Don’t these things look clean and pretty? They are like Congolese women, who come out of sardine-packed, fume-spewing taxibuses and traipse down muddy, garbage-strewn streets looking like a million dollars.
That’s Nina’s Curious, our fourth traveling companion, with my loot. Like Congolese women, he has good taste.
See, I bought some cloth, hoping the glamour would rub off on me. But although I looked pretty spiffy this morning in my blue dress and Congo cloth jacket, I was soon hot and bedraggled. All four of us looked good at the outset. We should have taken a picture of our outfits for the day. I will not take pictures now because we are getting some well-earned rest and we do not look good.
Nina and I did a fair piece of work this morning. I interviewed three people who, like me, have had a role in the Congolese Mennonite centennial story project. One was a writer-researcher who conducted dozens of interviews and wrote 35 of the 100 stories being included in the French version. One was a young woman who was the subject of one of my favorite stories. One was the coordinator of the centennial celebration. It was a lively conversation, which Nina recorded on video. It will become part of the publicity for the English version of the book, of which I was the text editor. The news that came out in the conversation is that Mimi, the pretty young seminary graduate, will be the first woman ordained in her branch of the church. Go, théologiennes! As June says, putting women who look like Mimi in the pulpit will be another good evangelism tool.
Over an hour and a half I exhausted the French-speaking part of my brain but we got to go shopping after that. We stopped for food for lunch which turned out to be luscious avocados, bread and cheese, and a tomato salad with basil, which the fruit and vegetable vendor, a cultivated woman named Lucrèce who was educated as a geographer but couldn’t make a living that way, insisted was the cure for whatever was ailing June. June was happy to try it.
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| The soon-to-be-Reverend Mimi Kanku |
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| Lucrèce and her wares |
We’re not sure it worked, however, because after that we made a harrowing trek to the fabric store and back to the car. It was pretty hot, dirty, crowded, noisy, everything you might expect from shopping in Kinshasa, including guys moving in for possibly nefarious purposes. Suzanne has a good “Get out of here!” shriek, which the guys echoed, laughing. By the end of the day, after a stop at a quieter artisanat, June was laid low again. I’m pretty pooped myself but not ready to call it a day. What's for dinner tonight?
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