minor mishap

“Minor Mishap” playing on iTunes – Tommy Flanagan, John Coltrane, and Kenny Burrell on February 5, 2011

A Minor Mishap is a good day in Brazzaville.

When I arrived in the Republic of Congo on a dusty August evening in 2010, the sun had decided to smear itself across the horizon like a squashed firefly flickering for the last time. Mismatched, awkward, betrayed and small soon entered the vocabulary of my psyche as September drifted into October. Empty and hopelessly ticking the squares off the calendar in my artificially frigid hotel room, I wandered the streets in search of something to do. As the days passed, my balance returned, but five months later, I am still processing the pain that circulated through my core during the first 90 days of my stay in Central Africa. I wrote this reflection on a blue Saturday when those memories were kicking and screaming, demanding to be recycled and put to rest. The pain on the other hand, raw and exposed, will always be a part of my identity, anchored firmly to a time when I drank a Primus before noon to numb the ache and cloud my head just enough to cope.

Congo is…

The damn electricity left me in the dark for the hundredth time last night at the exact moment when I was spitting toothpaste into the sink, so I stumbled to bed by moonlight. I’ve stubbed my toe when this has happened before, but last night, I didn’t. No one can predict when; no one knows why; and it hasn’t been determined how to fix the electricity problem, least of all by any government employee.

It’s the uncertainty of the water. Shower-less and smelling of four or five rounds of perspiration that soaked through my clothes throughout the day. The tap refuses to cooperate. The water pump needs electricity and the two partners in crime exercise their right to remain silent.

Congo is rushing to do dishes, mop the floors, wash clothes, grind the coffee and bathe myself when electricity and water mysteriously grace my morning.

Congo is seizing the opportunity.

The Republic of Congo is not knowing when the Internet service will connect from home. Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday… postpone that urgent e-mail until no one knows. Everything can wait in Brazzaville. Patience is stretched, tried, spread thin until finally any remaining resistance fizzles and pops into a heap of tears or morose laughter.

Congo is compressed relationships- neither long-term nor concerned with community building or even the welfare of each member. Short-term assignments prohibit each individual from connecting to their ex-pat neighbors in a wholesome and productive manner. Why invest in intimacy and commitment when “pack up and move” every two years is the lifestyle?

Congo is a management officer who greeted me in September at the embassy with an unsavory slot on her shit list and the following rant, “Get on the next plane home if you don’t like it here. In my opinion, Brazzaville wasn’t ready for an ELF.”

Central Africa is the man who sent me spinning heart first into a romantic hypnosis but refused to be seen in public with me: a condition I could never accept. He’s among the professionals who quiver and quake at the thought of how others will perceive them in Brazza society- a fishbowl existence of swirling gossip. Can’t do this; Must do this; Stand up and sit down at the State Department’s directive. Existing under the thumb of a higher power because career comes first.

Will the revolution in Egypt, Tunisia, or Yemen spread south? Is the devil you know superior to the devil you haven’t yet met? Both have horns and both can steal your soul.

I can’t answer looming political questions revolutionizing the continent, but reflections on the Republic of Congo, city of Brazzaville, are my minor mishap today.