Debrief

I woke up at 6:00 this morning to head into town for our Congo team’s “debriefing” at 7:30. Far too early for a meeting, if you ask me, but that seems to be the only time of day we’re all consistently available. Granted, we’ve been back for more than a month, but in a lot of ways this meeting did not seem late in coming. I feel I’m just starting to process the trip, that I’m just starting to get enough distance to even begin seeing it for what it was (just don’t ask me what that is, because I don’t know if I’ve processed enough to articulate it yet!).

After the meeting, I was to watch Story (remember the cute snow baby? that’s her–so stinking adorable, and the easiest baby on the face of the planet to watch), and I told Sharon we’d be finished by 9:00, easy, ninety-four percent sure. At 9:15, I left the meeting, everyone else still talking. I guess I’m not the only one just starting to process the trip. It surprised me that a lot of what I’ve experienced on “re-entry” was what a lot of the others were also going through, namely the awkwardness and seeming inability to reintegrate into the circles we swam in before leaving, into life with its previous definitions and boundaries and foundations. A lot of my pre-Congo habits have resumed, and things look back to normal on the surface, but I cannot shake the oddness of it, the strange feeling in the back of my mind, in the pit of my stomach.

I’ve been out of the Congo for a month, but nearly every day I’m thinking of how to get back. Looking up flight schedules, reading hotel reviews (for Kigali, Kampala, Kinshasa). Trying–and failing–to convince Jesse that he really does want to go to Africa with me one day.

I bought a two-liter of Crush orange soda the other day, hoping to find something on par with the orange Fanta we drank while in Bukavu. Orange Fanta here is way too carbonated. I had a cup of it at a local pizza parlor the week after I returned, and I couldn’t drink it, it was so strong. Crush is much more similar, though still with a bit more bite than the Congolese Fanta. I’m plowing through books about colonialism, the Belgians, Mobutu, the genocide in Rwanda. Last night I watched a 1959 documentary about the Congo jungle, with a ridiculous narrator and footage nearly completely faded away.

I feel like this is just circling the same topic over and over, and I know you’re probably sick of hearing about Congo. Seems like it’s all I can talk about, all I’ve been talking about for months. I promise I’ll write more about vegetable gardens and the cats and life in general and other not-Congo topics. But thanks for listening as I process. Thanks for letting me wrestle with this, with what it was and what it might become. Thanks for helping me “debrief.”