I was excited. People could see it. But it seemed to bemuse them. I was leaving behind the Iraq programme, to spend three weeks in Congo, another country ravaged by a civil war. At the same time as the two leading Presidential candidates were engaged in a gun battle in the capital Kinshasa, following the results of the first round of the first 'democratic' elections in Congo’s history, after a conflict that has resulted in 4 million deaths, the plundering of the country's natural resources and the destruction of the little infrastructure there was.
“Out of the frying pan, into the fire. From one depressing conflict to another.” someone said. “It’s okay”, I told them, “The BBC say only 4 people were killed and the Spanish troops have secured the airport and Bemba has been escorted out of Kinshasa”.
I’m not sure how I’d compare the conflict in Congo with that in Iraq, but a week on from arriving in Kinshasa it’s clear that death and civil strife are not the only characteristics of the country.
Just as accosting is the sense of life. Everywhere you look you see life. The streets are full of people. And people interacting, rather than passing each other by. Life is lived outside. Clothes are adorned with rich colours. Smiles greet you. The laughter and voices of children drifts into the office as they play outside on the streets.
“Out of the frying pan, into the fire. From one depressing conflict to another.” someone said. “It’s okay”, I told them, “The BBC say only 4 people were killed and the Spanish troops have secured the airport and Bemba has been escorted out of Kinshasa”.
I’m not sure how I’d compare the conflict in Congo with that in Iraq, but a week on from arriving in Kinshasa it’s clear that death and civil strife are not the only characteristics of the country.
Just as accosting is the sense of life. Everywhere you look you see life. The streets are full of people. And people interacting, rather than passing each other by. Life is lived outside. Clothes are adorned with rich colours. Smiles greet you. The laughter and voices of children drifts into the office as they play outside on the streets.
Nature encroaches onto the concrete infrastructures that have attempted to take its place. The abandoned, derelict and broken are revived. African mechanics impossibly breathe new life into battered vehicles long ago discarded in the West. People farm plots of land in the middle of the sprawling city.
The vast medical institute and teaching hospital in central Kinshasa that was looted during Kabila's regime. Now the wards house hundreds of families and the grounds are farmed.
Sights, smells and sounds bombard your senses. Fresh insights leave you challenged and perplexed. It’s rich and raw and you breath it all in and it disarms you and fills you with an appetite for more.
Particularly, when you’ve been stuck in Kuwait for a year. A country that has everything but life…
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