expat dinner party!

tonight i was invited to an expat dinner party. it's not very often that you, as a visitor can get asked for dinner at someone's house on a weekend, because it's a bit of a downer if they have to pick you up and drive you home after. driving home at 11pm is not annoying just because your host is probably drunk, it's that everyone else is drunk, and the angry drunk homeless people angry drunk police officers and who knows a van full of people that doesn't have brakes might just happen along or a rock comes through your window. but me, i'm "autonomme." i didn't have the guts to drive myself around - i just have a lot more taxi numbers, including justin, who only works nights and has a voice like barry white. so now i'm everyone's favorite guest because i'm not the same boring people they have out with every weekend. oh, also, there's apparently some UN guy with a penthouse apartment with a giant rooftop somewhere downtown and throws a killer monthly party with hundreds of people. i need to find out when the next one is.  
anyway, expat party. basically a bunch of sexy house wives whose husbands are on a mission in Goma or something and they try and make gourmet food with kinshasa ingredients. lots of white wine. though there's apparently a new supermarket called the "extra super" market. best prosciutto in town. things are changing. 
at one point they started talking about all the congolese with funny names. the tennis pro yannick noah look-alike who teaches all these ladies is called "pavé" (cobblestone). another one works for a minister whose name is "baveau" which has the root word for "drool." another has a cleaning woman named "culotte." and on and on. 
so then i put on some music, which they like, and they complain that in kinshasa bars you never heard any european dance music for a change, it's always, always african style grinding stuff. so we start talking about neighborhoods we should go to for a change, and one time i went to bandal, and it's all outdoor patios and pretty fun and maybe there some more interesting clubs. but a bunch of white girls can't just roll into bandal. we need someone to take us. how about pavé?!! screeches and screams we are totally calling pavé and going to bandal!! i think pavé just won the lottery.