Epilogue

I came to Democratic Republic of Congo looking for Africa – I see it in the dark faces of village people, in the trash on the streets of Kinshasa, in the majesty of the rainforests in the Congo Basin, the cassava bread boiled in banana leaves, in the power of the Congo River, and in the red dirt of Kisanto. Everywhere a struggle for survival – I have found it…. Oyo ezali Africa. This is Africa.


FAVORITE PHOTOS OF ALL TIME:

Fishermen on the Congo River

Mama F & Ma

School in Camp Luka

Squatters

Road Shop

Natasha, Jean-Claude, and I

Art Market

Nancy, Me, and Clement

Jean-Pierre, Villager, and I

Grinding Cassava

Clement and I 

The Fields of MAMPU

Soaked in Spray

Francoise on the Road to MAMPU

Fields of Cassava

Favorite Ever!!

...Airport Trouble...and Home

We landed nearly two hours late in Istanbul, so we unloaded onto the tarmac and everyone made a line to customer service. After waiting in a couple lines, and then a few more, Turkish Airlines were able to reschedule my flight to Chicago that afternoon and then to St. Louis that evening. If all goes well, I will only arrive 3 and a half hours later than expected, not too bad all things considered. I’ll call Clement and Mom and when I get to Chicago. Thank God everything did go smoothly, so I landed in St. Louis late tonight. Mom and Dad picked me up and then I was home!

Last Day ... Or So I Thought

              Tonight is my flight out of here. I am incredibly anxious about this…”what if I miss my flight?” “What if my plane doesn’t leave?” “What if something unexpected happens?”

               We went to pick up my clothing from Clement’s aunt, then to buy me a cell phone to keep in contact with Clement as I travel through the airports. Riding in a broken down taxi and walking across the main boulevard has convinced me that this is my day to die! I bid farewell to Clement’s parents. 

              We took off to visit Seli Beach because it is closer to the airport and on the other side where the traffic won’t be as bad. It was beautiful to have a last look at the Congo River and Natasha came with us too, but my thoughts were constantly bent towards my flight later that night. 

               Despite my best attepmts to have us at the airport by 6pm, we arrived closer to 6:40, two hours before the flight was scheduled to leave. At the entrance of the airport, I bid adieu to Patrick and Natasha. Thankfully, Clement was able to come in the terminal with me!  The line was super long and I was bundle of nerves. We waited in line for an hour and half…finally getting my bag checked…everyone anxiously watched the clock as the time for our flight came…and then passed. So far, no one had been loaded on the plane and pretty much everyone was still in the same line we had been two hours before. With most people having a connecting flight in less than one hour, everyone was ready to be taking off. Construction workers at the airport figured this would be a good time to continue with renovations (I mean, why not run the jackhammers at 9:30pm with a crowd of frustrated people?), so the next 30 minutes was the sound of pounding through stone echoing throughout the atrium. Finally, 40 minutes after the flight was scheduled to leave, I had a boarding pass in hand and had to say good-bye to Clement when I went through security. 

              I called Mom and Dad from the bus, telling them that there was no possible way that I was going to make my connection, so not to leave home until I called again. My phone wouldn’t work again until I landed in New York…

Orchestra and Good Friends

Today was bound to be a busy and exciting day! Both Clement and Patrick have already told me they will miss me when I am gone…I have only two more days! We returned to the art market where I bought some trinkets as gifts. Then it was off to the Grand Marche to buy some gold jewelry. It is a struggle to purchase anything for myself because her mom insists on paying for everything, but I did win a few. Clement and Francoise bought groceries including roasted peanuts that you watch them grind into peanut butter after you buy them. Peanut butter is an important ingredient in many recipes here, no wonder I like some of the food so much! As my second trip to the Marche, I was much less afraid of getting lost (read: dying) and thus had more opportunity to look around at the stores and people.

               After this many days in DRC, I have decided that a lifestyles change in regards to time is necessary to survival. There is no possible ways to make things run efficiently or smoothly, thus I must let go of my drive to accomplish everything and learn to “go with the flow”. I am not good at this at all, but it is an important lesson realize as I will be moving to Tegucigalpa, Honduras. We walked around Clement’s neighborhood one last time so I could take pictures. Her residence has a friendly feel and I was very at ease as I wandered amongst the houses and little pedestrian traffic.

               That evening, Clement, Patrick, Natasha, Nancy, Jean-Claude, and I attended a concert by the Symphonic Orchestra of Cologne, Germany. It was a lovely performance including: Rosamund Overature (Schubert), Violinkonzert B (Mozart), and Erste Sinfonic C (Beethoven). As I expected, the audience was of incredibly short attention span especially after intermission when everyone was talking and walking around during the performance. Interestingly, the orchestra had selected a high number of black performers (I had never seen a black violinist before). It was quite an experience as it seemed so alien to have these sounds of Classical Europe among the noise of Kinshasa. Also, it was a pleasure to speak with Natasha again and there was match-making in progress between Natasha and Jean-Claude! After the concert, we went to a small Congolese restaurant across the street from the Legislative building. I listened to their French conversation as we waited for the food. Natasha worked hard to keep me up with the conversation, but it was a hopeless cause!

PHOTOS OF NEIGHBORHOOD

Museum & School

Tshilu & I

        This morning Clement and I went to the Institute of History Museum of Congo. It is located on the grounds of where President Mobutu used to live. The museum is just a small building, but the guide was very informative and Jean-Claude had called in a friend of a friend to translate for me. The translator (Tshilu) is a black Belgium with a Congolese father, who after studying in the Netherlands, wanted to spend some time in Kinshasa. Not sure why you want to do that, but I assume it has to do with family ties, etc.

Graves of White Colonialists

        After lunch, we headed back to a school that is run by Clement’s uncle to teach adult literacy in French. The school is located in a dirt poor neighbourhood called Camp Luka. The church where the school is located has a dirt floor with a concrete slab where the preacher stands. One wall is lined with blackboards and at each class he gives them paper handouts to study from. These people speak Lingala, but do not read or even know the alphabet. That is where he starts in the attempt to teach them to read and speak French. Then we stopped at his house, where his wife is working on my clothing. Back at the apartment, I took a long nap and awoke to meet another of Clement’s friends. Her name is Natasha and she works for a cooperation run by the British Embassy. Natasha is really smart and speaks great English! She told me about her travels to Dubai which makes it seems like a fascinating place to visit. She stayed for a delicious dinner cooked by Clement of boeuf and fufu.

Adult School

Ambitions

                 This morning we were able to sleep in a bit, a recovery from our 4 days of travel. (Sleeping in here is like sleeping through a construction zone…roosters crowing since 5am, workers talking outside my window from about 6am, and a cacophony of babies wailing from the clinic.) Then we went to the supermarket and went to visit Clement’s godfather. The works as an advisor to the Prime Minister and showed us plans for utilizing waterways for food transportation, as well as, the construction of railroads. The other element in the plan is pivot irrigation of the plateau where Francoise’ farm is located. He also said they home to bring the food production up to international standards of cleanliness and stop importing food. I think the waterway transportation will be extremely useful but I have many doubts about their plans for pivot irrigation use… I think they might be able to raise food production standards in the next ten years but storage is the main problem (after distribution) because there is not reliable electricity. Despite my enormous sense of hopelessness at their food distribution system, I find it amazing that this man can be so ambitious and actually is working up plans to fix something that is broken in this country.

                 For dinner, we are going to Nancy’s house. I tried the poulet a la moambe (chicken in peanut butter) which was great with cassava bread. After returning from Nancy’s, I met another friend of Patrick’s, Jean-Pierre, who works for Shell Oil and speaks English. He was very nice and adamant about me learning French. Today was a day of celebration for Flory, not only for his 20^th birthday, but also receiving his marks from secondary school exams saying that he passed! At the end of secondary school, students must take a national exam before applying to university. He plans to study information/technology.

A Little Tired

Zongo Falls!

         We awoke this morning very refreshed and clean! We took breakfast in the resort before heading out to see the falls. I stood outside to watch and hear the rapids while everyone else finished eating. The water is very, murky brown and looks massively powerful against the rocks. When everyone was (finally) finished, we asked for a guide and began our trek to the falls. It is a steep path through the jungle, but every moment worth it to see what awaited us. First, we came across a tiny nonexistent pool, that only becomes a lake in the wet season. We continued our hike upwards and then we could hear the falls, view them through the trees, and begin to feel the mist. The trees fall away and suddenly we are standing on a cliff directly in front of the falls while we are bathed in the spray. It is a majestic and beautiful and awe-inspiring! Where we are standing, the rocks are constantly coated with mist blown from the falls. I love standing here with my arms outspread feeling the spray from the falls, like I’m on the edge of the world. Francois, very worried about me, kept telling us all to stand back from the edge, like any good mother! Clement, Jean-Pierre, Patrick, and I continued on while Francois and Nancy stayed behind. There was a steep rocky path down closer to the falls. I had been wearing sandals, but gave up at this point and just went barefoot which was much easier. This path got us completely soaked, but was well worth any inconvenience for the view. If you yell into the falls, the echo causes the spray to become even stronger for just a moment. This experience was awesome, I’m so happy we came here!

Falls!

Nancy and Clement

Getting Soaked by the Spray

               On to business…so there is already a dam on the Inkisi River, but construction is underway on a second, much bigger dam. As Patrick is a civil engineer, we could not pass up this opportunity to look in on this development. After a series of administrative hurdles (national security, energy source secrecy, Chinese companies, etc.), we (they) visited with an engineer from the company who explained and showed the plans for dam.

The dam is to be built below the first dam, but still at an elevation about the Congo River. A tunnel of water will run from the dam to the center on the Congo River where the turbines will be operated. We visited the construction site of the center on the Congo River. I’m sure there was lots of fascinating information about construction and capacity going on here, but I didn’t catch any of that. The construction is by a Chinese company, but apparently everybody speaks French. They expect it to be complete by 2015. Then we visited the construction site of the dam. Most of the electricity produced here will be sold to other countries, rather than used internally…better profits. Finally, we were on our way back to Kinshasa…just as my patience was running thin with how slow EVERYTHING runs here…we blew a tire. Of course! The perfect reward for my impatience. Thankfully we were only a short walk to the next village where the local boys were more than willing to have the tire off and spare tire on in about 30 minutes. Not without some moments of hopelessness as it took several trips back and forth from the village to acquire the correct tools and a long iron pipe.
               Now, we are really on our way! Several hours later, we were safely back in Kinshasa thanks to the wit and skillful driving on Jean-Pierre. The traffic still gets to me with all the sudden stops and close calls every 30 seconds, but alas, we continue to survive. After dinner at Jean-Pierre and Francoise’ house, we returned to the apartment for a restful night. 

Road to Kisantu

Today we are going to Zongo Falls. We pass from the province of Kinshasa to Bakongo. Here there are mountains and rivers, everything is still very green. After the border, we stop to pay a toll. Now the toll is designed like ones in the States, where vehicles can drive through and pay out the window. But instead of doing anything efficiently, everybody parks on the highway and gets out to wait in a pedestrian line which takes forever. Now, maybe we can continue. They make everything so difficult!!! They need rules like “you can’t stop on the highway”, “don’t back up!”, or “you have to stay inside your vehicle.” 

This stretch is more highway funded by the World Bank. As we drove, the discussion was about energy that DRC provides to Zambia, Republic of Congo, and South Africa. There are plans to build an even larger dam which may supply Central African Republic and Egypt. First, we stopped at the Jardin Botanique de Kinsantu, which is huge. It was started by a Jesuit priest in the 1920s. Unfortunately, we did not have all day to explore as we had to be on our way. Kisantu, is a rather small town, is entirely red, covered in the fine red dust of the roads. 

The houses of this countryside are amazing to me. They have made bricks with which to build. I wonder how they make the houses square or how they make the bricks straight, or in fact, how they make the bricks at all! The landscape here is interesting because it is quite steep. The hills are covered with grass like a savannah, but the valleys are palm trees and thick vegetation. Finally we made it to the dam and Zongo Falls! It was getting too dark to walk the paths tonight, but we are staying at a resort named Seli Safari. They served us a wonderful dinner where I actually ate the fish called peoisson capitaine. This place even has hot water!! I am so excited for tomorrow to see the La Chutes de Zongo!

Seli Safari

Farm Day 2

         This morning started when the roosters crowed. I quickly redressed in clothing from yesterday and headed out for round two. Francoise’ third farm consists of 200ha upon which workers plant 5-10ha per year in cassava. This farm is much nearer to water, not to irrigate the plants but to provide drinking water for the workers. Here they burn the grass every year for eight for eight years before rotating the crops back. She is having some troubles with the fields because the planting was done poorly. As they have no means of herbicide and it would be impossible to weed. The workers must be careful to cut the roots of the weeds when tilling the soil. Some of these plots displayed grass competing with the cassava. What I still fail to understand is all the burning. Everything is burned during every dry season. Surely there must be some alternative to (what seems to me) this waste of nutrients. Also, the cassava is planted on the far side of the farm from the stream. I finally came to understand that that particular plot could be planted with a tractor as the land had been cleared of trees and shrubs. Land closer to the stream must be cleared of trees before planting with the rented tractor.

Next, we visited her 10 cows. I think they are more of an experiment than means of profit. There is a tiny corral where the guy who follows them around all day, keeps them at night. There are no fences and it is his job to keep the cows out of the cassava. I would say the savannah landscape here is not particularly beautiful, but that would hardly be fair as they are halfway through the dry season and most has recently been burned.

I noticed these strange patches of Eucalyptus trees growing on the plateau. These are planted by locals and bought by members of the European union as carbon credits or planted by the European cooperation’s.

             Then we began the long, sandy road back to Kinshasa. The journey is always made interesting by the assortment of vehicles stopped on or along the road in various stages of disrepair. I spent a particular amount of the journey debating politics with Jean-Pierre. Of course, I know very little of African politics and could do little more than agree that the U.S. should keep its hands out of African governments. I am however convinced that Congo is neither ready for democracy nor capitalism at this time. At this point, I was just excited to be having some conversation in English! We stopped at a market for them to buy more of the smelly fish and cassava bread for dinner. They were kind enough to buy me a pizza and we all safely made it back to Clement’s parent’s house. Again, I am exhausted but much too in need of a bath to sleep yet. 

Cassava Invaded by Grass

Cow Herd

Cattle Corral

Burned Field