it's the heat

that stops from being able to think clearly
that makes you feel like a melting being
that shines in your face constantly
that forces men to wear under shirts to avoid those horrible sweat patches
that adds to the computer one to increase your own and the room temperature in some degrees
that affects the working mood, if there was ever one
that enlightens you to the existence of the rain god, to whom you start to pray with fervor
that no amount of ice cream could cool down
that is nothing compared to what will come in the dry season

beautiful congo

working to heal wounds

false friends

languages are tricky and sometimes things that seem similar have radically different meanings

my latest pearl was to ask yesterday in a money exchange bureau whether his computer masturbated

what i really meant to ask was whether it was plugged

whistling his way

i have already mentioned that this country capital has a lot of green
in our area ours and neighbours garden are of a very decent size, allowing for big trees and these for a good number of different kind of birds
some sing daily, in particular in the morning
like in rwanda some of them sound literally like the battery of a mobile phone about to die, which has made for some getting out of bed at 5 am thinking to completely switch off the mobile....then again you cannot switch off animals...let alone birds

since my other half came, i not only have the pleasure of listening to the birds, but to his persona whistling the exact tune of the birds
if they decide to move from the neighbours garden to our much friendlier one, i'll have him go out to kick them out!...for sleep sake that is

are good manners lost forever?

having travelled to a few countries in different continents, one quickly realises that what is 'normal' for you might not be so for others
i guess that's the necessary humility that comes with travelling, for instance, i remember having been told, not one but many times, about table manners: the way to eat soup or, never use your hands at the table; however, in india and somalia for instance, for practical reasons the way to eat is precisely with your hands, and it's perfectly polite!

but it's not table manners that i wanted to write about, it's about the concept of time and timekeeping, without even agreeing with the sadly famous statement of 'time is money'
how much are you supposed to be adaptable regarding the lack of timekeeping? i understand that culturally, in a continent were people are not pressed (which is such a nice thing), the concept of time is rather flexible and that people are or forcefully become easygoing on that
i was never the punctual type, unlike members of my family, but i begin to find myself annoyed at both locals and expats on their concept of timekeeping
when somebody says to you that they will arrive at 9am, and they arrive at 10am or even later, how are you supposed to take it? i guess what bothers me is the assumption that you have nothing better to do, or that you don't have any other appointments, therefore your time is fully free to wait
with the locals i confess i have more of a limit to my annoyance since i do truly believe that it will take me nowhere trying to explain what is already obvious
but with expats, in particular those who come from my very own continent, i find myself getting increasingly annoyed, as they have no cultural excuse and the assumption that i have nothing better to do annoys me even more
but where is the limit? i mean, 10-20 minutes wait, given the state of the roads and how long it does take to do anything here, that delay can be considered as minimum, but when it's 45 min to an hour.....

i realise however, that it's a lost war and certainly a battle i will not take up
my solution, a little blog ranting, it always help to let it out

paradise posting

the fact that the weather is perfect certainly helps gives this country the feeling of paradise
the lush vegetation, the green of the city, the birds that inhabit gardens....
and on weekends, the beach, a bare five minute drive from the city
with families gathering for some fish and beer, music and tambours playing, and the beautiful sight of the congo mountains...
you put down your sarong, get your book out, apply some sun lotion....and enjoy!!
this is certainly close to paradise posting

from the book of questions

continuing my adaptation, and following the advice from dr li to do yoga in the morning "when the air is clean", after my usual getting out of bed struggle, i set my yoga matt and did a half hour session
when i finished, i realised that there were a couple of ants in the dvd player
i killed them but then there was another one, and another one, and one more
until i opened the thing and saw a whole colony of tiny white ants inside the bloody thing
it took the whole of 15 minutes to get rid of all of them, there must have been over a 100 of them inside
i didn't realise i had acquired an ant jungle-zoo when i signed up for the house!!!!

a good friend of mine bought "the book of questions" by gregory stock with all sort of questions that prompt debates
one that he recently posed us by email was "For an all-expense-paid, one-week vacation anywhere in the world, would you be willing to kill a beautiful butterfly by pulling off its wings? [What about stepping on a cockroach?]"
i have to say with the ants, and after the amount of baygon i've sprayed on them.....

globalisation in your back

limping my way through the city, i arrive to the chinese clinic, where i have been told to visit Dr Li, who after years in this country, mixes english and kirundi and proceeds to give me a massage that includes tiger balm and other creams from his country, completely undecipherable to me
he tells me to return tomorrow for it will take three days to receive the full 'green treatment', as opposed to the one locals like, injections; and not to sit too much today..... so i'm going home

in Goma

i guess the proximity, both physical and psychological (having a friend there) make me a devout reader of Congo news
for anybody interested → Bohemian Frog Hunting blog, from my dear friend who is in the eye of the hurricane so to speak, in Goma

the difference between theory and practice

as usual, the difference between theory and practice makes for a wider gap than we would normally like for it to be
the theory says that being a terribly small team and setting up a terribly small office should make for close collaboration and relatively easy communications
HA! it is an ardous task to defy in a gentle manner the invisible barrier people build around themselves, to trace the path in a way the barrier won't become hard brick and cement and to still maintain a level headed approach to avoid feeling like one is walking on eggs
with no external support, i'll have to find the way and energy within
one more thing for the to-do list

Burundian drummers

They are famous, powerful and absolutely fascinating to watch

They combine force, rythm and grace

[and the awful sound is my fault rather than theirs]

i'm not the only one

facebook entries:

• X is glad McCain lost - more than that I don't yet know
• Y is a bit bored of the American Election.
• Z wonders how this will look in the light of day and what shape foreign policy and the new Commander-in-Chief will take. For now, a little too much nationalism
• A: una cosa es la victoria hoy... otra cosa es lo que pasa después... no olvidemos 1997.....
• B: wonders if all the Obama hysteria outside the US really makes sense - anyone remember Clinton's foreign policy "gems"?

certainly not in a celebratory mood

today i'm tired, have zero patience and am certainly not in a celebratory mood
after two years!!! of far too much ink wasted, in my humble opinion, on an electoral process that started well before the actual campaign, we will have months on celebratory mood due to the results
it is not by any means that i do not prefer the result, but i find it sad, cynical and quite depressing that even people who are supposed to care about other countries or even subject matters, have had their mouths full of what should be the normal democratic process inside one country, and has had very little time to find out more, discuss and push for other subjects, that, also in my humble opinion, also matter
i guess the bad news on the financial crisis, recesion, unemployment, not to mention oil and food prices, conflict, torture and all the rest could take a back sit for the good news elsewhere.....but the amount of time and energy wasted.....two years!! it's simply too much

today i'm tired, have zero patience and am certainly not in a celebratory mood, and maybe precisely because of it, on the one hand i can agree that this is a historic moment in the sense that in country that brags about democracy nobody apart from white men had ever ruled
on the other it's a rather, let's say, late achievement, taking into account the number of presidents that have been elected; by electing an elite it's not like you make the country less discriminatory, racist or sexist (although i recognise that it's certainly a step in the right direction); i guess what really bothers me is that other countries did it well before, many in latin america, others in africa and asia, and only a couple of lines were dropped about it

today i'm tired, have zero patience and am certainly not in a celebratory mood, not when, being neighbours with some key countries around, not a single good news is coming out from round the corner
so i shall continue with congo, the coincidence that Kinshasha signs a deal with the Chinese (far more favourable than those European were proposing to the government) and after some years of respite, the conflict starts again; of the fact that congolese people want the MONUC out, not in, for they accuse them of being heavily involved in precisely that trafficking and seem to be aiding themselves more than they help the people they are supposed to protect; that everybody who lives in the area knows this, but cannot be put in black and white

today i'm tired, have zero patience and am certainly not in a celebratory mood.

algunas claves para entender lo que esta pasando en Congo

este articulo es mas cercano a la realidad que las versiones simplistas de los periodicos europeos