Kinshasa is home to something like 9 million people---and no Central Park. Luckily, our campus pretty much functions as the central park for many families. There is a walking trail, a pool and 42 acres of trees and grass. A perfect get away. Unless you happen to live here. Then the get away aspect turns into something like the stay home aspect. It's still definitely sweet and perfect but for those days when you just want to go
out, Kinshasa can be challenging. In my former life, I was a playground junkie. We knew all the playgrounds in a 50 mile radius and often packed up picnics and headed out to spend the day. There is a magical quality to being away from home and outside that seems to quiet all sibling squabbles and induce a sense of joy for life.
So it was that yesterday had us heading off for Mbudi Nature, a sculpture park, restaurant and natural area by the river. There is a small fee to get in but it is completely worth it. Mbudi hosts the best sleeping spot in Kin.
A cool breeze comes in off the river and I didn't battle one black fly or mosquito the entire time. It is one of the few places where I can sit outside completely undisturbed. No shouts of "mondele," no requests for cash, just the melodic "tink-tink" of workers pounding off rocks to sell. There are tons of boulders for the kids to climb and sand to play in or kick a ball around. There is often a wedding going on and plenty of well dressed people trying to make their way gracefully down the slope to get to the water.
A young man in one line of families stopped to ask if he could take my photo. It was a slightly odd proposition, a turn on the usual mondele snapping photos of random Congolese....it's happened a few times since being in Africa. The very funny moments in Lubumbashi when hotel patrons started standing just by my chair as their friend snapped a photo, to a young couple who wanted to pose with some teachers during a getting to know you lunch, and now this young man. I didn't ask for 500 franc, though I did let him take the photo. There was a moment of doubt afterward as I wondered what exactly he planned to do with a picture of me (and yes, I had to tell myself voodoo, black magic and other spells were not likely at the top of his list.) But it did feel odd to have a piece of me going off with him in his phone....
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| Kin version of a playground- huge black rocks to scramble over and conquer |
