Odds and Ends... Something Random

Time for a SUPER Random post. Are you ready? Bookended by some beautiful flowers from my photo shoot last week. I cannot get over how lovely everything is! 

First, I got to see the parrots yesterday. A storm was blowing in, and they were flying around as I was walking home from work, trying to find a safe spot. I was impressed with their tails! (Photo not mine)

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2299/2531011263_48f4cdebf5_m.jpg

And last night I also got my very own snail for my front walk! Everyone else had one and I was jealous, so now I am glad to have one of my very own! I swear I took a picture, but my camera is being finicky, so this will have to do:

http://a-z-animals.com/media/animals/images/470x370/giant_african_land_snail.jpg

Got some mail this past week and one of the comments was about how even though I am in Africa, I am not 'in the sticks.' (Interesting article here) I think I was prepared to move to a city, but with all my busy days, I didn't do a lot of research before I got here. For your pleasure, some Kinshasa facts... Along with some photos my camera recently happened to 'find' in it's memory. Weird. 

• Kinshasa has over 9 million people.
• It is the 2nd largest francophone urban area in the world, after Paris.
• It is the 3rd largest urban area in Africa, after Cairo and Lagos. 
• Originally called 'Leopoldville' after the Belgian king who (very intensely, to put it mildly) colonized the DRC. 
• The two closest capitals of sovereign countries in the world are Kinshasa and Brazzaville, slightly less than one mile apart across the Congo River! (I don't count the Vatican, it's close to Rome because it's IN Rome, duh)

http://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/7056/what-are-the-two-closest-capital-cities-in-the-world
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinshasa

I will also say that while I was 'prepared' to move to the city, when we got pizza delivered I was still pretty impressed... you can take a girl out of Franklin County, but you can't take Franklin County out of the girl! I am used to more formal public transportation than there is here, but other than that the noise and traffic lights are definite indications that we are NOT in the country. Our compound is beautiful, but it's easy to tell that it's a natural area in a city, and not at all rural.

Also recently attended book club, a gathering founded by teachers at my school who have all since left. However, they invited in many people who work in Kinshasa who were around to keep the club 'dormant' through the summer and become active again in fall. We met at one such person's house to discuss Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Aichie. It was a very good book, a long love story, but more that that to me was a story about a girl seeking something and trying to fit in and find her place in the world. I also learned a lot about race, especially from the perspective of the main character, a Nigerian girl who moves to the USA and witnesses things very differently from African American people living in the states. I would recommend it. I am now trying to get into The Lizard Cage by Karen Connelly for the next book club meeting at my house. 

Quote I have been thinking on this week:

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”― Rumi

End to the weirdest blog post ever... back to organization next week. Maybe.