Camping

For the first time in eight weeks, I got out of Kinshasa. My wife and I were invited to go camping with one of her coworkers and a bunch of other expats – there were about ten of us total. I dig camping so it was great to not only get out of the Kinshasa but also be able to spend some time enjoying the ol’ great outdoors.

We left Saturday around noon and, just like in the states, getting out of the city on a Saturday was a nightmare. I’m still amazed at the amount of traffic in Kinshasa and how, given current gas prices and the poverty level in the DRC, roads are still jam-packed with cars most days of the week. Owning a car here is not cheap. After about an hour we were finally out of the smog and congestion of the city and I could feel the tension in my shoulders easing. Man, I’ve been in the city too long. It took us about three hours to get to Bombo Lumene, a national park 130 kilometers outside of Kinshasa.

The campsite turned out to be very nice, set on the banks of a fast-flowing river.

There were a few thatch canopies and a big fire pit as well as some flat spots to set up our tents. Some locals, who I assume work in/through the park, carried down plastic tables and chairs to our site and collected a big pile of firewood for us to use later that night. We were the only people around which was great. I heard horror stories of a previous trip where there were a bunch of Lebanese people camping there with giant generators and they stayed up carousing late into the night.

Here's the closer shot of the river:

The big activity at this campsite was to swim in the river. Well, you didn’t actually swim – it was more like along the lines of letting the fast-moving current carry you from one point to the next. We would hike upriver for five minutes or so, jump in, and let the current carry you downriver to where you could get out again. The current was very, very strong, way too strong to swim out of if you needed to, and there was no real riverbank to swim to anyway. While in the river, I kept my feet as close to the surface as possible to avoid getting caught on anything but in the slower-moving sections where I did put my feet down, I couldn’t touch the bottom. If you could ignore the very real possibility of drowning or being swept to your death in the rapids further downstream from our campsite, though, it was pretty fun. I’d jump in, lie back, and let the current do all the work for me.

There were two dogs that came along with us on this trip. One was a greyhound/lab mix named Lola who was very friendly and loved swimming. It was kind of crazy to jump in this fast-moving river and see a big dog furiously paddling alongside you, doing her best to stay with the group. Things would get a little hairy at times as Lola took it upon herself to rescue anyone who was swimming in the river. This involved her swimming directly into you and scratching you with her nails, which made it difficult to make your way ashore when it was time to get out. Lola was bearing down on me at one point and it was just like that scene in “No Country For Old Men” where the guy’s getting chased by that swimming dog. I was laughing because it was so funny, yet also terrified because I didn’t want Lola to force me into the stronger current.

Lola:

Apart from the over-zealous river dog, though, our cares were few. It was just incredibly nice to get out of the city and see the countryside. No exotic wildlife encounters outside of a lot of large bugs, and people spent the majority of time sitting around the table and campfire, eating and drinking and talking. I had chocolate chip cookies for the first time in months (no chocolate chips to be found in Africa).

We slept well that night – no rain and the air was just cool enough that you needed a light blanket to keep warm. I was excited about having an unobstructed view of the stars and was not disappointed. It’s hard to get somewhere where there’s not a lot of light and smog from a nearby city to obscure the night sky. I guess the middle of nowhere, Africa, is an ideal spot.

We left around 11:30 on Sunday to get back home in time for my wife’s flight. She’s in the field this week and had a plane to catch on Sunday evening. I’m on my own for the week here in Kinshasa. Back to the bachelor life for me – I’ve been eating all my meals over the sink and sleeping in every morning.

At last... an update

Yes, I know it’s been a few weeks since I last had a real entry on here. It took forever to get our internet connection set up, so as I result I have lots to talk about…

We Move In

At long last, we’re in the apartment we should have been living in when we arrived here back at the end of July. The wait hasn’t been that bad, especially when we were house-sitting. Well, all those power and water outages were a bummer, but aside from that we were holed up in a pretty nice place for three weeks. We were waiting to move into our apartment since it was being rehabbed a bit and, while it’s not as grandiose or swanky as other places we’ve stayed in, we like it a lot. It’s a small two-bedroom apartment that’s about a five minute walk to Acme and we’re a stone’s throw from the main road in town, yet not so close that we have to deal with the traffic and congestion.

Here's the apartment complex:

and here's a picture slightly to the right of this, of the road in front of our complex:

Of course, moving into a freshly-rehabbed apartment doesn’t mean that everything works perfectly. The refrigerator, stove, and toilet all didn’t work properly and the bathroom sink had a leak so we woke up to a flooded bathroom and hallway after our first night here. Kudos to the building management, though, as they immediately fixed any problems we encountered. That’s way better than some of the stories I’ve heard from other people around here. As I understand it, landlords here expect you to fix any problems yourself. Your sink leaks, you call a plumber, schedule a visit, and pay for it yourself. The staff here has been super-nice and I have zero complaints.

The apartment has a foam mattress (hey, no bedbugs!) and mosquito net. It’s been surprisingly bug-free in here for the most part, and that may be because I’ve seen a couple small geckos and skinks traversing the walls and ceiling. The water pressure in the shower is great and we have plenty of hot water. Best of all, they’re pretty quick to fire up the generator when the power goes out. Where we were house-sitting, you’d have to needle the guards to turn on the generator and most of the time it wasn’t working (or so they claimed).

As an aside, all of Kinshasa has been experiencing severe power outages over the past three weeks. Rumor around town is that the big dam up the Congo River that supplies power to the city is undergoing repairs, so as a result the power goes off in the entire city for hours at a time on a daily basis.

The only bummer about this apartment is that we’re right near a small stream that flows to the Congo River. This stream smells. I mean, it really really smells. I’m trying to think of a way to describe the way it smells and the best I can do is imagine yourself being downwind from an open sewer line on a hot, sunny day. Wait, that’s exactly what it smells like because that’s exactly what it is. The stream is full of garbage (of ALL kinds, hint hint) and since it’s still the dry season, it ain’t movin’ too quick so the trash and funk just roasts in the sun. Taking the path along the stream shortens the walk to the main road from five minutes to thirty seconds, but I still debate whether I should take the shortcut or not due to the stink. Thankfully, we very rarely catch the scent in our place – only when the wind is blowing a certain direction.

A few pictures of the river, just so you know what I'm talking about:

Despite the funky river, we’re happy to be finally moved in and settled somewhere. We’ve been living out of suitcases since the end of June and to finally unpack everything is like a dream. Over the course of several weekends, we made shopping trips around the city to pick up what we needed for the apartment – things like cleaning supplies, kitchen stuff, towels, etc. We still can’t find cookie sheets anywhere, though we did finally come across some clothes hangers at one of the fancy stores in town.

Getting Sick in Africa, or Life as a Generous Host

I was also sick in the Congo. I should preface this next section by saying that I’m not someone who goes to the doctor a whole lot. I don’t want to be stupid about things, but it seems like most times when you go the doctor when you’re sick, they tell you to go home and rest and drink lots of fluids. I can usually figure that one out on my own. Don’t get me wrong – I know when I’m really sick and need antibiotics or tests or whatever, but I’d say more often than not I try to let my body take care of things itself and I tend to wait things out rather than rush to the doctor at the first hint of an illness.

A little over two weeks ago I started to notice that I would wake up in the mornings and just not feel good. My stomach would be bugging me, I didn’t have much of an appetite, and I didn’t feel like myself. After a few days, I noticed that things were getting worse and worse, so much so that by Friday morning, the time-to-go-see-a-doctor alarm was going off in my brain, and off we went at 6:30am to see what was up.

NOTE: As a courtesy to those readers with more delicate sensibilities, let’s just say the problem was digestive in nature to a degree with which I had previously been unacquainted. Yet, it wasn’t the obvious problem that most people would associate with travel to a foreign country. Perhaps I’ve said too much already, so I’ll just move on.

My wife drove me to the hospital and served as a translator to the nurses, explaining my situation. Forgive me, Kinshasa, but I was ready to be ushered into a shack somewhere, tended to by nuns with handsaws and big pots of boiling water, and I would spend most of my visit brushing away flies and making sure the medical equipment was free of dried blood. Nothing could be further from the truth. The nurses were very nice, spoke some English, took care to show me each time they opened up a fresh needle from a package, and asked if I had any single brothers in the States who would be interested in a Congolese nurse as a wife. Brian, you out there reading this? I hear she’s a good cook.

Anyway, they took a blood sample, stuck an IV in me to give me some fluids, and administered some anti-amoeba medicine intravenously as they suspected that I had an amoeba. After running a blood test, a doctor came down to tell me that they determined I had a bacterial infection in my intestine and as well as a tapeworm or amoeba, or both. Who knows where I picked it up – could be from the locally-grown vegetables, the trash that’s all over the city, or the Avenue de Tapeworm et Amoeba that I walk down each day on my way to French class. Actually, I made that last reason up. What I had was not uncommon and could be easily treated with some antibiotics. The doctor wrote out some prescriptions for me and sent us on our way.

Another interesting thing about living here is that you don’t actually need a prescription to get medicine. You can go to a pharmacy and ask for a box of Xanax or Rohypnol or whatever and they’ll give it to you. Prescriptions are on the cheap side, too, at least compared to the States.

I was still feeling weak and out of it for a few days after my visit to the doctor, but after five days or so I was right as rain. At least I know where the doctor’s office is now.

Oh, and I Got a Job

So, as I mentioned a few posts earlier, I had been offered a position at TASOK, the American school here in town. I would work in their computer lab as a tech and help out the teachers and students with computer problems. TASOK is a very nice place to work, and everyone I’ve met there is really great, but the pay wasn’t anything to write home about and since I don’t have a car, getting there each day was going to be a problem.

A few days before I’m set to start the job at TASOK, I get a phone call from someone I know here who says that they know of a possible job opening for me. They give me a name and an email address. I figure what the hey and send off my resume and a quick note saying that I’m new in town and looking for work, what do you have?

Later that afternoon I get a call from the person I emailed and they want me to come in to meet with them the next day to discuss my resume. As it turns out, this person works at the US Embassy in the Cultural Affairs office. Wow. I had contacted the Embassy a few times since arriving here and asked if they had any openings, but either my calls wouldn’t be returned or I was told to look at the website which didn’t have any positions I was remotely qualified for.

I went to the Embassy the next day to interview for a job, though I didn’t know what the job actually was. As soon as I met the woman who was interviewing me, before I even sat down, she said, “I’m not a religious person at all, but I think you were sent here by God.” This kind of blew my mind. One of my biggest worries about coming here was about finding work and it was something I had been praying a lot about for months and months.

As things turned out, the Cultural Affairs office had a need for someone with exactly my background – some tech writing, some instructional design, and few other odds and ends. Because I’ll be working on a lot of different projects, I’ll have a lot of flexibility with regard to my hours so I don’t need to come into the office every day from 8-5. This is great, since I don’t have a car. I’m still getting the details of work fleshed out, but already I’ve set up meetings with a few people about building some basic websites.

I’m sure I’m forgetting a million other things that have happened to me over the past few weeks, but it's late and this is at least an update. Once I get caught up on my email, I can post more about slice-of-life stuff here in Kinshasa. Let me know if you have questions and I'll do my best to answer them. After living here for seven and a half weeks, I'm starting to not think about how weird it is to pay some random guy on the street fifty cents to watch the car while my wife and I go shopping.

I'm still alive

Sorry (again) for the lack of updates. We've moved into our new place but they don't have the internet set up yet. Hopefully we'll be online by next week. I have lots to talk about, too. We live somewhere new, I had my first and hopefully only visit to the doctor here (nothing major and I'm feeling fine these days), and I have a job. I hate to keep you all in suspense like this, but my web access is limited right now to a very slow and unreliable computer at an internet cafe.

Stay tuned...

Slow weekend

I spent most of the weekend enjoying my last few days in domestic paradise. Our house-sitting stint ends tomorrow so I wanted to soak up as much couch-and-tv time as possible. I've been watching the HBO series Band of Brothers as well as the BBC Planet Earth series on DVD - it's quite mindblowing. The power and internet still go out on an almost daily basis so I've been doing a lot of reading as well - I'm almost done with Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man Is Hard To Find.

We ended up not going out on Wednesday night for pizza. My stomach was bothering me a bit that afternoon and since eating out is such a big deal here due to the cost and novelty of it, I opted to wait a few days so I knew that I would enjoy the meal. I didn't want to go out for a good meal and not be able to enjoy my food. On Friday night we went to a Portuguese restaurant called O Poeta. For $20, I got a big brick-oven pizza with ground beef, sausage, peppers, and onions. I have to say that it was one of the better pizzas I've had in a long, long time. That might be because I've been living in Kinshasa for over a month and I was living in Denver for a year and a half before that (no offense to my Denver readers, but the pizza there just ain't all that great). I left the restaurant with a full and satisfied belly.

On Saturday my wife and I made our first solo excursion to the local market. A driver had always taken us before so the first challenge was finding the market. We didn't exactly know where we were going so we followed our noses around the city for a bit and hoped we didn't have to deal with the police. I don't know how, but we eventually stumbled across it. Things went well, and on the way back we were going to stop at a supermarket to get more food when we had another minor run-in with the law. On a street congested with traffic, I turned into the center lane to make a left turn and there were two policemen there directing traffic. After noticing me waiting in the lane to make my left turn, one walked over and asked me to roll down my window and hand over my license. Following the advice of others I'd spoken to after last weekend's driving experiences, I instead rolled my window up, held my license against the inside of the window, and began to state in my loudest and most ignorant-sounding voice, "I-don't-speak-French-I-don't-know-what-you're-saying-I'm-an-American-I'm-not-giving-you-my-license-blah-blah-blah" After thirty seconds, the other police officer who was standing nearby got a frustrated look on his face and waved us along. I think they didn't want to deal with us given the heavy flow of traffic on the road and the fact that my French is nowhere near conversation-level yet, let alone negotiating-bribes-with-the-police-level. It would be a different matter if I was doing something wrong, but my wife and I knew they were just hassling us because we were foreigners in a car that was stopped right in front of them. They can't pass up a chance at free money, could they? We headed for home and decided to finish grocery shopping the next day.

Sunday was spent doing more driving and shopping. We're still getting things together for our apartment. I'd never have thunk it, but we can't find clothes hangers anywhere in town. Of all the stores we've been to, the closest thing we've found is small wooden hangers meant for children's clothes for $1 each. Well, we did find one street vendor selling cheap plastic hangers who, after some haggling, agreed to come down in price to $2. Each. Each hanger, $2. You've gotta be kidding me. Luckily, we talked to a clerk at a big store here in town and he said they're getting a shipment of hangers in this week.

Once we finally get moved in, we'll be able to spend our weekends doing more relaxing and fun things like going to the pool at TASOK on Sunday afternoons, or getting together with the church youth group for ultimate frisbee. The couch in our new apartment is nowhere near as comfortable as the one here, so I don't think we'll be too tempted to spend weekend afternoons lounging around on it.

Happy Labor Day to everyone back home...