Yes, I left Kindu about a couple of months ago, and yes, I know that 3 entries in six months is a dismal effort. It has to be said though that my procrastination cannot solely be blamed for this (partly, yes) --- we had no internet for two months in Kindu. Two months! Buuut the piroguepilot is alive (still referring to herself in the third person haha), and previous disclaimers still apply (if you’ve forgotten what they are or if you’ve not read my blog before, I strongly suggest you click the link and scroll to the disclaimers identified in the last paragraph. It’s for your own good.).
I am now in the town of Butembo, in the province of Nord Kivu. This means the original six-month plan to stay in DRC has now been extended, and the intern/professional student is (finally) employed (woohoo!). I arrived in Butembo just this week, after six weeks at home and two weeks in Goma; but I’m not going to tell you about Butembo today, mainly because this blog missed a lot over the last few (okay, not so few) months.
Going home to Manila was an unexpectedly strange and funny experience after being in Kindu for seven months. At one point, I exclaimed in an elevator full of virtual strangers, ‘Wow! This is my first time in an elevator in seven months!’(lots of strange looks there), and for a while I couldn’t help but say ‘Mmmm _________’ (insert whatever was being ingested; this was usually some type of meat) every time I took a bite out of something. The quite comprehensive list of Things Camilla Wants To Eat When She Gets Home was wiped out after just three days. I pretty much ate my way through the six weeks (see photo below for reference, courtesy of mon cousin and his LCA). I think I really scared some people (though they should have expected it, because there came a point while in Kindu when I demanded everyone I spoke to online to give me a very, very detailed description of what they had for lunch). Those were some of the funny bits of going home.
The unfunny parts were when I’d be sitting in a car, on the highway or a flyover, looking at the Manila skyline and realize how so, so different things are there and in Kindu; and how hard it was to believe that two places soooo different could exist in one planet (and the Philippines isn’t even a developed country!). It was unfunny watching the news on TV about the situation in DRC, and feeling so angry about how indifferent this part of the world seemed to be. It was also unfunny when I spent quite a while staring at a great big tall rack of all the varieties of cooking oil you can imagine in one of those hypermarts, wondering (ALOUD to my poor, poor mom for what must've been a good couple of minutes) why people needed 100 types of cooking oil. Okay, maybe that last one was a little funny. (I think I should stop now, lest I risk sounding like a crazy person).
I did eventually re-adjust to the elevators and all the varieties of cooking oil… And being home for such a long time made me realize how homesick I actually was after a very nomadic three years (six cities lived in, in three years. Normal? Don't answer.). But, I have to say, I always missed being in Kindu. And I miss it even now that I’m in a new place (maybe even more so, at least for the moment). The lack of blog entries is not at all proportional to how much I enjoyed Kindu (Okay, new disclaimer! I’m gonna go switch ON the reminiscent-fool-mode now).
Some people really find it hard to believe I liked Kindu (to the extent of congratulating me for surviving!) or find me a bit odd for liking it (which I think I kinda am anyway. Kinda.). And then some people find it surprising I even lasted my six months. I remember before leaving for Kindu, a lot of my close friends and family were very confident that I would not, could not survive --- the only thing missing was a bookie to take bets, with the longest prediction being three months! Best comment: ‘Ano? Eh ang arte-arte mo tapos pupunta ka dun?!’ (Unfortunately, I cannot think of an accurate enough way to translate this that can capture the incredulity and shock that was expressed.)
Maybe it’s just cause I’m a young(ish), idealistic, foolish person, or maybe it’s cause it was my first field posting that made Kindu what it was. I do not know. But I do know that I remember my flight to Kindu, my first glimpse of the Congo river from the sky. I remember thinking as I looked at the river curling around the jungle like a ribbon that it must be man-made, thinking ‘Hey, look where you are!’ (and this distracted me from the other thought which was, ‘Get me out of this small plane!!’ which is still a prevailing thought whenever I fly… Turbulence sucks!). I remember when a photo I took of Kindu and its pirogues was photo of the day for a day for this daily travel photo competition website (see this blog’s banner image, or click the link to see it and what my sweet mom said about it. Haha.); and cheesy as this may sound, I was proud not cause it was my photo, but because it was Kindu, and I was able to share it, and it looked prettier than many people thought possible… And I also remember leaving Kindu, the sad goodbyes that were said then, and the river’s ribbons smiling at me as I flew off on another small plane (‘Get me out of this f***in’ small plane!!’ The curse box in my head overflows whenever I fly).
I said in my first entry that I thought this blog might be a way for me to share Kindu to anyone who would want to be acquainted with it. I’m not so sure how successful I was at that, given my three entries (that were quite lengthy anyway!). But the whole point of this (if you haven’t gotten it yet), is to simply say that I had seven months well-spent. I learned a lot, both on the job, and off it. Big things and small things. About myself, about other people, about Kindu , about DRC, about what I reeeeaally want to do, about simple things that make any place feel like your own even for just a while, like conversations that go nowhere and everywhere over bottles of beer by the Congo river under an unbelievably red-orange moon, like sitting in a swing you made under a tree of pink flowers and reading on a sunny, humid day (at least until my motion sickness hits), like being reminded constantly how much you love what you’re doing and where you are, and like the hope despite all cynicism (and no matter how stupidly idealistic and young this may sound) that what you’re doing there might mean something, no matter how little or how small.
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And now for the second part of this entry (Yes, there's a second part! I've held a lot in over the last few months!!! Save it for later if you want.)..
A random list of random things this blog missed (Since coherence isn’t one of my strong points and rambling is, we're all better off if I wrote a list out of the top of my head):
A LOT of stomach bugs. Everyone, meet Lucy the worm. Yes, I assumed it was worms, and my worm’s name is Lucy, and she’s a she, and she’s got a temperamental character. But despite this I do try and keep her in check. (You may think I’m strange, but start having stomach bugs as much as I did and you’d name her too.)
2 awesome trips to Zanzibar (Two! In the span of four months. I liked it that much.) that included a fainting spell on a restaurant couch (brought about by my moonlighting for a day in a restaurant’s kitchen and slicing my finger instead of the cassava), counting forwards and backwards in Swahili to an audience in a local bar (I did get applause), a spontaneous trip (hitching a ride with a eight-wheeler) to a little village with a women’s soap-making cooperative, and lotsa fun, quality time spent with the other Merlin girls, E and J.
A 25th birthday, and the ensuing bouts with quarter-life crisis.
My rekindled relationship with the guitar, thanks to D’s blue guitar which I pretended I could play while pretending to sing; and which he graciously let me borrow/monopolize aaaall the time (I’m off to get my own guitar this week!!).
A(nother) failed attempt at adobo, a traditional and simple Filipino dish. Of all my failed adobo attempts, this was the worst! It ended up tasting basically like saltwater chicken. Salty, salty saltwater chicken. That after I boasted that I was gonna cook everyone a great Filipino meal. This was my lesson that soy sauce is very salty, especially when you soak something in it overnight that apparently you’re not supposed to soak at all. For dessert, I attempted banana in sweet caramel-like sauce and this too failed: mushy-bananas-soaked-for-a-long-time-in-water anyone? This comes after a long tradition of kitchen failures. Though I did have some successful attempts at Nutella cakes…
Funny morning scavenger hunts for water.
Two cats, named Zebra and Tiger (and three kittens I have yet to meet).
Giving random, fun karate lessons for F; that often ended up with us two dancing around the living room.
A little sparring session on the dance floor of the UN’s welfare club (which I’m convinced I won). What is it with me and haphazard sparring sessions/fist fights.
The birth of the nickname ‘Clumsylla’. Self-explanatory.
My comic book converts thanks to Alan Moore’s Watchmen and Spiegelman’s Maus. Who said comic books were for kids?!
A Halloween that was marked by the very amusing yet disturbing realization that I didn’t have to change outfits to go to a costume party, and just wore what I was wearing the whole day. It was a subdued costume… yet costume it was.
A rocking six weeks in the Philippines, where a lot of overdue catching up was made and a lot of food was had by all, especially by me. Where an affair with electric-blue-high-high-heels, plaid, and the men’s section/my brother’s closet was started, and my love for black stockings and my dirty-well-worn sneakers was rekindled. Where I shattered my brother’s illusion that he had become an only child, spending almost aaall my time constantly invading his space (see, we call that bonding right Vincent?). Where I realized that I will probably always go to and love live gigs in small, very crowded pubs. Where I realized how much I missed my family and hooooome, and why it’s home in the first place.
Visa issues. Again. I hate visas.
The Hong Kong Weekend, entitled ‘Ang Pinakamahal na Inuman sa Mundo’ (closest translation: The Most Expensive Drinking Session in the World’) with mon cousin musicien, Joon.
A Christmas in Goma and a New Year in Gisenyi, Rwanda.
More ‘Get me out of this small plane!!!’.
And The New Year’s Resolution, among many others, that the piroguepilot’s entries won’t always be novels, and won’t always cover periods of a few months!
