I’m beginning to think I live in six-month cycles. That nearly everything that has been certain about the past six months is coming up for review. Maybe it’s just the new year. I said at the beginning that I felt 2009 was going to be a change year, and so far it has not disappointed. Perhaps it’s Africa, the fact of the Congo, its existence, the flowers there and Fiston’s clean shoes walking over the dirtiest roads I’ve ever seen.

I’ve felt isolated this year. If the second half of last year was characterized by community, the first half of this one has been characterized by its lack. Friends are a habit, and at times it seems our friends have fallen out of the habit of us. We’ve been sick, we’ve been out of town, we’ve been busy–and now that we are not sick and are in town and are not busy, we find that people have formed new habits and we are no longer among them.

This is probably melodramatic. But I don’t mind–I gravitate toward the melodramatic, the sad songs, the long movies.

Jesse and I went to an outdoor concert Friday night to see Third Eye Blind. It rained during the opening act, and we huddled together under our umbrella, and as the main act took the stage and the rain stopped, I listened to the words of songs I’ve been hearing for years, songs that meant something to me when I was 16 years old, songs from albums we listened to together when we were teenagers. And I felt like anything was possible. I could go home and pack my things in old boxes and we could load up and move to California, and we could walk through the Haight on sunny Saturdays and eat burritos and buy funky sunglasses. And we could live in a tiny apartment in Berkeley and sit under the redwoods and think about important things like what we would cook for dinner. And we could drive on roads lined with eucalyptus trees, watch Shakespeare plays in outdoor amphitheaters where strings of white Christmas lights glowed like little stars in delicate tree branches.

And it felt good. It felt lovely to be there, with Jesse, the battleship behind us and the river to our left, listening to music that stretches far before Wilmington, far beyond it. Sometimes it feels good to be in a state of flux. Sometimes it feels good to have roots, to feel connected. And sometimes it feels good when those roots wither, when I’m weightless and anything is possible.

In the next six months, odds are good that things will settle, return to earth. The rhythms of last year will probably resume themselves. We will not move to California.

But I think there are things set into motion that I will not understand until I get more distance on them. And I am changing. There is Congo, and the way it has creeped under my skin, the way going has provided more questions than it answered. I think in six months, in a year, in another six months after that, I will look back on that concert, and I will know that I felt the echo of a change that hadn’t yet happened, that I knew as soon as “Motorcycle Drive By” started that something was ending, I just wasn’t sure what.

Things I Missed While in Congo:

* Jesse. Not a thing, but still something to miss beyond comprehension.

* Grocery shopping. And food sealed in plastic.

* Cooking my own food. Even though we had fabulous food while away, there is something therapuetic and irreplacable about preparing my own food. Last night, I made a simple tuna pasta dish from a Jamie Oliver book, and I cherished the movements, cutting the onion, opening cans, stirring the sauce, boiling the pasta, testing the seasoning. It was something so small, just cooking dinner, but it was lovely.

* Electricity that works consistently. There wasn’t one day we were there that we had power all day (and our guest house even had a generator). At Bishop’s house, by the time we left they had been without power for four days straight.

* Carpeted floors. I got up last night to use the bathroom and felt confused…it took me a minute to figure out what I was stepping on, why I couldn’t find my flip flops next to the bed, why the floor wasn’t concrete.

* Things that are shiny and glass that’s not broken. I can’t remember seeing anything that was shiny in Congo. When we got to DC, the airport was all chrome and glass, and I just wanted to laugh I was so happy.

* Hearing sirens. In the two weeks we were there, I heard only two sirens. One was an ambulance and one was a police truck. Normally I consider sirens to be annoying sounds, but the utter lack of them was disconcerting. Regular people don’t get ambulances. The NGO workers might get them. The rich might get them. But if you’re just a citizen and something happens to you, you’d better hope either someone can carry you, or you can get a taxi, or you know someone with a car.

I promised pictures with the next blog, so here are a few.

Sunset.

Clouds.

In the jungle with the park rangers.

I promise the next blog I post will have pictures. We leave tomorrow morning and get into Raleigh Wednesday afternoon (which will feel like Wednesday night Congo time). I’m looking forward to being home, to seeing Jesse and to driving on paved roads and grocery shopping at Harris Teeter and brushing my teeth with tap water.

This morning we were up early again and greeted the day at the lake. Evan and Luke worked on getting a song recorded by Fiston, and Robin and I wandered down the road to see a gorgeous hotel that overlooks the lake. It had the most lovely gardens. I won’t even try to describe them–I’ll put up pictures soon enough.

I had Congolese pizza today–cold, interesting. We were hungry and on our way elsewhere, so any food was good. Luke and Bishop and I went to the gorilla park to get some footage of the jungle. The park was almost closed (we’ll have to see the gorillas next time we’re here), but Bishop’s niece is married to the park manager, so he had some of the rangers take us out into the woods to traipse around and get some footage. They took us off the path and straight into the vines and branches and mess of the jungle. Bishop had stayed at the road with the car, and a few paces into our hike I realized, wait, I’m walking through the jungle in Congo near dusk with Luke and three men with AK-47s. Hmm. And the only things I can say to them in their language are hello, yes, no, how are you, good, thank you very much, and it’s nice to meet you.

But, that’s how we roll in Congo. That’s how the trip has been. I tried not to think about snakes as we climbed through the woods back to the road. And when it was over, we watched the sun set behind the volcano and we drove home in the dark, villages and goats and people and roadside fires passing by and dissolving behind us.

It was an amazing day. It was an amazing trip.

Quick post today–gotta hand over the computer to Evan for some planning time. We are rapidly approaching the end of the trip. It’s hard to believe that in a few days we’ll be on a plane heading home. Though we’re having a blast, I think it’s around this point in the trip that everyone is just ready to be back.

I have a split role on this trip. Everyone else is focused on the filming, and I am mainly trying to absorb Congo–all the sights, smells, the noises, the tastes. When I get home, I’ll go into high gear on writing and figuring out what a book about this place and these people might look like. I’ve got some ideas, but I just need some time to sit in front of my computer and churn out some good brainstorming material.

My role on the film project is to basically stay out of the shots, as I’m not a part of the film project itself. So, I run around trying to stay behind Evan or Luke. I know people think I’m crazy–what is that muzungu doing always running behind those men? My other jobs are to hold things, open new tapes, change batteries, and look for police or military. We’re not in any real danger, but the police here get paid sporadically and rarely, and they often live in extreme poverty. They basically make their living off of bribes. We’ve got film passes, and everything’s on the up and up, but that doesn’t mean quite the same here…

Thoughts/Happenings…

1. We left a little after 5:00 one morning, watched the sunrise while looking across the mountains, layers of hazy peaks, a river snaking between the hills. It was gorgeous, the sun coming up slowly, the light hitting the muddy road, the little houses with corrugated metal roofs and mud walls, and then the valley below. Breathtaking.

2. Our work wrapped up one evening with Luke and Evan filming a Congolese soccer practice. While we waited for them, a group of kids surrounded our van and tried to talk to us. Some of them came up with little birds in their hands, and Luke and Evan returned and took some pictures. Later that evening, I told Luke I hoped he hadn’t touched the birds when he was taking a picture of them, and after I said that I noticed Evan’s eyes were nearly bugging out of his head. “Why not touch them?!” he asked. I told him because first, birds are really dirty, and second, they might have the bird flu. That’s when Evan told us one had flown on him while he was filming. The look on his face still made me laugh days later. (If he does get the bird flu, I promise to feel guilty, but his expression was priceless.)

3. There is a cat at the guest house that we’ve named Edgar. Our first day here, we had the door open and he walked right in and started meowing at us. Later that night, Robin and I opened a window in our bedroom, and I turned around to tuck in my mosquito net. When I turned back around, Edgar was sitting on the floor of our room, just staring at me, cocking his little striped head to the side. He has a tendency to stare in the creepiest way, but the more time we spend here the more I like him.

4. Sunday we ate ice cream at a nunnery in the hills, surrounded by some of the most beautiful flowers I’ve seen–enormous hydrangeas, exploding bougainvillea, birds of paradise. It was one of the most peaceful places I’ve been. Then we drove home, passing two men fighting in the streets of one village.

5. Once, we were walking through a field next to crumbling brick buildings without roofs when a crazy man started following us, shouting, “Good morning how are you!” and then “Sixty-seven! Sixty-seven!” We walked a little quicker, and he just walked behind us, yelling, “Sixty-seven!” I felt like I was in an episode of Lost–next season, we’ll learn that sixty-seven is really the secret to some deep and important mystery. But until then, only our crazy friend will know the significance of the number.

6. I have not been feeling so great the past two days. I’ve decided if I have a parasite, I will name him Bill. Probably it’s just some kind of bacteria. If there’s no improvement, I think I’ll start some Cipro tomorrow.

7. When it rains, the dirt becomes mud, and the mud becomes extremely sticky, and your shoes become weighted and ugly and gigantic. Sometimes the mud sticks to itself so much it’s like walking with snowshoes. I am incredibly glad I took Jesse’s advice and bought a sturdy pair of waterproof hiking boots.

8. Tonight, we rode in a “bus” from one side of the city to the other, sixteen people crammed into a small van, Congolese rap music playing on the stereo, the speakers crackling. And then “Bartender” thrown into the mix, T-Pain singing about meeting some girl in a bar after a breakup.

One thing you must know about our time in Congo is we are eating like kings. Everyday, Mama Lily brings us huge containers full of food she’s made for us. We eat plates of fried plantains, potatoes and spinach, fish and chicken and beef, rice, beans, fruit–avocados, oranges, bananas. We stuff ourselves regularly, but even on our best nights we haven’t been able to finish all the food Mama Lily brings us.

In the mornings, we eat omelets that are cooked with fried potatoes. These omelets come out as big circles that we cut like pizza. We put these and freshly sliced avocado on rolls and eat them like breakfast sandwiches, and I cannot tell you how tasty they are. We eat avocado at nearly every meal, and I am loving it more each time.

Yesterday at lunchtime, we bought rolls and avocados from a roadside stand, and ate them with cheese and warm Cokes. It was the simplest lunch, but it was delicious, the cheese soft and creamy, the bread fresh, the avocado rich. We ate in the van, balancing the food on our laps, tired and hot from a full morning of work.

Friday, I asked Fiston, our friend and translator, if Friday the 13th had any significance in Congo like it does in America. He said, no, it was just like any other day. Good, I told him, then we won’t have to worry about bad luck today.

That morning, we had driven through the busiest part of town, a street so crowded with people and cars we could barely move the minivan (one of those Japanese ones that look a little like a VW bus) forward. At some points, we had to back up and move out of the way of oncoming trucks.

On our way into the restaurant for lunch, we passed a man cooking, and beside him on a table was a butchered goat leg, complete with hoof and hair. We all sat and ordered Cokes and Fanta and plates of grilled goat and french fries. The food took quite a while to come out to us. At home, I would have joked about someone having to go out and kill our food, but it didn’t seem quite so funny here. I would have eaten the goat with more gusto had I not seen it with its hoof, but all in all it was quite tasty.

After lunch, we drove out to a little store to see a woman Robin knows. We attract crowds whenever we stop and get out of the car, especially when Luke and Evan pull out the cameras. From the store, we left to find someone, but a storm rolled in and it began to pour. Which was beautiful and fantastic, save for the fact that we were on a dirt road on the side of a mountain in an old minivan full of people and gear. The dirt road quickly became a mud road, and our van quickly became more like a sled than a vehicle with wheels and an engine. We spun a little and nearly careened into someone’s house on the side of the road (which probably would have kept us from going off the side of the cliff, but wouldn’t have been so great for the people living in the house). Fiston, Evan, and Luke jumped out of the car to push us out.

Eventually, we made it off the hill, but as we drove back through the busy streets we heard a banging noise coming from the car. A quick inspection revealed one of our tires was about six inches higher than the other one. (It turned out that one of our shocks and slipped out of place.) We drove very slowly and very carefully to a mechanic to have it looked at. Something you need to know is that the roads here–which were at one point paved but have since disintegrated–are full of potholes. Actually, they aren’t potholes. They are craters. Many of the holes are so wide and so deep you have to drive around them, avoiding as well the rocks and people and other cars. Robin says it’s like driving through a riverbed.

We made it to the mechanic and piled out of the car to wait. By now, the rain had slowed to a steady drizzle, so our ponchos and umbrellas were doing a fairly good job. We bought a couple of Cokes. While Evan was filming near a gutter across the street, water came out of a pipe in the wall and some splashed in his mouth. A man was standing nearby, and when Evan asked what the water was, the man said, “Toilet.” (We found out later that he meant it was from a sink or a bathroom, not necessarily a toilet…still, Evan was not exactly over the moon about the experience.)

So, by the end of the day I wasn’t sure whether we had had a lucky or unlucky Friday the 13th. The car still needs fixing today, and we are all exhausted. Luke’s tennis shoes will forever be orange from the mud. But, we are safe and sound, and Mama Lily brought us dinner last night, meatballs and rice and cabbage and avocados and lemongrass tea. And we sat around after dinner, drinking second mugs of tea, we talked about the day, talked about art and love and antibiotics and battery chargers. The power went out, and we sat quiet just a moment before getting up to turn on the flashlights.