Day 9 - Jurrasic Shellfish and Tiny Tears in Dollar Bills- More Ups and Downs in DRC

K and I decided after work to once more venture across the road to the supermarket (crossing the road has become our little mountain to climb)- again this went without incident and we happily loaded up our baskets with apples, tonic water, snacks and other goodies. However check out was a little more interesting.

The Congolese francs are in horrific condition generally, and have lived a life that I quite frankly prefer to be ignorant of – as long as I’ve got my hand sanitizer, I’m fine. These notes can be traded in whatever condition you like, but dollar bills they scrutinise for any folds, cracks, or tears like their life depends on it.

It turns out there was a tear that was literally 1mm in my $50 bill, and nope, it was flatly refused. At first I couldn’t see why, from a normal hand to eye ratio it seemed perfectly intact,   the trained Congolese eye at checkout however, started a rapid tirade in what I think was lingala  (the local language) or was speaking French at the speed of light.

I argued my case, it was tiny, I had no other notes, and after a 5 minute debate, they went to talk to the manger. Now I don’t know what they were doing back there but it took them about 20 mins to determine if the note was good tender. ..............It wasn’t -at least in their eyes.

So after another 5 minute debate about the change they already gave me in francs, which to add insult to injury contained a Congolese frank at was literally sello taped up.  K bailed me out with a 10 which was acceptable to them combined with my numerous crappy francs.

Lesson learned – the Congolese are anal about dollar bills, and I’m going to have to learn to be so too.

After that exciting event, and a successful trip back across the road, it was dinner time and one of my bosses invited me to dinner with him and another girl from the team.

We went to a restaurant called le roi de cossa, the king of Cossa. Now cossa cossa is a Congolese shell fish from the congo river and these badboys are like radioactive prawns. They are literally a prawn the size of small lobsters, served shell on with tonnes of garlic- now that’s more like it.

We even had to be bib’d up and get our hands in- Val you would have been proud.

I’ll try and upload some pictures when I get the chance this evening- as these have to be seen to be believed.

All in all a much more successful tasting of Congolese food- so long as I remember to check my bill when I get my change.

Day 8- Meal Time Adventures

Total was a pretty non exciting day- cracking on with work etc. Although I realised by writing my emails in French in word it would check my grammar and spelling for me- and those who know me know that it’s not a strong point of mine in English (in fact all of you having read a couple of lines of my blog will know this.)

So that was an epic result for the day.

I also saw that the pool at the hotel- the best in Kinshasa, 50m with a proper diving board and lanes- was being filled up having been repaired, which made me very excited, as I can actually do some exercise without turning into a red faced, drenched, half runner, especially as the wet season begins and the temperature will nudge into the 30’s.

Today was also the day I had my first proper encounter with a Congolese meal. I tried a local speciality called Poulet Mwambe.   Now this had been described to me as chicken in a peanut butter and palm oil sauce. Anyone who has read the back of a Skippy or other decent brand of peanut butter (not the crappy English stuff- blugh), knows that the ingredients read:

peanuts, palm oil, salt, and a number preservatives.

This gave me high hopes for a chicken satay kind of dish but better, as it would essentially be made of skippy. How wrong could I be?  Well ...very.

  I enclose of photo of my meal- to let you see for yourselves.

What I was actually met with was a very bland, poo coloured sauce on a decently cooked chicken, with rice (bland), deep fried plantain (I’m not a banana fan) and my good friend Pundu. See day 1. Needless to say this was not a particular favourite meal of mine- but like my mummy used to say ‘at least I tried’.

Day 7- Meeting the Bonobos and Being Lazy

Day 7

I woke up at 6.30 on a Saturday to get picked up by my boss to go see the bonobos, but awoke to a text saying he would be a bit late, so got back into bed and read for a while- quite a nice way to wake up in spite of the hour. I got dressed and had some breakfast with K- on Sundays there are free eggs and waffles for breakfast at the hotel, which I enjoyed with my imitation maple syrup ‘eggo’, which for a cheap imitation was surprisingly edible.  

The drive out to ‘Lola a Bonobo’ the name of the sanctuary is about a 45 minutes drive -being thrown around the pickup due to the state of the roads. However, driving out to the sanctuary was the first chance to get a look at DRC outside of the city centre which was great.

As you drive out of the city, the place starts to resemble India, in its busyness with 100’s of people packing into small areas to shop, try to sell you things while you’re in your car –tissues and cigarettes seem unbelivably popular -   and go to church. As a very Christian country Sunday church is a big deal here and it’s amazing to see all the women in their colourful Sunday best, and you can hear the preachers’ from the road side. American style mic’d up sermons are all the rage here apparently.

It was nice to get out of the work bubble. To see how people really live, the houses, the churches and roadside markets, While  all the little kids wave and shout “Mundeli” which means white (and white man) in Lingala the local language. Makes a change from the 5 minute commute from the hotel to the office and back!

Drove over one of the old Belgian railway lines that are now disused. It’s a shame that such a great infrastructure has been left to rot when it could be such a life line out into the provinces, especially when I think back to the Indian railways, but years of war, instability and conflict will do that.

We arrived at the sanctuary about 50 mins before it officially opened but as my boss was a frequent visitor, we paid our money and went down towards the reserve. It’s a beautiful place -a proper jungle where they raise Bonobos who have been orphaned or found ill. We first spotted one up in the top of a palm tree about 30 meters tall, as it was waking up the rest of its mates in the tree. That’s when we spotted the other tree with about 10 in total! The trees were on the other side of a little valley- time for the TELOSCOPIC LENS! So happy I blew my bonus on a new SLR camera and lens.

They are absolutely amazing creatures, as we watched them get called for breakfast by the keepers we were the only visitors there, they all came rushing down the trees for a breakfast of bananas and melon. Before playtime and post breakfast sex- these guys are certainly not inhibited!

Some fun facts about Bonobos:

Bonobos are found only within the Democratic Republic of Congo in Central Africa. Together with common chimpanzees, they are man's closest living relatives. Sex is an everyday affair in bonobo society, and is liberally used to create bonds between individuals, as well as for reproduction. That said, during periods of rest grooming is the activity of choice, and is thought to provide group cohesion and ease tension.

Bonobos are born helpless, and females provide the majority of the parental care, since paternity is usually unclear.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Bonobo  - for more information if anyone is intrigued.

You can watch these guys for hours, their interactions and games with each other, their babies and the keepers are incredible and so human like. It’s hard not to anthropomorphise, mainly because they just so like us, they may not have the language skills, but you’d be hard pressed not the see the jealousy between them, and the amusement they take in teasing each other.

Eventually we stopped and walked over to the nursery where they keep the infants, and we were beyond lucky when one of the babes made an escape bid. He escaped out of the enclosure and climbed up the tree and refused to come down for his nanny. Oh the terrible twos.

He eventually came down and came to play with us, coming to hug and sit with us; I got to hug a baby Bonobo! This never happens at the sanctuary you’re not meant to touch the animals but as he came to us his nanny just let him play. It was so incredible.

The other babies were in their enclosure, where they were playing in the pond and on the climbing frame they had put up for them, some of them were sitting in the laps of the keepers, being cleaned and cuddled, each vying for attention from their ‘mums’. They even had basketballs they were playing with, trying to steal it off on another and push each other in the water.  (They will put their hands in but don’t like being submerged.)

We stayed and watched and I got very photo happy, it’s hard not to with such great subjects. But the day was moving on and we headed back to the car. Upon return, the truck has mysteriously been washed (without anyone asking). Apparently this always happens, and you pay the guy, who you did not ask to wash your car, 500 francs (about $0.5) for avoiding the hassle of saying that you didn’t actually want your car to be washed as you’ve a 45 min drive back through unpaved roads. Hell everyone has to make a living somehow.

When we got back to the hotel that afternoon, K and I grabbed lunch. I read in the sunshine for a while, until the point I had swatted 3 mosquitoes trying to eat me, in spite of the  amount of DEET I’d put on. I’m like one of those men who wear waaaayy to much cologne with my Eau de DEET -the smell of expats.

They have these weird tiger mosquitoes here, that don’t carry malaria but are out all day- you can spot them easily as they are white. So I decided to read from bed- indulgent........ and lazy........ and brilliant.

This is how the rest of my day continued as I found mythbusters in English on the discovery channel, and spent the evening watching TV in my PJ’s having opened my stash of emergency pot noodles- the restaurant at that point seemed sooo far away.

In bed asleep by 9.30pm, the first time in literally years.  

Day 6- Tennis and Ice cream

So with my first free day in Congo, I woke up at a leisurely 9.30am, went downstairs for breakfast and treated myself to fried eggs and something that could almost pass itself for bacon. Heaven. K and I had made no plans for the day and without a driver or a car our options for the day were pretty limited.

We had a wonder around the hotel which is joined up with the Elais sports club in Kinshasa, which has squash courts, tennis courts, an amazing 50 meter pool but is sadly being renovated so is empty :(. We ended up being persuaded by a ball boy (who obviously got paid per lesson) to come and have a lesson. So K and I ended up playing tennis which was great fun and a nice way to take up an hour of the day.

Once tennis had finished we were once again at a loose end and getting hungry. But K has been in the hotel for 3 weeks now as she arrived before me and we are both a little tired of the hotel food. Now, right across the road is a shop called the Peluoustore, which according to my boss is like the waitrose of Kinshasa, and K and I decided to venture out of the hotel to walk to the store.

Peloustore although only 120 yards away, is the other side of an 8 lane highway, where as previously described there are pretty much no road rules and everyone is out for themselves. We decided our best strategy for survival while crossing the highway would be to spot a local who was waiting to cross the road, and follow them. Safety in numbers we hoped. So we found an intelligent looking guy and tried to keep up as we dodged and weaved through the Saturday morning traffic, and made it across the 8 lanes safely to the other side. I’ll try and put up a photo of the 30 juin highway to give you all a better idea of the feat undertaken.

Shopping in any other country is always fun, new brands and thing to look and laugh at. Bacon flavour Pringles, Mrs H Ball flavour chutney simba crisps (Sam I couldn’t believe my eyes!) So K and I strolled around the store snaking up each aisle. We even were giving free tasting of baileys as we went. Who knew that happened in DRC? We also saw a drink called tango congo that claims to be a remedy for

• hiccups
• hypertension
• diarherra
• chills
• fever
• flu
• maleria
• heavey legs,

the list went on and on- I had to buy some of the stuff just for the label. It's a clear orange tinted liquid, but then you shake it up it turned into a muddy puddle. The smell was ridiculous the type that makes you gag - it might well  be the cure for everything but I think I'd rather suffer the illnesses than the drink!

We picked up a little picnic lunch of bread, ham, cheese and numerous new flavours of crisps- Carribean Onion and Balsamic Vinegar crisps –yum! Paid and followed the same strategy to make our way back across the vast highway, and ate our little picnic in my room watching crappy cable movies. Which was delightful.

After we went for a drink with our Belgian colleague H, who took us to my favourite place in Kinshasa yet, an ice cream bar! H had grown up in Congo, and had plenty of friends who still live here and he had found out about this place through them, and apparently its a very hip place to be on a Saturday afternoon. With over 50 flavours of ice cream, it was the perfect way to end our picnic meal, and let me tell you the portions are HUGE. Asking for 2 flavours will get you approximately 5 English scoops worth and at $3 it’s possibly the only food sold in Kinshasa at a non exorbitant price.   Kinder chocolate and vanilla- again YUM.

I possibly, will be the only person who comes back from Africa fatter than they arrived, given the amount of food I’m eating and the fact you can’t really walk anywhere, and once you get home after work at 6pm its almost dark. Heyho.

H is already living in the house that I will be moving into next week so after our ice cream adventures, we went back to the house for me to have a look, and wow it  rodeserves the nickname it’s been given- le chateau. It’s a beautiful place with a pool, BBQ bigoms and tonnes of living space in a gated community. I’m loving the hotel but it will be a lovely place to stay there, and we sat with a beer on the terrace, and chatted for a while.

Tomorrow K and I are getting up early to go to a Bonobo sanctuary which are little monkeys- more on that tomorrow- so H drove us back home. Excited for tomorrow!!

Day 5 - Britain in DRC

So last night after work, we went to the British embassy for their Oasis night, that happens on each Friday when they have a big BBQ. Arriving at the embassy you have to show ID, go through airport style security and take away your camera – which I was not amused about- it’s what I imagine it would be like visiting someone in jail. But once you get inside it’s a lovely compound that is massive, and full of people. The BBQ itself was great and for the first time this week had lots of fresh vegetables and salad as well as a great BBQ.

It’s an interesting crowd at the embassy, I guess you have to be of a certain personality to be out here in the first place, but there are lots of interesting characters and everyone is really friendly. You meet people from different embassies, the world bank, UN etc. Everyone seems to have interesting background and stories. The way that I’ve heard it described as ‘globesnotting’, but I found it to be a nice evening, and it seems they have several events that go on each month. Pub quizzes and live football on. Although they make you pay for all drinks via this bizarre coupon system- which seems like a money making scheme, you order your drinks, you buy a token, they punch holes in the tokens, then give you are drinks. Why they can’t just take the cash
I don’t know.  There is even a British embassy hash around Kinshasa on Sunday’s that we were invited to, which will be a nice way to see a bit more of the city, as it’s not really the place you can explore for yourself on foot. So overall it was a nice way to spend a Friday evening- just happy they give my camera back.

Day 4- Ma philosophie - Karaoke in the Congo and Licence to drive

So today I applied for my Congolese drivers licence, apparently all you need to be a qualified driver here is $50, 2 passport photos and a copy of your passport- which completely explains the state of the roads here. As a previously mentioned it seems the rule of thumb is to go where ever you like, not to stop for pedestrians (Darwinian theory rules here) but the most bizarre thing of all?........The only rule that they seem to obey on the road is to give way on roundabouts,  even when you are actually on the roundabout. Bizarre.

Today one of the team invited us all out to Karaoke at the Grand Hotel in Kinshasa, the grand is one of the swankiest hotels in Kinshasa (by Congolese standards). Karaoke? In the Congo? Why the hell not. Well the poster said it started at 9 so we rocked up about 10.10pm to the hotel, where you walk upstairs to l’Atmosphere which is apparently one of the hottest clubs in Kin (or K town as I now it’s known as.)

Well, let me tell you. The room is about the size of a tennis court and is somehow a cross between a strip club and a cafe. As we walked in there were about 10 people in the room. 2 groups of 4 girls would I could only imagine are young ladies of the night dressed up in their tightest and brightest,  and one group of expat men.  School dance style sitting at other ends of the room. What was I expecting it’s the Congo!

So we picked ourselves out a table and sat down and flicked through the song book, which turned out to be mostly French songs about a thousand of them in fact. We ordered some drinks and chatted about song choices from the limited English songs until the karaoke began.  Well in some ways I wish it hadn’t, the ladies of the night may look good but man they cannot hold a tune, made worse by the calibre of the song choices. L’amour est violent, and a song that was particularly fast and horrific called Ma Philosophie  a rambling, me, me, me song that made you wonder which way to slit your wrists, even without the mini skirted screecher opening her mouth. 

However,  my colleague Eug got up next and wow! He floored us with a pitch perfect rendition of Frank Sinatra’s my way.  This put us all on a better note and as the first drink went down, it took the edge of the sharpness and we began to really enjoy ourselves. Until Ma Philosophie  came on for a second time! Out of almost 1000’s of songs 2 of the now 15 people in the room had chosen the worst song ever. At this point I was hoping it was some bizarre Congolese version of steps or something that was intended to be funny, ironic or the like, but this girl was really going for it. There was nothing for it but to laugh. There were several brilliant renditions including 2 girls in matching yellow outfits singing ma meillure ami, my best friend, but with such self confidence and authenticity you just had to love them.  Eug then entertained us with a lindy hopping version of jail house rock, followed by my slightly croaky but heartfelt cover of Whitney’s classic dance with somebody.

In our international group of Canadians, Romanian, British, Flemish, we all agreed French musique gets a thumbs down.

What was funny about the club was that every 20 minutes or so they would stop to put up adverts on the TV screens dotted around the room, so the room went silent before bombarding us with a least 3 repetitions of ‘buy johhnie walker -only $100! Or Come to the Kin Beach party at the Grand Hotel this Sunday. I get why they do it but it was very odd indeed.

The club was starting to pick up but by this point it was already almost 1am after the wait at the start and K and I were ready  to crash, so we all jumped in the car and went to bed. 

Karaoke in the Congo? Ma philosophie is it gets a thumps up, just for the experience, and pure entertainment value, both wonderful and terrifying!

For those who are curious- here is ma philosophie

Day 3 -the mysterious ticking noise has stopped!

That's all folks!

Day 2- What is that mysterious ticking noise?

No luckily it’s not a Potter Pals pipe bomb, but a faulty water pump right outside my bedroom window that continues to irritate me throughout the night. After, several attempts to ignore the repetitive eeeeeeekkk..............eeeeeekkkkkk, I went down to reception, and attempted to explain in French about the mystérieuse du bruit à retardement. (Thanks google translate) Well, when I told the guys at reception  my room number they gave each other a knowing glance, which to me indicated this was not the first time someone has told them about this noise, and said they would duly come up to hear  said noise. Which they did. It was still ongoing, as previously described.

Apparently the noise was a faulty water pipe and should only be heard when someone is running water, but there was nothing they could do then, as people might need water and they would call a technician tomorrow.....thank god for ear plugs.

Now returning to the subject of food, when out in DRC there is a myriad of choices that you face each day: Do you want ice in your drink? Can you really eat the salad? Now, by boss who has been here 2 years readily eats salad, ice etc from the places we have eaten. This makes me think against everything I have read and been told, that it would be OK to do so and follow suit. So last night when served my sandwich there was a layer of lettuce stacked between the bread. The usual travellers mindset kicked in- where was it grown? Had it been washed in tap water? Had it even been washed at all? The horror!

Now I’ve never understood what it would be like to have OCD, but this is giving me a glimpse, and it must be exhausting. All these scenarios, running around in your head trying to make the trade off between getting any of your 5 a day, or the cool refreshingness of an ice cold drink, and the risk of the next morning finding that your intestines are trying to make a bid for freedom. It’s a delicate tight rope to walk. But full bravery or stupidity – I ate the lettuce – and this morning I’m fine. Result.

Not only was I fine but after work today I went with my boss for a 5km run around what is known as “the embassies”  a circular run that takes it’s name from the numerous embassies that you pass along the way, including the British, Chinese, German and Iranian, to name just a few. It also runs along the river front with a great view of Brazzavile on the Congolese side. 

However, I definitely underestimated how hard it is to run in the heat, even at 7pm when the sun has almost set, it’s hot here and I swear it was more like 8km than 5km by the redness of my face and the amount of perspiration leaving my body- just the impression of me my new boss needed- hey ho! So am now treating myself to a medicinal G&T whilst I ponder what to have for dinner, and an early night- so long as the mysterious ticking noise by some miracle is fixed.

Fingers crossed!

Day 1 Mosquito bites and food!

So I woke up this morning with NO mozzie bites! Great success! This may not seem like a big deal, but I am one of those people who even if there is a mosquito 10 miles away will find me.  A great start.

 I was woken up by my neighbours alarm going off at 6.30am even though I didn’t have to get up till seven, which after a full day of travelling the day before was simply cruel. So I tuned my radio to BBC world service and jumped in the shower.

Breakfast is a simple affair, toast coffee and unidentified juice of the colour orange, but K (my friend who is also working out here) and I still have yet to pinpoint what fruit it actually is (and K has been here for 2 weeks already).  The lack of spreads for bread has made me incredibly happy that I brought marmite out with me, a bit of a cop out I know, but now my English desire for a food my dad calls, 3 week old gym socks, is paying dividends. 

Today was my first day in the office and it’s a lovely place, with a pool in the back with a swim up bar (without any booze –at least for now), so I am determined before I leave to get in the pool and sit at the bar end with a G&T. But as this is an open blog, I shan’t discuss work.

Skipping the morning’s work brings me back to my sister’s and my favourite topic- food.

So for lunch we went out to the Hellenic centre. It’s the little Greece of Kinshasa with  an orthodox church and as it turns out quite a popular place to have a buffet lunch.  It was fairly simple buffet, but the reason I bring it up as I had my first Congolose dish Poondu.  Now when you glance at poondu you think it looks like boiled spinach, but if you look a little closer the leaves are different and it then it starts to looks a little like a baby’s first poo. (Those of you who have seen one will know what I mean, the rest of you google it.) However, apart from looking not so appetising it actually tastes quite good, and this is coming from a girl who once spat her broccoli down the loo, because I hated greens so much.

Apart from the Poondu, the Hellenic centre also served traditional greek dishes such as.....Lasagne......yup don’t know where they wikipedia’ed that but hell it tasted pretty good so I’m not complaining.

BOLLOCKS! First bloody mosquito bite, am sat in the open air restaurant of the hotel writing this waiting for my dinner and damn it , the stupid thing got me, now I’m definitely going to get malaria...better have that G&T now.

Until something interesting happens.... A  plus!

So my time in DRC has begun like this:

You know you’re in Africa before you even leave the flight. Immediately everyone jumps up and tries to squeeze down the aisles saying, “Je dois retrouver mes baggages!..I must get my bags!” Well, yes you do but so does everyone else on the plane and the doors aren’t even open yet, plus, you are squeezing me into a non exist space between the seat and another person -who then looks at you like you’re intentionally trying to grope them. Pleasant.

Getting to the door of the plane, the familiar hit of hot humid air reaches you and things start to get a little better. In fact it was pretty pain free going through the terminal and through immigration, which was a pleasant surprise. However the orderly queues of immigration immediately disintegrate the moment you hit the baggage carousel.

 You’d think someone was handing out gold bars by the way everyone packs their way to the front, as the crowd 4 people thick,  manage somehow to cram together tighter and tighter, anyone behind this wall of people hasn’t got a chance in hell of spotting their bags and even if they did by the time they made it to the front it would have been back out by the plane. So there is no place in the Kinshasa airport baggage reclaim for, ‘apres-vous’. Nope it’s time to push your way through the seeming impenetrable crowd, with numerous ‘merci’s  and “pardon monsieur”  in order to avoid any tempers flaring and fisticuffs.

To my endless gratitude, to whatever higher power there may be BOTH of my bags turned up in quick succession as well as those of my boss, and within 15 minutes we were piled up and on our way out of the airport, where we were met by our driver Papi, to take us back to our respective homes.

Having landed at 7pm it was dark by the time we hit the road, and driving is Kinshasa is shall we say....interesting.  It was not too dissimilar to the traffic in India however, at least in India drivers stop for pedestrians. In DRC you have no such luck and I’m glad I learnt from the inside of the car perspective, rather than being the pedestrian!

It would make you think that crossing the road is a rare occasion, but the numerous locals out socialising on the street by candles and paraffin seem to treat this as a pastime, a sort of Congolese chicken if you will, which in turn makes the driving more interesting as cars and ‘taxi buses’ piled up with 40 people swerve at full pelt to avoid the pedestrians, but without the hassle of slowing down.

Something that amused me greatly is the taxibuses which are retired minibuses, with a hole cut out of them and somehow revived - which are painted like the Scooby Doo mystery machine, in primary blue and yellow, which makes me laugh. However it seems their revival doesn’t last long, as in the 20 minute drive we saw at last 6 broken down with the passengers jumping out to push while the traffic honks at the inconvenience of having to slow down for a moment.

Now reading through this, some of it sounds a little negative. It’s not. There is more life out on the streets and laughter and smiles than I have seen in a long time and it is it’s craziness that makes you sit there and smile with it. After 12 hours of travelling, 2 hours delays in Paris and 25 minutes of the lady sat next to you praying out loud on takeoff and landing (as well as singing and clapping a Congolese version of hallelujah on landing VERY  loudly), I was not a person who was easily amused. But yet Kinshasa already had me smiling like a goon.

By the time we reached my hotel, where my friend was already staying I was exhausted, but after a Croque Monsieur at the restaurant with her and then a quick shower in my great apartment at the hotel. I got into my bed under my mosquito net and had a wonderful night’s sleep. No bites!

So that was my first evening in Kinshasa for anyone who wants an update.