Now, some good (K)atholic news

At least I think they are...yeah, they are.

I finally got word from the KUL (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven). I have been officially accepted to the PhD program in Cultural Anthro. Yikes. Funny butterflies, sporadic mini panic attacks, mostly happy. Somehow an idea I had been flirting with materialized (or rather "virtualized" because the letters arrived by email via Nivelles) into actually becoming a student again. Yikes again. Many people have encouraged me to do this. It's nice to now I have a great net of family and friends to support me (sounds like I am going to walk across Africa, I know, but it feels a bit like that to me.)

This will be my longest formal commitment to something. We'll see how it goes.

Catholic guilt: a note to friends from other churches

Well, today the guilt is of a different kind. I didn't do anything myself, the pope did. It's his fault.

Growing up, I thought all Catholics were the Vatican II type. It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized that Vatican II had arrived too late in most of Europe and that not everyone believed that the whole thing about social responsibility, openness to other denominations, etc. was important and necessary. Ecumenism has always made a lot of sense to me, so did bringing the church closer to people and their realities. For all the mistakes of the church, I have to give credit to my (Vatican II and post Medellin and Puebla) Catholic upbringing for many important decisions I've made in the course of my life.

Now, this pope is taking it back. First the deal about the mass in Latin...now his claims about other Christian churches not being as good or as real...what next?

Many of my English-speaking friends will not care about this post, but some of my best gringo friends are Christians of denominations other than Catholic. I wanted to post this note to let them know that I count myself among the many Catholics horrified at what is going on in the Vatican right now.

Domestic affairs

I finally finished fixing the apartment, so here are the pics I promised a long time ago. I love my work area. I can see the river from there, it's well lit, and there are always the comforting sounds of my neighbors' children playing and dancing outside, people conversing around the little peanuts, bananas, and beignets stall.

I like a lot where we live. It's an oldish apartment building from the colonial period that is attached to a building of private clinics and an ER. We have a corner apartment, more than enough space for the two of us, plus there's good natural light and ventilation. We don't need A/C.

It took us two years to finally get some furniture but finally, between having a couple things made by a local carpenter (my desk, the bookshelves and the dining table), stuff we bought from friends who moved back to France (the rattan couch and armchairs), and the armchairs lent by other friends, we had a place. Various expeditions to Ikea (in Bxl) with Françoise, Collette, Joelle and Sandrine completed the basic minimum to go beyond the "squatter look" to "something I can look at and not feel depressed."

I set up two armchairs to "honor" the living room at my parents' old house in Guate. It doesn't look exactly the same, but I get the same feeling. I like having once more my own reading corner from where I can see the trees, read, and keep homework for "later."



I had just finished rearranging the new furniture yesterday, when the door bell rang. The building's plumber and electrician were there to fix some problems I had asked them to look into. I must confess that it took me a couple of days to ask them because I have the feeling that once we start looking into mysterious leaks and pipe noises, the apartment will start collapsing. The building was built with the best materials of its time, I'm sure, but it's been several decades and the years are starting to show.

The first problem was quick to fix. The water heater had been making weird noises for a while and the pipe was also leaking. Like good Congolese handy men, the two guys arrived with the minimum number of tools possible. When they looked at the "problem" they both laughed and explained that since the water pressure is getting poorer and poorer, the water heaters need to be adjusted. That was it. The leak was fixed with something that looked like human hair. The plumber pulled out what looked like part of a blond wig out of his overall's pocket, tied it around the faucet, pushed it back, and voilà.

The other problem was more serious and hasn't been fixed yet. We started hearing "waterfall" sounds in the laundry room a few days ago. By the time the plumber came, water was already seeping from under the wood pane that covers the pipes. He removed the pane and we saw A LOT of water. Unidentifiable stuff came out too, it was all gray and wet, except for some small mammal bones that stood out because they were whitish.

The leak came from somewhere upstairs so the guy went up and later came back and told me it was in the 5th floor. What I didn't get is why the two apartments between ours and the 5th didn't say anything. If we're getting that much water three floors down, the other places must be flooding. The plumber said that he couldn't work on it yet because the owner had to be contacted first to get his permission to break the floor and the wall to fix the leak...So water kept falling and after staring at it for a while, it dawned on me that the main problem wasn't the water. Two years ago, Didier and AB sealed every single hole and opening in the apartment because of the RATS that move between floors through vents and openings.

About two hours had passed between the time the plumber removed the pane and my epiphany about rats. I closed all the doors and proceeded to nail back the pane. Unfortunately, the pane had begun to rot at the bottom, so it wasn't enough to protect us from the rats. Around that time Didier called me from Brazza and gave me some tips to secure the barricade against the rats.

I closed every door, moved the coffee maker to the bedroom (I was not going in the kitchen in the morning if rats were hanging around), locked myself in (rats can be smart), watched a horror movie, panicked when the power went out, realized it wasn't just at our place, fell asleep, and woke up to a still rat-free apartment.

Didier returned this morning. When he saw the result of the rat prevention work, he announced that he'd leave Kinshasa if rats ever made it through my barricade. Maybe I overestimated the local rats' skills. It'd be indeed unfortunate for us to find ourselves face to face with rats that made it through this.



After two years of plastic chairs and a mattress I am not even considering sharing our living space with whatever lives in the hollow spaces in this building.