Today was a hectic mess of plane ticket catastrophes. There was a good few hours where Owen and I thought that we weren’t going to be able to leave at all today, as there was no record of my flight in the Brussels Airline’s system. Luckily, with the help of an incredibly patient Owen and our travel agent who woke up to our call at 5am her time, we’re set. Now if only the football game at the stadium we have to drive past doesn’t make us miss our flight…we’re giving ourselves an extra hour and a half to get to the airport, and then we’re out. Au revoir Kinshasa!
To everyone who read this blog, offered advice, support, sympathy, photo tips, and shared in my excitement, thank you. I had no idea this blog would take off like it did, and when I finally started tracking pageviews a month ago I was blown away and almost gave myself a case of writer’s block in astonishment at how many people were reading it. I wish you the best in all of your adventures. I hope Photokapi will have the chance to be revived upon a potential return to Kinshasa.
Congo, I will someday learn enough French or Lingala to write you epic love letters. Thank you for sharing your wonderful people, beautiful skies, epic thunderstorms, strange lizards, and delicious food with me. The past three months have drastically altered my outlook on the world. I will be forever stronger for my experiences here. A bientot, j’espere.
It’s finally hitting me that I’m leaving. Leaving anywhere for me is always sad regardless of where I’m headed. I moved around so much as a kid that I feel acutely aware of how relationships can get dropped when space suddenly intervenes, how experiences warp and names fade and memories start revolving around photographs or stories you’ve told a thousand times. I’m one of those people who acknowledges “this is the last time I’ll get to see the moon above the palm trees in my garden” and “this is the last time I’ll drink Tembo beer with the journalists”—the future of me leaving started following me around when it got dark out this evening, even though I have another 23 hours.
I have this memory of me when I was nine or so, going from my dad’s house to my mom’s, and in the car remembering I’d forgotten my pajamas at his house. That fact was a breaking point and I remembering sobbing “I forgotttt them, what will I dooo?” with utmost desperation. Even now whenever I’m in a car on the way to an airport and someone asks me if I have my ticket and passport my heart leaps with the thought of PAJAMAS!!!, even though I don’t really own any.
So tomorrow I will fly 10,000 miles over 36 hours through Brussels and New Jersey to San Francisco. I know that as soon as I get on that air conditioned plane in the dark and they spray the required pesticides throughout the cabin and offer me tea and I’m drugged on cold medicine leaving won’t hurt as badly, that I’ll be traveling forward, to the life I hacked out for myself 10 months ago in a town where nobody knew me. But tonight is just empty shelves and rooms and packed bags and this amazing oblivious kitten on my lap and Keba peeking through the window in the front door wanting me to throw her ball. And I feel a bit sad.
The past 24 hours have been the culmination of Kinois education and increased bravery. Yesterday, I attempted my first serious haggling with two men on the side of the road selling Tintin figurines. I was all prepped and psyched about it all, and got out of the car confidently. Unfortunately no matter how much I tried prices slipped by miniscule amounts for me. Owen, on the other hand, was much MUCH better at haggling than I was (I blame his better French—there’s only so far “non, c’est tres cher!” can get you). I ended up getting a good deal on two painted figurines when we walked away and the men chased down our car, finally offering less than half what they’d originally offered. I was still ripped off, but not embarassingly so.
Today I woke up feeling sicker than ever and realized I’m leaving tomorrow, and I didn’t have any presents for anyone. The Congo is completely devoid of any patriotic knick knacks as there is zero tourism here—I’d be hard pressed to find anything similar to the tacky memorabilia that exists in every gas station in every small town in the USA. I had requests for Congo football jersies but I’ve never seen anyone on the street wearing them. Supermarkets are filled with expensive imported Belgian products and the only native items in them are plantains, little new potatoes, and other vegetables. The big open markets in the Commerce district sell Western imported items for Congolese households—dishtowels, toilet plungers, toilet seats, 3-packs of Hanes white muscle tanks, every possible kind of weave you could imagine. Items made in the Congo are limited to blue and yellow buckets, Tembo beer, and blue plastic chairs. The only thing I could think of was the local Pili-Pili pepper sauce, but of course the only supermarket that sells it pre-made (since every household makes their own) is closed today. So I’m out of luck. BUT I did fly all over town with no one but Fiston driving me, visiting supermarkets and pharmacies and getting by with my broken French. It felt liberating to be out on my own even though I was with Fiston. He drives like a maniac but knows just when to roll up the windows when people are harassing me and where all the shortcuts are.
They may seem like little things but 3 months ago there was no way I would have felt confident enough haggling over prices or braving Kinshasa shopping on my own. I’m happy I reached a point where I feel sure enough of my interpretations of situations here to experience them solo. Everything in the USA is going to feel easy-peasy in comparison.
Our flight tomorrow is at 9pm. In Kinshasa it’s customary to check your luggage at the airline’s center downtown before you go to the airport, so I’ll be dropping everything off with Brussels Airlines in the morning. They have the most bizarre “office”—it’s a jungly garden with little gazebos scattered throughout for waiting in, that have fans spinning overhead. There’s a man selling drinks at a little cart and it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced when checking in bags. The airport has recently instigated a $50 departure fee for “building new runways”. I hate the fact that I have to pay to leave the Congo, especially since I seriously doubt that all if any of that money is actually going to building new runways. There are hilarious stories of airport personnel trying to rip people off—when Owen and Tomas were leaving last time they was told that they had to surrender all of their Congolese Francs to an officer because it was illegal to take them past a certain point. One must live without gullibility in Kinshasa…
I’m going to sleep if possible and then go out to dinner, but I’ll post tomorrow before I leave. I can’t believe I’ve been sick for two weeks straight—I’m almost getting used to it. Almost. California farmer’s markets with your pounds of juicy plums, nectarines, beets, and kale, here I come.
I’m getting on a plane the day after tomorrow. It feels strange—every part of it, but also the idea that soon I won’t be posting to this blog every day. I feel like there’s still SO many things I didn’t talk about, and so many photos I didn’t post. Have I really succeeded at all in portraying even a tiny percentage of my experience here? I have no idea.
I would love to write an epic post with a new story but I’m still smack in the middle of editing the hundreds of photos I took yesterday—a feat which I’ll be lucky to complete before I leave, let alone deal with the unexposed film I have yet to develop, which will take another six hours or so. I could write a whole epic to-do list here for you to read but that would probably be boring.
So I think I’m going to keep it simple today. If I have time / energy to post photos later tonight I will, but I also want to cherish these last few days I have in this totally insane city in the middle of the jungle.
Today I was assigned the task of photographing the dozen or so people who make up our crew, to accompany their bios on the company’s website. The photos are not in any way finished yet, but I thought I’d post some teasers, because it was honestly, in my 7 years of doing studio photography, THE MOST FUN SHOOT EVER. The secret? Beyonce. All those slightly awkward mostly nude shoots I did in college? Really should have had some dance music blasting. Even shy Joys opened up a bit in front of the camera, and everyone got so riled up. I’m sick as a dog right now with a cold that just won’t die but for a good hour and a half today I forgot all about it and laughed so hard I cried. I haven’t had time to go through and edit the *gasp* 600 photos I shot this afternoon so photoshop afficionados please be a little forgiving of my haste. As I write this Felix and Erickas are asking me when I’ll be done with them all, will I finish before I leave, and can I stick the photos on their flash sticks? Here are a few of the people I’ve spent the last 3 months sweating with under the Equatorial sun:
