Homesick

God!  I am so homesick for the Congo!

Not sure why but I could cry it hurts so badly.  Greg is back.  His mom brought a little book of photos over for Kongawi’s boys.  And I guess for us too.  And then the things Greg talked about in church on Sunday…

Pictures!  What conveyors of memories.  Memories of more than the sights – memories of sounds, odours, the dryness of red dust -the humid warmth – the inquisitiveness of the people – kwanga – smoke in the dry season air – the hunters with their monkeys slung over their shoulders like some kind of large handbags.

Memories of jostling, hanging on tight kind of trips in trucks over such incredibly bad roads that they should be termed impassable – getting out and walking ahead, letting the empty truck negotiate the road alone because it’s safer that way.  Memories of the exhaustion of riding my motorbike through deep sand. 

Memories of the tropical rain – coming down so hard it leaves canyons in the earth.  Lightning so close it blows holes in the walls.  The sky blackening with churning clouds and the wind picking up to gale force before the storm.  Sometimes driving a grass fire before it so that the air is full of black ash like flakes of some mutant kind of snow.

And the sky at night full, absolutely full of stars.  Unless there is a full tropical moon giving almost enough light to read by more than enough light for the villages to come to life.  And the night is full of the sound of drums and dancing in the village.

I want to be there again. 

Soon.   Be patient.