Still Life with Mangostan

The fruit in the photo is a mangostan. I had never heard of them before, much less seen or eaten one, until the sister of my landlord, Mathilde Biema, sent a bagful over. I have no idea how you spell it; I'm just going on the phonetics when the word is spoken. It has a hard deep purple casing around a thick pithy skin. Inside are clove-like sections of slippery juicy fruit with the taste of kiwi, strawberry and citrus. It grows on trees like apples.

Being the older sister of Louis Zulu, Mathilde has considerable influence on life in the community. I learned that when I casually mentioned to her that my plumbing was not up to par. Before the sentence was out of my mouth, she was on the phone talking in Lingala to Louis. Lingala must be a relatively direct language, because in less than 30 seconds she was off the phone and Louis was going to take care of it. When the plumber arrived the next day, he assessed the various problems and said he would order the necessary fixtures and return when he had them.

It wasn't long after that that he arrived with his associate carrying (!) a brand new toilet. It was installed and that night, I very proudly used it and flushed it and went to bed. When I woke up the next day, I stepped into about two inches of water across the floor. Evidently, a part had malfunctioned and the tank had continued to fill throughout the night. I called Mathilde, who sent the plumber over who within a short time had it fixed. It has been working well ever since.

A few days later, the plumber arrived with a new faucet for the kitchen sink. It took him all day to install it because of the severe corrosion that he needed to clean out in order to increase the water pressure. That night, as I was doing dishes and admiring its functionality, there was a "pop!" and a sudden gush of water from a broken part. I called Mathilde. Within minutes the plumber arrived to shut the water off and promised to return the next day, which unfortunately happened to be a Congolese holiday commemorating the assassination of Lumumba. He was the first Prime Minister following independence from Belgium in 1961. The plumber repaired the faucet and while he was here, I had him take a look at the toilet in the second bathroom which had looked suspicious to me, and several others, for a few days. He and his colleague agreed that something needed to be done, so they worked until after 5:00 pm getting that toilet up to speed.

I could have shown you "Still life with toilet" or "Still life with faucet" but I thought this one was the better choice. Till the next time, thank you for keeping in touch through Congo Scenes.