We figure everyone is pretty curious about the day-to-day here, so here is some information about that.
We currently live in one of the main expat (non-Congolese) hotels in the neighborhood of Gombe in the city of Kinshasa. Gombe is where most expats live and work. Toni Lyn's building is just about 1 km away from the hotel. Our hotel room is great with a large living room/dining area and full kitchen. The hotel has an Olympic(ish) sized pool, 4 tennis courts (made of clay - like the French Open), a basketball court, and a gym (though no electronic machines like treadmills because there are constant power flickers here). The hotel is full of professionals, both Americans and Europeans. There are also a lot of lizards.
We're still working out the car/driver situation but as of now we have a little yellow Chinese car (company called the "Great Wall") with a driver that we are renting from Budget. We have access to the car and driver from 8-5 Monday - Friday and before 1:00 on Saturday.
In terms of food and drink, there is a great variety available. So far we've seen or eaten falafel, African greens and rice and beans (once butter beans, once more like northern beans), pizza (we got one delivered to our hotel room last night!! It tasted great, though it had canned corn on it...), creamed mushrooms, vegetable soup, avocado salad (yay!), saag aloo (spinach potato Indian food), etc. Beer, wine and hard alcohol of all types are available. Imported beers are 330 ml (slightly less than 12 oz). DRC domestic beers are generally 750 ml (about 2 beers). Neither size fits in an American coozy. Due to the economics, there are a lot of big sweaty beers in need of insulation (Does anyone know how to buy and import neoprene?).
It feels pretty safe here but we're careful not to carry anything that we can't lose. We've asked around a lot and no one has any stories about violence happening to expats (non-Africans) here, though people definitely do get robbed (nonviolently) and pick-pocketed. Prostitution is also a very big problem here and entrapment by prostitutes working with the police is apparently not uncommon. It is a sad story, but when people don't know when they will be getting paid they can get pretty desperate. We have heard stories about not being paid by their employers (private and government) for months at a time. The short story is that seeking out and collecting bribes is a part time job for many people here.
On the up side, there is a distinct business class of Africans here (some Congolese, some from other countries) that we're not used to seeing. It's really neat for it not to be only Europeans doing the white-collar work and running the money here. Most of Toni Lyn's meetings here have been with Africans, with only a very few Europeans at the table. In general we've been very surprised at the lack of beggars and obviously poor people. Oh, and Toni Lyn has been one of the only women in her meetings with about 50 people already here. Still trying to get a handle on that.
The elections are starting to ramp up and apparently there is a scheduled protest every Thurs, which actually is convenient since we can work around that by avoiding a specific area at that time. However, it is interesting to watch an election process that has no television coverage. Most of the campaigning appears to be done with large banners strung up everywhere along the roadsides and by driving around in large caravans with people hanging out the windows and cheering and playing loud music. No one knows yet how hectic it will be but we'll be sure to be careful and we have updates coming to me from many directions.
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