Tanks, Trucks, Tortilla Tales

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!