Smengel

Back in Kinshasa after 5 weeks of cholera intervention, and wondering …

What will I wear for my sister’s wedding?

Do the new born babies of my best friends look like the fathers, because its nature’s way of telling them it really is their offspring?

Why can’t I ask him to go for a beer and a rock concert anymore?

Why did the parents of my Congolese colleague gave him the name ‘Bienfait’? And more, why not?

How is my friend doing after the hospital in Kunduz was bombed?

All of a sudden I get scared that my friends and family will forget about me. That they will remember me as ‘that crazy girl who worked with primates, spent some time in the forest and then decided to chase epidemics in Africa’ but we lost track of her somewhere between ebola and cholera. 

My Norwegian friend invented a word for this feeling, and it’s the weirdest (but very beautiful) word I heard in years: “Smengel” (to be pronounced with Scandinavian accent). It’s the feeling of not being missed anymore. To feel annoyed not to find the words to express what situation you are in and to feel even more annoyed when nobody understands you.

One day I would love to write a book, not because I think my story is more interesting than anyone else’s, but I am scared that I (and others) will forget everything that is happening and has happened. Being alone in the forest of Cameroon I read a book about an anthropologist and his work in the same area. Everything sounded familiar, and I felt like someone understood. I was not imagining things! Absurd situations, difficult to explain, and to believe can become daily business before you know it.

Entre loup et chien?

Checking water sources during the Cholera outbreak, Kindu, RDC. (Sept, 2015)