Empire State of Mind

So there have been a few earthquakes in the past few weeks – the first in my life – and they’ve been… interesting.

The first few were just minor tremors, barely noticeable.  The third Friday in September saw the end of most of our wineglasses (which we had no use for anyway), and the beginning of a newfound love of Canada.

Because I’m sort of empty-headed and have never been through a major natural disaster, I found the earthquakes generally exciting – a cross between Just like in the movies! and a baby roller coaster.    

Upon seeing everyone outside my building and not wanting to huddle under a table on the third floor listening to breaking glass in my kitchen, I strolled downstairs to hang out with my guard (a new one who wasn’t in the habit of subtly threatening me).

“Oh, earthquakes aren’t common; maybe only once a year.”

So… including the past two weeks, this should cover us for the next 6 years or so?

“Do you have pictures of Canada?”

On my laptop; let’s not even go there right now.

“If I was in Canada, I’d never come here.”

I feel ya, broski.

“Are you scared?”

I’ll have to spend a Friday night cleaning my kitchen and a Saturday with people - I’d classify this emotion as more annoyance than anything else. 

“Would you like me to accompany you upstairs?”

So we can both die in the dark?  Non, merci *ba-dum-pshh*   

Thankfully, Butters walked up soon after and I was able to face the thought of entering the apartment again (I think I’ve mentioned before that being alone in the dark makes me crabbier than usual).  After sweeping/mopping a river of water and remnants of shattered glass from all over the kitchen (even closed cupboards – don’t even ask me how) in the dark – and then continuing this process for the next few days, all in the horrible worry that Butters or I or our house helper would accidentally trip on one and end up with a missing limb – I was somewhat less enamoured of the whole thing. 

Especially as my Canadian pharmacist’s advice for any infection, bite, cut, pain, distress, or unauthorized fart was: “Get out of the Congo.”  

As I was picking glass out of my slippers and adjusting Butter’s headlamp to a new location from which to pull my hair, I realised again how privileged I was to have never faced this situation before.  This is not to say that I’ve never cleaned up broken glass in a kitchen, but for the first time I could imagine coming to my house and finding nothing left. 

And all I’d lost were a couple of wineglasses that didn’t belong to me. 

The next day, I was regaled with stories of a 50-second, 6.4-level earthquake in 2008 that made this one feel like nothing more than a free salsa lesson.

As though the lack of power, water, political and economic stability, access to education, health care, counselling, and justice were not enough, here – have an earthquake. 

In fact, have two.   

I’m still wandering along to the tune of my own deaf drummer – requests for money and commentary on my looks are my daily accompaniment.

My coworkers have informed me that I now have fat cheeks.

I have never had fat cheeks in my life. 

I blame it on the deep fried bread.

Deep.

Fried.

Bread.

Meanwhile, my colouring is still a constant source of tension. 

N2O:  You’re just so yellow…

Cleaning Lady:  Stop that!  You’re always teasing her!

Me:  Aww, that’s so--

CL:  Of course she’s yellow!

Me:  Good feelings gone

CL:  She’s yellow all over!

Me:  Woah, now.

CL:  *touches my arm*  Her arms are yellow!

Me:  I must insist that you shut your--

CL:  *rubs my leg*  Her legs are yellow!

At which point I was forced to leave the  love shack  reception area because the other option was suing her for harassment. 

Field visits are no less taxing – I’ve mentioned before that directness, while apparently not a part of the culture, is usually wielded as a blunt force weapon to gain something (love, money, respect, or all of the above, in my experience) rather than an honest attempt to facilitate mutual benefit.  My most recent experience of this (other than women and children on the street literally telling me to give them money) was during a seminar on violence and the importance of psychological intervention – the first 15-20 minutes of which involved a serious discussion on how to shorten the number of days for the seminar and how the remuneration was too low.

“You know what causes real trauma?  Low restitution,” noted one mischievous nurse.

This, of course, was after the hour-long ride to get to the health zone in which the seminar was to be held.  Did I mention that five young, educated men had to get out and push the land cruiser before we could leave?

Then they had to go to the front of the vehicle and push it back again to actually get it started?

All while I fought hysterical giggles in the backseat and guiltily tried to think less-than-60kg thoughts.  But I am eager to be a part of field missions with other organizations because I think women’s opinions are rarely represented and I revel in the chance to clear up silly misconceptions like this:

“We went to school together!  And now I have a toddler and she has an adult daughter!  Isn’t it funny how girls go and get themselves pregnant at such a young age?!”

False.

Of course, then I also have to face the awkward bits:

“What do you think of homosexuality?  You know, the greatest pleasure on earth is between a man and a woman!  You know that?!  The greatest pleasure!!  The greatest pleasure!  The greatest pleasure!  The greatest--”

Got it, thanks. 

The way home was a different sort of a nightmare.

Specifically, a 2.5-hour nightmare.  That covered 40kms.  In a rainstorm and flowing rivers of mud through potholes that moto drivers traversed with legs flailing like lovelorn jellyfish.  Everyone and their goat was eager to get where the rain had prevented them from reaching earlier, which made us hit no less than three distinct traffic jams, most involving people angrily yelling at each other when everything would be better if they just forgave each other and got off the darned road.  I was sure we would see a death in front of us; the other occupants of the vehicle laughed about everything from angry pedestrians to angry drivers to angry people asking for money to shovel mud.  The latter were just standing in the middle of the road with shovels – admittedly for a good purpose – and literally grabbing people on passing motos to demand money for their toil. 

They would have been better off forming a union, lining up in front of cars, motos, and buses, and singing Red Rover, Red Rover…

Or maybe just getting off the darned road.

One of the moto drivers we passed caught up just to give our driver a lecture on not splashing innocents (after a torrential downpour) and seriously warned that he’d ensorcelled us before driving off, confident in a job well done.

Toodles. 

By this point, I was also under serious stress; I like our driver as he’s a bald, jolly chap who thinks I know Swahili - I didn’t want him to be ensorcelled.  He was charged with getting us home on a near-empty tank of gas and the pressure was getting to him.  I was praying we made it home quickly for purely selfish reasons, but also because he was being berated for not planning ahead when I knew perfectly well that we were on a minimal budget and if he’d asked for a back-up canister, he’d have been roasted alive and our next teambuilding event would have been spitting on his grave.

In the middle of all of this, one of the young interns happily burbled, “New York Citayy!”

It’s a state of mind.