Ah, le monde culturel.

Today I have been in Congo for one week and one day. One week! I feel like I have been here for at least a month. Can you say cultural adjustment? Yep. You bet. I have felt like a bull in a china shop for most of my time so far. A perfect example is Friday. A little background is necessary:

One of the things I will be doing this summer is observing and perhaps teaching a peer mediation course that Pascal is teaching/facilitating for two classes at UC Kin; one class made up of primary school kids from all levels, and one made up of secondary school kids of all levels (there is a primary and a secondary school on the university campus). Wednesday was my first day of work, and I spent it at UC Kin for a few hours and sat in on and observed Pascal in his first interaction with the kids and listened to him give an introduction to this course. I have arrived just in time for him to start this course, and it will last until around the middle of July. When the kids complete the course they will receive certificates from Pascal's CPLB in peer mediation. It's a really fantastic initiative, and I am so glad that I arrived just in time for the beginning of the course. So this is what I'll be doing each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday around midday.

Because I had already visited UC Kin on Wednesday, when I arrived back on the campus I was feeling a little confident because I was in a familiar place. I actually felt confident as I walked down the hall with Jean Claude and even remembered how to get to Pascal's office! Now, on the fifteen minute walk over to the university from Pascal's house, I told Jean Claude that although I have no experience teaching and may not be very helpful yet in that arena, I would like to help him out to the best of my ability in any way I can. I just wanted to put that out there because I was feeling a little useless (more about that later).

Well.

In the first class - the secondary students - things weren't going quite as well for Claude as they had gone for Pascal on Wednesay; the students were unresponsive and not listening and just generally being teenagers, and I could tell that Claude was a little bit at a loss for how to engage them. I would have felt exactly the same way! I am much better with elementary-aged kids than I am with teen-aged kids. So can you guess what his solution was?

There is a buzzer sounding for everyone who guessed anything other than that he told the kids that at that point I was going to get up and ask them some questions.

Oh yes. That's right. "Now, she is going to ask you some questions and speak to you about mediators." You're kidding. This is some sort of joke. I honestly thought that I had misunderstood him. I stayed in my seat in the corner of the room. He turns to me and motions for me to get up and stand in front of the class! I do not get up; instead, I say to him that I am not sure what he wants me to do. "Just talk to them a bit. Go." So... I start to sweat because that is just what I do in Africa. I sweat.

I get up there and stutter out some question in broken French that I am desperately trying to connect with the topic Claude was addressing (which, by the way, I am not entirely understanding at this point in the morning); the kids really don't get what I am talking about and no one raises a hand but they are polite and don't give me a hard time and I thank them and sit back down as absolutely quickly as I can feeling, once again, totally out of my element and unsure of myself. Ego check completed.

Then I broke the door handle to the bathroom off. Pulled it straight off. Broken in three pieces with the key stuck through the keyhole, even though the actual lock was still in the door.

Voila; this was what my whole week was like. One episode after another. I have essentially spent the past six days laughing at myself, one blunder after another.

However, on Friday when my aunt Charity came by to pick me up for the weekend, Christelle told me that they would miss me until my return with a sad face, and then
Maman Jeanne told Charity that she was not allowed to take me away because I now belong to them. Bless her little heart, as Alex would so fondly say. I almost cried when I heard these two statements one after the other! They came as a surprise and a relief. As I've already mentioned, the Kulungu family has taken me into their home with open arms. They've been overwhelmingly hospitable and accommodating all week. I have barely lifted a finger. Don't get me wrong because I feel immeasurably grateful and appreciative for everything they've done and will continue to do for me, but by Friday morning I was at the point where I was beginning to feel some frustration at being waited on and sitting around completely uselessly... as well as a sense of guilt that has swallowed me like a cloud of smoke since I arrived at my immense privilege. I began to worry that they would resent me terribly by the end of the summer if they felt like they had to continue to serve me as they are. I tried time and again to help clear the dishes after dinner; to wash the floor in the morning; to fetch water from their reserves for my own bathing purposes... but they insisted that I not do these things myself.

In Pascal's words earlier in the week regarding an entirely unrelated topic, 'Ah, le monde culturel.' I expressed this frustration to my fam on Friday evening. I can't go all summer like this!I mean really, if I had a guest staying with me for a week, chances are that I would do the exact same. I would want to make their stay in my home as comfortable as possible for the short time they were there and let them leave with warm thoughts and feelings about our visit. But for three months forget it. Pull your own weight! Make yourself at home means that you can get your own glass of water. However, in Tshokwe (correct spelling of Chokwe) culture, explained my aunt and uncle, it is a joy and a privilege to have guests and to serve them. They would treat their own family the exact same way, even if the stay were as long as six months or a year. Huh. Ok, well, huh. So I needn't fret...? Really? This is soooo different. And interesting and inspiring. To find joy in service is certainly not a popular Western notion, but is one that to me reflects a profound sense of connectedness to our fellow persons' well being. A vested interest in the wellness of those around us. It's beautiful and is something that I feel like I've been searching and longing for in a world that I've been increasingly feeling is run by violent and hurtful processes that can be likened to a type of global social Darwinism lately. So I will try to understand this value, and try to respect and honour it instead of feeling guilt about my great privilege; guilt: that useless and self-destructive non-emotion that serves no one. This is a tiny little nutshell version of what's been on my mind since my descent on Kin and stepping off the plane into this marvelous country. Lol.

I have so much more to say, but I am pecking away at this French keyboard upon which a bunch of letters are jumbled around in different places and this has actually taken me about an hour to type and I just don't really feel like typing anymore. Sorry folks! I will either pick it back up later this evening, or around mid-week.