A Thousand Words

The sun pours lazily over the mists and slanting tin roofs of a Central African city.  The irrepressible growth of dense greenery, like a daisy in the cracking sidewalk of a seedy neighbourhood, makes the place look hopeful, alive.  Birds signal the dawn along with the screeching car alarm that heralds anything from the fact that it is being cleaned, to a slight wind, to the realisation that existence is futile in a chassis of metal and oil. 

The intrepid human, in her natural habitat of pyjamas, surveys the scene with the same quiet satisfaction of Mufasa watching the circle of life from Pride Rock. 

In the distance, there is a thorax-shaking boom! 

Perhaps I should not be making breakfast outside today, she thinks. 

More booms and gunshots follow. 

Then again, perhaps I will need coffee more than usual in order to pack the emergency bag I should have packed months ago on Carrottop’s orders.

So she stayed outside, half in the hope that a stray shot would provide the excuse and pity she needed to really sell Oh, pack a bag!  I thought you said whack a nag!  You mean it’s not a southern Americanism?  Well, I am an immigrant...  Oh, the blood loss is making me so weak – hold me...

...But mostly secure in the knowledge that the sounds seemed relatively distant (close to the Rwandan border, in fact, which was admittedly more worrying), and her downstairs neighbours also seemed unconcerned about packing their bags and were instead calmly discussing the situation - also on their balconey. 

It turned out that a recently discharged anti-fraud leader, instead of demobilising as he’d been told, had decided to hole up in his home with a small army of personal bodyguards armed to the teeth. 

Disarm?!  Oh, I thought you said Arm big many much lots shoot anything that moves!  What a hilarious misunderstanding. 

Due to this, the leader’s community (an already much vilified tribe due to their tendency to kill people – usually in retaliation to people killing them) suffered a ransacking of their church and probably enough platitudes about solidarity and togetherness to choke the rocket launcher used that morning.

After a leisurely breakfast spent eavesdropping, I returned to my bed and many missed calls from Joseph (who was singularly laissez-faire about gunshots in this city, but likely thought our organisation had chloroformed and bundled us to a Swiss bunker in the dead of the night), and a text from Carrottop (who was likewise calm, probably due to the grave misapprehension that we’d all packed our emergency bags) to stay indoors.  Closer to ground zero, foreigners and locals alike hid in the hallways of their homes and tried to pretend that the military were friends, not fools. 

It is against this backdrop that I am consistently being pressured about my relationship with Joseph – as though it is the most vital aspect of all our daily lives.

“Hey, you’re looking good today!” said one of my favourite people at church - a very joyful, happily married, skilled musician – looking over my black shirt and jeans.

“Thanks!”

“Black is handsome, huh?” he continued.

“Yes, I supp--”

“Black really suits you,” he finished, staring meditatively into the distance.

I was slightly confused about why we were still having this conversation, followed his line of vision, saw a laughing Joseph with his friends, and choked slightly.

Mission thus accomplished, my friend sauntered away cackling. 

The downside of dating an apparently well-known musician (let it be known that I never, ever asked for this) is that everyone either went to school or church with him, which means many more opportunities to play Pin the Expression of Shellshocked Horror on the Mzungu.  I should be more used to this – we face worse from shoe-sellers at the nearby market who watch us avidly as we walk by, have the temerity to have loud Swahili conversations about us, and then giggle when I race away in response to their questions.  As I’ve recently started a Swahili/English language exchange with one of these old classmates, I’m also able to be teased in English.  One day, when I asked for an example of a prepositional phrase:

“Will you...  No, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I cannot ask this.  Will you...  No, no, I cannot.”

I waited, because it was obvious he could and would.

“Will you get used to... African culture if you get married in Bukavu?  I mean, in Africa?”

He later informed me that, to fulfil the above expectation, I would have to learn Joseph’s tribal language, because wasn’t I going to have a traditional marriage in a forest?

Do I look like I will have a traditional African wedding in a forest in Central Africa.

That same day, I trudged home just in time to be swamped by the recriminations of the Russian-doll housemaids downstairs. 

“You’re always out with your boyfriend!”

“He comes to see you every day.  EVERY DAY!”
“He stays there until THE NIGHT!  SO LATE!”

“Even [the landlord] knows you’re out late with your boyfriend!”

I resisted the urge to sob.  The landlord’s hero-worshipping daughters had seen me with Joseph at the door to our apartment building once and had stood there giggling hysterically while I walked him one street over to catch a ride home at 9pm (which is how he usually leaves the 2-3 evenings per week that we sit at our dinner table and talk from 7pm – these are not dates, they are prison visits).  I can only imagine what they told their father.

I escaped up the stairs – ashamedly avoiding the intrigued eyes of a very grimy vegetable seller - while the girls continued a loud sermon on how I should get married and stay here, but not to a black man because they were bad.  I’ve also heard variations on this theme that focused on Joseph’s tribe – that all the men are sexist.  I thought Indians might have a problem with our relationship, but it looks like they’d have to get in line.  I suppose we could just hand out paper bags wherever we go and instruct people to breathe or vomit into them as necessary - assuring them that we wouldn’t suddenly burst into marriage on the spot, but if we felt somewhat marriage-y, we’d let them know. 

But I still foresee only smiling weakly in lieu of a response to the more sincere questions. 

“Hey, is your lover coming over tonight?” 

Shut up, you messy-headed heathen.

“But you’re going back to Canada, right?”

 Et tu, Carrottop?

 “Where do you see the future leading?” 

Can you trace the journey of the Hindenburg, honey?  The Titanic?

“Can’t you just be good friends?” 

I’ll be sure to present this option when we meet his parents, Mother; perhaps we shall all be good friends together.

But I wouldn’t count on it.