DRC News

Thank You And Last Look

2009-02-23T15:31:00.005+02:00

I've realized that, in beginning this last post from Congo, a grateful posture is the most natural to assume. I hope that you can understand the incredible change that you've helped to enact in my life. You've sponsored an invaluable season for me. Thank you.

Before my arrival in Congo, I really didn't have many expectations of what the six months abroad would look like. I was too consumed by the fever of adventure to dwell on uncertainties of the future. I believe that I may have been running away from more than I was advancing towards. Nonetheless, I did advance into Congo.

Of course, nothing could have prepared me for the world that I found here. A place saturated in desperation. I was an unfortunate fortunate, walking streets thronged by disgruntled "have-nots". I became newly and painfully aware of my inherent wealth, as a Westerner.

Those first few months, I was locked inside of my guilt and denial. The gurgling and yawning jungle green and Kivu and Tanganyika darkened unto me. Congo's breath-taking Eden became my suffocation, and I lived in monotonous singularity. It seemed impossible to face another petitioning tongue, another protesting pocket.

What happened to carry me from then into now is quite simple. I parted the curtains of my prison, beheld a beautiful world, and finally ventured into it.

That is all that can be accredited to my own effort, here. Everything else has just happened to me, unpredictably, so that I came to rely on strange twists and wonderful oddities, almost every day.

Now that I've had a chance to reflect a bit, retrospectively, I see that my final state in Congo was akin to the first. Loneliness -- originally cursed, yet ultimately harmonic-- defined both the beginning and end of my stay. Congo humbled me. It caused me to take my own kindness seriously-- to give others a real place in my life, if only a small one.

I became able to live alone, purposefully and happily, in a place that seemed an impossible pit of condemnation, just a few months before. Momentum was given to me that won't be lost, but multiplied time after time. I carry it with me from this faraway heart of Africa with a greater faith in life's possibilities and a renewed courage to take first steps.

There are many other, perhaps more practical lessons that I've learned. All of them, however, owe their existence to the one that I've just described-- which of course owes it's existence to your support.

That is my simple story of minuscule action and giant reaction in Congo. Thank you for all that you've given. I am extremely excited to see you all, soon.

(Written in Bukavu, posted from the airport in Nairobi.)

Nearing The End

2009-02-05T10:56:00.003+02:00

Hi, friends!

It's February, all ready! I'm scheduled to fly out of Kalemie (my true Congolese-hometown) on the 17th, and will spend a week in Bukavu, before my voyage home.

Other stuff:

I got my yellow belt in Shotokan Karate, this morning! And I'm quite bruised an battered, after having to fight the other two students and Sensai Sable.

Things at the schools have gone wonderfully! Next week will, of course, be my last week teaching.

I've started learning Swahili. A bit late in the game, perhaps, but I'll continue online studies when I'm in the US. It's a fairly simple language-- the grammar is easy. The hard part is, every word is new. So I'm doing a lot of memorizing.

I'm currently seeking scholarship opportunities, as I am planning to enter CU Boulder as a Linguistics major, this fall. If anyone has any suggestions or relevant connections, please send them my way!

Well. I'll see some of you, very soon!

At my friend Raphael's house.

Hi!

2009-01-22T12:16:00.000+02:00

2009-01-22T10:33:00.006+02:00

Girls And Boys Soccer. Tanganyika vs. Kifungo
(The two schools where I teach.)

2009-01-22T00:12:00.000+02:00

The mosquito whines in my ear, every night. The new frogs rattle from the flooded field. I saw Vincent kill the hen with a knife, accidentally through my bedroom window. I heard the universal, barnyard cluck drawn into a final moan. I memorized these sounds according to their appearance, so that, when the next chicken died, I saw its neck severed without looking. When the panicked chirp became a long siren.

I think of bombs falling and people running into a building that will collapse on them.

My soar foot kickstarts the bike. My left hand slowly comes off the clutch, but my right forgets what it's doing and slackens. I jolt into stillness. Maddening. "Pole, pole" they say. All hands in the air, on imaginary handlebars, demonstrative. I cuss them in English and the bike jerks forward. We laugh, but I speed away from them.

Saidi sits behind me this time. "Troisieme!" And I navigate the dirt like a frozen lake. So cold that the waves stopped, mid-climb, mid-fall.

The gray morning. A day amidst days that can't rain, but only give the signs of rain. Clouds like lint balls cleaned out of washer. Vincent and I take motos to the market. My leg stings from touching the exhaust. Skies like this allude to a secret everything keeps. A secret of water, crystal, transparency undetectable when the sun is out. I think of Oregon. (Back seat, cold seatbelt, perfect droplets on the window-- to the library, TCBY, bagel place, to the waterfall. Grandma and her spearmint gum. Emily and I are tiny and we play pre-school computer games in the Grisham library.) Dismount and enter the market labyrinth.

"But, after all, nothing is true that forces one to exclude. Isolated beauty ends up simpering; solitary justice ends up opressing. Whoever aims to serve one exclusive of the other serves no one, not even himself, and eventually serves injustice twice." (Albert Camus, Return to Tipasa)

Past and present intertwine. Siddartha's river-- the mountain stream, the shoreline mouth, the ocean trench, all at once. I belong to the world.

2009-01-15T10:10:00.000+02:00

The rain melange, still in the day, slides underfoot, and I recall your face and hair. And invisible honeysuckles bend over me, with a scent so calm.

I am split across the sewer trench. Ridged chest, tiny and firm in my hands-- I dangle you over the waste and we make a perfect triangle.

All the little ones, I can feel on my fingers, when you are a giggling rocket in my hands. Soft stomachs behind thin, muddy t-shirts.

Pushing the white van, pushing with my hands. Pushing with my weight, and yours also. Why can't it be like this, always? One in the same.

Cold amber and blue, plastic chair. Nodding to bed, nodding awake, I walk out to the sun and we start a new day.

But not a new way, I tell Mama "Bonjour" and slurp my creamed corn.

Now, kids' shadows converge and I feel them with scorn. An old "friend" is a nuisance, and young men are relentless. Tear the shirt from my back and birds come take my flesh. Bones in the sun, let them whisper away and fall down on anyone who ever asked.

"Yes!" you can take what you want. "Yes." as I am empty at last, and may now hold out my hand. Would you deny me my life? Cause me such strife, bewildered, deranged, verging insane with hunger in my eyes. And all would be right.

Do for the least. I will lessen myself, to cancel the burden and beg someone else.

But mud from a thousand rains is caked on my feet-- roads I never walked lay at my heels.

2009-01-08T11:41:00.005+02:00

Coming up the banks, from the sleeping waves. My clothes are drying in the sun, so I feel less heavy. Not grudgingly trudging, nor cursing my sunrise alarm.

Who holds the measuring stick? I've asked myself that question a few times. Increments of inches, meters, miles (God forbid)? There is undoubtedly a "fire beneath my seat", and I don't know whether to curse it and stamp it out or feed it and savor the sweet sting that sends me howling upward/downward. It is a sourceless pressure; yet, whenever something seems without origin, I am, likely, that origin-- the pressure to produce, to be productive. Nothing seems enough or up to snuff, yet I do not know where all the struggle is leading. Yes, it keeps me moving. Keeps me "self-aware", keeps me guilty. But then, it's just absurd. Who am I trying to satisfy? What ancient deficit am I trying to appease?

Hah. I'm not living so bewildered and stupefied with life. Not like it seems, above. But that is life, and its puzzlings have a reserved spot at the forefront of my mind. So while I scratch my pitiful sacrifice into this infinite desert, I am aware of the pitifulness. That being said, I'm back to teaching Englishes classes at a couple of Kalemie High Schools. Trying to use my deeply-unfounded attempt at teaching as a medium for new relationships and my own learning. While I don't know whether the students will truly benefit from my "lesson plans", I know that I am indeed learning a great deal and making many new friends. So teaching seems the means --flings green beans-- to other unforeseen fruits. Maybe that's why a person's "call" in life can seem so absurd. The pressure to move forward and to do more. It's because it is truly absurd, perhaps meaningless. But the direction "matters not", when an undetectable treasure lies at the end of a long, looping, angular, spotted, checkered rainbow.

Not sure if there's anything pertinent to report on. I watch the news every morning, open-mouthed. So much suffering. People are screaming (terrible screams that we'll never hear). Somewhere, people live against a background of blood and smoke. But not here, not where I am. I hear only the faintest remnant of their cries, like a chilling whisper.

There are other things, actually. Vincent, the qualified cook from Bukavu, arrived surprisingly a couple of days ago. And now I find myself blessed with coconut-adorned goat meat and delicious potatoes. I'm so glad to have him here, providing me with a balanced diet. Frozen fruit in the mornings, big meals in the afternoons, and soup and salad at night. I actually feel energized by it.

Other, simpler pleasures. Keith left me with a Nerds bag deceptively filled with Life-Savers mints. If I have a breast pocket on my shirt, you'll likely find one in there. I love how they're individually wrapped. I wonder if anyone's ever accused the guys at Life-Savers of being arrogant for sanctioning their fleeting little sweets with individual abodes. Well, I think it turns the process of eating a mint into a special ritual. Eating a Life-Saver requires more skill and forethought than, say... an Altoid. Maybe I should say "taking a Life-Saver" like "taking tea".

I also just found a sealed stick of cherry chap stick in one of the medical Ziploc bags I've had stowed away. What a perfect time in my stay to find something I'd forgotten about! It's true that I am nearing the end. Conversations with my family and friends have turned slowly towards my homecoming. And while I lay reading, behind my mosquito-netted Congo display, I smell that cherry chap stick (my lips aren't dry) and think about home.

I wanted to include something about my developing interest in linguistics. I don't think I've mentioned it here, yet. This experience has given me an acute awareness of my unfilled capacity for knowledge/skill/specialization. Now, I am truly excited to continue my education and feel driven to do so. I'm extremely interested in studying language, and have been fascinated during my research of it, here. While there is still time for further development and mind-changing, I can seriously see myself entering college en-route to becoming a linguist.

Thanks for reading!

Happy New Year!

2009-01-03T11:08:00.004+02:00

Indiana Jones And The Question Of The Golden Barometer

2008-12-30T14:59:00.014+02:00

He brought the woolen bundle from his pack, now hanging limp from his shoulder. The tube sock slid away from the bulbous thing, and a seamless, glass droplet about the size of a healthy cantaloupe sat in his careful hands. Inside of its transparent husk, a golden liquid sloshed bits of black fiber.

"What is this?" I said. Was he actually trying to sell me this urine-filled bookend?

Prosper told me that the man had come to find out whether I knew what the thing was. That he had discovered it, mining for gold, fifteen meters under ground.

"Well..." I turned the orb over curiously in my hands. "No, I don't know what this is." I found it funny that this man, whom I'd never met, had come from who-knows-where to knock on the FH office gate, hoping to find me and seek a white man's expertise on this alien artifact. "I hope it's not a--", I made an explosive noise and threw my hands into a mushroom cloud, "bomb."

"No. No. Hehe."

"There are liquid explosives, like nitroglycerin." I assured them. My Indiana Jones image was fading in the miner's eyes.

"When the power's back, we can research it on the internet." I said, and Prosper smiled and offered to help. We were planning on doing some computer tutorial with my laptop, anyway.

Now-- in the breathless window before a major archeological discovery-- I am writing to you all. Because it's been a long time. The office has been emptied out for the holiday break (and still is empty and inactive, for the most part) and there's been issues with electricity. So seasonal dormancy and power-outage have been my main obstacles to overcome in updating the blog. I feel we should get another one in before the New Year, though.

Hopefully this here-and-there recollection of the pastwhile won't be completely disorienting. Let's start with Christmas (kind of skips a bunch, but I don't really remember much of what happened before then).

Christmas Eve, I'm alone and feeling very soar in a twisted sort of way. I'd started a morning karate routine, a couple of days before, and was feeling the pain. Most of what I remember about that day, was just feeling sick. I ate rice and spoiled beans for dinner and suffered the consequences that night. I thought it was a resurgence of malaria and was imagining my Christmas in the UN mobile hospital. But it went away.

Christmas Morning was my family's Christmas Eve and we communed through Skype video, and spent a wonderful time together. I watched them open up all of their gifts, just like I was at home. They were all wearing sweaters and there was a Christmas tree behind them, and it was odd to be so far away and sweating on their wintery night.

After a long nap that docked me dreamily into the dusty afternoon, I arose and dressed and walked out the front gate. The town was sedate; shops were emptied into churches and padlocked bars took the place of chaotic storefronts. Walking the quieted main stretch was peaceful and I perused the few open shops and stands, looking for my seasonal ingredients. Bread and eggs for French toast and Ceres fruit juice, because it's absolutely wonderful. I found everything but the eggs, without a hitch. Though, I suppose my shopping list was small enough to amplify even the slightest mishap into a relatively-large problem. The eggs eluded me. I went by mototaxi to the nearest-by market and found nothing. Resolute in the sanctified image of my idyllic Kalemie Christmas Dinner, I was ready to pay whatever price to find those precious eggs.

David and I toured the entire Kalemie market fair; five different locations that spanned almost the whole of the city's breadth (Which is quite small). It seemed that all of the hens had taken the day off, just like everyone else. Nevertheless, it was great to see some parts of town that I hadn't been to before and meet various interesting people; so while I was displeased by my egg-situation, I was still happy as we puttered over the river-bridge to our last stop-- my last hope for French toast.

Three, nearly unblemished, rose-coloured eggs reclined atop a hill of white rice. I looked at them serenely and the smell of rotten fluids and raw meats and newborn insects gave way to pure contentedness. David plucked each one and held it to his ear. After he didn't find a heartbeat, I payed my due and we went on our merry way. Thus ended my Christmas Egg Hunt.

I made excellent French toast that, refreshingly, didn't make me sick. I dipped it in sugar and watched Forrest Gump while the sun went down and the house grew dark. "Mama used to say that death is a part of life. But, I wish it wasn't." Forrest said.

Here are some photos I've taken, recently. The first ones are from a little while ago, taken at sunrise at the stadium field and lake shore. The ones of me wearing a Muslim man-dress are from today. I breezed through a mention of karate, earlier. To shed a bit more light: Sensei Sable and I meet every morning and he works me out real hard and teaches me punches, blocks, and kicks, and their names in Chinese. Yesterday he gave me a pair of poofy pants like he wears with his kimono. We practice on the landing of the stadium stairs, pictured below.

Not mentioned are the new friends that I made and spent time with, the French tutor that I hired and fired, and other miscellaneous happenings that composed my last couple weeks. Those will have to be left for another time or just lost in sweet, vague reminiscence, because I don't see how they will fit in here-- or how I could possibly hold your attention any longer.

(stadium)

subtle Nazi motif

Well, the mysterious orb is still unclassified. Which means there is still a matter of possible extraterrestrial knowledge and/or fame and fortune at hand. I'll let you know if it starts to glow or grant me wishes. Happy New Year, loved ones!

"I was wack!"

The Gerasene Girl

2008-12-18T16:54:00.006+02:00

The murky, wine-colored rags swayed below her knees, and she danced out barefoot from a muddy side street. Converging on me aggressively, her palm was thrust out and she begged for money and groped her empty stomach. "I'm sorry, I can't give money to everyone who asks. Many people ask me for money, everyday. I'm sorry."

She leaned into me and took my hand and repeated her plea. Her rough fingers manipulated mine and crushed them and caressed them all at once. She pulled my hand into her chest; and when I resisted, she seized me with a desperate strength. The look in her eyes was strange and fiercely adamant. "Are you going to walk with me until I give the money?" I chuckled. Her breath was smoky and fermented, and it surrounded me.

We rushed on through the busy street, and though I had picked the direction, she seemed to be steering our feet. Faces laughed at the odd couple holding hands, maneuvering puddles and jumping sewers. Arriving at the storefront where I had business, I stopped and she clung to me violently. I laughed.

"OK! I will give you the money!", and I took a 500 frank note out from my bag.

Her arms opened in the air, and she looked at me with adoration and embraced me. I put my arms around her and felt her face move from my shoulder and smudge into my neck. I would let her kiss my cheek; but her lips came quickly to my mouth and I laughed and struggled. I tried to disengage politely, but her arms were wrapped around the back of my neck. She pressed her lips frantically into my teeth and around my mouth as I smiled and pulled away. My hands worked the knot of her arms loose and I stepped back. She caught hold of my left arm and kissed every bit of it that she could before I pulled it away.

"OK." I said a bit sternly. "Goodbye!"

Old men passing the afternoon in chairs under the shop's awning grinned at me and laughed to one another. They had watched it all and told me that the girl was deranged. "She is deranged?" I asked, reviving my senses. The old Arabian men nodded again, and I went in to buy a can of powdered milk.

Honey In My Tea

2008-12-17T11:55:00.010+02:00

I was dropped off in a deserted Eden; the Tanganyika School stood like a grazing goat in the golden haze, and I walked up to it silently. Classroom windows passed, one by one, and all of the desks sat unattended in the daylit rooms. I was breathing in the grainy film that washed the late morning and reveled in my singularity, my insignificance in the belly of this deep Cauldron World. Mystery was in the air.

Unsurprised by the miss-communication, I smiled and loitered about a ragged and rich-green field. A few little girls skipped (The way that girls whisper and giggle to one another creates the illusion of skipping) out from behind the building and I asked them where everyone was. No school, today. A huge smile emerged from the weeds at the far-end of the yard. "Hello, sir!"

Paul was a university student and teacher. We spoke hurriedly and excitedly, walking back into the tobacco tunnel and the stirring village. I love it when a person asks me for something other than money, here. He wanted help with his English and already had a curriculum going at university. We did the contact-swap and split into different directions along the main road.

I decided that, during this upcoming break for Noel, I must conduct a photo tour of the Kalemie town and village sights. Smuggling a camera past the Magistrate would be well-worth the documentation of this anaconda-vine, whistling palm, gutter-rivers scene. Paint the scene:

Sunday. 8:30 at his contraband stand. Willy and I went to church. The "tabernacle", it seems, of William Marrion Branham the Kentucky Spirit Of The Lord Incarnate. So, I cursed my way through four hours of weeping and whooping in the Branhamist cult. One large character who looked like a World Leader boomed and stammered theatrically from his Branham sermon texts. His eyes stayed forcefully shut the whole time, except for when his head reared back and you could see the whites through accidental slits. He yelled in Swahili and his companion yelled in French and then they switched places, and a holy-drunkard from the back affirmed "Très bien! Très bien!". Three kids thumped on steel barrels wrapped in animal skin, and Xena the Warrior Princess, sitting in the woman-section of the encampment, kept up a skilled yodel for most of the time.

The message trampled my attention span within the first few minutes and, from then on, every sound was a unique pitch reaching my heartbeat through my ears. Whining and groaning, and faces squealed irritatingly as they contorted. Branham's head hung next to Jesus' at the centershrine, just behind the pulpit. Childish wonder was on every face, involuntary smiles breaking out as they heard The Word.

A baby was dedicated (and not sacrificed, to my relief) towards the end, and an engagement was announced. The couple came to the front and were nudged shyly together by the Big Stammering Papa. Everyone was laughing joyously and one woman went so far as to dance, twisting in between the two, and scattered her blessing around with a handkerchief. The boy and the girl were the only ones not smiling; each seemed to be either on the brink of a smile or tears. The young man was more convincingly pleased, and I remembered him from a soccer game one morning at the Stadium. The girl was really pretty.

When I emerged into the sun, I felt like I was exiting a koo-koo dream. But its little fingers held on to me for a while, and I felt odd.

What The Town Does To You:

It collapses on you, while you walk; grows around you as you fall through it. Each dirty wrapper and torn grease cloth lands in oily mud, like a dove descending from the Divine Hand. If you stand still in the town, you have to keep your head down to stay upright. Everything moving on a different axis. You're surprised when a mat of silver minnows, drying in the sun, ends up to be odorless. At other times, you smell the fish like its dying breath was gasped inside of your own nostrils; but where is the fish? Walking the main drag is like using a bulldozer to undermine a labyrinth. You cut through disturbed intersections and happen upon the ancient rituals: the Oxmen, heaving giant barrows of beer bottles through the street, the Motomen revving their engines and smoking cigarettes, the legless and distorted who move in new, acrobatic motions, and the mango-pits that dot the ground, black fly clouds expanding and contracting around them.

----

The rain has been falling for at least three hours, and had me locked up in the house until a car stopped by to pick me up. Everyone outside is shin-deep in mud.

Thank you for encouraging me! Your comments and e-mails are so wonderful, and just the fact that you are reading means so much to me. I love you all!

2008-12-09T15:17:00.001+02:00

"Ah, this is a hard time-- this is a difficulty", and I tried to make sense of it and remember that energy I had possessed just an hour ago. Walking fast out through the Kifungo gates, bobbing up and down in a fluid stride, deafening the voices and faces of tiny students clad in blazing white tee-shirts. I didn't look at their faces and mumbled back at their Jambo's and Good Morning's, just wading through them all like a flock of domesticated doves, unfazed by my stomping feet in the dirt. So, the first class had been a disappointment. In fact, I was utterly discouraged and dejected to the point of implosion.

That morning, I had walked through a gray drizzle, leather agenda shoved officially under one arm, to inquire once more about the missing Madame Agnes. The English teacher was still sick, they told me. So I asked if I might start without her, and it was quickly agreed upon. Although there was a 6th level class scheduled in an hour, I said that there wasn't enough time for me to prepare and that I would come back tomorrow for the 5th level.
On my way back to the office, I tantilized myself with the possibility of simply jumping headlong into the experience and running back for that class in an hour.

Teetering in the office, there were 5 minutes before the class would start. I scooped my computer and little book into my backpack and set out, nervously, for the school once again. The principal escorted me to the correct alcove in the concrete compound and left me standing in front of twenty grinning faces-- faces that, for the most part, were older than mine. "D-o y-o-u r-e-m-e-m-b-e-r m-e?" I ask, like they were all retarded. A resounding "YES!" boomed back at me. Well, I'd committed myself for sure. This claustrophobic cell would be my prison for the next hour. An hour of people expecting me to have all the answers, and an hour of doubt when everyone found out how old I was, and how poor my French was. And, of course, the chalk broke on the black-washed, bumpy wall when I tried to write my name.

Well, the meat of the lesson was to be an excerpt from The Beatles' "While My Guitar Gently Weeps". I had taken my laptop along to play the song for them, which turned out to be insufficiently loud in the din of high-school chatter, and the song well-beyond the students' comprehension level. I had overestimated their competency, by far. I hadn't translated the lyrics into French, or even come ready with any of the new vocabulary written in French. I had meant to enter into a semi-meaningful discussion, based largely on class participation and original thought, etc.. The class was, instead, focused on how exactly a guitar might weep and what the word "surely" meant, and whether or not I would marry a black woman. It ended with my conceding to a request for Bob Marley. "Get Up, Stand Up" moused out of my tiny laptop speakers while a real teacher sauntered in routinely and expertly began scrawling on the blackboard. I'm not sure if he noticed me. I said "G-o-o-d-b-y-e !" and was sent off with that same, unshaken enthusiasm. Despite their perpetual cheeriness, I was in a sweaty, confounded pit of despair and shut the computer's lid bitterly. Drudging into the schoolyard, I felt like Ms. Shirley in Anne Of Green Gables on her first time teaching at that wicked all-girls school. How could I have presumed to be at all qualified to teach? I wanted to cry.

My throat hurt and I was tired from going to bed real late and waking up at 5:30 to play soccer at the stadium. I staggered home to my bed in a self-disgusted stupor, nodded off miserably into a twenty-minute nap, and dreamed about how long these next three months would be. I wanted to get out of this place, get out of this skin. The switch from Western to Congolese cuisine, effective that afternoon, wasn't the comfort that I was looking for. Green heaps of lenga-lenga heaped up on my plate and the fufu tasted exactly like Africa. Burning my mouth on chunks of fufu sopped in hot, bright beef juices, I bore down on my plate in disgust. It wasn't the taste. It was this culture, this commitment-- the bizarre, ragged bear trap that clenched my feet in its rusty teeth, and held me in a place where I didn't belong.

When I was received at Tanganyika School an hour later by Mr. John under the white sun, I looked down at my red forearms and grimaced. He reproached me for forgetting the song-lyrics he had personally requested, and I reproached him for telling me to come a half-hour early. His giddiness and closeness kept on, though, and I wasn't amused.

I was counting on a smile to hide my weariness from these kids, and it reappeared instinctively as I stood in front of the fifty of them, all attentive and stuffed together.

Everyone was loving me, all at once. Every face sincerely in awe of who and what I could possibly be. Thank God they were clueless as to what I had been thinking about them all day, how much I had loathed them and myself-- flipped horribly inward, my soul like a black pinhole. And they never stopped smiling and neither did I, and everything went smoothly. Oddities that were bound to happen with me were simply laughed off and they loved me all the more for my silliness. I had, in that short break in my schedule, gathered a little more material, based on what I had learned during my first experience. I had all of the french translations that they asked for, and my hand became gradually less clumsy with its chalk on the blackboard. I called on students when they raised their hands, they stood up to attempt reading example sentences that I'd written, and they completed and turned in the assignment that I gave them.

One student had a camera and wanted to snap a shot of Mr. John and me in front of the blackboard. Then, lining up one after the other, students began paying the guy money to get their pictures taken with me. All with whimpering solemn lips, stepping up next to the Mzungu Teacher. Flash after flash of reasons to stay-- reasons to enter, once again, into this mad Congolese Carnival that cracks me like a whip at strangers and into wild adventures.

My throat was the only part of me that still hurt as I stowed away from the happy school, accompanied by John, discussing witchcraft and cannibalism. Whatever was meant to be accomplished wasn't done yet. That was clear, and I knew that there was much more, ahead.

2008-12-08T09:17:00.001+02:00

Essence

2008-12-05T12:22:00.003+02:00

Inside a quiet holding cell. The mind is a deep burrow away from chaos, traveling far to cancel the outer- noise. As I walk, various peculiar things slide by, like drops of water rolling off of a zooming windshield. Conscience of the assaulting colours and many patterns, we may catch only their trails-- the remnant of our surroundings.

Oddities of life and business have corralled me inside of myself for as long as I can remember. Emerging from the gray-matter/mire can conjure a rude awakening, and I often completely avoid it. But the contact with World is needed. Outside, in the world, we gather our precious bits and swim back into our burrows.

Examination. Excruciatingly-thourough examination. Then, maybe we learn something.

Kostas and I are chatting now, and he asked me, "Do you feel that it [my experience, here] is meaningful?". Recently, I watched the twisted film Perfume. Subsequently, I learned a bit about the perfume-making process. Kind of like a deep episode of "How It's Made" on the Discovery Channel.

The essential scent of an organism is captured through a tedious, bizarrely-massive mechanism of stirring and boiling in cauldrons and sweating ardor (at least, it was in 18th century France). Animal fat is used to capture the scents of fruits, herbs, etc. and is then pressured until the desired essential oil drips from a tap.

Thousands of roses are gathered in order to obtain just

one

drop

of their "essence". In fact, around 60,000 roses produce only one ounce of oil.

I do feel cocooned now, even when so many strange things are happening around me. Even when I, myself, am doing these things-- having these new experiences.

A speck gleams and I grab it, and I'll stare at it for days, months, years. Until I know it and, then. Then, it is mine. It doesn't return to where it came from, because I don't discard it. I didn't use it; I slowly possessed it. The world quickly filled in the microscopic blank like liquid, after I snatched the thing so long ago. It doesn't exist Out There, anymore.

To answer Kostas's question, and to answer the same question that others have asked and will continue to ask me:

Yes!

Noel

2008-12-03T11:28:00.006+02:00

Nothing in its entirety-- throughout all of its extremities-- is ever true. At the end of the world, at the end of the day, no one was completely right. Neither were their philosophies or their perceptions of the "original truth" left-over from yesterday/the beginning of time. Flashing minnows nibbling at bits of golden droppings from the firmament. Back and forth between scraps of light, hoping that one day-- at the end of our existence, in the soft, apocalypse-black of closing eyes-- the lights we've gathered will shine bright like a planet puking its molten lungs out. Maybe that's why the theory of a bloody, explosive End Time is so intriguing. We want our lives to culminate, to solidify into something tangible-- if only for one, chaotic instant. Everybody wants to stop and realize something at the same time.

I think I'll go to Uganda for Christmas, fly into Kampala and hang around the business-center streets for a couple of days. I've been informed of a Dominoes pizza, there. Then, I could drive up to Jinja and explore the source of the Nile and go rafting. Or I could travel South to Kabale and hike in Africa's highest mountain range, and stay in a chilly cottage for New Year's.

I don't want to hear anything about the intrinsic falsities of that first statement. This is a blog. Anything with a name like "Blog" is predestined to be foolish. I sound so bitter. I'm a little boy and I'm bitter. Such a pity-- youth and vigor being squandered in nervousness and serpentine patterns in thought. I have a dream to be completely impulsive and magnificently strong, to live as the decision made after wisdom is sought. To be that final effort, energy, the last burst of resolve that makes ideas real.

Keith left today, for good. The second stretch of Congo might get a little lonely. I will be very busy I think, by the time I leave in Feb. All of yesterday, I spent with the teachers and students at Tanganyika School and set appointments to begin teaching there, next week. As soon as Madame Agnes is back in school (she's been suffering through malaria), I will begin teaching at the Kifungo Institute, as well. Jeane told me today that I "will be very busy soon" at the office; with what, he didn't say. I've also begun doing some writing for the FH Congo blog. Hey, the generator's running! Now, I can actually post this.

----------------
Now playing: Ry Cooder - La Bayamesa

Welcome To December!

2008-12-01T12:31:00.002+02:00

I was in December before all of you, so I feel like I have the right to welcome you into it. I'm collecting Christmas songs with their guitar chords off of the internet, right now. Here's a depressing short poem about being alone on Christmas. "No man is an island." I don't know who first said/sung that phrase, but I remember it from the movie About A Boy, which I love.

The mud didn't crunch like snow under-foot,
Flies didn't melt like ice on my tongue,
They just whirred around, mating,
Like the universe was done.

On Christmas in Kalemie, the coal train still runs.
Mamas at the tracks still nursing their young;
Goats naying jolly cries under the night,
Bodies in darkness are tucked out of sight.

The moon shines a preying glare
On the grand multitude of naysayers,
Who creep round the Earth, under cold street-lamp lights
And sleep alone, in the Holy Night.

Hey, I need some comments, readers! Are you out there? I'm like Santa Clause's sled, which can only run if there's sufficient Christmas spirit (if you've seen Elf), or like a battery-operated boombox-- that's out of batteries. You are my spirit and my batteries. There have been like five posts without a single word from you guys. Only echoes of my own absurdities coming back to me from the Digital Void. Disagree with me! Critique me! Encourage/discourage me! Say hello! Maybe the blog has been too unpredictable and too infrequent. Maybe there have been too many casualties along the way, and now it's just me and this keyboard.

That lonely poem followed by the cry for contact was merely coincedence. I'm not suffering, here, beyond anything usual. Just wanting to know that I'm communicating with people, I guess. Also, if you're reading this blog and have gone, thus far, unannounced-- don't be bashful. Let me know you've stopped by. I would love to know who all is reading.

I finally made tortillas last night, and they were pretty good. We watched The Count Of Monte Cristo and I admitted to Keith that I don't know how to eat Skittles in moderation.

Liam called me, out of the blue, this morning! Thanks for making my day special, man!

Thanks for reading!

If you have questions, e-mail me at nathandbrien@gmail.com.

2008-11-30T12:34:00.008+02:00

I want to paint the wriggling shards of light coming through this thatch encampment. My favorite ones-- there on the right, with the acute bulemiea, off to the left entrance, sawed off at the torso, and a few of the tiny diamonds-- all positioned like stained glass, interlocked or precariously dismembered, dancing the tango and the night-away.

And the rain sinks in, like it always does if you listen to it long enough. Thank you, Mr. Hire, for the books you sent with me. All of them have changed me in unique ways. I still have Catch 22 and the second half of On The Road to go. I found an ornate book of Edgar Allen Poe's collection of short stories and poems in a box at our house.

This beer tastes like Kung Pao.

Pictured here, is a small collage of the light forms I spoke of before, scattering beams, and our house-cat falling amongst them. We hate that cat.

Hundreds of black centipedes writhe in the rain, unfurling their shiny armor and maybe dying-- I don't know what they're doing. Sometimes, there are thousands of them on the beach.

Man, I love to dance. I'm chair-dancing now to the Killer's new album. Sometimes, we seem absurdly enslaved in our bodies. Dancing is defiance- uncouth expression of disregard for the laws of muscle and tissue and opinion.

Keith and I commenced to walk home in the drizzle. A girl punched me in the arm as she passed us on the road. Keith waved down a van, and we road it to the center of town and, from there, took a couple motos to "Dr. Franks", a place where we like to eat.

(Writtent Yesterday)

Now playing: The Killers - I Can't Stay

Thanksgiving

2008-11-28T10:05:00.003+02:00

Keith, Jeane, and I shared a Thanksgiving feast-extraordinaire. Complete with french toast, tortillas, fried bananas, mashed bananas, and syrup and jelly on everything. A very pukeable meal, I'm sure you'll agree. Immense sweetness-- I was full, fast.

While we ate, we all shared what we're thankful for. Here are some of the things I'm thankful for: The most loving family that I know of in existence. We've had rough patches, but the sweet relationships I share with my Dad, Mom, and Emily promise a truly beautiful future that I am eager to discover. A God who gives me the energy to live meaningfully, and who seems to have a grand design for my life. I'm thankful that Keith is here with me in Kalemie-- that I can have a friend who's a great listener and gives sound advice. I'm thankful for all my friends and family who are constantly supporting me and my Congo adventure.

Before I went to bed, my whole family called from their Thanksgiving get-together and we got to talk for a while. That was wonderful-- thank you, guys! I love you!

2008-11-28T09:27:00.003+02:00

Written yesterday:

My tongue tasted like I had a cold bullet in my mouth and I was starting to feel dizzy, so I left work early yesterday. I woke up on my bed five hours later; it was dark, and I had been having a dream about an old friend. The door whined an alarm, as I slapped out into the cement corridor wearing my shorts. Some guys were sitting around on the sofa and chairs, watching TV. I laughed. It was 9 o'clock. "Well," I thought "I'll go find out about Sarah." She was the girl in my dream. So, I grabbed my backpack and picked my way across the muddy train tracks to the office, by cell-phone-light, to use the internet.

I skyped with my family, I did push-up's on the tables, I wore my wife-beater, wrapped around my head, I danced barefoot to my shuffling music library, I looked at pictures of food. Everything but connect with this girl. It was a hoot.

While the black sky was getting blue, I bid the guard adieu at four in the morning. Back to bed, I slept another two hours and was wide-awake.

Practically skipping, I entered the front room and ate a bowl of mangoes and papaya. I'd been so frantically busy doing who-knows-what (I mean really, I was busy doing nothing) the last few days, and I had the momentum in me. Lunging one way and ready to dive into a million scattered directions, my feet making brush strokes on the ground all-along. If I had a goal, I chased it and looked like I was chasing it. If I found some new route, I would march toward it like it was my destiny.

There wasn't any power at the office, so I trotted out along the main road into the market to find some items for a little Thanksgiving Bash Keith and I were planning. I walked so quickly and with such determination that I forgot all about buying doughnuts and brandy, and reveled in the possibility of my destination. I walked far out past the shops and the cops and the bridge, and the lancing cobalt steeple of the Catholic church, and the road ascended a hill before the docks. Standing at the crest, the fellow who'd joined me said to turn back at the yellow guards and roadblock-- so I did. And veered off toward the Tanganyika beach.

A stony path dropped into the fishing village below, and I buzzed down it like I was being chased, overtaking everyone on my path. That's the way it was all day-- overtaking everyone, going faster than everyone and talking to everyone. I slowed my pace a bit when I landed in the criss-cross dirt, sticks, pink-flowered shade, naked kids, sneezing goats, and excrement that was the village. I didn't want to seem too over-eager or pretentious walking through these peoples' yards and waving at their kids, so I eased up and soaked in some friendly faces on my way, smiling all the while.

And then I was on the beach; hot sand scooped into my sandals and the lake breeze cooled the sweat on my face. The frenzy of activity! Canoes shoving out, some out on the horizon already, some returning with bloated nets; and some were beached, like wooden whales, on the sand. Hundreds of people dotted the shore: women gathering tiny, silver fish in heaps onto platters and canvas; men tugging moorlines and heaving their boats out from the water, or bent over mumbling in the white sun. I threaded between them all, stopping and chatting with many and greeting what seemed like the majority of the crowd! Ha! These people are wonderful; I must have spoken with a hundred different people, today!

On my way across the sand, I met a student name Frank. He showed me the way out of that madness and towards the main road, and we talked about his predicament. He lives with his grandfather who's too old to work, and couldn't find a job because there's no work for young people in this place and really barely any for the older men, either. He can't pay the two or three month tuition for school. So I said "Where's the school? I'll pay for you."

We crossed that main road and sped off into another unknown, this one more-heavily forested. The things that grow here! Everything has spectacular flowers on it-- the most foreign plant forms sprout in hordes like weeds! Soon, we were walking through more villages and past more silly, absolutely wonderful kids and staring old men and chattering women and students in their uniform white-and-blue. And it was really hot. The leaves grew thicker and crept closer on either side of us and huddled over us, like a secret Eden passage. And then, Zam! We're walking the precipice of a steep, green valley and the dirt path led on...

The school looked really nice. The building was painted white like the kids' shirts. I met the principal and we followed him into his office where the payment took place. We wound up talking about my plans at the Kifungo Institute near the FH office, and they said that I "must teach here, too!" Once a week. And, thrilled, I agreed.

And back before lunch. Which I'm about to eat now -- potatoes and fish, so if you'll excuse me.

2008-11-26T14:19:00.002+02:00

I have malaria; but I'm feeling perfectly fine, now, after treatment at the UN military hospital. This is a little excerpt from a message I wrote to my friend last night:

I thought, this afternoon sitting outside the mobile clinic after a rainstorm, that I might be realizing something very important. That I can be happy, because I have a great ability to make happiness-- out of nothing! That indeed, for a very long time, I have cursed the fact that happiness--joy--might come too easily. I began jabbering away to myself, aloud, not really caring if anyone heard. I said what ever came to mind: I swore profusely! I laughed! I pretended to be other people, trying out different accents. I thought, "Sparking laughter and conversation or meaningful contemplation is positively natural, and should be practiced uninhibitedly with others!" I can clench this present time in my teeth and wag my head like a wild, mad beast. I will have controlled time. And for a while today, I did that. And I think that I can do it, again.

What roaring fires we can build! Gathered together as kindling, breaking our laughter and words into smoldering bits over our home-made furnace! Create. Create. Create.

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'"
-Jack Kerouac, On The Road

I have lots of ideas for my involvement with the English students here, but as nothing has really happened yet, I will save that topic for later.

Back To School

2008-11-21T15:41:00.004+02:00

~Written yesterday~

This morning, I sat in on Madame Agnes's English classes at the "Kifungo Institute" secondary school. The compound of concrete classroom facilities reminded me of an empty aquarium exhibit. Open air where the glass used to be... And people instead of fish -- although once I thought that I felt a jellyfish tickle the top of my ear with a fizzling confetti-leg. I tensed up and pursed my lips -- It was probably just a fly.In a beige deck chair squeezed into the back corner of the room by the doorway, I sat surrounded by sixty students in her first class. This room, maybe the size of a big shipping container, was packed -- everyone sitting, shoulder to shoulder, on tiny stools that would probably be better used for milking cows. It was, for the post part, a typical high school classroom scene that took place. A lot of giggling, a few know-it-alls, some note-passing, and a stern reprimand every now and then. I kept quiet in the back and jotted down some ideas for possible activities and lesson plans. The first class, which lasted for about an hour and a half I think, was one of Madame's more advanced. At the end, I was given the chance to introduce myself and to answer any questions that the students had. Everyone is excited to have a native speaker here to teach English -- a very rare opportunity in Kalemie.

All of this, so far, has been written during the break in Madame's schedule. She is sitting next to me, correcting last period's work in the students' copy books. We've had time to talk a little today, about ourselves and about the possibilities of my work here. I think that I will probably go to her lessons (based on the scheduling of different-level classes) two or three times per week. I'd also like to provide some occasions, perhaps twice a week, when students can meet and converse privately with me. There are so many unknowns, though, so all of this is very tentative.

Now, I will wait for the whistle to blow here in the "Teacher's Lounge" with Madame Agnes and her stack of copy books covered with newspaper.

2008-11-19T12:19:00.002+02:00

I just returned from a meeting with some teachers at the nearby secondary school (high school). Tomorrow morning, at 7:20, I'll begin helping the English teacher there with her classes. Just a little update. I'll let you know how it goes.

What's A Dad Like You Doing In A Place Like This?

2008-11-14T14:38:00.004+02:00

Defiantly, I have smirked at the citing of a greater power, I have cursed God's name as it echoes off the walls of my room, I have stolidly folded my arms in braced-protest, and shaking, I have uttered foolish words of "prayer" when trapped by the Circle Of The Brethren. And I have a fear of the Church Of Christ, because when its shadow falls over my face, I am hidden and caught in a swill of hypnotic warmth, and I am in the once-familiar building. And in my mind, I have said "I don't know what will become of me; I just hope I don't end up a Christian". Yet, here I am, bare in the open Hand of the Gospel that stretches to these forgotten places on Earth, intrinsically fashioned to fit the part. I am a rogue palm line, wriggled free and wandering a maze of fleshy valleys. Shirking the stigma of Christ, I groan towards the Voice I heard. And I will find Christ after-all, it seems -- not on my terms, nor on the terms of others, but on a route truly designed and always foreseen.

My solidarity was broken this week when my Dad and I met in Bukavu. He had been away on business in Nairobi, and also had a few matters to address with FH Congo. So, seemingly by magic, we were reunited at the Kamembe Airport in Rwanda. I saw my Dad standing under the Arrivals archway, and he was all the sudden in Africa with me, in my life. The foreigner I'd become to myself, the runaway thoughts, the French-- he walked suddenly into all of it, like a picture of home pasted conspicuously onto my view. I won't attempt to re-cap the three short days we shared. I want to say though, that my Dad has a certain ability, whether conscious or not, of opening my ears to a quiet truth that never stops its sound in my life, but is often smothered under sediments of other noises.

Catching my breath, after screaming my raging lungs out at religion, at the nonsense I swallowed, at the imprisoned proles of the Corporate Church and the drunken tide dragging the world away from passion, I hear the still small voice. And my red face, hot from hatred, pales and is sedated; my eyes redden and my own voice is much softer than before. And my speech is slow, because I don't know what I want to say-- but somehow I know what to do.

There are many things coming up for me here in Kalemie. And many new things have began. My time away from this public communication has not been accidental or thoughtless; it has been a form of avoidance and of guilty silence (I find that a lot of things in my life are inspired by guilt). I am not saying this because I feel that I owe anyone a formal apology (I'm sure that everyone's gotten a long just fine without new posts on "DRC News"), but because it feels good to admit my stubbornness and even falseness. I think that there will be things to write about in the upcoming months and that I will want to write about them. So, to those of you who actually checked this site again (and to those who get an automatic update), thanks for reading and I'm looking forward to telling you more.

Seed Fair

2008-10-22T09:18:00.000+02:00

The Sand At Tanganyika

2008-10-20T09:57:00.000+02:00

I waded out into the sideways current, watching my feet move slowly over the sand below. Pebbles and a few bigger rocks populated the small valley that I descended, and they were rough and pricked into my feet. Small, choppy waves moved up past my waist. I came quickly up onto a high landing, a sandbar, and stood still for a moment. Then I sat down and found a spot to stare at out on the horizon, a fishing canoe. The lake lapped up close to my shoulders and every new patch of skin it chilled tilted the line of the lake against the sky just a bit. My legs tucked up underneath me a little out to the side and I relaxed, drifting out to sea.

When I'm driving in a car, watching all the people go by and catching their stares for a second, I forget that I barely speak their language. The little bit of French I know comes more naturally to me now, and sometimes I can react in French rather than translate a reaction into French.

I've thought a lot about things I want to do, while I've been in Congo. Writing, fishing, coal-mining, playing music, wood-working, and traveling all seem interesting to me. None of these I'd want to do forever, and some for less time than others (coal-mining). Kalemie is really nice and simple. As long as work isn't a drag, I think I will really like it here.

Taking pictures in the Congo seems to be generally difficult. I've been dissuaded from showing my camera in public more than once. Apparently, people have been arrested for taking pictures of the sunset, and stuff. So, I don't know. This blog needs some more pictures though, huh? Getting pictures when I'm out at our field sites should be simpler, I think.

I was talking with Jean this morning about myself. He asked. I told him what I aspired to do with my life in the future, which was rather ambiguous, and we talked about some options for my work, here. The two things we discussed were data-entry and communications stuff (writing newsletters, updating our country blog, etc.). Guess which one I'm going to prefer.

(Written 10/19/08)

*Monday, 10AM. I'm going to a seed fair tomorrow and will bring my camera along.

Kalemie

2008-10-17T13:14:00.000+02:00

400 miles south of Bukavu, I jumped out of a little propeller plane at Kalemie airport. Vincent and I stretched our legs in the sun that shone bright in the evening over the endless Lake Tanganyika. All that pushing and shoving, frustration and dejection, hoping and doing, and there I was, rubbing my tired eyes on the threshold of my new home. Sometimes you get to be somewhere, and you can't remember how you got there or what made you so sure about leaving.

Keith and I are sharing a room and silence, except for the sound of “Hear Me Out” by Frou Frou. It's pleasantly bare, the concrete floor letting chair legs and the soles of shoes prop, visibly cockeyed, from equilibrium, whereas a fluffy carpet might disguise the shadow beneath a deck shoe or the small, dark space between a chair leg and the floor. I like to look over at the stack of books on my new desk, balanced precariously against the creme-washed wall.

We live with a South African family, here. Dudley and his wife, Grace, their daughter Dawn and son David. Also Jean, the provincial director, lives here. The power had just returned after a week of darkness when I arrived, this evening. With it came a weak but encouraging trickle of water. We dined on luxuriously soft bread rolls and a Lazy-Susan-full of Nutella, strawberry, raspberry, and plum jam, and tuna. I became acquainted with two dogs, a cat, and a parrot.

I am writing this on the night of my arrival in Kalemie, but since we don't have internet access at the house, I won't be posting this until tomorrow morning at the office.

................................................

It's Friday morning and I'm at the office. Just finished with the morning commune, and I have been welcomed warmly by just about everyone here. Right now there isn't a wireless connection here, either.

I was telling Keith on our way to the office that I really liked the environment here. Things seem simpler and less obtrusive in Kalemie than they did in Bukavu. The dirt is less red from all the sand that's mixed with it, and the lake isn't broken up by peninsulas and stopped short before the horizon like it was in Bukavu. It pushes far out like an ocean, and when I look across I think of it as saltwater. We don't weave ten minutes through traffic mayhem in a brutal-white Land Cruiser to go to the office. We just walk five minutes through the sand and a small grove of trees and across a solitary pair of train tracks.

When I woke this morning, a cup was drifting noiselessly on top the water in a bucket in the shower-room. I liked washing with a cup. When rinsing shampoo out of your hair with a cup, you don't need to close your eyes. The steely shower-head's relentless spray would scatter foam into your eyes and all over. But the cup is much more precise and gentle.

I Watch "Lost" A Lot

2008-10-15T16:19:00.000+02:00

Bonjour à le monde! It's been slow-going here in Bukavu. Actually kind of tortuous, with transportation and accomodations for Kalemie playing hide-and-go-seek with me. It's been a little depressing, up until recently. On Monday, after several go-aheads and subsequent "actually, no" 's, I decided to bull-rush the gate to Kalemie and stay in a hotel until a room is open at the house, there. Of course, after this triumphant declaration, I found out that the plane leaving Tuesday... wouldn't be leaving Tuesday.

A small group of people who are travelling about FH sites, shooting a series of documentaries, was staying at the house with me, here in Bukavu. We were all planning on leaving together for Kalemie on Tuesday and were quite excited for the immenent atmosphere of fun and community and exploration and the reunion with Keith... and all that good stuff. But sadly, due to the transport-delay, the team had to pack up and head back to Kigali if they were to stay on schedule. While they were at the house, though, Lindsay, Sheryl, and Helmut (I'm not at all confident about those spellings. I based Sheryl's name off of Sheryl Crow.) were wonderful company! Really great people that I'm very pleased to have gotten to know a bit.

Thursday. A plane is supposed to be going to Kalemie on Thursday. That is my chance-- my getaway van, my Black Beauty (?). Most of my work there will be centered around communications (newsletter, blog, website, photography, etc.). I think I have mentioned this before, but I think it's worth reiterating: I really haven't had a lot to do in Bukavu. At the office, I spend maybe 25 percent of my time working and the rest learning French and listening to music and eating lunch and doing nothing. Needless to say, going into the office every morning has begun to feel a little pointless. And it's weird, sitting there doing nothing, while everyone else... isn't. So Kalemie, a field site with plenty of room for help which holds in store for me a job that I would actually enjoy doing and an up-close look at the impact FH is making, is looking like an oasis smack-in-the-middle of the Sahara, my friends. This is rather ironic, since Kalemie is generally looked at as less desirable among more civilized, populated, and acommodated locations. Kalemie has one thing for me that the others don't, though: something to do. I'm very anxious and excited to go. The trip has been postponed several times. Originally, I was leaving 3 weeks ago.

So I have been isolated for a while in this house. Only for the past two days have I been literally alone, here. But the natural estrangedness to a family of four mixed with a little apathy, self-pity, and guilt have set me apart from other people. It has been both good and bad. But I am ready to emerge from it. I haven't felt very motivated to write in this blog, either. It didn't seem as though there was anything to write about-- and if there was it was surely depressing. So I'm sorry if anyone felt neglected.

Earlier, when I talked about "Thusday" i might as well've said "Tomorrow". Because Tomorrow, I am leaving! I hope.

Another album I've been listening to: "Another Day On Earth" by Brian Eno.

Thanks for reading.

But I Was At The Stern, Asleep On A Pillow

2008-10-07T09:10:00.000+02:00

This is a great album. I've been listening to it a lot lately. "Songs For Beginners" by Graham Nash.
So I've kind of been struggling a bit, in-limbo. Just kind of feel like a slug, sitting at my desk in my room, watching movie after movie every night. I hate waiting for my life change-- that's what it feels like. At least, I am waiting for my circumstance to change, for my time to go to Kalemie. There may be a window of opportunity opening up here in about a week for me to go... although, I'm really just thinking aloud. Many things need to be confirmed for that to happen. Man, I love this album (mentioned above).

Don't think that I'm living in misery, shut off from light and human contact. I've been working more consistently at the office (haven't played freecell for a few weeks) and continuing to improve on my French. Also, I have a couple of special relationships with people here that are really a blessing to me.
I've been practicing an after-lunch-nap for the last week. On Friday, while I was asleep on the floor of someone's office, there was a little earthquake here. It kind of jostled me awake, but I promptly and fluidly resumed my snooze.
I walked home early that day, and was (sort of) pick-pocketed on my way. There was a middle-aged man walking close behind me for a while in a quieter section of town. He kicked my shoe once, probably to distract me, and I didn't really presume anything from it. Then I felt a tug on my backpack (the guy must have been a little out of practice) and turned around in time to see his hand retreating from behind me. So I just stood there, staring at him, for a little bit, and then walked away. Sure enough, he had been in the back pocket of my bag, but hadn't found anything worth pilfering. All I had in that pocket was the book One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and an unidentified piece of folded paper.
Later on that afternoon, Kostas and I went swimming in the lake. We were looking up at the flurry of rust-colored hawks above us and talking while we trod water. He asked if I had felt the earthquake earlier, and it was really weird because I thought that I'd drempt the earthquake and all that.
I hope things are good for you. I really miss my family. That includes Grandma and Grandpa and Stremlers. Love you!

2008-09-30T09:26:00.000+02:00

Underside of the tortoise, frozen in the nitrogen night, blinking white as it flips like a coin in the air. Spear through sky, spear through the break in the black that trails the turtle's spiral. Catching up with the slow gloom that dies in his eyes, touching his belly like a flame licking frost. Sea creatures exploding over the desert, watery fireworks splash over us in our sleep.

Hey, that was an attempt to beat blogger's block. So. It's been a little while...

Things have been slow here. I'm steadily learning more and more in Logistics, though, and have been able to do some actual work. For instance, yesterday I spent several hours painting numbers on some new motorcycles that will be sent to a site in Shabunda. Since it has been established that I will be going to work in Kalemie, my time here has naturally begun to feel temporary-- the prelude to my real Congo experience. With that perspective, it's been frustrating not knowing exactly when I will be departing. There are issues with housing availability there (Currently, there is no room for me). So, I am looking at possibly another month before I leave. Feeling in-transit is a little unnerving, along with the advisement that I spend this time learning. When told simply "to learn", I don't know how to react. How do I study French for a month? How much more can I know about the slew of forms used to send/receive/purchase goods? I want to have a job. To have work to do when I come into the office up until I leave. Living with this awkward uncertainty is a learning experience, in-and-of itself.

I can't let this frustration become depression and stop me from learning all that I need for Kalemie. Potentially, I am resolving some serious issues that I haven't had to deal with before.

Another struggle has been adjusting to my unrequested limelight as a white person in Congo. When walking down the street in Bukavu, I seriously feel like half the city is staring at me. I hear "Mzungu" and I hear "You don't belong here!" All-too aware of the harsh poverty that these people are suffering in, and having it literally staring at me wherever I go, I have felt condemned. My body is a display case, my heart beating selfishness, arrogance for all to see. It is true that the faces looking at me are simply curious, not judgmental. I condemn myself: What will you do about their suffering? How can you take seconds and thirds, while people starve just outside your door? Why should you be rich and they be poor? Questions that I don't dare answer. How can I face such a responsibility as caring for another person?

It seemed, before I left America, many people thought of my upcoming work as mission work. And me as a missionary. However, I have known all along that in my heart I don't have the capacity to give of myself. This is why I came, this is my "mission": to go to the edge of self-sufficiency and comfort and to see what the opposite looks like and how I will respond. Here, I will either throw up my hands and turn my back or I will step off that edge. Imagining that descent is sickening and tiring. I know that I will be faced with many questions that won't ever go away.

2008-09-24T22:27:00.000+02:00

Pictures galore! One from the daily FH staff devotional (I look particularly enthused) and one from my barely-belated birthday, celebrated on Friday's game night. The rest chronicle the ups and, more frequently, downs of Keith's and my attempt at braving Lake Kivu in a rickety ol' racing kayak.

Get ready to scroll!

What I'm up to recently (mostly during the evenings): Reading One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and Leopold's Ghost, listening to Elliott Smith's album "Figure 8", and playing the classic computer game "Oregon Trail". We've been watching quite a few movies here, too, ranging from Last of the Mohicans to Starsky and Hutch. The Kotopolous family is wonderful, and I've really enjoyed spending some time with the kids, Daniel and Johnathan.

**Thanks, Kostas for the photos!

***And thank you for reading! By the way, if you have any questions or you'd just like to talk, e-mail me at nathandbrien@gmail.com. I love hearing from you!

Tanks, Trucks, Tortilla Tales

2008-09-19T08:07:00.000+02:00

Wednesday:

Sitting at a table playing hearts and majhong for the better part of my time was getting a little monotonous. It's been a slow start at the office, with a lot of my responsibility allocated in simply studying French. Tackling a language by engaging with native speakers is a nerve-racking venture, at first. That was the pressure point I was teetering on, Wednesday, knowing that I could spend another day reading a mixture of Congolese history and FHI grant proposals and policies (speckled with countless retreats to the freecell/hearts/minesweeper/majhong window); or I could attempt an offensive on the language barrier. Luckily, I have friends who nudged me towards the second.

Issued with a logistician's blue-smock garb, I fell headlong into the world of warehouse-keeping. Anisette, a purely French and Swahili speaker, was my mentor. He gave me a couple of drone-jobs like counting cassava and labeling some records, both of which felt so good to be doing-- work, in whatever form, was welcome.

This day was not, however, to be defined by small, mindless tasks. At noonish, we set out in a big truck ( like a semi-semi) for a fueling station nearby. I met a few guys who apparently work with the truck and often contract with FH, and conversed quite a bit with them in the back of truck while we were fueling. One of them in particular, Abu, became a friend and was a huge help with my language "studies" during that day and the next.

Seven or eight metallic barrels crowded us into the corners of the truck's bed. The petrol gun snaked its way over our trailer walls and, braced by Anisette's hand, gurgled frothy "essence" into each hollow tank. I was so happy to be there, screwing caps on gas tanks and explaining to Abu that my birthday was tomorrow (J'ai dix-neuf ans. Demains est mon aniverser.). Faces stared up at me from every direction, grinning at the white boy in the blue smock in the back of a truck.

That day was ripe with new experiences and Thursday would burst with many more.

Thursday:

I spared no time this morning turning on my laptop and checking my e-mail. After the morning devotional, I went straight to Logistique and found Feston, who smiled and brought me to Anisette. My smock was waiting for me, its blue wrinkles and deep pockets beckoning me to another adventure... I was to escort the the cassava convoy to the airport, today! After counting out 60 bulging backs of manuk sticks and cashing them into the Big Truck, we rolled out from behind the FH sliding gate and into the frenzying streets of Bukavu. I don't know if I've mentioned anything about the "roads" here. In short, they remind one of a black diamond skii runs.

After about 2 hours of mogul-navigating (we were stopped by the police for 20-30 min), we arrived at Kavumu Airport. Side note: Law enforcement here is charistically corrupt, so most encounters with the police are incentivized by the possibility of bribe. Upon trying to pass through security to enter the airfields, we learned that there was a fee to pay for each additional person admitted... So I stayed on the outskirts of the facility. For 3 hrs I made conversation in a thatched cantina with various jolly Congolese and explored the airport's dusty promenade with Abu. For a while-- after the truck had reemerged, emptied of its first load-- we sat up in the stout cabin to escape the heat for a while.

Towards the end of my stay at Kavumu, I helped load the truck full of cassava that was stacked up on the ground, waiting to be fed through the gates. Heavy lifting. A sparse line of skinny men and boys turned like a conveyer belt, hoisting the clumsy sacs onto their heads and up into the hands of those in the truck. When I crept to the pile and loaded a sac over my shoulder, shuddering under its painful weight, I had obviously upset the previously-ordinary spectacle. Laughter broke out, and several kids ran instantly to me, soliciting their labor for payment. Declining adimantly, I drudged on to-and-from the truck, laughing with the people there over my awkward attempt to help. It just feels so good to work with people here. When I am a part of their system, performing identical motions, I am their toiling brother. Equal, escaping the pointing fingers and cries of "Mzungu!".

....

Thank you for the birthday e-mails!! Yesterday, Thursday, my birthday, was a wonderful day. I was sung to twice (once in English and once in French), I went on a great adventure, and Keith took Lewis and I out for dinner at L'Orchid, followed by Cuban cigars with Kostas. Tonight we are having birthday cake! THANK YOU, EVERYONE!

For dessert, we had ice cream rapped in crepes that they set on fire!

Here are some some pictures Kostas took of me at a monestary nearby:

I am learning how to make tortillas, this morning! Also, I should tell you that I have decided to go to Kalemie, 400 mi. South of Bukavu. I will be leaving at the end of the month and will be spending the rest of my time in the DRC there. Kalemie is located in the Katanga district/province and is a site for many of our new projects. While Bukavu is a big city, Kalemie is more like a small town/village and is in close proximity to FH field sites.

Thanks for reading!

2008-09-16T20:45:00.001+02:00

I wasn't able to get a hold of those photos, today. Tomorrow... I should have them up. Posts look better with pictures. So here's one of me blowing out a candle.

Also, I was wondering if anyone would be interested in receiving notices by e-mail whenever the blog is updated? If you'd like that, please let me know at this address: nathandbrien@gmail.com. There may only be 10 spots available. I think that should suffice in meeting the monstrous demand...

Alternatively, you could subscribe to my feed to receive the content, automatically. I'm not really certain how all of that works, but it's probably not too difficult to figure out.

If anyone from Target is reading, Hello! Hopefully you guys are continuing to clock me in every day, like I asked (part of my severance package).

Goodnight, friends and family and maybe someone I've never met before who eerily searched the phrase "and maybe someone I've never met before who eerily searched the phrase"! Love you!

Great, Unstoppable Things

2008-09-15T14:13:00.001+02:00

Hi everyone!

On Wednesday of last week, we visited a site near Mwenga (The name is too foreign to survive in my memory; and for that matter, I don't know how to spell "Mwenga"). The drive was about 3 hours, and toured us through some of the most beautiful landscape I've ever seen. Upon our arrival, we (There were six of us.) trickled between a cluster of small huts onto a narrow path, cutting through the residence and dispersing into the cassava fields. We went to witness the first cutting of the cassava, an essential part of Congolese diet that, after reaching sapling-like stature, can be cut down, chopped into small pieces, and planted again. FH has had a program there to kick start a system of cassava-farming as a sustainable source of livelihood. After a short distance and several venturing "Jambo's" and giggling "Jambo sana's" (Swahili greetings-- I'm not sure of the English translation), we stood in the midst of a unanimous, tongue-wharbling (kind of whoop or holler combined with the circling of one's tongue around the mouth) welcome. Children's big white eyes fixed on our white faces in wonder, and their mouths cracked into stupefied grins at the sight of the ivory tower that is Keith, who stands (or maybe sways) at 6'7". Behind them, fields of cassava cradled scores of black arms swinging machetes. I was given the chance to swing with them for an hour or so, wacking away at the cassava feet, and dismembering them into meter-sized sticks, as per the length of bamboo swingy clumsily from my measuring hand. Maybe a minute had gone bye before I was sweating through my shirt beneath the yellow sun.

After acceding my blade to far worthier fingers, I joined the others back at the start of the path where a bunch of kids were inching their way towards the "Mzungus!". Several bouts of "Look at my digital camera" and thumb-wars ensued. None of which I was avidly involved in, due to discomfort of the bowels or my "rite of passage in Congo". However, after surveying and nearly obliging to the available "facilities", I decided to hold it. Needless to say, the jostling ride home was a test of will-power. The addition of a broken down, fuming motorcycle pressed up against my knees was a bonus. It sounds bad, I know (due to some lavish word choice), but it was really a great adventure.

On our way back, it finally rained! The day before had teased us with a drop or two, but nothing like this. A low, black ceiling poured over us for most of our re-entry into Bukavu.

Thursday, we went to a village in Bohozie (spelling?) to visit a feeding center for malnourished children. I tried to be taken into silliness and laughter by the smiling baby-faces that surmounted bloated, starving stomachs. Most of the time, it's easy and fun to connect with kids, even if they speak a language you've never heard of before. Now, I was feeling sick with poverty. Every new spot my eyes would flee to held some evidence of it—this great hunger, suffering, darkness. I am crumpled into a corner, helpless against it.

I'm sorry I don't have many pictures of the things I've described. I've been holding out on writing this entry so that I might include more. Tomorrow, I'll post pictures of the cassava fields and all that. These pictures were taken at the feeding center.

Thank you for your comments on my entries, thus far. I truly appreciate anything you have to say (advice, questions, observations, whatever). And thank you for checking back on this blog and reading!

Sorry For the Hiatus

2008-09-09T16:01:00.001+02:00

Countless new things have bombarded my brain this past week. I haven't been brave enough thus far to sit down and hash any of them out, here. I wish I had more and better pictures to show you, but right now I only have a handful of scraps. At least you will be able to see a bit of the scenery I am experiencing.

Anyway. Some of the things I've done so far… I've been swimming several times in Lake Kivu. On Sunday, Kostas and Keith and I swam from the nearby hotel, "L'Orchid" to Kostas's house, where I am staying. Probably the longest swim I've ever made, at over 1 mile. I've also been introduced to the staff of Food for the Hungry Congo (FH) and have received all of my orientation at the office. These last two mornings, Keith and I have gone in and done some actual work. "What is that you are doing?" you might ask. Well… My involvement with FH will take the form of tasks in communications and in logistics. Most of my time, at least for a while, will be spent studying French. I realized immediately that the little bit of French I know will be sufficient for such phrases as "Hello." and "Nice bicycle." My understanding of the language has already improved, though, due to this sudden immersion. I'm very excited to become more proficient in conversing with the people here and, thus, deepening my relationships. The people here…

Wonderful people. There is a very warm community of ex-patriots that I have been introduced to. I, myself, am living with the FH Congo Director and his family. They, Kostas and Katie Kotopoulos, have two beautiful kids, one 4 (I think) and the other 1 year-old. The Congolese people have been very friendly and patient with my studdering French, and I have made many friends.

I devoted a very short paragraph earlier to things that I've done so far. Really, there has been much more, and you will hear more details about my new life in the months to come. Thank you for reading and thank you for your support. I love to think about you, my friends and family, and about home. Adjusting to this new environment is proving difficult, but with your love and affirmation I am able to cope and to open my eyes.

It is thundering, right now! The rainy season has been making excuses and neglecting Congo up until now. Repairs on some roads in Bukavu have launched perpetual dust storms to be braved in blind land cruisers or from behind blackened handkerchiefs. Everyone has been waiting for the rain. To turn the dust to mud. To fill our empty hours with that serene sound. Pitter-patter. I love that sound!

From The Bukavu Office

2008-09-03T18:11:00.001+02:00

I arrived here in Bukavu yesterday afternoon after taking a small prop plane to the Rwandan border and meeting up with an FHI worker there. Keith, a 24-year-old guy going to work in Kalemie, met me at the Kigali airport in Rwanda. Yesterday, we were introduced to the town and FHI staff and to our current residence. The deluge of new sights, languages, customs, etc. has been overwhelming. I was extremely tired after my virtually sleepless two-day journey (I did catch a two-hour snooze in Amsterdam) and had to fight delirium until 7:00 last night, when I crashed into a deep sleep. Keith and I left this morning for orientations at the office, and that is what we're waiting for, now...

I will have much to describe and many observations to divulge to you, but for now I am at a loss for words. I have to go, now.

LOVE

View From Gate F4 (AMS to Nairobi)

2008-09-03T18:11:00.000+02:00

That's my ride...

Chasing some tail.

Schiphol

2008-09-03T12:45:00.000+02:00

Hi everyone! I have safely arrived in Amsterdam and now have 7ish hours to kill. I'm gonna brush my teeth or something. Maybe sleep somewhere. Next stop: Nairobi!!

Love,

PS. If anyone wants to skype, I'm "ndbrien".

I'm Off!

2008-09-02T18:41:00.000+02:00

I just wanted to point out again that this trip wouldn't be possible without all of your support. The vision is being realized today when I leave for Congo, THANKS TO YOU!

I'll try to update you from Amsterdam...

So-long's Eve

2008-09-02T03:41:00.000+02:00

The watch on my wrist tells me that its a quarter to 8. Most of you read the last sentence arbitrarily, using it only to propel you towards the meat of this post. Let me tell you... the watch is a hearty subject, for both of my wrists have been naked for 5 years.

No longer! I don the chronotrinket thrust high in the air-- Excalibur pulled from youth's stone, granting the unsuspecting wielder sudden manhood... and rite to world-conquest. A Timex.

On a gloomier note, I said good bye to my close friend, Liam, tonight. Tomorrow afternoon will take me from home, from family. These last couple days have been choc-full of goodbyes and now, suspense. "All my bags are packed. I'm ready to go..."

Sad To Go

2008-08-29T23:15:00.000+02:00

A friend gave me the book The Poisonwood Bible, today. It's about a missionary family in the Belgian Congo. Someone else had actually recommended the book to me, but I had forgotten. Thanks, Mr. Hire!

My dad and I took care of some final shopping for the trip, and I also experimented with tea. My uncle, Jeff, can attest to my curiosity for the drink... Why do people like tea? Well, this morning I made quite a good cup (guided by a couple of sages of tea culture), and I will definitely be making more.

I had quite a time navigating the strange roads of not-Stonegate to meet the generous friend I mentioned up top for lunch, this afternoon. We (Mr. and Mrs. Hire and I) had some laughs about my inability to decode the streets of Parker, Colorado in light of my upcoming journey halfway around The World. Hopefully, I'll spot my exit to Congo before it's passed me by. My dad isn't taking one more risk than he has to, so I'm sure I will hear the minute details of my itinerary repeated several more times. I don't say that resentfully, either. I am glad for it.

Some of my wanderings and wonderings will close soon as I go to find something horribly real. But I will wonder new things there, I'm sure. It's a little like leaving Pooh behind, though.

The DRC

2008-08-28T00:02:00.000+02:00

Thanks again! to those of you have been involved in supporting me in my upcoming trip to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I will be leaving next Tuesday, Sep. 2. My reports from there will be the priority of this blog, so if there is anything you'd like to know, please ask!