Kinshasa continues to break my heart in a way that no one or nothing else will. Unfathomable. Things haven't changed much- or rather I should say, the things that have changed don't much matter and the things that matter haven't changed for the better. The problems seem all the more grand and insurmountable; the progress seems barely a drop in the ocean.
In the last few weeks I have continued to be welcomed into the community. I have basked in the friendly open smiles that greet me, the waves and greetings from a distance, the sound of my name from faces I mostly remember- though they have taken the time to remember my name, my children and to ask after each of them.
I try to nurture these relationships, to stop and say hello. Inquire about family. Make some small talk about livelihoods and future prospects. It is not my strong point. Several times, I have been ambushed. It's usually on a Monday.
The leading question is innocent enough. How was your weekend? The fact that the answers come long, honest, and full of a reality I don't quite know what to do with, suggests just how far things have deteriorated. People are not even able to put up pretenses. They are tired. Beyond tired. Sick and tired. Or just plain sick. There is no more "au rhythm du pays" which served as a kind of code for, I'm doing as best I can, considering the state of the country.
Now I am assaulted with stories of weekends spent searching for water, searching for cooking gas, searching for school fees. Weekends spent sitting inside and outside hospitals while children suffer from nameless maladies or burns that aren't being healed properly. This last one, the story of today, lingers heavily. "It's like they don't know how to treat her. They are not doing a good job." He's told me the story of his daughter who was cooking and spilled the pot, burning her toes. She's been in the hospital for a week. He's lost confidence in the doctors but doesn't have much choice in her placement. I remember that he and his wife had lost a little boy, a one year old succumbed to malaria before he'd even had a chance to get home and whisk him off to the hospital. I don't know what to do with his latest story. I hold it, paralyzed. My mind is the only thing capable of movement. It races towards answers that don't exist. I force out a feeble response. Something about prayers and keeping your family in my thoughts.
It's not the first story to throw a gray cloud over what had been an afternoon of sunshine and warmth, and I know it won't be the last. I do admit I've caught myself wondering if I should even ask. A little voice suggests I just keep walking, a breezy ça va? or maybe even a boni? and continue on my way. I don't listen to that voice. I stop. I pause. I hear the stories, even if all I can do for now is to hold them, awkwardly juggling the raw humanity. Its sacred, this sharing, and as much as I don't know exactly what to do with it, I feel obliged to push aside my discomfort and be present.
There will be a place to put these stories one day soon. A place to lay them out in the sunshine and invite the world to see. A place to organize and analyze and problem solve. A place to paint life into each numbing circumstance. I hope by then it will be a place of healing.
For all the anguish Kinshasa inspires, I desperately want to see something take hold and transform her into a power capable of reaching the fullest potential. I feel as though we are once again standing on the edge of something big. If I could will it into being...
