I have talked a lot of the time Ivette and I spend together. I'd like to describe a bit who Ivette is. Firstly, it so happens that I do spend most of my quality time relating to the ladies here, for several reasons. Firstly, the men work and aren't available or around all day. Gi, Ivette's husband, sits at his foot pump surger all day and even after dark. He has to take a walk on occassion just to relax his leg. So it is the cleaning ladies, Pauline, Evaline and Ivette who are available to pass the day. Secondly, I simply enjoy African women over African men. They are the ones who relate to their children. They are also the ones interested in my children and most know their names and in which order even the grandchildren were born. They can also tell me which child resembles who. They are so incrediably animate; when they speak, it is with their whole bodies and perhaps their lives become somewhat stale and when a white body walks into town, they simply find it exciting and want to share that excitement.

In any case: Ivette. I would classify her as a women with a mid-income mentality. That is, she can be dressed in rags preparing a meal one moment and very, very well dressed the next to shop or go to church. She even stopped a passing lad the other day who does nails. He cut, filed and painted her left hand nails and all her toenails.(right hand is for eating). He painted designs on the nails just as they do back home. Ivette still spits on the street, but so do I. The only difference is that she can hit a spitoon at 10 paces and I can generally only hit my beard.

Ivette is an extremely powerful woman for her income level. She has amazing self confidence. Many times in a store, she has bypassed the line and gone straight to the counter to address the vendre. She bargains for absolutely everything, even against those who appear her best friends.

As we were walking down a very crowded street today in our matching outfits, some comments were asking her if she had taken a white husband. I later asked her if she was embarassed by my presence. She claims, no. I suspect her and I together raises her profile in the community and it certainly takes me places I couldn't and wouldn't go. Kikwit has nothing for a tourist so my stay depends totally on entering where a common Congolese enters, and for that , I owe Ivette.