Congo Bongo

Introducing Baby Jenie

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Our maid Viviane was a bachelorette when we moved here four years ago. I’ve never asked her how she managed to avoid marriage before age 26, in a country where early marriage is common and girls start having babies in their teens. I also don’t know the circumstances of her marriage, which came as a total surprise to me. One Monday she casually told me she was married over the weekend. I asked her why didn’t she tell me earlier; I would have liked to come to the wedding. She shrugged and said it happened quickly, and it was a small affair. The Viviane I’ve come to know is a very strong, proud woman. She’s not the type to ask her mzungu boss to come to her wedding just so she can score an expensive gift.
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Giving Thanks

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There are times when the pickings feel pretty slim around here. Us expat wives responsible for the weekly grocery shopping have gone through long dry spells when we can’t even find flour, sugar, or vegetable oil at our local mining-camp store. Stinky frozen fish, yes. Moldy cabbage, usually. But even then, don’t count on it. Nearly everything we’ve thought was a “regular” item on the shelves has run out at one time or another, and there’s no telling when it will be restocked.

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One Person’s Trash Bag is Another’s Treasure

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The garbage bin outside gets emptied once a week, almost as if we were living in a real city with real city services. I’m not sure what the trash guys do with all the bins after they load them onto a flat-bed truck and haul them away, and I don’t think I want to know. But a few hours later they return an empty, semi-clean bin to each house, and for that I’m grateful.

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Mole Monday

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As I’m standing in the kitchen Saturday night cutting up a whole chicken — something I never did before moving here, by the way, I mean why would I when a normal grocery store sells them in convenient little pieces already? — I’m thinking of my grandmother, and the story she told recently about butchering a turkey for Thanksgiving one year because she thought she and her daughters ought to know how to do it. My chicken arrived already dead and frozen, thankfully, but I’m picturing my grandmother in the kitchen with me anyway, offering tips as I cut through joints, separating legs from body, drumsticks from thighs, breasts from backbone. I’m making chicken stock, using a whole chicken instead of just spare parts in order to get a super-rich broth (plus shredded breast meat for enchiladas later). Two more whole chickens wait in the freezer for their turn under the knife. This stock is slated for tomorrow’s mole negro sauce, to accompany those other two chickens at a dinner party on Monday.

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Fun with Rosetta Stone

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When we plunked down $700 to buy the Rosetta Stone French series before leaving the States four years ago, we were obviously putting a lot of faith into it. Its slick packaging and select marketing and pricey price tag didn’t really make us question its efficacy. The only question was whether I’d have the discipline to follow it. If I did, then of course I would learn French, right? It’s practically guaranteed!

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Raining Figs

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Waiting for the heat and humidity to break and for Rainy Season to officially announce itself present. The sky is dark with heavy clouds but has been teasing for weeks. Our part of Congo, south of the equator, is dried up and dusty, having had no rain for the better part of six months now. The air is hazy and brown, whether you’re looking up from the ground, or down from the windows of an airplane as I was a few days ago. There’s not much to look at.

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Where I’m At

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For my grandparents, who tried traveling in Québec many years ago and immediately made for the exit. It seemed nobody wanted to help English-speaking tourists then. Today I can go purposely in search of a French immersion experience yet can’t keep strangers from switching to English with me. So you guys should try it again. Happy Grandparents Day, a little late!

When I say that I still don’t speak French fluently, after nearly four years of trying, most people are surprised to hear that. “Really, still??” a friend from home asked just the other day. These were probably a few of the thoughts running through his head:

  1. But you live in a French-speaking country with a French-speaking husband!
  2. What have you been doing for four years then??
  3. I feel like I’m making quick progress as a beginner! What’s wrong with you?
  4. OMG, how long does it really take then??

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