Home thoughts from abroad

After three weeks of Christmas Holiday we dread the moment when we must return. Waiting for us will be the mind-numbing chaos of the airport; the frustrating drive through pointless traffic jams, and unpredictable and threatening policemen. We also worry about work – is it really making a difference? Is it worth the struggle?

The actuality is not quite so bad. Our neighbours are on the same flight, They have spare weight, and take one of our bags for us. And there’s another person on the flight whom we also know very well. The-everybody-knows-everybody-else experience of Kinshasa has spread to South Africa. Thus fortified by group solidarity we prepare for the landing.

But the Kinshasa airport experience is not as bad as we fear. Our protocol officer is there to meet us and we get through without difficulty. The car is waiting.

At home we are greeted warmly by the security guard on duty, but enter the flat with some trepidation – justified, as it happens. The inside is like a vegetable garden: the cupboards are mouldy, the clothes are mouldy. Some of the furniture is mouldy too, and some of the ceilings have nasty brown patches. Clearly, it has been very wet while we’ve been away.

Towards evening we go shopping. They say it has been raining every day, so the city looks cleaner, but many of the roads have got new, viciously sharp-edged potholes. A ten-minute drive and we park outside a small supermarket with excellent French Cheeses, Italian salamis and Belgian pates. All the beers wines and spirits one can ask for are there too, and an amazing array of vegetables. We arrive at 7.25, not realizing that it shuts at 7.30. But no matter, we get everything we need and are back at home before 8. The simplicity of the transaction, compared to the frenetic crowds in South African shopping centres is striking.

Maybe things aren’t so bad here. We find ourselves looking forward to chicken and chips at the French centre on Friday evenings; the weekly booze-ups at the British Embassy and the week-end walk around the Lac de Ma Valée. To meeting friends we have missed over the last three weeks.

Home? Kinshasa? Slowly the realization dawns: the estrangement of the early days has gone and this is, we can admit (almost with pleasure, but not quite yet) home. Even if it is mouldy.