Gravity

I'm in Kinshasa, and am realizing again its pretty darn difficult to do anything (quickly or at all) in this behemoth of a city.  Its got a sense of gravity that makes everybody tired.  There is traffic, dirt, pollution, trash, and general sense of tiredness - at least most buildings, cars, and manual laborers look very very tired.  There is no 9-5 rush like other world urban centers - it starts earlier and goes later and is full of delays all throughout.  Mid-day traffic jams are accented by the tremendous heat and humidity- especially if your vehicle's form of air-conditioning is wind thru the windows...   

I am glad I don't live here - and I have the blessing of returning to a petite village where there is none of the above chaos.  Furthermore, I don't have to sleep in a hotel room many more nights....where nothing works exactly how it was designed to.  The AC - the most vital of all items - has functioned mostly, and the backup fan system functions...but beyond that the sink and shower has never functioned, the toilet mostly functions, the tv has one channel which is a bit shaky, the lights in the bathroom have never functioned, the lights in the bedroom must be screwed in and screwed out with non-flammable/melt-proof material because the lightbulb is piping hot.  The electricity occasionally goes out and then it just starts to be boiling hot and its a good idea to head to the office nearby and pick up a cold beer on the way, hoping I can find a functioning fan at a minimum. 

The hotel's free simple breakfast contains baguette and butter, tea or coffee, I was told starts at 7.  But that is when the mamas actually start setting it up....which includes washing the tables, chairs, and dishes.  So around 8 oclock one can sit down for the baguette and coffee.  If you demand for an omelette, add another hour and can arrive at the office at 9 am.  Officially the office opens at 8, but everyone arrives more toward 9, and if there is rain - sometimes can't even make it in!  For every good route, there are 10 or 20 that are utterly horrible and full of holes and lakes when it rains.  With the horrible state of the routes, and the heat, vehicles have a tough tough existence. 

The transport is a wild mix of the nicest and worst cars you could imagine,
-some with steering wheels on the right side - good for Congo, many on the left - more difficult for Congo,
-brand new hummers and mercedes SUVs which just got shipped over
-ancient cars which probably were "mis au monde" in the early 80s and have no original paint and look like someone took a baseball bat to the body and windshield, but are still being limped along - or even pushed....
-oddities such as 3-wheeled Indian motorcycle taxis and the occasional 4-wheeler. 
-taxi-vans are like an aluminum box on wheels which have a few wood benches and if the windows are sometimes just a round hole cut through the metal body.  They frequently have a lopsided lean which makes me think they could just drop their wheels at any moment - judging by the cars in and on the side of the road, they often do.  The body of one taxi-van I saw was at least 10-degrees off from the direction it was traveling, making it look it look like it was just kinda skidding along.   

We were obliged to take my colleague's minivan for one day-long errand because our vehicle went ill.  The Univ of Kin is a long ways out of town and traffic made us take about 2 hours just to arrive there.  Then as we were working in the Cartography laboratory..the power would occasionally flicker and go out....so you need a backup system or plan for everything in this city!!

In Kinshasa, I was asked constantly for money - homeless street kids, security guards, waitresses, hotel workers...nobody has enough money to live in this terrificly expensive city, so they live very far away and take slow transport in and out of their work places, making their ledger line break into about an even 0.  Street-hawkers sell every sort of thing - tissues, water bags, shirts, clocks, belts, shoes, and my favorite are the really sweet maps! 

On rare occasions I find something which i think - wow, this is nice, clean, or aesthetically pleasing.  So when I think about what is nice, I must completely change my standards.  If you look around, lots of Kinois are smartly dressed and carrying on well.  The city is expansive and chaotic - people, traffic, and potholed streets in every direction for 20 miles it seems.  Why do people like to be in Kinshasa?  Because everyone else is - and that's got its own gravity.  Don't expect to find something nice, or to be on time, or to stay clean or not sweat.  Go with the flow, enjoy the craziness, sweat, smile, get dirty, try to fight the gravity.  Don't try to understand the chaos or you'll become overwhelmed.  Adjust and let it pull you a little bit.