Boue-kavu - home?

Was coming back to Bukavu a couple of weeks ago, after two weeks spent in Egypt with my family, and when the plane was landing on the shores of the beautiful Lake Kivu, I caught myself thinking: “it is good to be home!” After only 3 months in the Congo, I already feel this is my place, where I should be and where I want to be. It is an inexplicable feeling walking to work every day and having a breathtaking view of Lake Kivu with his greenish blue spotted by fishermen pirogues trying to catch some “tilapia” – the fish most commonly found in the lake, or to kayak in the lake during the weekends, with a hot sun warming my face – even in October !

When I first came here, in the midst of the hot summer of Europe and the U.S, the eternal spring-time weather of Bukavu felt like not good enough. My friends would call and tell me about their holidays spent on the beach, attending music festivals and partying hard somewhere, and I felt: what the hell am I doing here working from 8am to 9pm in the middle of nowhere, far away from everybody? Now that the winter is starting there and that here the weather remains unchanged, I kind of feel privileged to be escaping winter. Of course, there is the rainy season, and it started strongly here not long ago– but that is only tropical rains that come down hard and not even last an hour, and they actually show up right on time to alleviate an extremely hot and dense atmosphere. But most importantly, the rain revealed the true colors of Bukavu, which are now much more vivid: the green of the plants is greener, the rooftop of the houses cleaner and shinier – forget about all that “vumbi” (dust) of the dry season. Of course, all things have its downside and dear Bukavu has become “Boue-kavu” – “mud”-kavu as my boss likes to call it. Now I have to wear my hiking boots to work if I don´t want to appear there covered in nice reddish “matope” – how they call mud around here.

If in the beginning everything was new: the language, the people, the colleagues, the places to go out, now I can call myself an “habituée” of some kind. Already know enough Swahili to get around, managed to learn the names of the more than 30 drivers and 80 colleagues with which I share an office – it might seem easy but when you have names of origins so different as Bantu-African, Muslim, European and American, trust me – this is quite an achievement. Try to remember Pytchyouh, Mogishu, Deogratias, Alpha, Khana, Moussa and Dieudonné – not to mention the dozens of Patricks and Christophes. And most importantly, am developing a true love for Congolese music – dombolo, coupé-décalé and the voice of Kofi – the King of Congolese Music. I go out dancing to the local places – Parc des Princes, Dallas or Saint Laic – and managed to establish somewhat of an authority to keep away the local “don juan´s” a bit too eager to get a white girlfriend. Nonetheless, I can´t help of feeling flattered when we are dancing and they come to me and say: “ah, t´es congolaise toi, vraiment!”. Here “vraiment” goes for everything -