Bon, jusqu'a maintenant...

...which means good then, thus far:

My trip here was just fine. Mundane airplanes and airports. I was beginning to feel very small, after having transferred through Toronto and through Paris with their gigantic airports in which I had to take shuttle buses to get to the right terminals, until I arrived in Kinshasa. Aside from the fact that we walked off the plane and across the tarmac to get inside the airport, I kind of felt right at home. I think the Kin airport may be smaller than that of Winnipeg. Small enough to be totally manageable, or so I thought when we first landed. A little more chaotic, though.

Oh, and the brick wall of heat and humidity that I walked into when I stepped off the plane was really nothing like Winnipeg at all.

My UN escort at the airport was not just any old UN escort, but in fact the MONUC (UN mission in Congo concerned with the war) Protocol for Kinshasa. Wow. He (figuratively) scooped me up and ushered me over to the "Diplomates Officiels" line to enter the country, and then ushered me through the line, visa was stamped, and then that was it. I had arrived. Officially and diplomatically. Unreal.

I proceeded to sweat my ass off waiting for my bags for the next hour and a half or so. Lol. This heat is something else. It's been in the high +30s since I arrived. And I'm sooooo white.

I proceeded to sleep for practically the next two days. Here in Kin, we are six hours ahead of Winnipeg. So when people are getting out of bed here, it's midnight back at home. I haven't had much trouble at all falling asleep six hours earlier than normal, but my body doesn't want to wake up after seven or eight hours. Nope, I seem to want twelve to fourteen hours of sleep. I don't remember the last time I slept this well. At my aunt and uncle's place, wrapped in my pink mosquito net-cocoon with the A/C blasting I'm on another planet :)

I digress.

My aunt and uncle live in a beautiful little 'villa' inside their company's headquarters compound. Their back yard is a little like the eye of a hurricane - while outside you hear the city bustling, people yelling, diesel trucks motoring along the Poids Lourds ('heavy load;' they live on Kin's main trucking route), their little courtyard is full of green and lush. There's a massive tree near the centre that looks like something straight out of the rainforest, and a number of other small trees with all sorts of different types and colours of blossoms on them. Yellow buttercup-looking flowers, this fantastic coral orange, and about four different shades of pink. All kinds of birds and little and big gecko/lizards with varying splashes and patterns of colour on them. Yesterday morning (well, actually afternoon) I sat on their verandah with my coffee and felt totally spoiled rotten. I took some pictures and will attempt to post them next weekend.

That's another thing - taking pictures is complicated here. As a matter of fact, you can be thrown in jail for being caught in public with a camera. With such a history of exploitation, no one wants their poverty further exploited by having pictures of desperation and raw life posted all over the internet or spread around other cities. Liken it to organizations like the Christian Children's Fund and/or World Vision and the way they slap the most heart-wrenching shots of kids with distended bellies and flies in their eyes in your face to guilt you into giving them money. Think about how humiliating that might be for those people who are actually suffering. That's why no pictures, and I have absolutely no issue and the utmost respect for that.

I love this city already. Despite the roads being so bad that it takes on average an extra half hour to 45 minutes to get anywhere, this city is alive in a way that no other North American city I've ever visited is alive. It pulsates with energy, life, laughter, and need. It is full of colour - women's clothing, goods in the roadside markets, the advertisements painted all along the compound walls that enclose just about everything - which has had my senses on overdrive every time I've been out. There is garbage strewn all over; the city and country have no infrastructure to speak of. If you've seen Slumdog Millionaire and the streets of Bombay/Mumbai, you've got a sense of it. But I've seen people making use of the garbage, picking it up and recycling it (plastic bags, for instance), in ingenius ways. The air is thick with the smell of humidity that I just don't know how to describe. It's fantastic.

I moved in with my host family yesterday. I visited first on Sunday and was astounded at the warm welcome I received. Two of the four girls, Claudia (who is Pascal's wife Therese's sister) and Julianna (sp?), Pascal's brother Marcel, and his parents were here to greet me. They all live here. Maman Jeanne, Pascal's mother, is absolutely darling. She was so excited that I was there and all she did was laugh, practically jump up and down, and raise my hands in thei air above our heads in celebration, an act that is extremely culturally significant. I am overwhelmed at their hospitality and how happy they are to have me here. I really thought that it would just have been me who felt that way - I'm not sure why - so this is incredible.

When I arrived yesterday evening and my aunt left it got a little awkward. My language skills are sure to improve over the next few weeks and make things a lot easier, but for now they suck too much to initiate or maintain any long or meaningful conversation. The french is quite different in this part of the world. For example, in Canada, ninety is quatre (four) - veingt (twenty) - dix (ten). Four times twenty plus ten. Here, ninety is nonante. That's just the tip of the iceberg. Not to mention the accents. So, although the french I do have is much better than none at all, it's not as helpful as I had imagined it would be! But like I said, I'm sure it will just be a couple or three weeks and I'll be right up to speed and able to fill in the awkward silences. Additionally, right now they're all being so incredibly hospitable. I've not lifted a finger in the past twenty-four hours. It's wonderful, but I'm looking forward to our being a little more comfortable with each other, helping out with cooking and cleaning, and having the language to be able to converse more freely with them all.

The power was on and off all night last night. We also had an unbelievable torrential downpour. No one was phased by it so I tried to be as nonchalant as possible, but the only time I've ever seen anything like that before was when we first arrived in Bombay at the end of the monsoon. Power has only been off so far today once and only for about five minutes, but shortly before that happened the water stopped running. This was, so thankfully, after I had had the chance to wash yesterday's heat off and start fresh. Lol. I've never smelled this bad in my life and the materiel my clothes are made of is mostly incredibly inappropriate for this climate. I didn't pack much. I asked the girls yesterday if they could help me buy some materiel and see their tailor sometime later this week or next. One thing I am really looking forward to doing again is bargaining - I loved it in India and got pretty good. Little twelve-year-old Canadian Megan could hold her own among the best rough-edged Indian vendors :) (There I go referring to myself in the third person. I blame Facebook.)

Maman Therese wants me to teach her to cook Canadian food. Bahaha. I warned her that I've always been lazy when it comes to cooking so I'm not a very good cook, but if she will teach me some Congolese cuisine I will be happy to show her how to ruin a perfectly good Canadian dish. Recipe suggestions are more than welcome.

En tous cas, I believe I will start working tomorrow. It looks like I'll actually be doing a fair bit of teaching, both in a high school that Pascal teaches at as well as possibly teach some english at UC Kin, the Christian University of Kinshasa. As well as possibly take a two week trip to do an informal evaluation of a peace curriculum that is currently being taught in public schools. As well as observe some mediations that Pascal is doing through his centre (the Centre for Peacebuilding, Leadership, and Good Governance in Congo, or CPLB in french). As well as work with my aunt and uncle and their organization. Still not entirely sure. Not even bothered anymore by the fact that I'm not sure, though. Anything I am able to do will be fantastic.

A bientot, I'll try to write again this weekend.