Brilliant Day

Just because so many people got seriously worried after my previous post - here’s a positive one. Since I was trapped in Kinshasa for the weekend, I decided it was time to go for the main three important things in a new place: sightseeing, shopping, eating.

Now, it was a bit difficult to go for the first one, since we are actually not allowed to go on foot anywhere in the city, apart from a gated area around the embassies, next to the mighty Congo River (i.e. the border with the other Congo). And sightseeing from the car – well, yes, you do see a lot of concrete on the massive Avenue 30 Juin and a lot of dust everywhere else, and you get it how great things were under Mobutu (!) when everything was working properly(?) And you do also catch a glimpse of the fantastic villas from the colonial times, and happy you are indeed when friends and friends of friends happen to know people living there, and when you are invited to multiple garden parties every single night. But eventually that excitement also wears off, and by Sunday morning I was really dying to move my legs. I cautiously took my big camera bag (knowing that I would probably not be able to take any pics, due to the MANY absurd restrictions here), and together with Sara, a colleague visiting from London, we asked the driver to take us to the ‘walk place’ at 9 a.m.

The moment we approached the river, on a beautiful street that reminded me so much of the promenade in Montreux on the Geneva Lake, few soldiers came up to us and started explaining this and that, until one actually said “you can go down to the river.” OK, that was unexpected. We left the high paved road and took a ton of run-down stairs until we actually came to the water. And there it was, the incredible, mythical, fascinating Fleuve Congo, that captured my imagination ever since I was a small child and heard tales of the frightful Heart of Darkness. Of course, on this particular stretch, where you have both capitals on opposite banks, the view is rather ‘civilized’, but when you think where this river – the deepest and second largest in the world - is coming from you do get the ultimate chills. It really is one of the most humbling sights I have ever laid my eyes on, and certainly the highlight of this week in Kinshasa.

Closely supervised by soldiers I was about ready to go back up, when one of them, having spotted my camera bag and smelling some dollars coming his way, very naturally suggested I take pictures. WHAT?!?! A soldier in Congo suggesting you take pictures!?!? And of the ONE place (the border) that all guide books and wise white people with vast Congo experience caution you against?!? OK, this was indeed a good Sunday morning. Still in disbelief, and quite nervous (I was actually thinking he’d take my camera at some point), I started flashing my Nikon left and right, in a sort of surreal excitement. The river was obedient, and calling, and of course all I could think of was floating away on it (apart from wanting to do the cross-country in the US and the trans-Siberian in Russia, the long trip on the Congo River from Kinshasa to Kisangani is right there, high on my priority list).

After the soldier expressly asked for money for coffee or beer, and we duly conformed, we felt like we had paid our way to take pics from the promenade as well. Bypassing only expats jogging and more soldiers guarding bushes and trees, we took this amazing walk, on which I came to think Kinshasa is really not THAT bad. Yes, it is outrageously EXPENSIVE, and FILTHY, and completely CHAOTIC, and just IRRATIONAL overall, but it does have the life, and the feel, and the grandeur, and the power of a really great city. And just when I was pondering on all that – here I was faced with the only other thing I always fantasized of in Congo: some sign with the Zaire name. It came to me from atop a very tall, ugly building, and the “Z” was obscured by a ladder, but no mistake – it was splashed there, for everyone entering the country from the port to see!!! Mobutu was indeed still alive, and probably dear to some people in that building, that the name he created for this country was still allowed. My faithful NIKON zoom did its job this time as well. And with this precious gem on my memory card, I really decided it was time to take off, before some other zealous official thought differently about our picture-taking spree.

The next thing on the agenda was shopping. The day before we had already purchased some pagne (the Congolese waxed-fabrics, in screaming colors), when our colleague Dorothy had arranged for us girls to go spend some money in some upscale shops, but today I really wanted to see the Marche Centrale. Unfortunately, though, it was a Sunday morning, and they were still far away from setting up and getting going, and I also kind of bowed to my own person wisdom giving me nudges (stop buying things, you cannot carry them, your bags are overflowing!), so instead we set up for this lovely road trip. We were going to see the bonobos!!!

For those of you who need some context: these guys, thought for a very long time to be some chimpanzee subspecies, are to be found only in the DRC, to the south of the Congo River, deep in tropical forest. I had heard lots of talks about them last year, since several of my gorilla colleagues had some experience with bonobos, but I had not seen them ever before. What I remembered best was something about their hyper sexuality – they basically have sex ALL the time, not only for reproduction but also for pleasure and for resolving conflicts in their society. The motto they are associated to, quite fittingly: “Make love, not war!”

We were certainly not going to see them in the wild, as that region is FAR, FAR away, and habituated bonobos are still not commonplace, so we went to this fantastic place just outside Kinshasa called Lola ya Bonobo (Paradise for Bonobos) – a very large forested sanctuary, where bonobos rescued from poachers are being rehabilitated. Of course, just like with gorillas or chimps, for every bonobo that has the luck to be saved and brought here, many others are killed, sold, eaten… But yes, it is a real jungle out there, and certainly not only for animals…

Some 60 bonobos are currently cared for here, in different fenced enclosures (but imagine that not as in a zoo-fenced, but as in a huge forest which has fences going throughout it). They are practically free to do whatever they want, but they are still closely monitored. The only thing that does not make any sense to me (coming from the Uber-strict gorilla world, where the human presence is sooo limited and heavily controlled): here there are basically no rules. Or, if there are, they are certainly not followed in any way. A bunch of school girls yesterday were about to feed the bonobos chips through the electric fence, when I just had to shout out. These guys are still supposed to be wild, and return to the wild some day (well, maybe), so any such close contact with humans can only be damaging. Then again, I was just a visitor there myself, so I had to get over my zealous over-protective attitudes and carry on.

It was, indeed, a delight seeing them. And not that I have anything against them having sex all the time (if anything, I applaud a species that has the guts and the time and the drive to do so), BUT there is one just about disgusting thing in this whole business: the female genital swellings, which obviously attract the other bonobos (males and females alike), but which to me looked like nothing more than gigantic tumors. Brrr. And quite frankly, even going beyond the looks – those things must make life SO incredibly uncomfortable. Quite a price to pay for being attractive...

But anyhow -- the bonobos are indeed adorable, and the long walk through the primary forest just what I needed and missed so much. And after such an active day, it was certainly time to delve into the next amazing Kinshasa has to offer: the Cossa Cossa.

They are, quite frankly, the best reason to come over here. The fantastic Congo River prawns, that I have had this week in all possible ways (with garlic, with pili-pili (chili sauce), on a ‘tropical skewer’ with pineapple and veggies, or in a casolette) are just divine. And yes, expensive, at an average of $25-30 a portion, so my finding Chez Philo, where they go for ‘only’ $15, was even more so a treat. I topped the day with a large Tembo beer (whose labels have fun, quick facts about Congolese history), and an actually very good moelleux (which is my all-time favorite desert, that I had had only in France, Belgium and NYC before), so I was indeed quite HAPPY for this brilliant Sunday in Kinshasa.