Full Circle
Delfi Messinger
Going back, to leave again.
The Peace Corps taught me how to make a difference. Although I was mainly occupied with bonobos for eleven years as a “volunteer” after leaving my Peace Corps assignment in Zaire, I also started a children’s magazine there called Bleu/Blanc, which exists to this day.
In 2000, I traveled back to what is now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo to see what remained of my projects. On the evening of my departure from that country I had a chance to write down my thoughts and reflect on my visit.
Our truck hit a pothole, jarring my reflections. Beside me, passengers were nodding to the slap-slap of the windshield wipers. The sky had lightened and suddenly we broke out of the storm. As the water ran off, fog steamed up from the hot, damp pavement. On the right the sunset was russet and mauve dipping behind the Congo River.
Clever, I mused. Work smarter, not harder. Massala was right; a clever, roundabout way may be the most direct route to change. Then it struck me: The magazine would carry on. Amazingly, the games and puzzles, stories, cartoons, poems—the sparking of minds, the thirst for learning and literacy would be my legacy. On a shoestring, on a whim, and almost unwittingly, I had planted a smelly crop of seeds for the next generation. Those seeds were the real golden grains.
Night falls fast on the equator. Our convoy reached the outskirts of Kinshasa amid pedestrians hurrying home before nightfall. I stared at the sunset’s reflected glow from the river, knowing that this would be the last time. Abruptly, the sun slid into the Congo’s vast waters. The sky turned a streaky silver, and the mamans selling goods along the highway hurried to light their lanterns to lure the evening crowd. Traffic thickened and slowed as we passed the airport and headed into town.
I cracked a window and the clean smell of rain blew in. The palms along the side of the road lifted their lacy feather duster heads against the fading sunset colors. The throng—many still on their way home from work—were hundreds deep at the truck stops and along the dirt paths lined with wooden tables selling grilled turkey tails, soap, cigarettes, and skin-lightening creams.
God, I was homesick for this place! This vile, gorgeous, snarly, exhilarating, insane, deep, and terrible place. For two years now, I had been dreaming of this Congo and in a few days I would be leaving forever. Through tear-lashed eyes, I remembered the birds—the kingfishers that splashed in my water barrel and the nightingale that sang every evening around eight. I thought of the flocks of mousebirds that hung like long-tailed ornaments in the trees, and the grass finches that eluded our rat-trap cat. I remembered the cattle egrets overhead that gave me courage under fire.
Zaire, Zaire, I’d loved you so! And, oh, how I’d hated you. You taught me a lifetime of lessons that I would never have learned in any other way—you gave me the human side of myself. I’d been close to tears all day and maudlin thoughts floated to the surface of my mind. No flowers, I thought. Why hadn’t I thought to buy flowers for Tamibu? (One of my workers who died of AIDS in the brief time that I had been visiting.)
It was dark in the car and I wiped my face clear of tears. Don’t be so harsh, I thought. Instead of stuff, you gave yourself and that was worth way more. I straightened in my seat. As the clouds drifted away and the stars came out, I saw more clearly. I knew that I could leave the Congo behind, even though a part of me—the part that held the future—would always remain.
Delfi Messinger is the author of Grains of Golden Sand. She served in Zaire from 1984-87. Her website is delfisgrainsofgoldensand-bonobos.blogspot.com.