Don't Forget These Things

It's sobering to realize that I'll forget 98% of the past three years.

I'll fill my brain with other moments and my hours in Africa will be crowded out.  It makes me feel sick and a little relieved.  Give me three weeks out of this country and all the things that matter so much at 7:44pm on a Tuesday night in April will just slip away.

So, I'm taking notes like a patient preparing for amnesia.  Don't forget these things:

Sulky boys on porches.  Little red sandals.

Dress up in the rainforest.

Dewy morning school prep.

Nounou's samosas.

Fresh baby fists at the maternity centers.

First birthdays and rare raspberries.

Sleepy reads. (Lord of the Rings this week).

Impromptu concert after an important purchase.

Photos in the bathroom mirror.

French lessons at this table.

Rain like never before.

Mosquito net movies.

Locker art.

Games on the field.

Flora.

Steamy days.

Soccer field mushroom harvest.

Nontraditional celebrations and sink sitting.

This. This. This.  Don't forget this.

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We're leaving Congo. Forever.

I hate change. No really, it messes me up. When my favorite websites get a "new look" it takes me a while to forgive them and visit again. When I commute, I have to take the same route every day or I'll be totally off. I do not use an alarm clock. My eyelids just know when to open. I'm the type of person who marries a routine. And never cheats.

But for some reason changing countries always feels exciting. I moved to Egypt and then Congo without visiting either place. And without knowing a soul. When everything changes it's far easier than just one thing being different.

So here we go again. We're leaving Congo after six of the best years of our lives. In June we'll take our last flight from the place we started our family. The only home our children have known. As Mama Youyou has told us over and over, "No one is happy about this." It's true. It's horribly sad and I will probably self-medicate to make it through all the goodbyes.

In fact, last week I wrote about leaving Congo on World Moms Blog and Adam gave me a hard time for writing such a depressing post. Check it out here. I'll be referring to the supportive comments folks left there from now until our departure. (Thank you, World Moms!)

Photo credit: Jill Humphrey

But as a dear friend said when she left us doubled over in sadness upon her exit from Congo:

This was never meant to be permanent.

And so we can't stay here forever. The time feels right to move on.

After our usual visit to the States this summer, we'll pack up and head to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. And since we're switching countries, we may as well change our careers while we're at it. Adam and I will be the Country Representatives for Mennonite Central Committee, and our children will go to work charming the locals so we can make friends. They can already pronounce the words "Ouagadougou" and "Burkina Faso" so that's one hurdle crossed.

We've seen pictures of our future house, we have a nanny lined up (sigh), and all four of us will visit Ouaga in a few weeks. In some ways, it feels like we've already transitioned. It is truly a weird time in our lives.

I don't know much about Burkina Faso. But unlike the other places I've moved, I have been there before. Strangely, about 12 years ago I passed through Ouagadougou with friends on the way to Mali. And I kid you not, I had a dream about coming back there to live with Adam. Unfortunately I didn't take my premonition seriously enough to size up the place for its functionality of moving there with two children.

Luckily, many expats in Congo have also lived in Burkina. So we've been mining them for information. When we mention our move the most common words we hear are:

• integrity
• hot
• friendly
• motorcycles
• strawberries

 Let's compare that to the most common words we hear when we tell people we live in Congo:

• dangerous 
• humid
• potholes
• Ebola
• why?

Clearly, we love Congo despite its reputation. But Burkina sure sounds like a great place too.

I know you're wondering...yes Jill and her family are leaving Congo too. She'll write about their change in due time. And no, we don't know about the future of Mama Congo, which feels like another one of our best friends here. Dear readers: Do you have any suggestions? 

But let's get to the most important part of this post - Do we have any readers in Burkina Faso? If so, will you be my friend?

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Guest Post: I'll Read To You on the Stars

Matt is what sucks about the Congo.  

Not Matt himself, but the fact that you meet people like Matt (and Erin - see Tuesday's post) and then they leave.  It's almost inevitable.  For most folks floating around in expat-land, it's a predictable 2 to 3 year cycle.  Either you leave or they do.  To prove my point about how awful and wonderful these friendships are, I give you this essay about my child, written by Matt:

When I was asked to do a guest spot for Mama Congo I was flattered, a little sweaty, and mildly excited.  Also a tad bit apprehensive as I have no direct Mama experience.  I have seen movies with mothers in them before, and I have used the words “Hot Mama” on at least seven occasions, twice without being slapped, but I haven’t really had much experience with parenting, or little kiddos, beyond that.  I am aware of the existence of children, however, in the same way that I know somewhere out there is someone reading my second book (no big deal-cheap guest post plug!)

Until I moved to Kinshasa, of course, and had the privilege of spending oodles of time with the four young folk whose tales are so lovingly told in the pages of Mama Congo.  I do not know what sort of lasting impression I have had on the lives of these kids- I mean, how much stuff does one remember before the age of four, or five, or nine, or however old these guys are?  I do know that they’ve had an impact on me, at least in terms of good times and discussions about space, vampires, puppets, and evolutionary theory.  

Discussing evolutionary theory or making Matt into a princess.

I think that I could make a pretty good papa, at least for 45 minutes a day.  Which is better than a lot of parents I know, so I’m in good shape there.

In addition, two weeks ago, in a conversation with LouLou, she said something to me that will go down in history as one of the best rom com lines ever.  Let me set the stage:

We were at a colleague’s BBQ two weeks ago, one of those rare occasions where a bunch of us can get off campus together in a non-evacuation scenario.  It was a great time.  We had beer on tap, sausages that tasted like meat and not lies, cookies with crumbly bits on them, and I learned how to play Corn Toss.

Mostly, though, I hung out with LouLou whilst her intrepid parents mingled with the Kinshasian cognoscenti.  As they were discussing recent political events, economic theories, and where to get really good Pili Pili, LouLou and I gamboled around together, looking for monsters in the dark. 

After about fifty minutes of this she grabbed a book from her pile of stuff that all kids seem to have everywhere and said she wanted to read to me.  We went to sit down under the outside light but after a few minutes she realized it was too dark to see.

Or that she didn’t know how to read.

I’m not sure which it really was, but she went with the first option- I normally do the same.

So we moved on to another spot, under a more promising light, but alas, still not good enough.

We started walking up the little gravel pathway.  I was holding her right hand and she stopped, tugged on my arm, and pointed upwards with her left, book still firmly clenched in her nubby kid fingers (as an aside- isn’t Nubby Kid Fingers a great name for a puppet?  Just saying).

“Look, Matt.”

The stars had come out and were twinkling in the (remarkably for Congo) cloudless night.

“Stars.”

“I know- pretty sweet.”

She looked back at the dim circle of light on the recently vacated chair.

“It’s too dark to read here.”  She pointed up at the sky again.  “Let’s go up there, and I’ll read to you on the stars.”

I’m telling you right now, any romantic comedy starring Drew Barrymore where her character utters that sentence in the previews will make 100 million dollars opening weekend.

You’re welcome, Hollywood.

Want to read more?  Matt just published his second book.  You can order it on Amazon.  Johan (accidentally) took the author's picture that appears both on this book jacket AND on Amazon.  I'm still bitter.  I'm supposed to be the photographer in our family.  But, man, is it a good photo.  

That photo...

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