Kiwanja

I'm up North in our Kiwanja office for two days. Oh I'm in love. It's so much nicer than Goma. Oh sometimes I don't like Goma, Goma with its dirty sterility, its tall walls, its suspicion. Kiwanja is a town. People greet each other like neighbors should.

Driving up we skirt the park, Virunga, and you can see for miles out over green blue brown grasslands to the sudden rise of Mt Nyiragongo.

"It's like the ocean," I say to mon petit frère A.

"I've never seen the ocean," says A.

"It's like this," I say. And then I add, "But you'll still be totally psyched when you see the real thing," because he will, I know it, and sooner rather than later.

We drive in silence for a while, and then A says musingly, "Rachel, do you ever think about how absolutely powerful love is?"

To which I roll my eyes, snort, and respond, "Oh, for God's sake. What?!"

A is such a dreamer.