Two realities

It's a glorious fall day here in central Ohio (yes, central Ohio has its beauty). My heart is torn, however. My first thoughts upon waking today were my newfound sisters and brothers in the Congo. So my first prayers were for them this morning--for health; safe transportation; clarity of thought; food and clean water; confirmation and assurance that what they are doing is right, for the glory of God, for the transformation of the hearts, minds, and ways of doing business in Congo.

The trip home yesterday provided a gentle transition. When I bumped up against the "realities" of life in the western world, discouragement threatened to derail me. But that's good, because I am greedy to remember the "realities" of life in Congo to which my Congolese teachers are introducing me. Here are two clashes from yesterday.

Institutional cleanliness. We arrived at the Amsterdam airport at 5:30 am Monday, November 1. The airport was prepped and spotless. Floors clean. Tables at the kiosks ready for the first customers. The bathroom shiny in white tile. The sink, spotless white enamel. The tap an easy turn to hot or cold. I was surprised to remember that I could brush my teeth with water directly from the tap. There was were drinking fountains available at various stops around the airport. The terminal floor, a white-grey tile, was bright. The lighting bright. So many fellow travelers, it seemed had white sneakers. Clean. Brand new.

My memories shot back to the hard-packed red clay and the red dust that accompanies every action of the day in Beni, every surface that you touch. The floors at UCBC will eventually be tiled or laid with cement, but right now they are dirt. Every morning students sprinkle the floors with water to settle the dust. At UCBC we cover computers with cloths whenever they're not in use to shield them from the dust. I'm embarrassed that I too quickly expressed my selfish and western worry about dust getting into the keys and on the screen of my laptop during my first week at UCBC. We will have running water and indoor plumbing at UCBC. We will also be building public latrines and shower places for the community that lives around us. But right now our toilets are the Congolese version of the outhouse (and there ARE separate facilities for women and men). Our neighbors must gather water from the stream or haul it from a public tap. There is no indoor plumbing.

I thought about the children, the vendors, the people along the road every day, many barefoot or in sandals, hauling heavy loads of charcoal, cooking oil, lumber. The road always kicking itself up--either as dust or mud. The water cans that people use to collect and carry water from the community tap (where, by the way, they have to pay). Women washing clothes along the banks of the stream, rubbing clothes against the hard rocks.

Clash number 2. Education and a cup of coffee.

In Detroit I splurged and bought a grande latte and a piece of candy. What I paid for this treat was the equivalent of one month's school fees for a primary grade child in Congo. There is no public education in Congo. There is no expenditure in the national government for education--not at primary, secondary, or university level. School fees pay the teachers. One Congolese friend explained that the cost for primary education in the area is $33/year for primary and $50/year for secondary. I don't know if that is high, low, or average. But it's what his family pays. There was a man who came to UCBC last week to see if he could sell some of the carvings he makes. His kids had been excluded from school because he couldn't pay the fees.

I took the top of the latte and thought about the many children in Beni who, rather than being in school during the day, were helping to sell bananas, taking care of younger siblings, cutting greens for the family meal, playing in the open spaces, because their families couldn't afford $3 a month for school.

Was I already succumbing to the seduction of ease and excess? Yes. And this is what I'm most fearful of. Giving in. Forgetting. Participating in a culture that focuses on accumulation, self, and resource wastefulness. This is a topic for a much longer post. But it's important to "get it out there."

For all my time in Congo, I didn't take many pictures. One reason is that I wanted to rely on my visceral memory--the feel, sounds, smells, and sights--directly, immediately. To allow them to become part of me, to change me, to perhaps work some kind of "transformation" in me. A picture becomes a 2-dimensional object, distant, a representation. I did not want these three weeks in Congo to ossify or turn into souvenirs of some isolated event that I revisit only when they need to be dusted and moved for the next "experience."

Today I still feel the red dust. I've scraped it from my sneakers into the tiny, hand-painted China box. I know that this morning, before classes began, a couple of students sprinkled water from a can onto the floors of the classrooms at UCBC. I also know that once the floors are tiled and there are toilets with running water that the students and faculty of UCBC will not remove themselves from their communities, sanitized, educated, separate. May my brush with some of the Congo realities keep me walking the path to "do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God."