Use Your Head

When Marine leaves I often end up neglecting myself for whatever reason, and so I may not eat all day but then wait until the last minute, drag myself out the door, and eat something bad for me. It makes no sense, because when she's here she doesn't really cook that much. In fact, it's me making sure that she eats otherwise she will get angry and fatigued like a small baby. I just seem to lose all energy and I don't do anything, and today was a good example. I pushed through the hunger, gave an English class to an architect (which I couldn't avoid as he was coming to my house, there's not much else I could do), and then when I felt as though I might pass out I decided to descend the stairs and get something to eat.

I've talked about African food and how much I love it. Goat, chicken, rice, beans. Whatever. It's cheap and local and I know that when I move I'll probably not have the opportunity to eat it again, so I decided why not, 5 bucks, I'll go get some African. As is normal in Belgium, the place I frequent decided to close for no reason other than that they did not want to open that day. I backtracked and thought about the place across the street from me -- it's good but I prefer a specific type of chicken with sauce called moambe and, not being from Congo, the guy doesn't usually make it. But again I said screw it, I don't have the energy to be bothered looking for anything. Went there, got some goat (it's odd to use that casually, like for example he was telling me what was available and I said, "Mmmrrr.. I think I'll have the chicken -- wait no, the goat." -- you don't get to say that often) and he speaks fluent english so I had a little chat with him.

It's a new place next to a parking garage and he has nice new glass doors, but one was put out of commission and he had a chair behind and in front of it with a giant sign saying, Do Not Use This Door, as if a lot of people had tried and he had to barricade the thing in to stop them from shattering it and hurting themselves. I asked what had happened, just out of simple curiosity. I mean, he's basically a neighbor and I'd like to know the goings-ons in my neighborhood. "Well," he said, "They broke it and so I went and replaced the door. Then they broke it again the very next day. I said to them, It's ok, but give me the money to replace it!" He laughed and I tried to imagine it in my head.With the parking garage, I just made an assumption and asked "Did a car back into it or something?"
"No, with his head! He pushed the door open with his head".
That made no sense to me so I asked him and he explained a guy was coming in, twice, and broke it with his head. That simple.

I have no idea how someone does that and doesn't horribly maim themselves in the process, to be perfectly honest. He just continued to smile and said "It's Matongé, you never know what's going to happen!" I laughed with him, cause, well, it's true. People push open doors with their heads.

Sure it spices life up, but lessons should be learned here. Just as you shouldn't throw stones if you live in a glass house, you shouldn't own glass doors if you live in Matongé. There's plenty of evidence of that, unfortunately.

I just wished him good luck and went home and ate my goat.