Friday List!

Sarah's List:

Mama Congo promised ourselves Friday List would be cheerier than our previous week of posts. So I'm resisting the temptation to link to this week's This American Life, all about dying people or people who almost died. Thanks, Ira. Please enjoy these uplifting distractions below:

Live in Vancouver, Canada? Science World has really done quite the ad campaign. 

My entire childhood was spent waiting for Tuesday afternoons when Newsweek would come in the mail. Now it's gone all digital. How long before no more magazines to hold?

Cooking Comically. The Cook Abides.

Wild bird photographs of the week, featuring some of our own.We have some pretty ridiculous birds here in Congo. Including ones that live right outside our house with tails so long they can barely life themselves off the ground.

  by  TheBigTouffe 

Speaking of birding, anyone seen this movie? Lots of birder humor, if that's a thing.

The evolution of corporate logos. How many do you remember?

Adam is watching his favorite movie, Mary Poppins (sorry Adam, it was bound to be revealed sometime) with Charlotte for the first time. It's now called "Mama Poppins" around here.

Transfixed

P.S. We visited baby Jean Baptiste this week, or JB as he's called. And he's perfect, of course.

Baby J.B. 

Three girls, Sarah, & Dr. Laure at our visit.

Jill's List:

The Odyssey is on my "to-read" vs. "I-read-it-ages-ago-and-can-discuss-the-themes-with-great-eloquence" list.  This illustrated version, however, is serious literary motivation.

When I found out I was pregnant with a boy (we found out with Elias and waited for the surprise with LouLou), I went to a run-of-the-mill mall kid's clothes store.  And cried.  Because the baby boy clothes were horrible.  Elias + Congo have manage to destroy much of his wardrobe.  So, I ordered from the Bobinette summer sale (part of the joy of living in 80F weather year-round).  This Brooklyn-based shop has gorgeous boy's clothes, incredible customer service, and everything is made in the USA.  Super.

And speaking of great things in New York.  I could really use a Shake Shack burger.  DHL?  Le Palmier d'Or here in Kinshasa doesn't quite cut it.

Pretty great "what to pack for a traveling toddler" list.  I strongly second the headphones, that awesome, compact carseat, the Tylenol, and of course the Ergo Baby Carrier.  Go here to see the whole list.  (Some of these items will soon be easily found in downtown Harrisonburg -- for you Virginia readers...)

This is one way to make the national news, Harrisonburg.  Glad that I delivered my absentee ballot to the Embassy this week.  My swing state needs me.

Entitled "The Reality of a Newborn Session."  Awesome.

This inspired me to remember that we really need some business cards.  To hand out to unsuspecting airline seat mates and such...

Totally ordering this calendar.  Perfect for our family.  Except I don't see Kinshasa.  Hmmm.

Love to all our friends this week.  It's been a rough one.  Near and Far.  Remembering Jean Baptiste & Javy with all our hearts.

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How to be Devastated

When death happens I am either professional or polite.  

Sometimes, I know what to do because I am the nurse who directs the bereaved. Or, I don't know what to do because I am just a sad friend.  This is how to grieve in America. The professionals tell us what to do and how to be.  Friends are awkward and polite.  Death is terrifying.  It is quiet.  It is to be overcome.

We don't know how to be devastated.

I mean, who does?

Well, maybe the Congolese.  Or at least they have a script that explains what to do.

Before I continue, I think about this excerpt from Binyavanga Wainaina's piece, "How to Write About Africa":

Also be sure to include a warm and motherly woman who has a rolling laugh and who is concerned for your well-being. Just call her Mama. Her children are all delinquent. These characters should buzz around your main hero, making him look good. Your hero can teach them, bathe them, feed them; he carries lots of babies and has seen Death. Your hero is you (if reportage), or a beautiful, tragic international celebrity/aristocrat who now cares for animals (if fiction).

I am going to write about death in Africa.  I am going to mention a Mama.  But, I am not the hero.  I am the confused person trying to figure out if I should smile kindly or cry softly.

Before Sarah and I went to visit Laure after Jean Baptiste's death, I talked to people.  I talked to all of the cultural consultants I rely on to not be offended by my absurd questions.  These people being Mama Vida, Mama YouYou, Tchic, and Evelyne.  I said, "I feel so sad.  But how should I act?  What do I do?"  And they all said, "Just be sad. It's not hard.  Why are you so worried?"

Then, separately, they each gave me the exact same instructions for what to expect after someone dies.

There will be an initial visit to the house.  You will shake hands.  You will sit.  Then, there may be a wake.  If you are Congolese, you absolutely must go.  If you are a foreigner, everyone understands that Westerners don't like dead bodies and you need only stay ten minutes.  Following, there will be a funeral.  In the morning if it is a child.  In the evening if it is an adult.  You may sing in church.  You may march messily through the streets, thrusting photos of the dead one in the faces of the people you pass. You will play happily with the children who don't understand.  You will hold the wife who is destroyed.  It is not hard.  These are easy things to do.

How to be devastated.

There is a script.  So, even at the moment when you find yourself panicking about the social appropriateness of your tears, you can just look around the room to see what everyone else is doing.  And go through the motions.  You sit.  You shake hands. You sit.  

A social script carries the awkward friend through confusion.  It gives a widow something to do in the hollow days after losing her love.  It forces family and friends to gather and support and take care of the kids.  Tchic told me that at most funerals he's been to, the peanut and hard-boiled egg sellers come when they hear the keening and singing, and people buy and they eat.  Funerals need food.

I find this matter-of-fact approach to death both deeply disturbing and seriously comforting.  I tried to tell Tchic how upsetting it was to hear that there is a specific time of day to bury children and everyone knows this.  Children dying is not a significant part of my worldview.  It is an everyday occurrence for Kinshasa.

On the other hand, a collective knowledge about the details of life and death is incredibly helpful.  People sometimes need just know what to do.  A woman giving birth often needs guidance in the last minutes of labor - when she is sure she can't do it.  I think it is the same for those who are grieving.  The brain stops working.

If you don't have a script, you are completely lost. 

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Remembering

This week Laure's husband, Jean Baptiste died. I think my favorite memory of him is from an afternoon when Adam and I were taking him home to have dinner with the family. Along the way we got stuck in traffic and Jean Baptiste got out his phone to make a call. The kindness and joy in his voice made me think he had just reconnected with a long lost friend. Intrigued, I switched over into my French brain so I could eavesdrop and realized he had just called Laure to tell her we'd be a little later than we thought.

I don't know if I've ever heard a lovelier conversation between two people. And the subject was nothing more than waiting a little longer to put the food on the table, ma chérie.

We learned a lot of things from Jean Baptiste, but I think we'll remember most to speak a little sweeter to each other.

On Saturday Laure gave birth to a baby boy. She named him Jean Baptiste.

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Friday List!

Sarah's List:

For what feels like years (because I think it has been at least 2) construction crews, led by Chinese men in their Chinese hats, have been working on a tiny two lane bridge nearby. With some excellent motivation from the Francophonie, they've finally finished it. And it's named after, drum roll please, Dag Hammarskjöld. This is extremely convenient for me as I've recently become obsessed with the conspiracy theories surrounding his death. Read all about them here. Catchy name for a bridge, right? 



If we have to have packaging, it may as well be thoughtful.

I will always have the image burned in my brain of the poster that hung in my high school sex ed class: a crotch, in tight stonewashed jeans with a padlock and chain wrapped around it. I was so sure that poster would show up in this awesome slideshow. Because we all know the most effective contraception is a really bizarre poster on the wall of your classroom. Worked for me.

Wait. The Civil War was in color? Rare historical photos: Part 1 and 2!

It's true. Perhaps there are some Mama ailments by design. Or the NYT has been reading Mama Congo. 

My favorite memories of listening to This American Life are from my late night commute on the Cairo Metro to and from grad school. I laughed. I cried. As Egyptian men stared wondering what was wrong with the white girl. These two recent episodes are Ira Glass gold. Send a Message and P.I. Moms.

I'm pretty sure I wrote this piece about celebrating "the subtle joys of festivals of numerical coincidence." It's exactly how I feel about such dates. After all, we did choose to have our baby on 7/11/11. But it's not so cool when you live in the date/month/year world.


Jill's List:

Living overseas, it seems that you meet a lot of people with vague, pan-Brit-opean accents.  You're never sure where exactly they are from.  (I usually guess they are just closet Yankees.) Sometimes, I too try saying things like "uni," "posh," and "knackered," but then realize that this is difficult with an American accent.  Read this article for more on the temptation to sprinkle one's vocabulary with adorable British-isms. 

Thanks, Jo!

I've been thinking a lot about New York City.  Someone suggested I should watch this documentary.  Or this one.  Or this one.

Also, thinking about Cape Town.  As in booking my tickets for December.  So, naturally, I'm looking at applicable style blogs.  Like this one.

Holy Francophonie!  We're hoping to go to the Stadium and visit the "village" this weekend.  Photo Minute moments, here we come...

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Meeting Madeleine at 10 Centimeters

Last weekend we celebrated the first birthday of Menorah.

Madeleine & Menorah

And the 1st Anniversary of a wild adventure for Jill and Sarah. About a year ago I asked my French tutor Tchic if I, along the new girl in town (who also happened to be our favorite labor and delivery nurse) could come to the birth of his daughter.

Tchic & Menorah

 That's not a weird request, right? For whatever reason, Tchic was game.

So on the day Tchic's wife Madeleine went into labor, he gave us a call. Moments later Jill and I were bumping down narrow dirt roads, rolling down the window for every stranger to ask directions to the tiny clinic. We finally found CELPA, which was not more than a cinder block building and Tchic waiting for us outside.

As Jill and I sat waiting for permission to go in, I thought of an old study I read that said anyone could gain access to top secret locations by acting confident and carrying a clip board. I demanded Jill put her stethoscope around her neck. "Just do it! Act confident. They'll let us in." And sure enough, even though regulations prohibit the father of the baby from entering the delivery room, two white girls who had never met the mother were ushered back like royalty.

We first met Madeleine at 10 centimeters pushing her  heart out on a rusty table half her width. The room had to have been about 95 degrees. Everyone was dripping sweat all over each other. Mind you, I was fresh from having Annais so I brought what I thought any woman would want during labor. A fan and a cooler full of ice packs.

Jill got to work doing her thing and I tried my darndest to keep that woman cool. I remember thinking I wish I knew the words for "freezer burn" in French so I could confirm with Madeleine that I wasn't freezer-burning her temples. In retrospect I think that was the least of her worries.

It turned out Menorah was a big baby weighing over 9lbs, and it wasn't a pleasant labor. At one point a nurse was up on the table practically jumping on Madeleine's uterus to get her out. I was so disturbed I swear I started having sympathy contractions.

Nonetheless Jill and I kept shouting our best French labor coaching phrases. The nurses and doctor thought we were truly ridiculous. By the expressions on their faces, I'm quite certain they thought the ice packs and cheerleading were the strangest things they'd ever seen. It was clear they were not there for emotional support.

Finally Menorah was born and took her first giant breath after Jill sucked her nose out with the same bulb syringe I brought from Ani's birth at Martha Jefferson. Babies forever bonded by bulb syringe.

Afterward we escorted ourselves out, kind of wondering what on earth had just happened. And imagined Madeleine (who we were not convinced even knew who we were) being totally confused too. Who were those crazy white girls? They just appeared and disappeared!

A few days later Tchic confirmed Madeleine was truly grateful for the support and was not suffering from freezer burn. Menorah is a healthy, happy girl who I hope has no memory of the broken "French" cheers shouted at her mother during her birth.

Note from Jill: Wondering why she's named "Menorah?"  According to Tchic, it's to signify light after the seven years of "darkness" (a.k.a. no babies) between his older son, Ariel, and new addition, Menorah.  And no, Tchic's not Jewish.  

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Friday List!

Jill's List:

I remember seeing this book before we moved to Kinshasa and then trying to buy it and finding out it could be mine for only $7,848.19 + $3.99 shipping.  This is not a joke.  See for yourself. I guess it is hardback...  But, it's haunting and I still want to read it.

We had to give back some of the furniture we have loved over the past year.  It's not all that bad - it gives us an excuse to have a look around this place and see what we can find.

Happy to use some of the rad "thank you" cards I bought at this great spot last summer because a lovely mom from school made me a chocolate salami!  

Yeah, PBS!

Weirdest craft project ever.  Beautiful blog.  Weird craft.  Seriously.

Beautiful flying houses.  I keep thinking that there are so many colonial shells around here that would be perfect for this project.

This might be our Halloween this year.  Except, I can't find any paper bags...

We swear we just found out about this very sweet blog in Kenya! Mama Congo loves Mama Mzungu and hopes we can share the rights to the expat mama blog name trend...

And.  Just discovered this Congo-centric blog.  Anyone know anything about this project?

And, still always reading this, this, and this for perspective.

The Francophonie is coming!  The Francophonie is coming!  Stay tuned...

Photo by J.H. on a Saturday drive.

Sarah's List:

Man, I'm always nervous when we check in our bags, but there's something about those stickily-perfect luggage tags that makes me think everything will be okay. Design genius.

“Gee, I would enjoy this banana so much more if I didn’t have to take off the peel,” said no one ever. Want to incur the wrath of an angry mob? Pre-peel bananas and package them in plastic. Design fail.

Last year we got South African satellite television just so we could watch this guy. The title of his book almost makes us want to re-up our subscription.

Their are lots of confusing words out they're. (Ha!) Fix 'em here.

Best of: Street Art.

  by  TOTORORO.RORO 

Is giving birth easier for animals? Yes it is. And no it isn't. And what's obsession with dolphin births?

  by  M.-J. Taylor 

Thinking up my own Dear Blank, Please Blank.

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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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Flying with Toddlers: Whac-a-Mole with Wings

For some reason there's been a lot in the news lately about babies on planes. Remember these flying parents of newborn twins who famously handed out goodie bags to fellow passengers?

Please. Everyone (well everyone with children older than infancy) knows that little babies are a piece of cake on a plane. You feed them and they sleep. And if not, well their lungs are too small to make much noise. The roar of a jet engine easily drowns out any screaming newborn. Oh, and they can't yet walk.

Dear Goodie Bag Parents: It's easy now. In a few years you're going to need to pass out cash. Also, you had time to make goodie bags and type cute little notes? And I'm really jealous that your assigned seat number ahead of the flight matched the one you were actually given when you boarded. (In reality, flying with children is more like this: Wrestling 23 pounds of human and maintaining the alertness of a ninja for 12 hours).

Adam and I have entered the world of flying with a toddler and a 2-year-old. This can best be described as playing (read: suffering through) a 24-hour game of whac-a-mole. Except we're operating in a 1x1 foot space and the moles are a lot bigger. When we board the plane we have an entire arsenal of tricks. The first step is to threat assess the fellow passenger in our aisle. With one lap baby, our family of 4 only gets 3 seats. There's always one poor soul sitting in that 4th seat next to us. Do they seem like the kind of person who can be easily charmed by chubby baby cheeks? Are their clothes too nice for stray, sticky baby hands? Etc.

I congratulate this mom of a 6-month-old and 2-year-old for getting her $3.99 back from the TSA for her confiscated peanut butter. Like she said, you need your peanut butter in a baby-plane crisis. The exact thing has happened to us. I can still hear the thud of our peanut butter hitting the bottom of the TSA trash can. P.S. Since when is peanut butter a liquid?

Often after the plane lands, a grandmotherly type will fulfill her role as the veteran parent and tell us what a great job our kids did. We graciously accept the compliment on their behalf, but we're really thinking, "Are you serious? That was some expert parenting you just witnessed. Did you see those moves about 7 hours in when these kids were seconds away from simultaneous meltdowns and we balanced 4 meal trays, 2 babies and 5 petit sachets of French cheese on our laps?"

x4 plus 2 kids.

  by  Jota_BRAZIL 

Now, I am in full support of child free zones on airplanes. It's called flying First Class. Good luck keeping kids out of Economy. When I fly without kids, I quite like hearing crying babies. It reminds me that they're not mine and I can relax.

On our last flight, just as we all got settled in our seats, the flight attendant came to tell us she found our family another spot. She walked us up the steps to the second level of the cabin. I gave Adam a panicked look and said, "We can't sit upstairs, it's too quiet, we're too far away from the engines. People will kill us." We found our seats anyway then sized-up the woman in the 4th seat. We apologetically said hello and she said nothing. Adam whispered to me, "Great, she's a real barrel of laughs." It took a few minutes to realize they had geniusly seated us next to a deaf woman. That's right, the one person we could not possibly disturb with our noise. We breathed a sigh of relief and thanked Air France for their expertise, once again, in handling families with babies.

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