From Salsa to Savanna

                                   Before you dive in, a quick warning: I'm about to talk about some food habits that not everyone knows about, and some you might even find hard to understand. So, if you think you're not ready to discover unusual or shocking foods, you might want to brace yourself. Last time, I took a picture of my kids watching the cook cleaning what I think was an eel and sent it to a few friends. They were excited and curious about what else I had been eating or seeing. And just like that, the idea for this post popped into my head. Because, oh yes!, I've seen and experienced quite a lot in the past nine months.  Let's start with the Goat . I overheard someone saying they were getting goat for lunch, and I thought: okay, we're just going to eat it today, maybe a bit tomorrow. The truth is, they brought the goat alive and kept it at home for about five days. She was tied u...

Three days after we arrived, heavy rains occurred in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), causing severe flooding and even deaths. Some friends saw it on the news and wrote to me, worried and asking if we were okay. This has always been a source of confusion: the fact that there are two countries with almost the same name, located in the same region, and sharing language and history. Many people already know how to differentiate between the two countries and are aware of which one we are in. However, news in Europe often just refer to "the Congo" without distinguishing between Congo-Brazzaville and Kinshasa. That's when people start to worry. Here is a bit of history: Before European colonization, the region was home to the Kingdom of Kongo, which included what are now Angola, the DRC, the Republic of the Congo, and Gabon. The first Europeans to arrive were the Portuguese in the 15th century. The slave trade, along with wars and internal divisions, led to the Kingd...

Exactly one week after we arrived, I started French lessons at the Institut Français du Congo . It's about a five-minute drive from home. The classes take place three times a week, two hours each, in the late afternoon. It costs 125,000 FCA (approx. €192), plus 27,000 FCA (approx. €42) for books, if you choose to buy them. The teacher is a Congolese woman who also works as a kindergarten teacher at the French international school, as well as a private tutor. She's funny, creative, gestures a lot, and cheers you on every time you try to speak French. It doesn't have to be correct -it's the way she encourages you that makes you speak French without hesitation. Most of the people who study with me came here to work and are from countries such as Peru, Nicaragua, Syria, China, Nigeria, Ghana, and Angola. They work in a variety of fields, ranging from construction to embassies and the WHO. I started from the very beginning, so it was fairly easy at first, but definitely not ...

You know you're in a tropical country when, just getting off the plane, you're hit by the heat. Welcome home, you could hear. It took us so long to get out of the airport that my oldest son said: "Mama, Congo nein, casa" (translated: I don't want to go to Congo, I want to go back home). The reason it took a while was that a machine brake down twice while we were going through immigration. Instead of sending us to another booth, they made us wait -with a baby and a toddler. Not such a good idea. But nothing could take away our enthusiasm. We were just happy to have arrived. I would say this is, along with the heat, the first similarity you’ll notice between Congo and Cuba: they both take their time and go slow - ve suave que te derrites (go slow, or you'll melt). This reflects the clear connection between the heat and the laid-back pace of life among these two countries. At home, we were warmly welcomed. The first thing my husband's aunt told me was "...

And then April 4th, 2025 arrives -Día de los Niños in Cuba (Children's Day). Couldn't have picked a better day, right? We had booked the tickets in July 2024, nine months earlier. A one-way flight. At 4:00 in the morning, we were heading to the airport with six large suitcases, four carry-ons, two backpacks, and a trolley. All of them overweight, of course -true African style. After a one-and-a-half-hour delay in Düsseldorf, we thought we were going to miss our main flight to Brazzaville. We were literally running through the airport in Paris to reach our gate, and made it just in time, at the last call. What luck! And then the Boeing took off, and we finally let ourselves relax. We enjoyed eight hours of doing absolutely nothing. Something we hadn’t done in ages. The adventure had just begun. After nearly 14 years living in Germany, it was time to say goodbye. Thank you for everything, Düsseldorf!