All good things come to an end, so too our stay in Congo with my husband/CC’s dad. And now we find ourselves, my daughter CC and I, back in Finland, amidst heaps of snow that reach way over our heads, settling into spending another school semester apart from C. Well, not quite, we will get some opportunities to all meet up somewhere before the end of the school year, with a week in February and a week in April off school, so we’re very lucky.

Our stay in Congo was super, just being together as a family, catching up on lost time. It was a slight surprise to me how much I appreciated being there – I mean apart from the family thing – I noticed that it felt really good being back in Brazzaville. I felt I belonged there, like I came home. True, my home is still there in the sense that my husband and all our things are there, but I mean more than that. I’m talking about the city itself and life in Brazzaville. Yet I know that while I still lived there, I would often be frustrated with things, and find it a pain to deal with certain aspects of daily life. Now I was much more relaxed about these little hassles, probably as a result of knowing that this actually isn’t my daily life anymore, but more like a nice little interlude. It’s easier to smile about something slightly annoying when you know you’re not going to face it every day, right?

But there’s also something else to it. I believe that there’s nothing like a bit of distance to make you appreciate a place that much more, and for you to see it with different eyes when you return. Being away for a while gives you perspective and of course, there’s also the forget factor – the fact that you forget about bad things and focus only on the positive, but I think that tends to apply more to a place that you’ve left for good or at least when you’re not there, so that wouldn’t be my case here with Brazzaville.

Whatever the reason, I know I was sad to leave, not only my husband but also Brazzaville. Hope to be back before too long!