The Nitty-Gritty

I have put a halt to French lessons with the gregarious chaplain of the hospital next door (mostly to get out of my essay on Calvinism), and now have Swahili lessons with him instead.  His cheery grandfatherliness has carried over; I expectantly await the threat of the chicotte as well.  

For our first lesson, we sang a song over and over again. 

Jambo!

Jambo sana!

Habarigani?

Mozuri sana!

Wageni – mwakaribishwa

Kongo yetu – hakuna matata!

Following verses outlined Congo’s treasures.  It sounded like something from a Swahili version of Teletubbies, but my teacher assured me that it was sung in forests to remind passing parties that the Congo is an inviting, friendly place.

I had a vision of singing it in a wavering voice to Mai-Mai, FARDC, or FDLR rebels and resolved again to learn three emergency contact numbers. 

The most important discovery from that week:  Wimbo means song.  You know when Timon and Pumbaa sing A-wimbo-wey, a-wimbo-wey... In the jungle, the mighty jungle...

But I'm sure songs won't save me from men in camouflage. I pass behind a military office every day on the way to and from work and one of the soldiers has taken to shouting things at me for personal enjoyment.  I think they used to ignore me for the most part on the main road (though there were some attempts at conversation), but now I have to either pretend I don't hear him or smile desperately.

Speaking of pests, we have bugs in our fridge - just chillin’.  Actually, not really; if they were chilling, there would likely be less of them.  I am reminded that our poor teammates don’t even have fridges, much less bugs to crawl around in them, so I should be thankful.

...I’m glad I stopped the helium-and-smile thing.  

The other day, I came home to Butters beaming at me.  "I am a crazy person," he said happily.  

Actually, what he said was "I unplugged the fridge," but it amounts to the same thing.  

He figured that as the fridge wasn't really working anyway, he might as well unplug it and let all my food rot.  I'm not sure why he hates me in this way, but I assure you I have been as normal as it is possible for me to be.  

He clearly didn't notice that the freezer at least stayed cool enough to keep bugs out.  Was it doing the job of a freezer - no.  Was it marginally cooler than the rest of the house - yes.  I plugged it in again while he tried to croon nonsense to me like I was rocking a stuffed animal after the miscarriage of our child.  I tried to explain that there were no bugs in the freezer for a reason (likely not because they had vertigo), but was probably incoherent because I was foaming at the mouth.   

Our fridge is not their only target.  I woke up one morning to find a series of bites on my left underarm.  Over the course of the next few days, these demons found their way into my left bra cup; that was a dark day.  I now have over 30 itchy little bites on my upper body – mostly concentrated on my left upper arm, chest, and neck.  I have no idea what they could be from, but decided to blame Butters for bedbugs (as his bed was handed down to me in the new apartment). 

“Nope,” he said laconically.  “Maybe God’s angry with you.  Maybe you’re biting yourself – have you thought about a psych evaluation?”

Ahhh, what a guy.  Can’t live with ‘im; can’t set him on fire...

Despite our differences in senses of humour (in that I have one), I still do him the favour of filling all our buckets and water filter whenever the water deigns to arrive – usually just around midnight or pre-dawn.  This sounds like a complaint, but it’s really just my usual mode of perception: taking note of the good (the arrival of water in our taps for all our needs) as well as the bad (the fact that it arrives in the dark, when the power is out, and people should be sleeping).    

Sometimes, this need to be thorough can be a curse - for example, when I try to check on the strength of a recently welded piece of metal.  The welder in question had just created clothesline hooks with the aid of sunglasses as safety equipment.  Fooled by this laissez-faire attitude, I used one of my useless opposable thumbs to test whether he’d done a good job.

Lease:  6 months
Time to put up a clothesline: 10 minutes

Scar: Forever

On the other hand, I’m not the only one for whom opposable thumbs are a joyful accident; my landlord and friendly neighbourhood welder obviously think the best way to repay the kindness of four bidons every morning is to have our freshly washed laundry dripping down right on to the court of women and babies cooking, laughing, and screaming downstairs. 

My Sunday was sadly crushless as I went to a Swahiliphone church with N2O.  I say ‘with’; I mean that I took a bus to an area I had never been to before with people laughing about me in Swahili for some reason and the conductor making moon eyes at me while charging too much to take me to a place to fill the bus tires – about 2 minutes short of the Stadium I was to use as a landmark - and leaving me in utter confusion.

In retrospect, he’d asked me if this was close enough to the Stadium and then informed me when the bus was ready to continue on its way so he could drop me off there – but as all the passengers had disembarked and shooed me off as well, with some laughter, I was in no mood to listen to him.  I was busy trying to find way to disappear just to take a breath and gain some perspective while still projecting the air of a confident, strong foreign woman who was definitely not lost and scared of being propositioned/robbed/killed. 

I only had five oranges and less than a dollar for bus fare, so I hoped I’d at least get the chance to wish any attackers Bon appétit first. 

After walking to the Stadium (with helpful directions from everyone I asked) where we’d agreed to meet, I couldn’t get hold of N2O. 

I mean, I did, but she kept cutting out and I was so worried about getting a tan in the burning sun and stares that I just huddled under my scarf and prayed she would spot and save me.  When I saw her, looking like an Englishwoman at the height of 19^th century fashion – complete with a lacy hat and heels - I collapsed into her arms for the customary three kisses with an unprecedented level of relief. 

We walked down a dusty hill, through gutters, and past at least five churches – all with her looking like Rose from the Titanic deciding to slum it with Jack – and I was finally palmed off on her fiancée so she could go back to singing in the girls’ choir.

[Side Note:  Remember when that student asked if I was a little girl or married?  Turns out those are the only two available options.]

The church contained a wide variety of people (many from my place of work) from all economic strata, which is interesting.  In India, I imagine there are as many classes of churches as there are castes, though Christians are quieter about it.  Upper middle class would rarely mix with lower middle class, much less go to a church with a mud floor and grimy children in a poor approximation of Sunday best, grandmothers in t-shirts and pagnes, and benches for pews. 

I loved it.

And whereas I’d never expected that N2O was among the aristocracy, it turns out she is marrying the Christian equivalent of Prince Charming – a music director, church secretary, and future pastor; a regular Swiss army knife of utility.  Which is likely why she looked like she stepped out of a fashion plate from the turn of the century. 

The sermon, translated for me into French so I could pretend to hear and understand it over the ferocious screaming of the pastor, sounded like a gooder.  Then I realised it was just a guy giving thanks for something.  I thought the same for the next four people who screamed about various things, with delightful, more harmonic screaming from four different choirs (old women – otherwise known as women; the unmarried – otherwise known as girls; children; and a random group of young people who did not fit into a mold and threw off my groove entirely).  I think I got the full Pentecostal experience I’d been missing for decades.   

The actual sermon (which was expounded by at least two men, possibly more) focused on one of Pastor’s favourite (or at least most-quoted) verses:  Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God (John 1:12)

The point seemed to be that we, as children, should resemble our Father.  Not tribes or nations, but our Father – in whom we have one family.  The sermon was also interactive, which was nice – some questions included Whom do you resemble in your life?  At work? 

Of course, the proceedings were interrupted by one foreigner who took the sudden bursts of conversation to smile cheerily at everyone, shake their hands, and chirrup, “What did he say?  What?  I have no idea what’s going on.”

Luckily, discussions like this rarely amount to real sharing – congregants are more interested in accomplishing the task that the leader has given them, which is to humbly murmur variations of Sometimes people confuse me for the Holy Spirit in a pagne.

But A+ for effort!  One preacher even went so far at one point to say that a church preoccupied with financial matters was not a church of God.

Can I get an amen.

I was caught up in a lie (I have a whole brain full of them!) that my regular church is the only one that seeks to share truth and life.  I even had a conversation with Butters where I stubbornly declared that I knew the sermon would talk about giving money and how I knew it wouldn’t be as good as our church.  

I was wrong. 

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.  Even despite all we do to corrupt and maim it, the Word of God is life, and that sort of creation cannot be stopped. 

Of course, um, the leadership of this church was caught in a huge embezzlement scandal a few years back, so perhaps they’re being more careful now, but regardless.  If they had to go through the fall of public humiliation of sin uncovered for them to follow the Word with greater loyalty, then it was worth it. 

I was totally present for the sermon(s) (so very present), but sometimes I’d get vaguely distracted watching the steady stream of young girls taking care of their siblings or smaller people in their vicinity.

I remember (and still blame) my parents for not letting me hold my newborn brother at the age of six – even though they clearly had him on my instruction and thus he belonged to me.

Here, small, thin girls – just a beautiful mess of shoulder blades, cheekbones, and frilly dresses capped by a thin fuzz of hair on their heads – carried even smaller, squalling babies in their arms.  Slightly older girls (scarcely more than double the height of the babies) would cajole their fussing charges into sitting still for a 4-hour church service.  At the end of their ropes, they might approach their mothers (or any older woman, as all have right over one of them) with their bony little non-hips thrust out to create an oblique angle that would support a plump, fuzzy-headed baby; for the most part, they fulfilled the roles of mothers admirably.

All the while, their brothers sat politely in the first two rows, gazing disinterestedly about them, but secure in the knowledge that one day they will understand, will participate in discussions without having to worry about fussing infants or feeding families...