December | 2015 | a B, C, D Adventure

I once heard that smell is the strongest sense associated with memory.

So, according to whatever I read/saw/was told, when you catch a whiff of something familiar from your past it is more likely to trigger a memory of that event or place than something you see, touch or hear.

I consider my sense of smell to be pretty good, but when I smell something familiar I know it reminds me of something, but I usually cannot put my finger on what. It drives me a bit batty actually. I’ll smell something and then stand there wracking my brain to come up with where or when I smelled it before. Smells for me are more likely to evoke an overall “feeling” for me. The smell of flowers like those in my Grandpa’s garden, the smell of a horse or barn , the smell after a rainstorm or a snowstorm – those scents all evoke a feeling of calm and happiness in me, but they don’t necessarily bring back a specific memory.

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Not so with music.

The first few notes of a song will bring back a flood of actual, specific memories for me. B got me a wireless speaker for Christmas (hooray B!) and I put it on shuffle and got to work in the kitchen today. I made bagels – actual real bagels – as opposed to bread circles with holes which pass for bagels in Kinshasa. They don’t look beautiful, but they have the perfect crunchy/chewy outside and the soft delicious inside that I love about a bagel more than almost any other bread. After that I made pesto. My basil is out of control in the little garden I planted (well, the gardener planted with my seeds, direction and guidance), so pesto had to be made.

And while I’ve been cooking today I’ve been listening to my own music and being flooded by memories. Right now Tragically Hip is playing. It reminds me of a concert in Chapel Hill, nights on the lake with a fire burning, sitting next to their manager at a friend’s wedding (which then leads me to think of that night being the first time I tasted good port – and it was good!) The memories just keep coming. Before that was Yaz. That took me straight back to camp, to 9th grade, to dance clubs in Toronto and later in Louisiana. I can’t even imagine a smell that could bring back a waterfall of memories like that.

After my best friend died in September 2001, it took me literally months to be able to listen to music again. Any music that I was in the least bit familiar with conjured up an obscure memory of my time with Karen. And every obscure memory caused a cascade of grief that left me bawling in my car, at my desk, in the supermarket, or anywhere else I heard it. I finally just had to avoid music altogether in order to be able to proceed through my day without swollen, bloodshot eyes. I had to ease back into music. Gradually getting back to a place where it brought me more joyous memories than sad ones most of the time.

Lately though I have been desperate for silence again. Not to avoid memories, but to avoid the sensory overload that seems to be built into this city.

Ever since the start of the holidays (and keep in mind there is no Halloween or Thanksgiving here so Christmas decorations were basically up at the beginning of October) Shoprite, the supermarché next door, has had a DJ who starts playing around 3 p.m., and keeps playing until at least 8 p.m. every day. Some days there are also birthdays or weddings in the restaurant behind Shoprite and then the music can go – quite literally – all night.

We couldn’t understand why the parties lasted so long until Papy (our neighbor’s driver who provides me with a lot of Kin/Congo information) told us that it can be dangerous to travel late at night here, so when people host a party they keep it going all night so their guests can travel home safely the next morning. This is all very well for the guests, but for those of us who live next door it is not ideal.

Today it started raining while we were outside – C and some friends playing in the pool, me picking basil and washing the dog (not at the same time), and, apparently because of the rain, all of a sudden the DJ turned off his equipment. I almost dropped to my knees in joy.

It might not be so bad if everything wasn’t so chaotic all the time. This morning I had to drive down to the embassy to get cash (we have to cash checks here – the ATMs aren’t safe to use and this is a completely cash society) and get gas for the car. You can never relax when you drive here. Sometimes it is a lot of fun, bobbing and weaving in traffic, but other times it is just too much. Today, driving down the main boulevard, called Blvd. du 30 Juin (the day of Congo independence), as I approached a light that was flashing that it was going to turn red, it seemed that I would have room to cross, but then a large bus stopped in the intersection so I stopped – about 10 inches into the crosswalk. Half a dozen other cars went around me – several well after the light had turned red (traffic signals and traffic police are just suggestions to a lot of Kinshasa drivers), but I held my ground despite the guy behind me going to town on his horn.

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Then along comes a pedestrian. He stands in front of my car and proceeds to berate me for stopping over the crosswalk. Seriously. Never mind that cars drive on sidewalks and lawns to get around traffic routinely, almost no one obeys lights or signals – half of which don’t even work – and most of the time pedestrians are jumping barriers and running across the middle of the street in front of oncoming traffic, this guy is yelling at me because he has to walk an extra two steps. It’s these little things that start to get to you living in a city like this. Would he have yelled if I’d been a Kinois? Probably not. But the privileged diplomatic-plated white lady was, apparently in his eyes, just disregarding the pedestrians because she could. Coming home after days (and drives) like this to loud thumping music day in and day out, coupled with other sensory chaos has been taking its toll on me and the silence that descended when the turntable went off was amazing.

It makes me wonder what sounds of Kinshasa will bring back memories of these two years for me in the future. Will it be the sound of car horns and angry French/Lingala being yelled at me? Or the pounding bass of the club music blasting next door? Or, maybe, if I’m lucky, it’ll be the sounds of C and her friends playing in the pool, or the sounds of petanque balls and laughing with our friends while listening to Wilco in the background, or of Stromae in B’s car singing Papaoutai, or maybe it’ll be one more memory for Yaz, playing on my wireless speaker while I write a long overdue blog post.

When I imagined life in Kinshasa I pictured the family game nights of my childhood.

On rainy and sub-sub zero temperature days at my family’s cottage (house on a lake for all the non-Canadians out there), and on many evenings, our family gathered round the dining table and played games. As we got older there was also usually a puzzle set up on a different table that two or three people would huddle over, squinting at all white tiles trying to determine whether they fit into a cloud or a snowbank. We had no cable and no internet, so the options were limited. Watch a movie on the VCR (or Beta – my Dad is an early adopter and sometimes he backed the wrong horse…), do a puzzle, or play a game. In my mind’s eye the lights are turned low, there is a fire burning and the darkness outside wraps around the house making all seem cozy and sheltered.

It’s not that I expected cozy nights around the fire in Kin – the fact that it was going to be 90 degrees in the shade many days was one of the things about the Congo that strongly appealed to me, the girl who is always cold. But, I was led to believe that internet would be spotty, or so slow it would be like returning to telephone modems, and cable would be non-existent, or full of things we didn’t want to watch, so I planned accordingly.

I packed puzzles and games and DVDs. I even bought B a beautiful wooden cribbage set for Christmas last year (with an etching of the lake where the cottage is – and where we were married). We requested puzzles for Christmas presents, we asked for recommendations on TV series and movies and we stocked up on games. I thought I’d have hours and hours to read and write and filled boxes with books accordingly.

It is all sitting, unused, in our playroom and on the bookshelves.

The reality of Kin is that most weekends are filled with so much activity that we are too exhausted to play a game or do a puzzle when we get home. Now that we are in rainy season it certainly rains – but rarely for more than an hour or two at a time, so there are no all day sit inside, noses pressed up against the glass, watching the rain and being bored moments here. Clearly there are no -22 degree days to keep us inside, and when it is 95+ we just get in the pool.

The last month has been no exception – and has, in fact, been busier than earlier months due to the holidays.

First came Halloween. The embassy (or really the CLO (“Community Liaison Officer”)) organized a trunk-or-treat party with games and cookie decorating after the candy grabbing was over. C (and we, if truth be told) had a blast.

Followed by cookie eating…

The princess and her castle

Cookie decorating

There was no traditional door to door trick or treating, but I realized that we have never had a “traditional” Halloween with C. In our old neighborhood in Charlotte there was a Halloween Parade with dozens of small children dressed as princesses, pirates, ghosts and Cindy Lou Who (in the case of C) trailing along behind a fire truck, getting candy from neighbors standing on the street and ending up at the community center for a pizza party. In D.C. last year we did Halloween on the Hill and wandered around Capitol Hill with good friends. So Halloween in Kinshasa was really not that much different than in the U.S. for us.

The night of Halloween was Oktoberfest at the Symphonie Des Arts – so we left C with a babysitter and went out on the town to witness a large majority of the Kin expat community wearing dirndls and lederhosen made out of the local pagne cloth and dancing the night away to a band brought in from Germany. Schnitzel and sauerkraut – and dozens of other German dishes – were set out in a buffet and beer was flowing as it does only in October at German parties. And, to top of that night, we did the Conga in the Congo.

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The next day we headed with a large group out to see the Bonobos – apes that are only found in Congo because they don’t like to swim and won’t cross the Congo River. They are fascinating to watch – incredibly human-like – but their society, which is ruled by a female, apparently has the motto “make love, not war” and they are free to demonstrate that motto in actions rather than words. Luckily the children were more transfixed by the baby Bonobos than the “rumble in the jungle” going on at every turn and we escaped without having to answer any hard questions.

On Veterans Day the kids were in school, but the Embassy was closed, so about 40 people chartered a bus and took a tour of Kinshasa. We visited sites generally off limits, not only to us because of security, but to everyone, including the final resting place of Laurent Kabila (or “Papa Kabila” here), the father of the current president. Papa Kabila became president of the Congo in 1997 when he overthrew Mobutu Sese Seko (or just “Mobutu”), the dictator of the country for over 30 years, but Papa Kabila was assassinated only 4 years later in January 2001. His mausoleum is impressive, but is generally completely inaccessible. It was a rare insight into a city and country that is not generally a tourist destination in any sense of the word.

The Tour de l’Echangeur and the statue of Patrice Lumumba, the first democratically elected leader of the Congo who was deposed in a coup and subsequently executed.

One of the five hands surrounding Laurent Kabila’s tomb – representing the five countries that helped him stage his coup to overthrow Mobutu

Looking down the main boulevard – 30 Juin

Laurent Kabila

Inside the Tour de l’Echangeur is a museum with art dedicated to Patrice Lumumba

The first train in Congo…it no longer runs.

We visited the Marché de Voleurs (theives market) where this man was selling this monkey for $150.

After that we had the Marine Corps Ball, then Thanksgiving at the Ambassador’s residence – with people in the community bringing their favorite side dishes. Two days after Thanksgiving was the “Kid Power” festival featuring almost a dozen bouncy houses which almost made C faint from excitement when she first saw them. This weekend we have a “Hail & Farewell” party on Friday (when the community welcomes the newest arrivals and says goodbye to the folks headed to their next tour) then C’s “Spectacle de Danse” on Saturday. On Sunday, as on all Sundays, we’ll have our weekly “cocktail hour” at the compound.

This was a giant caterpiller…there was something disturbing about where you entered the bouncy house…

ICE CREAM!

Best boucy house ever in the African heat!

B looking spiffy in his tux

Thanksgiving dinner with friends

Through all this we have managed to have a couple of game nights with some good friends, and they have been everything I was hoping for and expecting – laughter, mingled with competition, while darkness closes in around us and the A/C glows in the background.