Friends Forever: Kona

KONA IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY! HAPPY BIRTHDAY KONA!

Some people have best friends that they meet through school or church, someplace where kids meet. I didn't meet my best friend in any of the normal kids places. I met her at a party that our parents were attending. Back in the late eighties and early nineties Congolese people descended upon cities like Atlanta, Raleigh, and Charlotte in droves. They were tight knit community gathering almost every weekend to party. It didn't matter what tribe you were from we were all "bas Zairois". The DRC was Zaire then and there was a pride in being from that country. So, gatherings happened for any and everything: a child's first birthday party, a wedding, a funeral, its raining, someone just arrived from back ho. When I hear my mom and my bff's mom talk about how they used to get together and all the characters who would show up at those parties, I hear nostalgia in their voices. I long for those days too. Now, we are divided this way and that and I envy the Nigerians, the Nigerians, the Nigerians...anyway

Back to Kona (of course that is not her real name). Since the day we started playing with each other we had been inseparable. Sleep overs, birthdays, road trips in the back of our mother's cars, parties, and the ups and downs of life. It was Kona and Chanty. Everyone knew that. We even tried to dress alike and do our hair the same. I spent more tome with Kona than anybody else. This is not because we lived close to each other, but because Kona pretty much lived in our house. Her mom worked a lot  back then and Kona always came to our house on the weekends or even after school. We played Barbies, made skits, made the house messy, watched movies we weren't supposed to be watching. Like Coming to America. We watched the actual version and then watched the TV version. The part where Samuel L. Jackson holds up McDowells always cracks us up because in the unedited version he says "Fuck You", but in the TV version he says "Forget You" and for some reason that kills us every time until this day. Our friendship has been laughs after laughs after laughs!! We laughed at everything. We even cried at everything too. When we'd go over to her house to visit...I loved her house because it had stairs lol...and then mom would say it was time to go, we'd cry and hold onto each other like Nettie and Ceely in the Color Purple. Kona was there when the dog scratched my butt and I almost died. Kona was there when we got cornered my a dog in my front year and my uncle opened the door and instead of shooing the dog away after seeing how scared we were, he laughed and shut the door. Kona and I held each other and said our goodbyes because we knew we were going to die. 

There was another time when we went downtown to watch the Hawks game and when we were walking out  we went down the wrong alley. We got cornered by this skinny man, his hair slicked down and a tan dickey's jumpsuit. He came right up to our faces and said "I have full blown AIDS" and if we could give him money for his meds. We were both shaking, Kona more than I lol. 

There was another time when we were maybe five or six and Kona, her older cousin, and I were in her mom's Volvo ( dang I miss that Volvo). The car was parked on a hill at my house and her cousin pulled the gear shift and we went rolling backwards down the road. 

Our friendship went from childhood antics to college ridiculousness. After losing touch in high school, we called each other up a few months before college and realized we were going to the same school. We immediately decided to be roommates and we remained roommates for four years.  It was a time of Youtube, Facebook, Kanye West's Late Registration, the CW teen shows, and Greys Anatomy. We were excited to be "adults". We were so naive. Mona was the only one with a car when we started at UWG and she was designated to drive us to Walmart and anywhere else we needed to go. Our door room was always popping...I guess...and were written up for being too loud. The punishment was to create a program in the dorm lobby. With Kona and my other friends we created a Black History Museum and it was AMAZING! Another time, one of friends had made Kool-Aid and Kona and I went up to her room to get some. We found our friend sleeping with her door wide open. So, we naturally took the Kool-Aid and brought it down to our room. Our friend woke up and almost lost her mind looking for her Kool-Aid. LOL.  There are so many memories, that it would take forever to put them down here.

Kona's birthday is today. I could not go on her birthday trip with her because "adulting" happened and I couldn't get off work. Yest and still, I wanted to tell the world about my longest and dearest friend. Life has carried us apart and back together again. We have not always seen eye to eye and I'm sure we've been pissed at each other too. However, we have shared more laughs than I can remember. Its hard to put into words what a dear friend she has been. 

Happy Birthday Kona.