In the Past Two Months

Part I

M came to stay. Suitcase loaded full of chocolate and almonds and pesto and all the things you can't get out here, or can but only for stupidly crazy imported prices (oh, First World problems). The initial bizareness of my new life and old life suddenly sharing the same sphere, replaced within a few days by how normal it felt. Camping trips, trips to see the Bonobos, breakfast on the balcony, afternoons by the pool, making pizza from scratch. When he left the flat suddenly felt empty, in a way it hadn't before, when there had only been me, before it had known his presence. He is now in Vancouver, with a new job, and once again we are across two continents, miles apart, Skype conversations at unsociable hours, mind always half on the next holiday, the next time we see each other.

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Part II

I went back to England. It was glorious. Jam-packed and all over the place - Norfolk, London, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, more London (lots of London), but truly glorious. Time spent with family, with friends, with M. Walking and walking and walking through the city. Museum trips in the middle of the day, Soho restaurants at night, holidaying in my home town, fully enjoying it and appreciating it.

And now I am back, have been since the start of June. Post holiday blues of the worst kind, a crippling homesickness for London the entire first week back. The prospect of three years here suddenly daunting, when before it wasn't, or at least not so much.

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Part III

But, but.

I have been back three weeks now, and homesickness fades, like all things.

You slip back into routines, reacquaint yourself with the things that were good about your new life here, before you were reminded of fresh milk and salad and drivers who pay attention to the Highway Code.

Reacquaint yourself with setting suns the pink-orange of a not yet warmed up street-light, with the frogs who lurch sideways away from your approach as you arrive home after dark, with the neatly stacked piles of oranges and papaya, pyramids of increasing ripeness, carefully constructed by the fruit sellers at the side of the road.

You begin to live again like this is for the long haul and not just a passing phase, plant squash and nasturtiums and feel glad that the basil flourished under the care of the friends who stopped by to water the plants while you were gone. Sign up for French lessons, because if there is one thing you definitely want from these three years it is to be actually good at French and not just passable. Hang some more of the pictures that have been leaning against walls since week 8 when you unpacked. Fight the urge to just.stay.home. watching box sets, instead make yourself put on insect repellent and a nice dress, head to the Kinshasa Jazz Festival. Until somewhere, at some point, in between the neon green laser show and the beautiful, if lyrically inaccurate, rendition of Rolling in the Deep, it becomes ok to be back here again.

***

Yes

I say yes to everything. 

Salsa classes, circuits sessions, Downton Abbey evenings, Mexican brunches, rooftop parties, housewarmings of people I've only met once before, historical film groups, quiz nights, impromptu river trips, fabric shopping, a visit to the stables, Bocce matches, French film screenings, poker nights. 

Tennis tournaments, even though I haven't played for over ten years, never had any hand eye coordination in the first place, even though I cannot serve. A trip to the golf course driving range, though the lack of hand eye coordination applies to this too. The after party of the trophy tour of the UEFA cup, despite the fact I'm not into football, that the presence football big names is lost on me.

Barbecues of friends, barbecues of friends of friends, suddenly no invitation is too far removed, no event is too random. Because how else, all alone in a new city, country, continent, do you meet people, make friends, build yourself a life? Certainly not by sitting at home with the Game of Thrones box set, though there's been plenty of that too. And slowly, slowly, as the days and weeks go by, I think it is working.

Snapshot

Here, they call passion fruit maracuya.

There are three different colours of bougainvillea on the walk to the pool alone.

Right now it is raining so hard it sounds like the ocean is outside my window. Tomorrow the air will feel fresher, slightly, and there will be pothole puddles of unknown depths on the drive to work. 

Hot pink, emerald green, Easter weekend

They send me photos of daffodils poking up through snowy ground, tell me they have the heating on still. I send them pictures of hibiscus, tell them about eating papaya for breakfast.

The lovely Dancing Beastie (also featuring photographs of daffodils and snow) commented on the last post (describing 'frangipani blossoms like heady sunsets', which I just love) and asks if I can tell you where I am. To which the answer is yes, absolutely. I'm in Kinshasa. Congo, Democratic Republic of. 

Six weeks tomorrow and I'm still finding it hard to believe that I am here, that this is my home for the next three years. This country is vast, and complex, and there is so much to learn. 

Happy Easter weekend to you all, even if mine will be slightly less typical than usual, featuring mosquito repellent and pineapples instead of hot cross buns and spring bulbs.

***

(More pictures of the amazing flora here - flowers which look like sea anemones and are so hot pink as to be almost unbelievable, palm fronds, orchids growing outside (!), oleander cuttings which E brings me from the garden)

Sunday at the sandbanks

We make for the river early Sunday morning, take a couple of boats, a picnic, swimwear, head out to the sandbanks. Eat perfectly ripe papaya, drink juice from the cool box. Listen to the radio. Try to rouse ourselves to a game of frisbee, fail in the heat. Sit in the shallows of the fast flowing water to cool down, far too fast to swim against. Walk the circumference of our little sandbank kingdom, watching the birds, the fishermen with their big nets. Water hyacinths, chlorophyll rich, purple flowered. The river is vast, the water copper coloured. Tiny, translucent fish dart erratically away from bare feet. Watch clouds gather dark on the horizon, above the city, back where we cam from, ominous, the storm never materialising.

I am pink from the sun by the time we leave, and feel like I have been on holiday, sand in my hair, between my toes.

So far

The heat, which hits you when you step out of buildings, out of cars, from the air-conditioned cool, hits you like walking into a sauna, water just thrown onto the coals, the air warm and woody. 

Butterflies as big as small birds, birds as small as butterflies.

Swimming in the pool, flame tree above, red flowers, green leaves. Dragonflies which dip and hover. Long legged white birds flying overhead, in formation. Must buy a bird book. 

Must buy a flower book too, because for the first time in my life, my mother's daughter, I no longer know the plants instinctively, can no longer say, snowdrop, lily-of-the-valley, pansy, ranunculus. I can say with conviction hibiscus, oleander, tentatively frangipani, but then there are the giant, star-like almost jasmine, and the bright yellow flowers which look like a child's drawing, cartoonish in quality, the pom poms of red and orange outside my front door, the creeping feathery vine that closes its leaves upon touch, and I am lost in the unfamiliar.

Lizards which dart from light to shade, and then are still, watching. 

Papaya and pineapple, stacked for sale on the roadside, bunches of blackening bananas. New types of fruit, the mangosteen, reddish purple, a new taste, but close to lychee. 

Arrival

I arrived a week ago yesterday. Left a cold, bright London, flew through the night. Arrived to the heat and the sunshine, the dust, the mirages on tarmac.

I already feel like I have been here far longer than a week. I am reminded of the Maura Dooley poem, History, and its opening: It's only a week but already you are slipping... London and her cold February days seeming a long way away. The missing of people, places, is there, yes, but also the relief, after the months of preparation, to be here, finally. 

To have arrived.