Africans Don't Swim*

I'm going to make a very broad generalization, but I'll qualify by starting with: By and large - In my experience - Of the people I know (so please don't send me angry letters)...Africans don't swim. They just don't. I mean think of what they were probably doing when you were a kid taking swimming lessons at the Y.

(Read more about it here: Why Africans Don't Swim.)

Our girls happened to learn to swim at a strangely young age. They love to swim. They dive down, they tread water, they are completely comfortable. This is something that is very scary for our Congolese friends to witness. Your baby just jumped in the pool! Help her! Help her! By the time our children come up for air, everyone poolside is clutching their chests.

When I was pregnant with Charlotte we went to Victoria Falls with a group of American and Congolese friends. We decided to go to the infamous Devil's Pool, which requires a bit of swimming in order to get there. Soon after we jumped in the river, our Congolese friend clung to me. He chose that moment to privately confess he couldn't swim, but had been too ashamed to tell the others. And so I crossed the Zambezi with a baby in my belly and I grown man hanging on to my bathing suit.

[A photo of this event has been withheld to protect the innocent. 

But nobody's stopping you from searching the Mama Congo archives. Ahem.] 

To bring the gift of swimming to our favorite Congolese friends, Jill and I have had this grand plan to get Mama Youyou and Mama Vida in the pool. Without notice, one day last week we said, "Alright ladies, you're going to swim today!" There could be no hesitations. No hemming and hawing about not having bathing suits. They would face their fear. Mama Youyou was totally game. Mama Vida was nonverbal.

Luckily one of our friends who happens to be really good at helping folks get comfortable with the water, wanted to help the mamas swim too. Up until this point, Mama Vida still hadn't agreed to learn. Mama Youyou asked her if she would just sit close by for moral support. But when it came time to walk to the pool, Mama Vida remembered some "important tasks" she still needed to do. I said to Mama Youyou, "Maybe she's too scared. Let's not force her." So we left without her.

As Mama Youyou went to step in the water, Mama Vida appeared, jumped in the pool and had no problem swimming. (Weird. We still have absolutely no explanation for her hesitations.)

Buoyed by Mama Vida's fearlessness of the water, Mama Youyou went to step in the pool...

She just couldn't do it...

The girls cheered her on...

The rest of the time Andrew held her hand, walked with her around the shallow end, and got her comfortable with the water. Meanwhile, Mama Vida swam circles around them. Literally. Everyone loves a show-off best friend.

Now Mama Youyou's telling all her friends and family they really should learn to swim. Because everyone should!

*Africans don't swim, except for Mama Vida and many, many other competent African swimmers.

P.S. The most amazing swimming I've ever witnessed was by these boys and their empty water-bottles-as-flotation-devices in the rapids between the two Congos. I could barely watch.

Brazzaville swimmers. (TASOK folks, see our hill in the background?)

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Toe Paint

 An early childhood education expert once told me that toenail painting is a great activity for toddlers.  Like with real polish.

"It's excellent for fine motor skills!" she said.

I was still hesitant to actually let Loulou hold the brush.  "It's so not worth it," I thought.  I had too many visions of white couches spattered in Mezmerised or Moon Rendezvous.

Until the other day.  Which is when I walked into the living room and saw this:

Or rather, this:

Just the right amount of helping hand.

Mama Vida was letting, or more accurately, encouraging my just-three year old paint her toes a perfect purple all by herself - on the white chairs.

And the sky did not fall.

In fact, she did a pretty great job and was supremely pleased with herself.

Sarah told me one time that she often asks herself, "What would Mama YouYou do?"  I realize that I do the same.  What would Mama Vida do?

She would climb a starfruit tree after leaving work - even if she is a fifty-something woman.  She would take 3 hour long adventure walks through the rainforest with little children still unsteady on their feet.  She would read gigantic piles of books with babies despite imperfect literacy skills.  She would let them eat Nutella. She would give lots of hugs.

The other Mama in the house made me realize that I need to chill out and give my kid some credit.  All that with just a little Flirt by Revlon.

*Pssst.  This is post #200.  Wahoo!*

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Mama Vida's Batik

Mama Vida has this dress.  It's purple and obviously not made of Congolese pagne.  It's batik cloth from Ghana.  This dress is old - at least 15 years, since that's when Vida left Ghana for Congo.  It's worn.  It's been repaired often.

Yesterday, I went out to  buy Mama Vida some new batik for a new dress to remind her of Ghana.  This wasn't a plan.  The only request that I had from anyone for my trip to Ghana was "Shea Butter!"  Right before I left, Mamas Vida, NouNou, and YouYou all lobbied me to bring back as much of the stuff as possible, for everyone's beautification.  Mama Vida had obviously been extolling it's virtues.

Mama Vida said she didn't need anything.  So, I decided she needed some batik.  Which brings us to Esther.  Esther was a name of a Mama given to me as the person to go to for quality cloth.  So, a group of us in the workshop I'm attending (more on that later) called her up and she agreed to stay open late so that we could swing by after working all day.

Here I am with Mama Esther.  I obviously love having my photo taken.

The process of choosing a batik print (made by Esther) was difficult.  So, her son, Joe, helped out.  He  asked what shade and size Mama Vida was ("Is she a very fat Ghanaian? Very thin? Very short? Ah, middle sized!  Very dark? Or light?  I know this type.  You will need lots of cloth, then.") and helped me find two pieces of cloth that he said would be perfect.  We disagreed on the wild purple and green.  Agreed on the yellow.  And came to an understanding about the muted blue and red.  In the end, I chose two pieces:

We'll see which one she chooses.  Mama Esther and Joe both said they were "Nice, nice" in the same tone and cadence as Mama Vida uses when she compliments LouLou on a drawing or praises Elias for reading.  "So nice, nice."

We also hit up a little fair trade shop called Global Mamas before heading to sushi.  That's right.  Sushi.  I'm a happy person.  This trip has been mostly intense work, but the play has been quality.

But.  I'm really missing these folks:

And Johan too.  Very, very much.

Tomorrow, my plane will stop off in Togo, Nigeria, and Gabon after Ghana and before landing home in the DRCongo.  Can't wait to deliver the goods to Mama Vida and squeeze my family.

For now, I'm off to the market.

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Role Mamas

On Tuesday, I promised Elias that if he finished his homework with minimal groaning we could go for a quick bike ride before dinner.

We were walking through campus, Lou on my back, Elias pedaling ahead, when I heard rustling to my left.

I looked over and saw Mama YouYou standing beneath the startfruit tree.  Fruit was dropping to the ground at her feet.  I looked up and saw Mama Vida in the tree.  High up.  Like really high up.  Her sandals had been dumped at the tree roots and she was hoisting herself higher in the branches.

Mama YouYou burst out laughing when she saw me.  She knew how bizarre it must look:  two middle aged women climbing trees in the late afternoon.  Maybe she was even worried about what I would think as an employer.  Doubtful.  Mama YouYou is pretty much the most self-possessed person I've ever met.

Mama Vida started laughing too, and soon, the soles of her feet appeared and she jumped down, handing me a starfruit to take home.  She warned me that although LouLou used to like them, she hadn't been too keen recently.  Mama YouYou told me to eat up, because pakka pakka is a great source of Vitamin C.  She crunched into one herself, taking big bites, rind and all.

LouLou toted her pakka pakka all the way home.  Dropping it only twice.  I feel super glad that she got to see Mama Vida high in that tree. What better role model?  What better role mama?  A fifty-something grown woman kicking off her shoes and going for the good fruit. 

Note:  Not even Mama Vida is perfect.  The other day, I found her telling Charlotte and LouLou that they weren't to play with Elias' toy motorcycle "because this is for boys."  Sigh. 

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Play Food Assumptions

So, LouLou went to her little table yesterday and, while vigorously stirring a tiny pot, announced, "Je fait le FUFU!"

She was actually stirring some play mushrooms from Ikea - but in Kinshasa, those fungi are now fufu.  Way more practical.

So, I asked her to name some of the other things on her table.  Here is what she told me:

Okay.  She didn't actually say, "Les haricots."   She said, "Yum.  Mama Vida cook yummy."  Which I interpreted as "beans."  Obviously.

My two year old translated lettuce into cabbage.  Coffee into tea.  And mushrooms into fufu. Her casual responses were surprisingly astounding to me.

I really love fake food.  Always have.  But I assume that play food is obviously representative.  Of the foods I grew up with in Virginia*.

Lou's play food experience, on the other hand, is heavily shaped by the worldview of Mama Vida, Mama YouYou, and Mama NouNou.  No lettuce - it's cabbage.  Beans are protein.  Tea is shared every morning on the porch.  Big sips to the babies, of course.  And mushrooms?  No way.  But fufu is a way of life.

*I know, I know.  We have cabbage and tea in Virginia.  But, that's not what I would assume my kid would assume these items were.  Get it?

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I Have a Nanny.

I realize that being back in the U.S., I am guarded in how I describe Mama Vida.  Like this:

Person who lives in U.S.:  Wow!  Great Pili-Pili.  Who did you say made this?
Me:  Mama Vida made it.  She's our...Lou Lou's...the woman...the person...   

Usually, I end up saying that she's "the person who watches Lou Lou", and often, "our nanny" but it usually takes me a bit to get around to it.  Do I define her using the possessive "our"?  Does "the person who watches Lou Lou" give her anywhere near the credit she deserves?  She's one of the people who knows us best, but do I call her a "friend"?  We love her, but does she love us?  Is this business or relationship? 


(This article touches on these feelings. Reading about "The Other Mothers of Manhattan" is what got me writing this post...)

Mama Vida is an essential and central person to our life in the Congo and I want to give a proper description when I talk about her.  I just almost always do a bad job.  I worry that people will think that if I casually throw around "our nanny" that I sound impossibly privileged (which I am).  I used to secretly think that my third-culture-kid friends were kind of awful when they mentioned the slew of housekeepers, nannies, and guards that surrounded their childhoods.  Especially the former missionary kids.  Really? Missionaries who have house help?

Now, I don't judge so much on this topic.

Mamas Vida and YouYou have helped me get over any qualms that I might have identifying as an employer.  When a TASOK resident chooses not to hire a gardener, housekeeper, nanny, or other possible house worker, they are all over that situation.  They want to know why.  They know the perfect person for the job.  Why would someone at the American school not want to provide a job if they have the opportunity?

For us, we consider worker salaries the best money we spend each month.

When we left Kinshasa for the summer, Mama NouNou pulled me aside to tell me how the income she makes working at our house has changed the way her family lives.  Not dramatically, but enough to allow them to stop just figuring out how to just get through the day and start thinking about the future.

NouNou (a trained chef/caterer) told me all about how she wants to start a system of portable lunch trucks.  She noted that many of the mass employers don't provide lunch options to the workers.  And because the factories are self-contained, it isn't easy to just walk somewhere to purchase a quick meal.  She explained how this would be a woman-owned, woman-run business, giving jobs to some of the most-vulnerable, least-employable populations: the older women and mothers.  Because it would be lunch-only, mothers could be home in time to meet their kids after school.  Older women could watch the babies while the younger women cooked, served, and washed up.  They would serve a simple menu of old favorites:  fufu, pondu, baguettes, and beans.

Basically, NouNou has re-imagined the food truck scene for Kinshasa:

Original logo from the Philadelphia Food Truck Association.

I think Sarah and I will help her write up her idea into a proposal this Fall and submit it to Le Fonds Pour Les Femmes Congolaises for business support and funding.  

She would rock the Kinshasa lunch scene.

I sort of hate myself for writing this piece.  I hate to imagine painting myself as the wealthy benefactor, waxing eloquent about how I've made life better for "my workers".  Ugh.

But, I also want to crazily appreciate everyone who helps us in Kinshasa.  Yes, it's a business arrangement.  Yes, there are power imbalances.  No, I don't know how to exactly define our relationships.  But, I really hope it's good for everyone involved.

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Cooking with the Mamas: Pili-Pili Sauce

Johan has always been on a quest for the perfect hot-sauce. (A clichéd goal, perhaps...) Something powerful, yet neutral.  Good on everything, from breakfast to dessert.

He was a Sriracha man for awhile, but it didn't pack the punch that he wanted.  He tried various boutique brands with names including the adjectives "atomic" or "blow-your-brains-out." But, they have always fallen short.

This is what he says he looks for:

"In a hot sauce, I want a lot of heat and a bit of flavor.  Just a couple drops should be enough to wake up the dish -- I shouldn't have to use it like a sauce just to get the heat, and I can't abide too much vinegar or sweetness".

(Sorry, but,  "I can't abide"?!)

Until Mama Vida came along.

The first week we were here, we had a life-changing chicken dinner at Mama Colonel's.  These incredible vinegar half-chickens came with mayo and pili-pili sauce on the side, for dipping.  Johan loved the chicken, but was possessed by the pili-pili.

Later, he picked up a bottle of Nando's brand, Peri-Peri Sauce, hoping to recreate the magic at home.  He was incredibly disappointed.  Seeing the bottle in the refrigerator, Mama Vida casually mentioned that she could make a hot sauce...if we wanted to try it.

She arrived the next day with this bag of beauties:

And Johan's life has never been the same.

He puts this stuff on everything.  Mama Vida can barely churn it out fast enough.  We've already devised a plan for next week's massive pili-pili making extravaganza...so he will make it through the summer vacation.

Like most perfect things, this sauce is incredibly simple.  Here goes it:

Carefully stem and de-seed (how many seeds you leave in determines the sauce's final heat) a whole bunch of extremely hot peppers.  Mama Vida doesn't wear gloves, but I might suggest that you do.  The peppers that she uses to make pili-pili look an awful lot like Scotch Bonnets to me...so we're talking very hot.

Place peppers in blender/food processor.

Pop in a few cloves of garlic.

Add 1 onion, chopped.

Then, whirl.

 At this point, you can do one of two things:  

1.) Leave it be as a lovely puree.  Add water if needed.  Douse all your food in this loveliness.

OR

2.) Cook the puree down, until the water is mostly gone.  Then, add a small amount of oil to achieve desired consistency.  This will make a longer-lasting, hotter, sauce.

Pack your sauce into a jar.  An old olive jar works just fine:

And prepare to be enlightened - or at least invigorated - at every meal.

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Millions of People Walking to Work. In the Rain.

We had an apocalyptic rain storm this morning.

Lightening, thunder, torrential rain.

Mama Vida walked for hours through this deluge in order to come to work.  She  arrived on our doorstep around 10am after having left her house in Bandal at 5:30am.

Getting to work in Kinshasa for the majority of workers is never a picnic.  The transport system is complicated and crowded and slow.  Mama Vida usually travels around 1.5 hours to get to work on a good morning.   She switches transport 3-4 times, sometimes more.  This whole process costs her around $3-$4.  Which is incredible considering that for many, $5/day is an acceptable wage in this city.

And, this is what I mean when I talk about "transport":

The problem this morning was bigger than rain.  A transport strike was the source of most of the woe.  The rain just made the woe more miserable.  Strikes don't actually happen all that often in Kinshasa.   Mainly because no one can possibly go a day without money.  Mama Vida explained simply, "The taxi drivers have to eat too."  No money, no food.

Per the government, the transport buses, cars, and vans are supposed to carry insurance.  But the insurance is prohibitively expensive, which means no one actually has insurance.  But no one has driver's licenses either.

However, in recent days, the police are deciding to enforce this government rule more actively.  Why?  Part of it may be because the police make about $50/month (remember when I said the $5/day was a "good wage"?).  And so, the opportunity to raid a transport driver (who, of course, does not carry insurance) and vehicle in the name of the law is a tempting option. A quote from a press release from an opposition website states:

Tired of being victims of bullying, batons, harassment brigade road, drivers are on strike for three days.

 

Mama Vida said there has been talk of a strike, but "nobody thought it would actually happen."  Then, last night, an unofficial announcement was made and the strike was on.  Which meant that some 5-7 million + people walked many kilometers to work this morning in a torrential downpour. 

The DRC government doesn't run the majority of the transport system.  It's all private drivers and cars and Deux Cent Sept's (the ubiquitous old Mercedes buses), helping the massive city of Kinshasa get to work each day.  There have been big unrealized plans for a wonderful public transport system in the works for years now.  I found a fascinating specific conversation about this topic here.  Apparently, this is what Kinshasa 2025 will look like:

Apparently, a lot like Portland.

The weirdest thing is that while everyone who relies on transport everyday is talking of nothing else, the reliable news sources are quiet on the topic.  Even Twitter, which is usually abuzz with such things when the news outlets haven't picked up a story, is only carrying the opposition announcements. My friend, Bettie, who works with me, wasn't sure what to make of that.  She said that they were told to listen to Radio Okapi today for news, but nothing so far.

Bettie is nervous about the return trip home today after work.  On the way here, she hitched a ride with a private car trying to make an opportunistic profit out of this situation.  When striking taxi drivers saw the packed car, they surrounded it, shaking it violently.  They then opened the doors and threw the passengers out.  Including Bettie. (Interestingly, she was laughing hysterically while telling this story.  What else to do?) In Masina and Ndjili, Bettie heard that anyone offering rides to paying passengers was facing much worse: beating and vehicle burning.   However, she agreed with Mama Vida that "this can't last long.  They must eat too."

Our kids are going to be pleased, as I think this means that Mama Vida will be camping out at our place until things become more manageable.  And by manageable, I mean this:

Emboutiage.

Last minute update:  Radio Okapi just posted a story on this topic (at around 1pm our time).  

The streets of Kinshasa, the DRC capital, teeming with people on Monday 21 May in the morning. This megalopolis of about 9 million people has no business transit viable. With the strike by holding private sector monopoly, the city seems paralyzed. The drivers are protesting against vehicle controls intensified in recent days by different specialized services of the city. City Train and Stucco (Urban Transport Company of the Congo), two carriers, do exist in Kinshasa. But both are almost at a standstill.The public transport company City Train had approved one hundred fifteen (115) new buses in 2008. There are no more than twenty that are still circulating. In the concession company located in the town of Limete, more than eighty bus tires without rims are immobilized.Train City officials say these vehicles are missing only "accessories" and Tyre. Their engines are in "perfect condition", they said, dismissing the charge of mismanagement that some people put in their charge. They argue against that by "a company has more than enough subsidies from the state."

I also just talked to a guy in my office with a slightly different perspective.  He told me the same basic story as Bettie and Mama Vida, but added that lots of "regular people" are afraid of the taxi drivers because they cause lots of dangerous accidents.  He has some hope that the government will "discipline" the drivers into better, safer behavior.

Alas, I am reminded that every story has many angles.

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