The Forgotten Kabange

Twins are considered magical births in Congo. When my colleagues in Katanga found out that I am a twin, they immediately asked me why I did not tell them already. It was as though I had deliberating kept important information from them. Ironically, I get this same reaction in the United States as well.

“My twin sister is fabulous at winter sports,” I might say to someone who tells me about their interest in snowboarding.

“You have a twin! Why didn’t you tell me you had a twin?!” This person would reply.

“Because I only met you two hours ago when I got to the party.”

Just like people with certain medical conditions wear bracelets to let strangers know about them, I should wear a t-shirt that says, “I have twin. No, we don’t look alike. No, we didn’t create our own secret language as children.” When an acquaintance discovers that I am a vegetarian, they respond with mild curiosity, or panic, if they just invited me over to dinner. Discovering that I am twin, no matter how long or short the time I have known this person, is greeted with betrayal that they were not informed.

Perhaps this sentiment is amplified in Congo because twins are said to have magical powers. I mean, if I knew someone who had magical powers, I would expect this to come up pretty early in the course of our friendship. Twins can heal the sick and summon rain. They can bring good or bad luck. I was tempted to ask my colleagues if one twin can bring good luck and the other one bad, because I would definitely be the former. When my older sister bought me a shirt that said, “don’t blame me, it was my evil twin,” she went back to get my twin sister one as an afterthought.

Failing to observe rites associated with twins can be catastrophic for their families and entire villages. In other words, do not mess this twins. They will make life hell for you. Singing the Mapasa when twins are born is en example of such a rite. This song celebrates the birth of twins. One version begins with, “Eldest twin, watch out, don’t go under the bosenge tree/Youngest twin, watch out, don’t go under the bosenge tree/The day that you do, you will die.”

How fabulous. My whole life I have been living in ignorance that there is a tree, which if I go under it, I will die. Twenty-nine years on the planet and only now does anyone bother to inform me of a twin-killing tree. I do not have a clue what a bosenge tree looks like. For all I know, my parents are planning an annex to their bathroom out of bosenge trees.

Because people are afraid of supernatural twins, they might not discipline them. If your child can cause a drought for your village by keeping rain from falling, some battles parents might choose not to fight. My parents might have been less strict on our curfews if they thought Leah and I could wipe our Marietta with a plague.

There is an entire vocabulary associated with twins (and no, not as in their own secret language. Let’s try to get off that track, alright? TWINS DON’T HAVE THEIR OWN SECRET LANGUAGES). In English, both twins are known simply as “twins.” In Congo, mbuyi is the eldest twin. The second one is kabange. The father of twins is shambuyi; the mother is mwambuyi. Far from nicknames, these titles replace parents’ given names. Though I am no linguist, it seems like the entire twin vocabulary is focused on the eldest twin, mbuyi. My parents did not know they were having twins. My twin sister got the chosen name. My father came up with mine on the spot. Now I come to learn that my parents might as well be called, “Mother of Leah” and “Father of Leah.” Apparently, I can never escape the shadow of my twin sister’s glory, even in Congo.

Stop that 29-year old from drinking!

I got used to many things in Congo that are different in the states. With so many big changes, like no running water, driving a trunk, living in a rural town with dirt roads, I often forget about the little random changes I now come across on a daily basis in the United States.

Here are a few of the random products or insights I have noticed in America:

1- Red wine does not have a hint of vinegar
2- I have never eaten a Lunchable in my life, but I had completed forgotten about the pre-made assemble-it-yourself weird lunch phenomenon.
3- Spray butter. Why?
4- Offices do not keep supplies like pens under lock and key
5- I get carded for alcohol

On this point, yesterday my friends and I went to see Pan’s Labyrinth. When the 4:45 show was sold out, we decided to buy tickets for the next one and get a beer in the meantime. I did not have my ID on me, since I figured were only going to see the movie. We went to a brewery. The waitress gave us beer samples without carding, so I figured that I was in the clear. Wrong. I am 29, and even though I do not quite look my age, I certainly do not look 20. Not wanting to put the waitress in a bad position, I tell her that it’s okay if she does not want to serve me. She suggests my friend order my beer. Problem solved!

Or so I thought.

The waitress tells me five minutes later, apologetically and with a smile, that she will have to confiscate my beer if she happens to catch me drinking it. What? Que? Quoi? Having my friend order for me was her idea, not ours. My friends and I, albeit a bit baffled, create a system where they scan for the waitress each time I move in for a sip. One puts his hand to his chin when the coast was not clear. In this manner, I make it through two beers. People might think that Congo is absurd, but when I am using a friend’s hand signals in order to consume a beer when I am eight years past the drinking age, I would argue that the USA is not a bastion of logic.

An Essay on Character

Hanging out with my twin sister in Breckenridge a couple months ago, being unemployed was not a problem. We mountain-biked, went camping, and drank beer with absurdly high alcohol content that I had not seen since my days of cross-border raids into Belgium. Job? What job? My sister’s Breck friends embrace that freedom with the same vigor they tackle ski runs.

Washington, DC, is quite a different story. If DC were a guy he’d constantly be talking about his work and would feel naked without a tie. I’m pretty much waiting for a little airplane to sky-write “UNEMPLOYED!” with a perfectly drawn finger in the heavens pointing down at me. That is what being a jobseeker in DC feels like. Rather than eating humble pie, it’s like free-basing humble heroine. In a few short months I have gone from a bilingual, Masters-holding, respected, work-is-my-life management position overseas to swimming in a sea of overqualified professionals who have two Masters or speak three languages. I’ve thought what a character-building experience this is. That thought was immediately followed by another thought: “Screw that.” Congo hammered a certain amount of character in me that I feel should suffice for at least a year. Is unemployment really going to provide some sort necessary humbling that I didn’t garner while lying in intensive care in a hospital in a third world country with only three IV drips for company (a day before which a friend shot me in the butt with anti-malarial drugs and an Indian colonel held back my hair as I gracelessly vomited at a military base)? Character, that devilish friend, is always on the look out for a new “in.”

Still, I smiled when I woke up with a headache this morning. No panic that it might be malaria. I simply reached for my Advil. Moving back to America was about my need to change my lifestyle, and maybe I forgot that the comforts of my home country would be combined with the uncertainty of leaving my job. DC’s fixation on work highlights this uncertainty, and the greener grass is never as green once you get to it. So perhaps I should stop trying to figure out how green it is and start doing cartwheels on the lawn. How’s that for character?