Nesting

We moved into our apartment in Kananga on Monday. It was a much-anticipated move, after 8 months of traveling week to week, living out of a suitcase. We’ve been anticipating this move for many months now, and we are both excited about the prospect of getting ‘settled’. It is a slow process though…we do not yet have a way to cook, or curtains, or a barrel to store water in. But it is such a great feeling to have a place to call home!!

Our first day, we walked to town and bought some cleaning supplies. We are pacing ourselves, getting a few things each day that help make the house ‘functional’. Our quest to get set up is also proving to be a method of learning the town and connecting with people—a valuable lesson! But it does require a lot of patience.

We can lay in bed in the morning and watch the small market across the street come to life…because we do not yet have curtains. We can find some bread just across the street for breakfast…because we don’t yet have a way to cook anything. Bob joked that in the U.S. some couples only have a candle-light dinner once in a blue moon, but we have one every night…because we do not yet have another form of electricity or light. So…we are learning to appreciate the things we do have and be patient about the ‘creature comforts’.

We read a poem last night that seemed rather fitting to this stage. Here is one quote:

“It takes a heap o’ living in a house t’ make it home,
A heap o’ sun an’ shadder, and’ ye sometimes have t’ roam
Afore ye really ‘preciate the things ye lef’ behind,
An’ hunger fer ‘em somehow, with ‘em allus on yer mind.
It don’t make any differunce how rich ye get t’ be,
How much yer chairs and’ tables cost, how great yer luxury;
It ain’t home t’ye, though it be the palace of a king,
Until somehow yer soul is sort o’ wrapped ‘round everything.”

Good Sunshine

Thursday morning, 6:10am.  The neighboring market begins its mornin’ rumblings, soon erupting into full life.  A cacaphony of sounds, mostly women jabbering and chatting - buying and selling charcoal.  Outdoor stalls omnipresent:  dried fish, cassava leaves, cassava roots, onions, potatoes, palm oil for cooking, and one-of-kind vegetables and sundries found here in central Congo.  Directly in front of the church, on the main road, towards of the edge of town, stand and sit men and women in a sea of yellow jerry cans, emanating the distinctively potent and effusive odor of “malavu a kapia” - “drink of fire” (whiskey!).  Ironically, the #1 distribution point for whiskey in a city of 1 million people stands on the doorsteps of the church. 

6:45am.  A dozen women and men and a handful of children gather inside the still-dark church.  A lantern sheds light upon the frayed pages of the holy book.  The elder reads words from a man named Paul to the humble gathering of simple, God-fearing Congolese women and men, and a handful of children.  An old woman stands to pray and the fellowship closes singing an old hymn.  They sing the colorful chorus “munya muimpe, munya muimpe, wakunsankisha bulelela”- “good sunshine, good sunshine, you have blessed me, it is true.”  The title of this hymn is, “There is sunshine in my soul today.”  This sing-songy hymn describes Jesus as “the chief of heaven” and as “the sunshine in my soul.”  The humble gathering closes with smiles, hugs and handshakes, stepping out into the sunshine of a new day.   

7:30am.  Black charcoal begins to grey upon the babula stove.  Directly behind the pastor’s home, adjacent to the church, we sit in a semi-half circle around the babula to get a little warmth.  Mama Bampende thrusts the the large silver colored pot of water onto the babula.  Mulami (Deacon) Michel Miteba takes the bright yellow Nido can and skirts it on the edge of the babula, edging out just enough space to warm the thick, black, Kasai coffee.  The children sit across from us:  playful, innocent, curious.  Kristi helps wash dishes and I sing hymns with Mulami Muamba. 

7:45am.  The thick black Kasai coffee finds its way down my anxious throat.  Warmness blankets my belly.  Sweetness remains in my mouth.  The thick, cool air of the morning begins to abscond.  Rays of sunlight begin their beaming.  The cacophony of the neighboring market continues.  Men and women with the bright yellow jerry cans continue plying their wares.  Our semi-half circle behind the pastor’s home adjacent to the church remains unbroken.  Mulami Muamba and I continue our singing.  The good sunshine of Jesus fills my soul.  Contentment and peace are mine.  There is sunshine in my soul today.     

Creature Comforts

There are a few material things that I am learning not to take for granted. At the end of 6 weeks of living with families in Kananga, here are a few things I have come to really appreciate:

1. Water. When all the water for use in the house has been carried a distance on the head of a family member, you learn to appreciate it and conserve it!

2. Being able to wash my hands without having to search for a bucket, and soap, and place to dump the water.

3. Being able to put my feet on the floor (or other things) without having to worry that they will be covered in dirt.

4. Windows that give light in the day-time, and help you know when it is daytime!

5. A good mattress…so that the bed-boards don’t poke you in the back.

6. Being able to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night without dealing with a swarm of cockroaches.

7. Turning on a light as you walk into the room…or knowing where the light is, so that you don’t have to search for a match or a flash-light in the dark.

8. Stepping out of the ‘shower’ without trying not to step into the dirt.

Ahh… we enjoy our creature comforts. It was interesting though, that once you get used to some of the different ways of doing things, it doesn’t seem like such a sacrifice. The joys of fellowship and the love that we received far outweighed having to do without a few things. Not bad…just different. :)

Explanation of silence...

We are in the midst of 6 weeks of staying with different families in Kananga. In our effort to downsize for this period of traveling, we left our laptops in storage. We have had minimal internet access during this period, and regret that we have not been able to update the blog. We hope to post some pîctures and updates in a couple of weeks when we get back to our laptops.

For now, we are doing our best to embrace the experience of life in Kananga along with our friends, and also learning Tshiluba in the process. More later! :)

The search for Milongo

We apologize for the long silence! We just returned from a month of language learning at Lake Munkamba, and are happy to be reconnected to the world via the internet! We will try to share here some of the many things we learned and experienced this month about Congolese culture. First, we have learned that many things are edible which we never would have placed in that category before. For example, caterpillars, grass-hoppers, termites, snakes, some ants, just to name a few. We learned that April is the month where ‘milongo’ and their cousin ‘lunana’ (both in the termite family, we think) can be found.

From our observation, it is primarily children who catch the milongo within the village. Here is the process. The milongo are underground, and emerge in the evening and fly away. In order to catch them, you have to be ready: First, a small ‘house’ is built from some sticks or reeds. A small hole is dug on one side to collect the milongo.

Then, the ‘house’ is covered, so that when the milongo emerge, they are trapped under the cover.

Then, you wait for the milongo to emerge. Just as the sun goes down, they start to come out of the ground. They get trapped under the cover, and eventually move into the hole in their attempt to get out into the air. Kids come from everywhere to collect the milongo from the hole or pick them out from under the cover.

Most kids eat the milongo as fast as they can grab them, at the same time they are collecting them in a cup. The ones in the cup can be shared with the family—either eaten live, or fried. Bob was the first of us to try eating a live milongo, and he said it wasn’t too bad! One evening when we were doing our rounds of Thiluba practice in the village, the hour of milongo came, and it turned out to be a particularly good day for milongo. The kids who were accompanying us would race off to one spot or another where the milongo were emerging, grab a few for a snack, then rejoin us for a few minutes before flying off to the next milongo site. It was amusing to watch!

The cousin of milongo, lunana, emerges from underground after a big rain. April is the end of the spring rainy season, so we had several good days of lunana. Several hours after the rain, the lunana will emerge and start to fly away. From a distance, it looks almost like smoke, or a fountain of small butterflies. Kids will flock to the site, and collect the lunana and eat them or save them to be cooked later. One day we were in the middle of our Tshiluba lessons when the lunana emerged, and we decided it was time for a cultural lesson and a taste test. We have a video of Kristi eating a lunana, but have not yet been able to upload it. We’ll link it in if we’re able!

That day, we hired a couple of kids to collect a cup-ful for us to fry for lunch. We didn’t realize that caterpillars were already on the menu for lunch, as well as fish, so we ate big that day. At the end of the meal, Bob said “I think I’ve reached my maximum of insects for the day!”