Shape shifters and stone benders

I’d been looking for a new house. I had hoped to replace my current brood of neighbors with trees and birds. I wanted a move out of the “city” and into the foresty mountains just outside of town. I want nature to greet me every morning, although I might argue that I have that in my current place. Really, Gemena is one big village. There are a few things to consider while I wait for the perfect place to draw me. 

One, and perhaps most important to me, is light. I can appreciate windows with glass window panes that allow the sunlight to fill up each room. Many of the houses I have been considering have small windows with wooden shutters. Once the window is closed, all light is extinguished. There are reasons for the small windows. Most of life is lived outside and so there is little need for expensive glass panes. 

There are also thieves. The farther from the city, the more frequent the tales of robbers in the night. In my small circle of acquaintances, the majority of them have a tale of thievery. It is disheartening in a place where poverty is extreme. The goods available to steal hardly seem worth the trouble, and yet, their absence means the difference between living in poverty or living in destitution. People tell stories of having every single thing stolen from the house- the food, the clothes, the small stock of flour for foufou.

I am a light sleeper and I wonder how it is that the occupants never seem to wake up. There are stories to explain this. I am told the fetishers, those who know the magic, have small stones they place outside the door. With one tap, the stone releases energy that puts the inhabitants into a deep sleep. So deep they are able to lift your sleeping body and steal the mattress from under you. Alternatively, they are known to cut holes in the mud house walls or to remove the bricks one by one until there is an opening to enter and extract goods. The best fetishers don’t need to bother with that. They are able to hit the wall and be inside, where they will amass all the materials in one pile, hit the wall again and be outside with the treasures. 

This was the explanation my boxing coach offered for what happened to him. I had brought back a few small items to support his growing junior club. Nothing big, a head guard, some mouth guards, sparring mitts and some jump ropes. He went to the president of the league to offer thanks for putting us in touch and to show him the fruits of that connection. Maybe this attempt at respecting cultural norms went awry. 

Later that night, thieves infiltrated his small room and stole everything except the three shirts he’d been using as a pillow. I can still see him shaking his head as he describes the porridge he likes to eat every morning. “They even took my breakfast.” It’s hard to imagine why. 

Clearly this theft was more than just for capital gain. Likely intended for moral oppression. The next morning at training, some of the young boxers were refusing to participate. He tried to send them home, telling them discipline is everything. When they reluctantly got up and tried to join, he refused. “No, go home and come back tomorrow when you are ready to work. Otherwise you are just a distraction for everyone else.” 

“Oh, so you don’t know who has your phone?” They alluded to other items that had been taken. It escalated quickly from there, with threats and name calling. People don’t take easily to outsiders here. They told him to go back where he came from. And if he didn’t? They made it clear they had connections which they would easily call in. Arrest, kidnapping, whatever it took to keep him from training. 

He was calm during the telling. He has a sweet smile and a soft face- so incongruent with his boxing passion. My coach in Kinshasa was the same. Exuding gentleness and inner peace. But at that moment in the story, I could see tears filming his eyes. He knows he does not have any support here, a Kinshasa transplant like me. No friends to call on if anything did happen. No family to notice he was missing. 

Like many of us visitors to Gemena, he came here for work. A stepping stone to a better life, to more opportunity. But boxing is his passion and the thought of giving it up was breaking through his cool composure. For a second. He took a visible breath and offered up a hopeful smile. I wondered where the strength came from. 

He stopped by a few days later to confirm he’d retrieved some of his things. Brand new boxing items in Gemena were bound to stand out. But his tale is one of many that I’ve heard, though the others were less personal, perhaps. You can never really be sure what motivates someone to come and take away your little bit of nothing. 

I ran into the president of the league later the same day I’d heard the story. This guy is a shape shifter to me. I’ve have seen him three times and each time I did not recognize him at all. The first time he had a hat and cowboy boots. His nose was long, his face rough and dark. He was tall. The second time I saw him in Kinshasa was at the Palace du Peuple, of all places. He was dressed smartly and blended in with the atmosphere of the capital. This final time I was leaving the medical clinic, walking down the rocky dirt road. He called me from a distance and came running over. He appeared short and young with smooth light skin. I never know it is him until he tells me his name. I know his name. We walked and talked, and I wondered at the coincidence. 

He started the conversation by asking me to support the league with supplies. I told him I’d learned my lesson about gifting people things. I felt my efforts had brought a cloud of jealousy raining hate and anger on the young boxer. I launched into a lot of sideways talk with the president, not wanting to come out and tell him the story, but assuming he should know. He pretended innocence. I told him as the president, he should be aware of what was happening amongst the clubs. And even more, he should be playing a role in bringing them together, to represent the city. A win for one was a win for all. 

I led our discussion to talk of the civil war, something that had hit Gemena hard. I asked him if he had been present then. Yes, he had. All the more reason to understand the seriousness of interclub conflict. All the more reason for him to take a leadership role in bringing about unity. He had little room but to agree. Honestly, I don’t know where these words came from or why I felt so strongly. 

Living in extreme poverty makes everything feel extreme. Living in Gemena has been full of opposition- fluctuating between the possible and the impossible, trying to discern between truth and fiction, deciding whether to hold onto hope or give in to despair. The answer is just yes. Because life in Africa keeps showing me that multiple realities exist. All things can be true at once. Science and tradition. The seen and unseen. Gentle thieves who steal your things in the night and ask you to donate to their cause in the light of day.

The man on the porch

 There's a man who sleeps in front of our door every night. We know him, sort of. His name is Pierre and he is our sentinelle, our guard. I wonder often if we need to have a guard, and everyone assures me we do. Living in Africa as a stranger means you need a guard outside your door. I have had a lot of experiences with sentinelles, from those who stay in a guard house near the gate of the property to those who are further away, guarding the entrance to campus. But this time, we live in a house, without a fence or a gate, and so I guess that is what merits this man sleeping just outside our door.

We have a porch with iron bars around the front. It would be a nice porch for sitting on at night and looking across into the sky. But Pierre's grass mat takes up most of the space. He usually begins by sitting on the ground in front of the porch. It's a comical image, this small thin man sitting on his large square mat with the pink house looming behind him. It doesn't seem possible he could be guarding any part of it. 

Most of the guards I have had experience with are often older men who appear somewhat frail. I am always perplexed about the criteria that has propelled them into the position of guard. Pierre came with the house. He is actually a very good guardian. I hear him getting up every few hours, circling the perimeter, shining his light in all the windows, and checking the doors to make sure they're locked. 

I am a very light sleeper and all of Pierre's movements wake me with the rhythm of a newborn. Every two hours the metal gate creaks. I hear his radio emissions, his coughing, and all of the other sounds of humans. I am sure he hears ours. Pierre never gets a day off. He sleeps outside in the rain and in the cool crisp air of the dry season. I have been wondering how to find a solution for this. Of course, it is to hire another guard so they can share hours. I wonder also about Pierre's family, who say goodbye to him every evening and his wife, who sleeps alone every night. 

We need another guard at work, so those sentinelles can also have a day off. I wanted to suggest Pierre switch over to that job. It pays better than I can pay. But then I would be left with the problem of finding someone to stay at my place, in much closer proximity than I am really comfortable with. 

I was pretty convinced for about two weeks that I didn't need a guard. We have metal bars on every window and metal doors with locks and bolts. I thought I could put a padlock on the gate around the porch and call it good. But then I passed a Twitter photo someone had posted after a break in. Their metal window frames had been ripped from the concrete and were hanging loosely like crepe paper after a Halloween raid. Concrete is nowhere near as solid and strong as I had been led to believe. The thing about having no guard is that, if a band of thieves did show up, there is no one to call. There is no emergency 911 or police response team. I would just be here on my own, waiting it out or worse. 

I'd been joking with a colleague about the problem of guards and she recalled a conversation she had with her guard- something about "if I have to kill someone..." to which she said, ooooh no, we're not going that far. But he had slashed someone's leg one time. An intruder trying to get at....whatever is there. Which is really the problem. There's nothing here to take, but no one would assume that. We'd all be getting hurt for nothing. 

Guards in Mali had the same preoccupation, only it was a bit more severe. Terrorist intrusion is a much more probable event in Bamako than I imagine it is here. Of course, you're only imagining until it is real. Suddenly, the unlikely is happening and either you're prepared or not. 

Here I have heard mostly stories of stealing goats or chickens. We don't have either of those. We do have some electronics, and I suppose those are appealing to a potential thief. I am not opposed to Pierre. I do wish he had a place a bit further than the door. On the rare occasion I have to go somewhere at night, he is quick to question me. Am I really explaining my agenda to a strange man on my porch? Yes, at my age, I must still justify why I would be going out in the dark. 

While Pierre seems prepared to tackle night invaders, I have noticed he doesn't consider children part of his duties. The boys often come peering at the windows, asking to be let in, or trying to convince Mbalia to come talk to them. Like everything in Gemena, sometimes it is easy to laugh off and sometimes it is just downright annoying. 

I've come to accept we will have a person sleeping on our porch every night, at least for now. We can aspire to a guard house, or a fence, or even a new house in an entirely new area with a yard and a wall and guards who keep their distance. But you can never really escape the experience of having people in your space, milling about, noticing things, needing things, shining lights randomly in the night. It's part of life in Africa as a stranger. Even after 15 years, I still fall into that category. Even here in the village, I am still not part of life. 

There is one place where we don't have a guard. One place that feels a bit like home. We miss it. Maybe we'll have a chance to get back there soon. For now, we're managing with the man on the porch.