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Published: November 24th 2006
Barbwire
Those who do not afford the new razorwire stick to the good old barbed one. Succesfully prevented passage since 1831. Kinshasa.Soon a boat came to our rescue, we boarded it and a few minutes later we arrived at
Kinshasa’s harbour.
First class, third world, hustle and bustle, just like we’d expected.
Moneychangers carrying plastic bags full of currency and all sorts of police, guards and custom officials hurried around.
Someone in a uniform took our passports and disappeared, and it was only with the help of a friendly priest that we finally got them back and could leave the confusing harbour area.
The priest helped us to our guesthouse - another Christian mission - and then left us for his theological studies.
The guesthouse had - just like the rest of the city - high walls draped in glittery razor-wire. Such a common feature in the capital that I think they should add some to the new national flag or at least mention it in the national anthem.
Kinshasa: the city of razor-wire and security guards.
It was another two weeks of political rallies before the second round of presidential elections and huge banners blew in the wind over the traffic-jammed streets of downtown Kinshasa.
“
Choose Kabila for stability!”, “
Bemba Early morning traffic
A breakfast traffic jam on the main avenue. All along the road huge banners blow back and forth in the wind. Avenue Colonel Mondjiba, Kinshasa. - for the Congo of tomorrow!”, the banners exclaimed in big colourful letters.
Catch 22 I sadly thought as we drove past in the family
Konde’s rented car.
The Konde family came from Sweden and lived next-door to our guesthouse. The parents worked with coordinating aid money, an assignment that is difficult in the "average" African nation.
Here - at the apex of unexpectedness - where the word “Government” equals embezzlement and the word “Bureaucracy” is synonymous with dishonesty, the task sounded close to impossible.
At the weekend, Mrs Konde took us around the city centre showing different markets and later took us swimming in a pool at her kid’s American school. We even went to church one sunny Sunday morning after which she told us about a Swedish restaurant that - against all odds - had opened not too long ago in Kinshasa. They even served Swedish cinnamon rolls (which sounded too good to be true), we were told.
We felt the time ticking.
As we arrived it was only two more weeks until the election and the subsequent closure of all land borders.
Judging by the heavy presence of U.N. tanks
Peacock
A beautiful bird at the "Symphonie des arts" A truly spectacular place full of art, curios, a beautiful garden and 10 big colourful peacocks. It's close to Kintambo and is run by a eccentric old French woman. Kinshasa. and soldiers on the streets of Kinshasa, it felt more like the city was preparing for civil war than political rallies.
At the previous election in August, 20 people were shot dead in the capital after clashes between Bemba’s armed forces and the governments’ troops.
A week prior to our arrival, Bemba’s T.V.-station had been blown up and every single embassy now recommended their countrymen to leave the country.
The Konde family were flying home in the coming week so
Aili and I, we both felt that the time of arrival was badly chosen.
To take the land way south-east to the second biggest city
Lubumbashi would take us at least three weeks which meant that we would’ve been stranded somewhere in the diamond frenzied
Kasai region for the election, and only to pass the region without being arrested required a 500$ permit (350$ if you’ve got contacts in the government).
So we opted for a flight instead, being well aware of the crash statistics of the domestic flight in the
D.R.C. We choose the company with the swankiest office. After we’d purchased the tickets the clerk informed us that we “might” need a permit
Local transport
Yes, the man standing on top of the minibus wears a tight fitting American-wrestling rubbermask. Why? I have no idea, but he was screaming and dancing if that could give you a clue. Downtown Kinshasa. to enter Lubumbashi too.
Dealing with corrupt officials had taught us a lesson and to show up in Lubumbashi without a permit if such a thing was needed, would have been a very bad idea.
So to calm down our worried minds we went to the nearby tourist office to enquire.
Some 15 people sat doing nothing in the old building. None of them actually had a clue about the permit or anything else involved with tourism either. Most probably we were the first tourists in a very long time that they’d seen.
One man with a trustworthy appearance said that he could arrange a permit for ten dollars and that it would be ready early the next day. Good for us since we were leaving in less than three days.
The next day we had breakfast at the Swedish restaurant and it was true, they did have the typical Swedish cinnamon rolls.
The owners
Maya and
Tommy had left their safe and calm life in the north of Europe for something completely different here in this sticky Central African concrete jungle.
The restaurant was not more than half a year
Tommy and Maya
The two great owners of "Chez-Nous! Restaurant Suedois". Serving steaming hot cinnamon rolls as well as a cinnamon ice-cream that will knock your socks of! Close to Kintambo Magazine, Kinshasa. old and I understood that they had had a hard time cutting through all the red tape and getting all the necessary paperwork done.
To their help they had Mayas father - a larger than life character that had been around since the fight for independence and new more than most of what was going on behind the political curtains.
We said goodbye to the couple and walked down to the tourist office. The man had not been in for the whole day and they didn’t expect him to arrive the next day either. We could maybe find him at the ministry of tourism’s central office, we were told.
A huge, grey, “Soviet union-style” building full of unnecessary people doing nothing. Everyone being on the payroll only because they knew someone higher up in the government.
A whole building of meaninglessness.
More than a hundred people taking care of a tourism industry that doesn’t exist.
I will never understand the logics of corruption.
Eventually we found the guy hiding in one a small office. He had no problem at all to lie to us straight in the face and demand another 30$ for
a new ridiculous reason.
Frustration.
I called Maya who came and had a chat with the lad then told us there where better pockets to put our money in than into his.
She took us to her father who was indeed a living crime thriller. It was too bad we only had an hour too see him since I undoubtedly believe one could write a book about his adventures.
The next day we tried to walk to the Swedish embassy to make our presence in the country known. But to get to the embassy we had to pass a military checkpoint at where three soldiers sat playing with a rocket launcher while three rockets stood leaning against a nearby tree. They stopped us and asked uncomfortable questions, so instead of walking down the totally deserted street accompanied by one of the soldiers spinning a pistol around his finger, we told them that we’d got lost while trying to find the way back to our hotel, gave up the idea of finding the embassy, and walked back to the Swedish restaurant instead.
Maya told us that her father had called some heavyweight in
Early morning alarm clock
Gooooooooooooooooooooooood mornin' Congo! A hammering start of the day is appreciated differently, I surely got up early but I think the woman on the picture was less pleased by the brass band. Lubumbashi bashing. the government and had been told that a permit most probably wasn’t needed.
Relieved we spent the whole afternoon and evening enjoying the company of Maya and Tommy.
They told us proverbs from the north of Sweden, explained the intricate art of professional vodka sampling and gave us a most memorable night as well as some good advice on the road.
The next day, before the sun had yet awoken we found a shuttle out to the airport, witnessed the brutal bashing of a young man by a group of soldiers then talked our way out of paying bribes at the immigration office.
The plane was very modern which relaxed me a lot.
At 09:05 a.m. - right on time - we lifted and began climbing higher and higher into the stratosphere. The Kinshasa that had felt so erratic, so impossible to grasp down on the ground, now disappeared as a grey congregation of corrugated iron roofs clinging onto the mighty
Congo River's eastern riverside. The surrounding hillsides flattened out and appeared as a uniform green carpet over the country and then there were only clouds left.
An ocean of fluffy white lightness,
Mobutu
This guy didn't leave us alone for five minutes but I never really understood what he wanted. Jardin de Symphonie, Kinshasa. a relieving silence and glitzy airlines magazines.
A time-zone and some uninspiring, neatly packed food later we landed in Lubumbashi.
At the immigration office they forced us to pay 10 $ each.
We tried to refuse but it didn’t work. The money was going straight to the chief of the immigration office, and every newcomer had to pay the bribe, the immigration officer smilingly assured us.
Very assuring.
Like if getting ripped off by corrupt officials felt any better because it happened to other people too.
The taxi drivers did their best to cement another day in Scam-land, but eventually agreed to take us into town for an acceptable fare.
The town (it’s supposed to be the second biggest city) had nothing in common with Kinshasa. No skyscrapers, no troops. People drove on the “wrong” side of the street and the relaxed atmosphere was far from the uncomfortably tensed mood of Kinshasa.
There was little for us to do in the town so we stayed only for three nights, in yet another missionary lodging at a Christian college.
The college happened to celebrate its 50:th anniversary as we were there.
Frontpage news
The South African Guardian's frontpage on the 17:th of November. Meaning: Late night celebrations by brass bands and early morning wake-up calls by Christian schoolboy choirs.
With less than a week to go before the second round of the presidential election, it was time to leave.
I’d only captured fragments of this huge nation and can’t say that I’ve gotten to know it only by visiting the two biggest cities.
I'll need to come back one day and se some other parts of it too. If this giant ever will be stable enough to encourage tourism.
It’s arguably the country with the worst outcome from the colonisation.
Estimations put the death toll from king
Leopold II’s ivory and rubber terror to between five and ten million people. During and ever since his ruthless rule the country has had a sad history.
From his first cunning moves of deceiving the other colonial powers to let him “have” the Congo, to the elaborate atrocities carried out by his military forces on the Congolese population.
Even after the cold-hearted king had sold the Congo to the Belgian government, his evil spirit still haunted the nation.
Through the continued brutal rule by the Belgians to the
Calm waters
At the college in Lubumbashi, calm and relaxing, the acronym of life in Kinshasa. Regina Mundi/Don Bosco college, Lubumbashi. assassination of the first president (who actually did a brave attempt of steering the rudderless ship of Congo).
Followed by the terror rule of Mobutu who eventually got toppled by the first Kabila (who in typical Central African manner took power in a coup).
His subsequent assassination in 2000 and the nepotistic move of power to his son, the murky president of today.
All this while the worst war since
WWII has been (and still is being) fought in the country’s eastern parts.
Peace and stability seems extremely distant in this corrupt trouble hot-spot, but maybe one day in the future, D.R.C. can rise and drive out the sinister ghost that has haunted it since king Leopold’s first rape of the nation 125 years ago.
On
October the 29:th the elections proceeded peacefully (D.R.C.-wise) with only two deaths.
On
November the 10:th the long-awaited election results were announced. Kabila merged as the winner with 58%!o(MISSING)f the vote.
On
November the 13:th Bemba and the alliance behind him announced that they wouldn’t respect the newly signed agreement with Kabila in which they are committed to only contest the
EU For safety
The European Onion wanted to join the sallad so they sent down their troops. The EUfor was predominantly German while the U.N.soldiers were from Uruguay. result with legal channels.
On
November the 21:st the Supreme Court was burned amid gunshots.
This does not bode well.
Congo is back on square one.
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Jim
non-member comment
Back in Thailand
Hej Vannen! Du gor en fantastisk resa och jag foljer dina aventyr med spanning du gor ju saa galna saker riktigt skoj verkar du ha. Ar en svang i Thailand igen bara pa en 2 veckors semester...hamnat pa Ko Chang som forvandlats till ett Svennecharter paradis SUCK lamnar denna o snarast och vidare till Samet island skulle velat vara pa Phangan men inte denna gang mitt sallskap ar inte phangan manniskor. Ar tillsammans med en iransk tjej och tror inte hon gillar pulsen pa partyon phangan sa det far bli pa egen hand istallet hehehehe. Hur lange ar du borta Bobby?Skulle vara roligt o ses ifall du har vagarna forbi Stockholm hor da av dig. // Jim Alanningen Ta hand om dig