Do you play with it?" he asked me. "No," I said, "You eat it." He looked baffled so I went on to say, or at least attempted to say, "It is a little thing from corn. You put it in a pot with oil. When it gets hot, it says, 'pop, pop, pop' and you eat it." Now he looked absolutely mystified and like he wanted me to go away. So I did, and eventually found a bag and brought it back to the guy and asked him what the word for this thing is in French. The name was so wordy and long and I repeated it several times to remember. Later, someone told me that popcorn in French is pop-corn. Maybe the man was making me say, "Help, this small, white girl is bothering me."
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Enjoying the Rain, Dammit!
One winter in Malawi, in the inspiration of a torrential downpour experienced from an outdoor, tin-roofed kitchen, I decided that when I become a real grown-up, I will have a tin roofed shack specifically for enjoying rainstorms.
I don't know if that day has come, but I do now have a tin-roof porch in the concrete rainforest of Kinshasa. In the first big rain of the season, I climbed in my hammock, hung specifically for rain-listening and had only just leaned back when I realized that I was not only being poured on through gaps in the roof, but that I was positioned directly under a steady stream of mud
After flinging myself out of the hammock, determined to enjoy the rain, I got my umbrella (picturing the faces of all the presidents or dictators as the case may be, of DRC), went back on the porch and crouched in ankle-deep filth.
And that is how I spent my first Congolese rain.
I don't know if that day has come, but I do now have a tin-roof porch in the concrete rainforest of Kinshasa. In the first big rain of the season, I climbed in my hammock, hung specifically for rain-listening and had only just leaned back when I realized that I was not only being poured on through gaps in the roof, but that I was positioned directly under a steady stream of mud
After flinging myself out of the hammock, determined to enjoy the rain, I got my umbrella (picturing the faces of all the presidents or dictators as the case may be, of DRC), went back on the porch and crouched in ankle-deep filth.
And that is how I spent my first Congolese rain.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Three Gems
My students took awhile to start saying things that make me choke on my own saliva, but then three gems in 24 hours:
Precocious: I tried on my dad's knickers once and I looked really silly.
The UN Interpreter after realizing she forgot her swimsuit for PE: (Sigh) Well, I guess I just have to swim naked. (She can say this in perfect German or French too should the need arise and I thankfully know how to say "no" in both).
Me: (While reading a Chinese folk tale about 3 princes searching for the most beautiful thing in the world in order to win the king's crown): What might the most beautiful thing in the world be?
Sparkles (previously unnamed in kinderfolk): A diamond covered in Muslims.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Thank You Note to Maasai Mara, Kenya
Hey there, savannah, thanks for magnificent open spaces. After years of my field of vision being molested by the mountains, skyscrapers, jungles and split levels, plains are a valium for the eyes. Infinity is good.
Hey mama and baby cheetah, thanks for posing on that gray rock just there. Judging from the way your chests are heaving, I know you had to run really fast to make that photo shoot.
Giraffes, your walk rivals the open plains as a treat for the eyes. Please show emaciated supermodels that your strut is all the more magnificent with a big round belly.
Oh big buffalo, with your swooped up curly horns, you look like you should be 19th century judges. Oh baby buffalo, you are a delicious lion meal. I feel a little bad but it's the way of the food web.
Wow mama lions, crunching on them bones like they're string beans. And baby cubs, how do you manage to look so darling, even with your face smeared with blood? And thanks papa lions for having that nice sandy mane and yawning and stretching and sleeping again until I am lulled into a nap myself.
Wildebeasts, you are a little ugly (to be generous), but who am I to judge? Keep sprouting beards in weird places and keep being you. I'm sorry some of you got swept away by the river during your great migration. Evolution makes tasty snacks for the storks.
Mongoose (mongooses? mongeese?), thanks for eating snakes. Better you than me.
Swanky zebra, your whites are so dazzling I want to ask you for laundry tips.
Thanks dik-dik for revealing yourself to me. Ever since a pony-tailed peace corps volunteer in Mali told me I looked like "that fast and friendly big-eyed midget gazelle," I've wondered what you look like. I suppose I see the resemblance.
Thanks, shy children in open doorways. You are the cutest kind of child.
Maasai men and women, with your long legs, red cloth and braided earlobes (how the heck do you do that?), thanks for showing me around.
Love,
Sara
P.S. No thanks, bedbugs in my mattress at the Mennonite Guest House in Nairobi. The way you bit up my thighs is rather unholy.
P.P.S. I know I'm missing some pictures. . .I don't like taking pictures all that much since it's a waste of a beautiful view to spend it staring through a hole in the camera and you can find a better picture on google anyway.
Hiya rain. Thanks for lying on the windshield in psychedelic patterns, cleansing the dust from the air and quenching the thirst of brown grass. Good job.
Giraffes, your walk rivals the open plains as a treat for the eyes. Please show emaciated supermodels that your strut is all the more magnificent with a big round belly.
Oh big buffalo, with your swooped up curly horns, you look like you should be 19th century judges. Oh baby buffalo, you are a delicious lion meal. I feel a little bad but it's the way of the food web.
Wow mama lions, crunching on them bones like they're string beans. And baby cubs, how do you manage to look so darling, even with your face smeared with blood? And thanks papa lions for having that nice sandy mane and yawning and stretching and sleeping again until I am lulled into a nap myself.
Wildebeasts, you are a little ugly (to be generous), but who am I to judge? Keep sprouting beards in weird places and keep being you. I'm sorry some of you got swept away by the river during your great migration. Evolution makes tasty snacks for the storks.
Mongoose (mongooses? mongeese?), thanks for eating snakes. Better you than me.
Swanky zebra, your whites are so dazzling I want to ask you for laundry tips.
Thanks dik-dik for revealing yourself to me. Ever since a pony-tailed peace corps volunteer in Mali told me I looked like "that fast and friendly big-eyed midget gazelle," I've wondered what you look like. I suppose I see the resemblance.
Thanks, shy children in open doorways. You are the cutest kind of child.
Maasai men and women, with your long legs, red cloth and braided earlobes (how the heck do you do that?), thanks for showing me around.
Love,
Sara
P.S. No thanks, bedbugs in my mattress at the Mennonite Guest House in Nairobi. The way you bit up my thighs is rather unholy.
P.P.S. I know I'm missing some pictures. . .I don't like taking pictures all that much since it's a waste of a beautiful view to spend it staring through a hole in the camera and you can find a better picture on google anyway.
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