Whiling away the hours

It’s a hot and sunny Friday afternoon, and since I’m on the cusp of another weekend I figure this is as good a time as any to talk about what there is to do in Kinshasa for fun. Granted, a lot of my spare time on the weekends is spent fighting traffic to get to umpteen different supermarkets, playing dumb for the cops, or trying to sit as still as possible in my apartment when the power’s out and the AC doesn’t work so as to not make myself sweat any more than I already am, but I do find time to do other, more enjoyable, things.

There’s not much in the way of day trips out of Kinshasa. We’ve been camping already and seen the Bonobos – both were nice. Next weekend we may head a few hours outside the city to the botanical gardens, and Zongo Falls is supposed to worth a drive as well. Another popular activity among expats is to get a group together and rent a boat to float down the Congo River for a few hours.

Most weekends, though, we stay in Kinshasa. I do regular stuff with my spare time like read books and watch DVDs, or play PS2. I’ve been reading a lot during power outages at our apartment (I’m in the middle of Steinbeck’s “In Dubious Battle”) or surf the web when the power is up. Expats around here swap DVDs pretty regularly. I’m not playing as much PS2 as I would have thought, but it does provide me with a hockey fix that I can’t find anywhere else apart from reading about the NHL on the internet.

I miss hockey – I used to play once or twice a week in the States, so that leaves running as my primary means of exercise. Most expats run in a large loop near the ambassadors’ residences along the Congo River. The loop is around a mile and a half. It’s a nice paved road without much traffic and there are a lot of expats and guards around, so you don’t need to worry about getting hassled by anyone besides a few hearty vendors who run alongside you and try to sell you postcards and wooden carvings. Running along the river offers a nice view, especially at dusk, although the clouds of bugs that you run through get annoying after a while. I’m not enjoying running as much as I did in Denver or Chicago so I only go twice a week, if that. My wife runs and also goes to a step class once a week that’s run by a German woman. She has a dance and art studio and offers aerobics, yoga, and step classes for expats.

Our Sunday afternoon ultimate Frisbee game at TASOK has caught on and I would say that’s become a highlight of the week for my wife and me. We usually get at least a dozen people to show up and it seems to be a different crowd of expats every time. It’s been a great way to meet people and get to know them better. TASOK also offers the opportunity to go running on a trail around the campus, and there’s a pool and tennis courts there too. We tried playing tennis but it was way less fun than we thought it would be. The TASOK pool is nice to have when it’s extra hot out and we have a free afternoon, or to jump in and cool off after two hours of ultimate Frisbee.

I’d say the biggest social activity around here is just getting together with people. There are restaurants to visit, dinner parties to host/attend, or game nights. We’ve made friends with some of the teachers at TASOK and that’s offered us a few weeknights of regular entertainment. Monday night is euchre night, which I never thought I would find in the DRC, and on Tuesday a group gets together to watch old episodes of “The Office” and share a big dinner. We’ve had Indian food, pizza, chili, pasta, and this past week we had fajitas. Not bad. Not bad at all.

By the way, I was at the embassy on November 5 to see the election results. People here are excited about Obama winning and a few random people have smiled and shouted “Obama” to me. That was cool.