Quest for a canvas- adventure #1
School has been closed for days. We had an extra long Thanksgiving weekend due to the Nov. 28 elections and now, due to the government SMS shut down, we are experiencing another near week off from school. Of course, local reaction to the results leaves everything up in the air and open to change. We could be home for awhile. That leaves me with plenty of time to paint….and I even have a fresh new canvas to contemplate.
Obtaining the materials for that constituted something of an adventure- back when adventures could happen (aka before post-election lock down.) It began with asking one of the artists teaching an after school program to bring me a frame and some raw canvas….apparently called calico here. I begrudgingly gave him the money for the frame, a price I thought was exorbitantly inflated. Of course, he reminded me I could remove the finished painting and stretch a new canvas on it thereby making it endlessly re-useable- if rendering my completed piece unhangable. We discussed the price to no avail as he convinced me that I didn’t have the saw to cut my own wood (or even any wood to cut if I did happen to have a saw somewhere—no garage in Kinshasa filled with rusty tools or scrap pieces from a long ago do-it-yourself project) or the ability to fix all the pieces together (after close inspection of my frame, I still cannot discern the secret to keeping the pieces together.) Thus having clearly laid out the details of my helplessness, he didn’t waiver in his $15 fee. And I had no choice to pay it. But I wasn’t happy.
We moved on to the discussion of the canvas….and another outrageous quote. I tried to justify the fee to myself by thinking about the hours I would spend trudging up and down the rue de commerce, going into every fabric store in search of calico. The rue de commerce seems a herculean effort to me and it was an easy sell. But then he returned with double what I had asked for and requested more cash. My patience worn out, I tried to explain all of my budget constraints (no, I can’t really spend a week’s worth of grocery money on canvas just for myself) and this time I held firm in refusing to pay. Mostly I just didn’t like the fact that I felt like I was being corralled into paying too much for something that I could find for myself. So much for my previous justification and my weariness about facing the infamous rue.
But I was now in command of a frame and some canvas ….next step- gesso. I figured I could easily track this down as I had heard the artist himself refer to it as gesso…though with a slightly softer and more slurred “g.” I remembered seeing a brightly colored paint store in Kintambo and figured that would be a good starting place. “Store” is really a large word for what I found in actuality. Upon stepping into the doorway, I was faced with a counter. Behind it were shelves full of paint containers, some already opened and hand mixed. I was given the option of latex….which didn’t sound quite like gesso. After some discussion about the use of this paint, I was directed to a small market just after Bandal, some 15 minutes or so from where I was. Turns out the “market” was actually another version of the rue.
This one boasted a larger street (paved, 2 lanes, lots of traffic) and seemed to me to be the commercial district for plumbing, painting and toilets. Most of the stores looked like garages with the entire front open and men sitting on chairs alongside coiled plumbing wires and sinks. I made my way to a crowded section smelling of toxins and loaded with women and charcoal cookers. Explosive dangers aside, I contemplated paint stands overflowing with milk cans- no need for labels as the colors dripped down the side turning pastoral cows into blue and orange washed out versions of their former selves.
People called from every direction eager to sell me all sorts of fabrications. I stepped up to one counter and, after some discussion about which color I wanted (gesso is normally available only in white- clue #1 that they might not have exactly what I was searching for) was led down a long, dark crowded hallway and around a corner. “Go in, go in,” they implored as I made my way over saturated rags and suspicious barrels into an office filled with dusty desks and grime covered windows. I surveyed the inventory with a fire marshall ’s horror. It seemed likely to spontaneously combust at any moment. As they offered to mix something up according to my specifications, I could see the dollar signs flashing in their eyes. No, I am not a chemist and barely certain what makes gesso preferable over ordinary white paint, but vowed to find out as soon as I could get to the nearest google station. (Gesso is thicker, lasts longer and is a mixture of plaster, glue whiting and paint which makes for better absorbency and texture.)
I finally called the artist to find out exactly what gesso is known as here on the streets of Kinshasa. Veneer blanc. He told me he usually purchases it at a shop downtown. So, back into the taxi bus and off to the opposite side of town (closer to where I had started, of course, where all good adventures begin.)
Another circular tale…..adventure #2
I realize I may not have written of this perfectly ridiculous adventure and have been amiss in not sharing it with you. It began, as most great adventures do, with an erroneous sense of direction and purpose. I had set out to pick up Guy from a friend’s house. I was armed with a telephone number and street address. I even had a hand drawn map with familiar sounding street names. I felt confident of success. I set out duly following the arrows and making left turns where indicated.
It wasn’t long before I stopped and began to ask for directions. This becomes an adventure in itself. Some people are unable to help and just point off down the road. Other people eagerly call in women and men from their stands, beckoning them over and enlisting advice from what becomes small crowds of bystanders. Inevitably, they will discuss among themselves and finally report back to me with a point and a shooing off motion (very similar to the first type of direction helper, only with more drama and fanfare.)
All requests always end with something like, “just go straight and ask some more people down there.” My search for Avenue de Fleuve (conspicuously named Avenue of the River- an easy enough landmark to find) was one that led me completely down Avenue Justice, around the government buildings and then back to the embassies housing section, located far too close to the beginning of my journey than the map allowed. A friendly group of older men had warned me that the Avenue de Fleuve was broken up into several non-connecting sections and so I should be careful to notice house numbers. An even friendlier street vendor offered to accompany me (and sell me some of his art during the drive.) I graciously declined.
I continued my pattern of drive a bit and ask a bit. I even began to call the house where Guy was to see if someone there could assist with directions. He (predictably) told me to ask someone on the street. At about this time I had been driving for nearly 45 minutes and found myself on a dark, deserted road with the river to my right and large, imposing and unfriendly houses to my left. “But there is no one to ask,” I responded. “Is your house near the embassy housing?” This is when the directions began to go very wrong. “Just ask for Jean Pierre Bemba’s house. Then you will find us.” Who? Bemba, as in the guy at the Hague? Really?
I felt quite ridiculous asking for his house on these dark city streets. I knew it deep and true that I was far from my intended destination. A security guards and a policeman standing on the corner looked like a hopeful (or maybe desperate) alternative. I had the friend’s father on the phone again and the security guard began a conversation with him. This conversation was then transferred to the policeman who was encouraged to join me in the car. We were to follow the road (straight!) and after making a left hand turn, ask around a bit. Frustration engulfed me and, seeing that the officer had no weapons, I accepted the proposal. We drove back in the direction I had initially come from, closer to where the hand drawn map had indicated. We asked a lot of people. We turned around a few times. We even called the house once more.
Before I knew it, we were back to looking for one Mr. Jean Pierre Bemba’s house on Avenue Justice. Although my rational mind knew it could not be this complicated, a surreal sense of timelessness and spacelessness had taken over. I was no longer on the streets of Kinshasa but hovering above in some sort of warped science fiction strand of the universe where left was up and right was down and there was nothing in between. We finally arrived at JPM’s house and made yet another call. “I can’t see you outside,” the mother remarked. “I don’t see the car.” I tried to explain it was because I had not yet arrived but clearly we were suffering some kind of communication malfunction that language alone could never transcend.
Somehow we were eventually able to make the arrangement to meet at the gas station on Justice just after the Supreme Court. The friend’s father showed up (without Guy) only to tell me he would be back in one minute. He had to drop someone off or pick something up. I was left there feeling I’d already made an enormous imposition on the policeman’s time and wondering why the man had not simply brought my child to the meeting place. I continued to hover in the Just Above Reality space.
Finally he returned and we followed him to his house, a mere seconds away. I parked outside and met him in the interior parking area reserved for residents. As we made our way to the elevator he asked me if I had been in Kinshasa long. “This is my fourth year, “ I replied.
“And you don’t know your way around here yet?” I stared incredulously at the back of his head, practicing my deep breathing and patience building techniques. I ratcheted it up a notch when his wife made the same comment.
In the end, it took me nearly 2 ½ hours to find this house, return the ever gentile policeman and make my way home. Here are the new directions, and estimated travel time, as I have been able to reconstruct them:
Follow Avenue Justice to the gas station after the Supreme Court ( note the change here from someone’s personal house to a major landmarked building. Of course, I think there is only one gas station on Justice anyway.) Turn left at the station and make your first right. (20 minutes.)
I am overwhelmed by the simplicity of it all. I must have spoken to thirty people that night and called the inhabitants themselves at least five times. No one ever said, Go straight. Make a left. Make a right. No one ever said, Supreme Court. I have no feelings to sum up that ride. It was one of those adventures that we watch ourselves participating in and maybe even narrate for ourselves along the way, trying to guess the outcome as a reader might with an enthralling mystery novel. The ending was nothing like what I had imagined at the beginning.
