Shoot for the moon via Extra Extra
Has it really been a month?
I designed some t-shirts, and you can have one too. Worldwide exclusive, etc, etc.
Click on the picture for more info. More designs coming soon, including, by popular demand, one for Mundeles.... (no title) via Extra Extra
The Lion of Cameroon via Extra Extra
Hold onto your hats via Extra Extra
Nepali peacekeepers at the end of their tour in Fataki, Ituri, northeastern Congo
Just as I begin to feel I might be getting to know my way around this place, it’s time for me to move on.
A recurrent theme of recent conversations has been the extent to which acceptance and accommodation of the peculiarities of life in Congo involves a certain surrender and shift of values. I suppose this is true of all travel, but lots of people find the process takes longer than usual here. But then the Congo is unusually big, complicated, historically melodramatic and highly unpredictable. And let’s face it, Kinshasa is a particularly strange world within a world.
The question remains, how do you reverse the process?
Stay tuned for more pics from my most recent travels, though: something... Hard labour via Extra Extra
Morning routine, Fataki, Ituri, northeastern Congo
No commentary required....
Postcard from Beni via Extra Extra
Sorry for the silence. I’ve been out and about, busy in a good way. Here’s a picture taken today of a travelling cloth salesman on his motorbike, doing the rounds a few kilometres from Beni, on the northern fringes of North Kivu.... Another warlord arrested, but who paid the piper? via Extra Extra
WTF via Extra Extra
Road v Rain via Extra Extra
Warning: cliff ahead
This palm frond was probably placed by someone in who had just hurt their car on a road they thought they knew well. When you think you know where the potholes are, you stop looking out for them as carefully, concentrating on not colliding with oncoming traffic as you swerve around them.
But after it has rained, it’s always best to slow down. The roads are poorly maintained, so a single flash-flood can turn cracks into potholes, and potholes into ravines in a matter of hours.
Hence the popularity of 4×4s among those who can afford them, and the general astonishment at those who import fancy low-slung BMWs and Mercedes anyway. As a Congolese friend said yesterday, “For many of us, appearances are everything.” We were talking about the way people... Shiny new recycling scheme may displease professors via Extra Extra
Faustin, Nancy, Sarah and Nadine pose in front of a PoubelKin banner in Kintambo, Kinshasa
Wonders never cease. A new private initiative is being launched to collect and - ta da! - recycle household rubbish.
Piles of rubbish had become such a fact of life in Kinshasa that it’s become a cliché to call it Kin-la-Poubelle. As you’d expect, a lot of this is already recycled, since people in difficult circumstances become adept at finding a use for everything. But lots more is burned, releasing toxins into the atmosphere, or left to lie around in suppurating heaps that mosquitos just love, or title=”blog post by Du Cabiau à Kinshasa - a volunteer with Belgian Cooperation”>thrown into drains to be washed into the river (often blocking them and causing floods).... Shiny new recycling scheme may displease professors via Extra Extra
Faustin, Nancy, Sarah and Nadine pose in front of a PoubelKin banner in Kintambo, Kinshasa
Wonders never cease. A new private initiative is being launched to collect and - ta da! - recycle household rubbish.
Piles of rubbish had become such a fact of life in Kinshasa that it’s become a cliché to call it Kin-la-Poubelle. As you’d expect, a lot of this is already recycled, since people in difficult circumstances become adept at finding a use for everything. But lots more is burned, releasing toxins into the atmosphere, or left to lie around in suppurating heaps that mosquitos just love, or title=”blog post by Du Cabiau à Kinshasa - a volunteer with Belgian Cooperation”>thrown into drains to be washed into the river (often blocking them and causing floods).... Testing moblog via Extra Extra
Please ignore...
Testing moblog via Extra Extra
Please ignore... Testing moblog via Extra Extra
Please ignore, just testing...
A closer look at the peace agreement via Extra Extra
Some observations, upon examination of the peace agreement:
Order of articles:
Ceasefire
Disengagement [including army integration & demobilisation]
Humanitarian Principles and Respect for Human Rights
Political and Legal Guarantees
Order of signatories & witnesses:
Armed groups (CNDP, PARECO/FAP, 4 Mai Mai groups, UJPS, a 5th Mai Mai group, Simba)
Government (Minister of the Interior)
Conference (President, President of the Committee of the Wise, Coordinator of Moderators, delegations of North & South Kivu, Provincial Assembly)
International facilitators (UN, EU, USA, AU, Great Lakes Conference)
National witnesses (traditional chiefs x2, civil society x3, private sector x2, faith groups x8 (Catholic Church, Church of Christ, Orthodox Church, Kimbanguist Church, Born... Joseph Conrad, so much to answer for via Extra Extra
Kinshasa’s skyline, seen from The River
Rory MacLean has done me the honour of responding to my recent post, berating him for writing, in a review of Tim Butcher’s Blood River for The Guardian, that ‘there is little difference between the Congo seen by Stanley and by Butcher’, and suggesting that readers should weep for Congo but not go there. (See the original post and comments here.)
Rory wrote:
I am sorry if my review of Tim Butcher’s Blood River has upset some DRC residents. I am no Congo expert, but I understand that life in much of the country can be very grim. The Lancet reports that 1,200 people die in the Congo each day through civil unrest. By comparison, post-Saddam Iraq and post-Taliban Afghanistan do not even come close to 1,200 dead per day. As to... Fight and talk via Extra Extra
Wrestling - a fascinating way to spend a Sunday via Extra Extra
I found traces of inadvertant humour in the African city guide in BSpirit, the inflight magazine of Brussels Airlines. Here are some exerpts:
Abidjan: Hotel Ivoire is a local landmark and a real treat if you like late-1960s architecture… The ice-skating rink was closed many years ago, but the bowling alley is still open every day until 10pm.
Banjul: Traditional wrestling is the Gambia’s national sport, and a fascinating way to spend a Sunday.
Bujumbura: If you’re interested in Burundian cuisine (predominantly beef or fish brochette, chips or fried plantain), try Le Layor …
Conakry: The many markets of Conakry offer the chance to take home African hardwood sculpture (some incredible pieces of ebony)…
Douala: Las Vegas Refuge will leave a lasting impression... Mister Purple and some top travel tips via Extra Extra
Made of Stone: a lion in Oxfordshire
There always seems to be a degree of unseemly disorder and crush around the boarding gate for the flight to Kinshasa, whether in Brussels, Paris or Nairobi. Perhaps it’s a hangover from the not too distant days of lax hand luggage rules, which led to urgent competition for space to stow all those TVs, fridges and bags of vegetables. Or it could be an expression of distrust in the reliability of airlines such as Brussels Airlines (formerly known as SN Brussels, and before that Sabena) and Kenya Airways, not to mention the Congolese domestic airlines, most of which have been banned from international routes. Otherwise, I don’t know what the rush is about. In our case, we were delayed by an hour (once everyone was onboard) so some vital part... Hotels to profit from peace conference via Extra Extra
Having endured the ignominy of having to hack into my own blog, I’m pleased to wish you a happy, healthy and peaceful 2008, wherever you live, and notwithstanding the grim news from Pakistan.
News from eastern Congo is mixed. A conference on ‘peace, security and development’ is to be held in Goma from January 6th. It’s better to talk than fight, but Congolese commentators are sceptical, and ongoing forced recruitment of children by armed groups suggests that they are not about to change their ways.
Hotel owners will certainly profit from the conference, as 500 or more delegates plus press and entourage descend on a town that boasts, I believe, around 250 hotel rooms. Ironically, many of the smartest hotels in Goma pay ‘taxes’, willingly or unwillingly,... Cri de coeur via Extra Extra
A broken monument to peace, Mbandaka, Equateur
There are major problems in North Kivu, as you will gather from the news feed and links in the sidebar.
I am eager to share two impassioned pleas from women’s groups in that part of the country. I received them by email; neither is online as far as I know. Both documents are in French - I would like to translate them as soon as have the time to do a proper job, but if there is any bilingual reader out there then I would welcome some help with this. I have also interviewed one of the authors, and hope to pass on her words here soon. In the meantime, I invite you to read, think, link and pass it on.
Essentially, their message is one of distress at the terrible extent to which women are suffering from conflict-related violence in North... Home economics and Article 15 via Extra Extra
Human traffic lights, some call them
Continuing the theme of my last post, travel writer Chuck Thompson describes a couple more entertaining close encounters with hard-up Congolese officials who are still adepts of Mobuto’s notorious Article 15: “Debrouillez vous” or “Fend for yourself”:
1. The passport inspector (DGM?):
“Do you know what I make in salary each month?” the official asked me.
When I said I hadn’t the foggiest, he shook his head plaintively, scribbled something on the paper and turned it around for me to read: “Par roi [mois] 22,000 FRC = $45.”
“That’s not much of a salary,” I said.
“It is a crime that a man in a position as revered as yours is not remunerated more fittingly,” added Henri, my local traveling companion and... Oh Lord won’t you buy me a Timex watch via Extra Extra
Masisi, North Kivu: Women fetching water, shortly after dawn on Wednesday
I have been off-grid for a little while, visiting North Kivu. In that period, I think I have accumulated enough unusual experiences for a couple of hundred blog entries. For now, though, I’ll just relate a relatively mundane episode from the beginning of my journey, which has somehow stuck in my mind:
At the airport, a week-that-feels-like-a-month ago, a wizened old papa with a sticker on one lens of his spectacles looked up from his handwritten register of comings and goings.
-Where are you from?
-Grande Bretagne.
-In Europe?
-Yes. Just West of France.
-Do you think you could get me a watch next time you go there? I can’t remember the brand… (takes off his watch, which has stopped long ago,... Instant towns via Extra Extra
Last week I used aerial photos to show the looting of IDP camps near Goma.
Today I located one of the camps on Google Earth. Here’s last week’s photo, overlaid on the satellite image:
Aerial view of Mugunga IDP camp (c) UNHCR/Masako Yonekawa 2007
The satellite pictures would have been taken a few months ago - here is what the site looked like then:
Spot the difference
To see how much further you can take this sort of thing, take a look at the extraordinary Crisis in Darfur project.... Picture this via Extra Extra
A dash of hope via Extra Extra
One form of optimism
Did you hear about the Week of Positive Blogging? I did, by chance, when Global Voices mentioned Omodudu’s optimistic letter to Mother Africa. (An extract: “…The Sudanese, a funny bunch, there is no divisiveness amongst the Arabs and the Blacks anymore, as a matter of fact I attended a mixed wedding on a boat at the banks of the Nile the other day. Oh yes the Americans are still there dancing to country music at the international club, but now the Sudanese are allowed in, sans bomb detectors at the entrance. Isn’t that wonderful ma…”)
In that spirit, I have three bits of good news in relation to earlier posts here at Extra Extra:
Firstly, do you remember the family who mounted a legal challenge to evict an army Colonel from their... Diminished responsibility via Extra Extra
When people are forced to leave home and flee across a border, they become eligible for international protection as refugees. When they stay in their own country, they become known as ‘internally displaced people’, or IDPs for short. (There are roughly twice as many IDPs as refugees in the world today.) Whether they are displaced for a few days, months, or even years, their own government retains primary responsibility for their safety and wellbeing. If - as so often the case - their government proves unable or unwilling to do so, UN agencies such as UNHCR and international NGOs such as the Norwegian Refugee Council may step in. Such interventions in no way absolve the government of its responsibilities, of course.
Often, IDPs are sheltered by host families, who may already be...
Once more, with feeling via Extra Extra
The sound of surprise via Extra Extra
Maybe I could fix things up so they’ll go: a lighter repairman at work
I’m still reeling from returning to Congo to find Kinshasa flooded (for want of a bookshelf our library was lost), our neighbourhood hit by up to four power-cuts a day (candle sales are booming; my laptop battery is foutou), and a series of mind-boggling news reports (a radioactive river, an attempt by the ruling alliance to rewrite the constitution, journalists beaten up in a Minister’s office, MONUC moved to express its ‘deep shock‘ at ‘extreme violence’ after demonstrators threw stones at peacekeepers in North Kivu (where, as you may have heard, some 350,000 people have been driven from their homes and crops by ongoing combat, reprisal killings, rapes, forced recruitment,...