Bean Town Errata

So, apparently in my haste to rid myself of procrastinating blogger guilt, I mistakenly listed 9 memorable things on my Congo Top ten... Then I realized that I have another list of strange and befuddling congolese peculiarities that I hadn't so much as consulted for the list below.
So, an amendment is due and will be forthcoming, along with a number of fabulous photos--now that i've got it working again... and thanks to elizabeth for her super shot of three women carrying bundles of onions to market...
(ah, and i may be heading back to darfur in a couple weeks... anyone have any suggestions for blogging on the down-low? password protection, identity obfusation?)

From New england, with love

"But blood, earth, and mother tongue are not everything... Over and above them there is mankind, and there is always the astonishing and happy possibility of discovering home in what is most distant and foreign, of loving what is apparently hidden and inaccessible and of being able to become familiar with it." Hesse, p218


I left the Congo on the 26th of May, 2007… from that day to this very evening, in my own country and across oceans, in the homes of friends and strangers alike, I have received such hospitality… a place to rest my bones, a meal, company, wisdom… I’ve wandered an unsually great distance this summer and have been met with an unusually enthusiastic welcome wherever I’ve found myself.

So my most heartfelt thanks to all of you who opened your homes and your lives to me this summer… sam/lucy, the jones’s, Yna, Jeremy and the boys, Jessica, zamber, texas, Rebecca, lucy, Claire and colin, Jonathon, lizzy, sonia, Dr. B, dan and Amanda, Nicole, jenna and renee, liz and suz, Shezeke, bedet, shannon, suz and elizabeth and john and craig…

A taste of home, my sincerest thanks.

Now… below you’ll find a number of photos and a collection of anecdotes/observations from my grand summer adventure, which spanned 4 continents… from the heart of darkness to new Zealand, the haag to new york, Vancouver to Halifax, Sydney to boston… I’ve gone further than I’ve ever gone before, and still managed to screw up my airmiles in the process!

So find below a wild assortment of anecdotes and pictures… and given that I’ll have posted this just before sending out a mass email update, be sure to scroll down to see my ‘top ten’ list of things I LOVE about the Congo… a bit further for some pics from new Zealand with quotes from Vaclav Havel’s latest book.

For those of you keeping track of my quest for grad school… No decisions yet, but I’ve just about finished visiting the Canadian schools. Not particularly happy with what I’ve seen, not particularly sure what to do about that…

Incidentally, its likely that I’ll be heading out to Nyala or El fasher toward the end of September… anyone out there or heading out there around then?

Peace
Christopher
ah... I've been having some trouble with the photo upload on blogspot, so if you come across this page before I've sorted it out, sorry, I'll have more pics later, but I did manage to load a video, perhaps the cutest video ever... next post down, its of John Zacharias... enough to make even the most resolute automaton feel their, um, inner clock.

Ozone, plane rides, and the skyscraper that wasn’t…

So… in no particular order, a few anecdoctes from my summer
1.A drunk hunter mentioned to my travel mate, the Texan, that he’d blow him away with not one but two glocks—poof poof poof, he motioned with both hands. He then turned to me and asked what I would use to bag a buck (kill a deer), I figured a truck mounted .50 calibre would do the trick—he frowned and shook his head.

2.Sydney—my friends live right underneath one of the inbound/outbound flight pathes for Sydney international airport… I was shocked that they would’ve have built the airport in such a way that planes would be obliged to fly over a residential area at such a low altitude… you couldn’t hear a thing when one was overhead. And if that wasn’t dodgy enough, I woke up one morning to find the garden full of jet A-1 fuel fumes…

3.I survived a train wreck in New Zealand.

4.Did you know that boston is one of the east coast’s most important square dancing centres… who would’ve thought! I sashayed and doseydoeyed all over the dirty dance floor with lovely ladies, octogenarians, men with dancing shoes, and Scandinavians (one a massive Viking of a man!)… Good times, old school, primary school PE class good times…

5.Boston also boasts a caribo-centric carnivale… not since the cypress hill show at lalapalooza ’97 have I heard gut moving bass like what they were pushing out of the lorry-mounted walls of speakers, towed all-around downtown boston.

6.My day with dan talstra—not only did we eat gyros made by latinos… not only did we stumble across a windowless skyscraper in downtown manhattan… not only did we see bad buskers fail to rouse a crowd… we followed quebequois tourists through wall street and caught them molesting the Meryll-lynch bull… we also saw the conspiracy theorists down at ground zero (a truly awesome and troubling cavity in the centre of downtown) and while chatting them up, we also saw the deusche bank building (the one being deconstructed methodically due to massive damage and contamination when the towers came down) catch fire…500 firefighters made their way to the site, it took all afternoon/evening to put the fire out—2 men died.

7.On two occasions, I found myself boarding with new friends only to find out that old friends were no more than 3 blocks down the road… how strange is that?

8.There are no vegetables in New Zealand. Just kidding, in fact, cudos to the farmers of the deep south of the southern island for bringing a delicious winter crop to the Dunedin farmers’ market…truly an institution.

9.There is no shortage of vegetables in Sydney… which is strange given that the whole region has been racked by drought for 3 years running (apparently)… unlike Dunedin, the farmers’ market of Sydney is a massive warehouse full of EVERYTHING you could possibly hope for from a market—even squid. Mesmerizing.

10.Car-free-day, commercial drive, the day before I left… not only did I stumble across someone who reads this blog…not only did I run into everyone you’d expect to meet on the drive…not only did I stumble into Lucy Clift, who was suppose to be in Sydney and to whom I was going to write a note that very day…I ate giant portugese sardines with Johnny koehn (always pleasant company!) and while resting my brain and body at the foot of the drive, drinking coffee with none other than nicolina and anya, I spotted three kids taking advantage of the whaning moments of the day—playing leap frog in the middle of the street while others packed away their booths and displays… but wouldn’t you know it, these kids were minding their own business and whammo, a 20 something came along, then her man friend joined in…a couple toddlers (with moms in tow), a few more tattooed 20 somethings, a proper round of leap frog! A precious moment, with no other artifact but memory (and maybe this post)

Congo steamy top 10--part 1

Things I love about congo?

1. Les pirogues… you seem them heading out, paddling into the lake, lashed together three to a side ready for a nights work catching fish by lattern light… but when the sun goes out and the lights are lit, its an eerie scene, a lake full of stars, drifting constellations lantern light.

2. 6pm, sunset…the sun sets quickly, perceptibly a the equator, and as a rule there’s far too much cloud over the jungle to actually see the moment where the sun rushes towards the horizon, but this is the time when the birds come back to roost. And what bird would be a proper bird if it did not sing to its neighbors in the twilight? Evenings on my terrace, before the generator tears the moment in two, a drink in hand, sitting on the warm tiles, amongst surragate family…

3. Kids—Some are cheeky, some are scared, some are kind and gracious others less so… some think that white people roast children for supper. What’s certain is that kids will often be the first to transcend the rules of social interaction, tossing aside all manner of ‘-isms’… it took the better part of the year before my neighbors kids learnt that my name wasn’t ‘honky’… we’d walk home together during lunch break or after work, sometimes I’d try to steal their backpack, or maybe just taunt them in Swahili… but we were neighbors… we’d not only wave at each other in the morning, we’d exchange funny faces… even the street kids who begged from the Pakistanis would offer me some of their daily haul—once, after a rough day, I told them to fuck off when they heckled me, and whammo, as if I had uttered some secret password, we were buddies… So hoow long does it take for one to become black, or not white, or somehow not some sort of alien? I’m not sure its even possible, but at least you can rest assured that children are more likely to accept you (despite your hairy arms!)

4. The journaliers—I’ve written of these guys previously, no? These guys would loiter outside the office… some young, some old, all unemployed, many at the very bottom of the heap… When I arrived, these guys were lucky to be paid once in a while for a day’s work, and yet, despite being treated like rubbish by certain folk in the logistics’ department, they would continue to turn up in hope of getting a day’s work. My department used these guys virtually everyday, loading and offloading trucks, moving piles this way and that… sometimes they would steal from us, sometimes they would work extra long hours to try to get one last truck loaded with relief supplies. These guys would drive me around the bend, they would inspire me, but most of all, they reminded me of were my family… My grandfather was a labourer, worked like a dog for a pittance, and thanks to the union movement on the Vancouver port docks, he retired with a living wage and stout pension… This year, I harangued the day laborers to unionize. Unfortunately, my attempts to convince these guys that getting their ranks organized would likely benefit them and their families failed, but they nevertheless remain on my top 10

Congo steamy top 10--part 2

5. Les mamans porteuses—walking home, past women saddled with burdens a mule would have trouble handling, I was reminded again and again of how the women of congo are the backbone of the country… I’ve heard men joke that they don’t have beasts of burden because they have women to carry loads here and there… I never managed to ask one of the ‘porteuses’ if I could take her picture, otherwise I would show you just what these women carry, but the image remains etched din my memory and has come to represent the strength and steadfast determination of the women of congo to see to it that their families survive, in spite of relentless adversity. The women, they effectively run the country—they are mothers, wives, traders, farmers, survivors, the creators of innovation, pathfinders.




6. life and death, anger and joy—I’ve been overcome on more than one occasion by the intense juxtaposition of opposites in this country… wedding parties and mourners race up and down the main boulevards of Bukavu in much the same way… Koffi club anthems, getting down on the dirty dance floor, mingle with drunken fights at the bar… even at the border, the customs guard will joke with you at the visa table, and then fleece some poor visiting ngo consultant behind you in the queue… n’oublie pas: “Au rythme du pays”

7. teasing and being teased in Swahili— A young 20 something calls out, in French—Hey honky, what’s going on—the honky replies in Swahili—where’s the honky? I don’t see any honkies—the 20 something then turns to his buddy and snapping his fingers, chuckles in Swahili—Oh the honky (mzungu) speaks Swahili—the honky then interjects (in Swahili) that not only is he not a honky, but that he is really, deep down, if you look close enough, a black person… Macho in a kuffa, your eyes are dead… everyone laughs. (funtimes with language)

8. Word of the year: Septaecaemia. Believe it or not, Cholera is a Septacaemic desease, AND children, if given enough encouragement, can learn how to say Sep-tah-see-mee-a

9. Anti-social habit of the year: If you don’t eat your vegetables, you’ll have problems digesting the other elements of your diet… if you think that only poor people eat vegetables and that you being a well off person ought not, therefore, eat vegetables, you will likely have trouble digesting all the foo foo and meat you consume for supper… if you remain gainfully employed for an extended period of time, you’ll likely wind up with a condition called impacted faeces, a sympton of which is room-clearing, bad breath… Poo breath. Eat your vegetables (even if you’re well off)