Zongo time

i was invited to a workshop in Zongo falls. They say it's 90km from Kinshasa, which sounds pretty close, but it's pretty much 4 hours of slippery red mud and huge deep ditches camouflaged with more mud.
and unlike other places i've been the local people are just...angry. like they really expect you not to drive and wave, but to get out of your car and help them push an 18 wheeler truck lugging giant barrels of gasoline out of a mud pit. and i mean REALLY angry. sorry folks, i'm a tiny white girl, wearing flip flops and white pants? shrug, put up hands and smile! my colleagues thought it was funny to keep rolling down the window and offering my burly services, upon which the people would throw mud at the car. 
or some angry guy wants you to give him, his 2 wives, their 10 kids and a goat a ride in your car but you're like, sorry, we're full, and besides, i don't hear what you're saying through the window, which i won't roll down if you keep throwing mud at me!
at one point there was quite a backup. someone from our convoy was stuck (oh, germans, when will you learn? land cruiser. not suzuki sidekick), so the whole village is out to help - not before collecting money with their machetes of course.


this thing is pretty much held together by rubber bands

i bet you're thinking, this peugeot here (which has diplomatic license plates, wtf?) and tires balder than a baby's behind doesn't have any better a chance of getting through 3 feet of mud on an incline than a suzuki sidekick, right?

top gear - congo edition



this is the part where everyone climbs on and in and they just gun it

i don't have pictures during the actual muddy party because i was 12 inches off of my seat and smashing my face against the window. take that, nissan pathfinder!

and you have just been proven wrong.

Labels: kinshasa

posted by lefty at 6:04 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

new kinshasa digs #3





So I have some new Kinshasa digs...not too bad, I have my own private mezzanine overlooking the living room with a full view of the city, balcony with tomato plants, a pool down below, and as many stray skinny hungry cats as i care to snuggle... roommates are out of town and the cleaning lady comes every day. sounds like a perfect time to have a party...

view from above..

Labels: kinshasa

posted by lefty at 7:12 AM Links to this post

i brought back a ton of fabrics from congo

posted by lefty at 2:41 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

dubai is pretty nuts

so take just about everything in kinshasa, turn it inside out and backwards and you have dubai.
over the sound of the prayers you have non-stop consumerism (during Eid the malls are open 24 hours), flashy, clean, bright, connected, everything.
a colleague took me all around and all

i could think of was being in that board room, where the idea guy presents to a prince or whatever looking bored, his convoy of bentleys idling outside.
and the presenter, nervous, hands shaking as he controls the powerpoint presentation is all, how about we have a lagoon with these fountains, and every 30 minutes we blast a song, maybe michael jackson's thriller, or o sole mio, or never say goodbye, and these water jets, well they spray and shoot water along with the music. 
and the prince is all, whatever, ok, sounds good, you have my blessing go do it and leaves. 
and that's the fountain you have in front of tha tallest building thing, and it's just ridiculous. 
there are all these crazy aquariums in malls and hotels, and i seriously wonder if there isn't a secret genetic lab somewhere underground where they are engineering real live mermaids. because that's just about the only thing missing in dubai. real. live. mermaids.

just add bad music..

Labels: travels

posted by lefty at 12:48 PM 1 Comments Links to this post

taking a bunch of kinshasa with me...

Ok, so Ethiopian airlines to Addis. 

Interesting.

The cabin was somehow segregated...white people in the front, Ethiopians in the middle and Congolese in the back. Except for me, I'm in the back.

First interesting thing is how they don't tell you that you stop in Brazzaville. So the plane takes off from Kinshasa, hangs out weird and low in the sky and doesn't go higher, it sort of floats over the city, people glued to the windows and then about 4 minutes after take off "cabin crew prepare for landing" I'm freaking out, omg an emergency?! But people seem pretty relaxed and we gently land in Brazza less then 10 minutes after takeoff. Probably the softest international flight ever.

We pick up some more people in Brazza and we're on our way. Meanwhile, the back of the plane is pretty much like my little hood in Kinshasa. All thats missing is a slaughtered goat. There's music playing out of crappy cell phone speakers (even during take-off and landing), dudes sitting on armrests with their big red Ethiopian airlines headphones around their necks and heads like they are djs. There are card games, texting, secret hand shakes. do they think this is a bus? I walk through to go the bathroom and I had to squeeze through a bunch of guys, just like in a club or cafe, where they purposefully block your way so you have to push them aside, like they want you to touch them...and it's all, hmmmmm kissss hey sexy baby where you flying to

-ughhhh addis, we're on the same plane

And then lip smacking and hmmmm hmm yummy mondele sounds. Really, guys? the plane is full of white people, i think the whole mondele thing ends at the gate...

Later, some Syrian diamond smuggler or whatever comes by and leans over my seat with his "haven't I've seen you before routine" and gives me his card and wants to take me to dinner in Dubai. This is not the dreamliner i was expecting..

The duty free woman gets practically overrun by this mob and now there is a Johnny walker black label party. I have another bottle of wine and am floating in and out of sleep and I hallucinate one of the street walker vendors in Kinshasa. Did I tell you how they have signature sounds to sell their wares? The shoe polishers bang their brushes together. The bread person bangs a flat knife against the large metal bowl on his head and the bag o water guy makes a long kissy sucking noise. So when you're on the street, you just follow your ears. my ears are saying gah! make this stop!

My logistics guy serge is a big airport time underestimator. He sets up your ride to the airport at the last possible minute, my last kinshasa visitor called me at 5 am Easter Sunday, freaking out- my flight leaves in less than 1.5 hours and I'm still waiting at the hotel!!"

Relax, serge will be there. 

And somehow, yeah, he'll sneak you into the customs line with minutes to spare.
on my way out of town, I notice the airport fly by to my left and we keep driving....where are we going?

You can't leave Kinshasa without liboke in your stomach (recall my first ever meal in kin in 2007 was a thanks giving dinner liboke at the grand hotel. haven't really had a memorable one since...)

Ummm, ok, but I'm kind of checking luggage and don't have my boarding pass...

"It's ok, Ethiopians are never on time."

So 20 minutes further, we're in a little bustling town of kinkole and down by the river, tons of Mamans are waving us over, pointing to their drum barrel BBQs with banana leaf wrapped goodies.

Serge orders and even though its only 930 am, ok, I'll have some grilled stew fish...and...it was delicious, spicy, even though I don't like spicy, with onions, fish heads fins and all, floating in this tasty oily broth. 

pre-check-in meal

spicy fishy goodness

i'm nervously checking the time and Serge goes to pay and then disappears in what he calls "market reconnaissance" and goes to all these different vendors, comparing prices of manioc leaves. He loves manioc leaves. Staple of his diet he says, even through its super bland he can't go a day without his manioc. He comes back with a little kid carrying heaps of leaves on his head. We load up the car and he presents me with a dried gourd, which has a tiny bottle of amarula plugging the top.

This is what we keep the booze in, he says. it's naturally thermal - keeps it cool.

It's excellent.

At the airport everyone is all high giving me, hoot and hollering-can I get a sip mondele?? 

In the plane I am gourd girl.

Come bring your gourd girlfriend we'll fill it up with our friend Johnny! Says a man with his toothless grin, nah it's ok, I'm good, but how about a 400franc tip for the DJ? 

Right on sister, nice shirt! I'm wearing one of my African creations.

So long Kinshasa, ride with me until addis and i'll see you again in may!

Labels: kinshasa, travels

posted by lefty at 12:57 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

expat dinner party!

posted by lefty at 7:09 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

commander gardener

posted by lefty at 1:00 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

celine is the iron lady

today i arranged some more meetings with ministers and brought my colleagues didier and serge along. mostly because i am trying to stop serge from disappearing from the office like he usually doesn, and because didier wears real snazzy shirts and suits, and has a car. the office has run out of cash, and no cash means no gas, and so the drivers are all up in arms so you can't get driven anywhere in the office land cruiser.
i don't know how the conversation started but it was about margaret thatcher, and serge is a little older and he was deadpan serious when he said she changed his life. i seriously think a tear welled up in his eyes. i was totally making fun of him for it when didier said "but the real iron lady is celine dion!" and turned up the stereo. all of us, including some lady we picked up who needed a ride were suddenly screaming the lyrics of the titanic song, windows open, all wearing our sunglasses, mine of the jackie-o variety and the boys with their tom cruise aviators.
it must have been an odd sight because even the scrubby kids who beg at your window and snatch whatever they can from inside your car stayed far far away. good to know.
the meeting was in the fabulous oldest building in kinshasa, which formerly had the titanic-style indian restaurant up top with the super scary elevator. well the indians are gone, it's all ministry of environment, and the elevator is out of service :(

use at your own risk?

 

Labels: kinshasa

posted by lefty at 1:09 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

shouldn't get used to this...

marie had to go to her project site, so i had to house to myself all weekend.

i thought it would be a nice touch to have it all clean when she got back - uh no, i wasn't going to do it myself, so stop thinking that - so i called jean, the little ironing guy to come by. i say little because seriously, he comes up to my shoulders, i'm finally taller than someone! he is a bit of a neat freak, and constantly criticizes everything in front of marie "those dishes! unfolded clothes!" and does everything but call her a slob. she only lets him iron, and i have to say, the house is a bit messy. i'd like to walk around barefoot on the tile once in a while so i asked jean to come and tidy up.
he was pretty happy actually, like finally i will bring some order into this place! made the beds and everything, while nodding his head in disapproval, and clicking his mouth like, "i can't believe these people." before he irons, he puts on these huge bifocal reading glasses. in one of my skirt pockets, he found a 50 franc bill and ironed that, too. handed it back to me, steaming hot, nodding as he does, thinking...these white people, so careless with their money, too!... after ironing he brings the items into my room, but i don't have any hangers. so i fold it up and put it on the shelf and i thought he was going to spit at me - folding his perfectly ironed items! he grabs me, madame!! sorry jean, look! i'm hanging it, here. back away...
the one thing you can't let jean touch is the garden, though. his idea of weeding is pulling up all the plants marie just put in so no garden, today, jean. he really wants to sweep the grass and i must tell him, no.

meanwhile, my friend carla and her seamstress came over and together we designed a whole new set of clothes for me with all the fabric i bought. because on thursday, i skiddadled out of the office with jolie, who works the cafe at the office, she says her mom sells pagnes, which are the 6m long african print fabics. and so i called my taxi bernard (my deaf, adorable papy replacement who NEVER has gas! i pay him and make him promise to put gas in the car but he never does and sometimes we need to stop and he pulls a jug out of the trunk...he philosophizes that this is more efficient or something). anyway, jolie takes us to the grand marché, just about exactly where i got mugged last year...but this time i literally had nothing but a 50$ bill in my bra. joli takes us through this cavernous maze of vendors, i would have never found my way out if i needed and we're in this one place where everyone, EVERYONE is selling fabric. it's called the universe of pagnes, logically. we get to jolie's mother's stand. it's deathly hot, and all the women are fighting for my business. i left out of there 100$ lighter and 100m of fabric heavier.


fabric lady

So carla's seamstress came over and we sat in the gazebo and she took my measurements for miniskirts, pants, dresses, and pillowcases. you name it. and yes, i will have a dress that matches my pillows.
there's a catalog you can look at, with vuluptuous models.  i have to remind them i don't got that cleavage or butt, ladies...everything is customizable. i don't know what to choose, carla pretty much decides for me. the seamstress is noting everything and saying in a worrying tone, "you want it lined, too? it's gonna cost you..."



the catalog...

a custom made long dress is 10$.
i threw in a dress for carla so by next friday we'll have matching outfits! with hot pink and neon orange spirals.i should make tennis dresses for me and tanya.
when jean left, i didn't really know how much to pay him. marie gives him 15$ for ironing, no wonder why he wants to come every day! i threw in an extra 10, which is practicaly what i pay my putzfrau back in berlin. jean said he wished i would stay in kinshasa forever and ever and never go back to germany and my house would be so clean i could walk barefoot all the time. my thoughts sway to the singing coming from one of the churches nearby, the sounds of parakeets and car horns and i might be getting a bit too used to living in kinshasa...
 

Labels: kinshasa

posted by lefty at 11:29 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

making cheese in mankoto

posted by lefty at 8:24 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

i'm cursed.

posted by lefty at 9:20 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

welcome to the hood

 

the trucks

 

the bar (and trucks)

 

the house! (thankfully construction on the one behind doesn't move so fast...)

so let me tell you about this neighorhood i live in. there's a flour factory or something, of which apparently the president owns shares in, and well it means the factory can just do what it wants with this neighborhood, and so there are giant 18 wheeler trucks parked everywhere. i mean everywhere.there's no sidewalk anymore, there's trucks. trucks on both sides so that even a third truck can barely pass through and sometimes 2 trucks meet in the middle and there's nothing to do. maybe that's why there are so many motorcycle taxis, right on this block. you either take a motorcycle, or walk. and it's best not to walk on the street because that's the best way to get your foot run over by one of these trucks. so, you find a suitable opening and just swing under the trailer to the other side. it's shady and cool underneath so sometimes you'll have someone sleeping under there, or drying their laundry, or just hanging out and smoking weed and offering you some.
you'd think that because of this nice flour factory with presidential influence there would be a bit better electricity provision. or maybe that's the whole reason why all the houses lie in the dark in the evenings, because the factory sucks it all up, glowing in its well lit glory. so when marie and i get home from work and the streets are all dark, we meet at the little pharmacy/bar on the corner. usually, when the bar has no power, the house has no power, and so you sit at the bar and wait for it to light up. you wouldn't want to actually be here when there's power because they blast this really obnoxious music and it's rather unpleasant. so instead it's dark, dusty, but it's mellow, people come by and sell you peanuts and cigarettes and adidas sneakers and whatever you want. no one cares that we are the only white people for miles. there are constant traffic jams, people honking, and getting angry and jumping out of their cars and yelling at one of the sleeping truck drivers. i'm pretty certain one day someone is going to just plow into these plastic chairs. but also, i've started to become accustomed to the chaos, i almost don't even notice it anymore. or that i'm sweating through 3 layers of clothes, my toes are covered in mud and i keep jumbles of dirty cash in my pockets and that's how i pay for stuff.
there are some guys at the corner with a goat who are always trying to get enough people interested in eating goat to kill it. they also have chickens, and we keep telling them, tomorrow, tomorrow we'll come eat. but it's kinda gross so we decide what we are going to cook back at the house, based on whether there is power or not. it's a choice between headlamp salad (i wear my headlamp gangsta style while i chop avocados) or if we are lucky, will i cook a ton of cooker-jules style rice. but for now it can wait, this huge 1 liter beer is only 1$ and so we just drink and order more cold ones (these people are smart and keep their beers in the freezer so they are always cold) until the music comes on.

Labels: kinshasa

posted by lefty at 4:55 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

bonobos are just like us!

we went to the bonobo sanctuary and had an amazing day. we saw it all, the eating, fighting, playing and the sex. insane.
to get there i hired my new taxi hook up to take me and some nasa visitors in his huge fancy 4x4. and as a reward for his hard work during the week, i invited serge, my local logistics guy. he has never seen them. living in kinshasa and not seeing the bonobos is like growing up in new york and never going to coney island!
as we are driving there he was calling all his friends and all i heard was "range rover" and "bonobos" and "my colleague" (that's me).
so we get there and the bonobos are just running around and acting crazy it's just like watching children. serge says "but they are just like mini humans!" and i say, i know! all that separates us is some thousands of years of evolution and serge is all, woah, nope, nuh-uh, evolution, shmevolution, god created us and god created these guys and that's it.
and so i ask him, don't you think it's a little weird then, that god would create creatures that are so similar to us? with their hands and their faces and their identical dna?

just a little more evolution and i would make guacamole from this avocado

and right then, one of the bonobos goes and speed humps a male, then a female and then another male, and then jumps up and down and screams and climbs a tree.
serge says "but we can't climb trees like that, they are in no way related to us," and walks away.

this is how it's done, boy!

Labels: kinshasa

posted by lefty at 3:56 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

no gracias

posted by lefty at 5:53 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

new kinshasa digs

posted by lefty at 5:10 PM 1 Comments Links to this post

My dose of Kinshasa

posted by lefty at 8:06 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

not paying for no goat

posted by lefty at 11:39 AM Links to this post

my ruffly new clothes

the little zippers have airplanes on them.

Labels: kinshasa

posted by lefty at 1:51 PM Links to this post

i found a mug! you want coffee?

it's a lucky day when you find a lost mug in the office. my office mate will quickly round any up and offer to go to the kitchen. the kitchen is pretty much hit or miss in terms of supplies, so before the trek down the hall, the messenger needs to know: what if.
so i made a flowchart.

Labels: kinshasa

posted by lefty at 12:56 PM Links to this post

pooltime

posted by lefty at 10:22 AM Links to this post

back back back

posted by lefty at 12:21 PM Links to this post

paradise or little bit of hell...

posted by lefty at 7:27 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

yeah, so botswana is the other africa. when i tell people i flew in from kinshasa they're all woah, ok, that's the real africa. i'm in a 4 star safari lodge with quintessential thatched roof luxury, hot towels on arrival, bottomless malawi shandies (tasty), staff in khakis with names like blessing, gift, justice. you hear birds everywhere, grumpy hippos in the river and baboons have taken over the gas station. it's quite a relaxing change. on my way from the airport (in the cheesy open land rover safari thing - that had the strangest stickers in the windshield that read "be smart- get circumsized").
i saw wild boar crossing confidently across the road, and the botswana "rockers" these dudes dressed in all black leather with mohawks and chain wallets. i heard you can't come to kasane without going to see victoria falls, right across the border in zimbabwe. Or zim, as they like to say. also, gaborone, the capital is "gabs." my name is "lee." they like to shorten stuff. i like that.
so i arranged a tour in the activity centre. i was picking out some other things to do, like a sunrise walk but the guy, Trust, was all, that's for birders, hissing birders like it's a derogatory term. i agree they're kinda weird. so i picked the sunset cocktail cruise and a game drive and the "unguided" tour to vic falls, because it was 3 times less than the guided one.
the next day i went to the meeting point for my trip to zim, and since the 2 others had upgraded to the guided tour, i was taken along like an unwanted stepchild and basically had to close my ears or walk a distance away when there was any guiding being done. the first stop was the zimbabwe border. more baboons and disorganized chaos inside, just disorderly, i presume due to the touts, which is what they are talking about with the "no touts" signs. i was going to change some money with the guy who was offering some and then realized it was sortof a joke - he gleefully exchanged 50 Euro cents for more than a billion zimbabwean dollars. why even print your currency when it the lowest denomination is 10 billion? anyway, i guess they use US dollars, though they don't print them, or have any coins so the cheapest thing you can buy is 1 dollar, which makes stuff pretty expensive for most people. they must buy in bulk i guess. the whole border thing took a while but we were met by a minibus on the other side, which was also bringing some people to town, including this old white guy who lives in vic falls. we piled everyone's bags into the back and drove on. the driver warns us that there may be a few police barriers, and so get stopped a bunch. don't take their picture. the first thing we saw was a giraffe, which was pretty cool, and some sable and monkeys. then, under a tree are some police officers who pull us over and search the car. they are particularly interested in this one suitcase and it's the poor old white guy who grumpily shows off all his dirty undies. we get back in and drive off. more monkeys. and another checkpoint. they search the car, "whose suitacase is that?" old white guy's again. he shows off his dirty undies and we're back on the road. another checkpoint. search the car "whose suitacase is that" and they pick the same one! again! there are tons of other backpacks but they seem to love this one. get a new bag man! we are all telling the guy to ditch it altogether, who needs dirty undies anyway? we finally arrive in town and since i'm unguided i'm basically dumped off and told to come back in 5 hours while the others go to the crocodile farm and stuff. i head into victoria falls park and well, it's pretty amazing. lots of annoying french tourists though who take like, a million pictures, and expect no one to step in front of them while they do. on the other side, the zambian side, there are crazy people swimming right at the edge of the falls. devil's pool it's called. crazy. i wander some more until i see this old bridge, from 1905 that crosses the zambezi and people are bungee jumping and stuff (even though i heard the cord broke a few years ago - google it, there's a video and everything).

border crossing

anyway i'm interested in checking out this bridge, which is technically in Zambia. so i go to zambia. to get to the bridge you pass the border and walk this weird, dusty road with lots of trucks, people with huge loads packed on their bikes, women carrying stuff on their heads and monkeys. the only word to describe it is "gloque (sp?)" there are monkeys with cute little babies who clutch the bellies of their mothers it's so cute.
on the bridge there are all these people trying to sell you stuff, and if you don't want to buy stuff they just want money, or to trade something. here they all have weird names like nike, what-what, or the guy named chili con carne. i gave them my hairclips, a pen from the hotel, and they wanted more, like, got any south african rands? and i actually did, some coins and they're like oh, we want bills. picky beggars, huh? so i have a 5 rand bill i won't use and then they're like oh, we want the new ones, do you have the new ones with nelson mandela on them? when you think it can't get any more ridiculous one of them wants my pants. i really like your pants, can we trade your pants for this lovely (hideous) statuette? what, i'm going to walk across the border in my underwear? "you can put on new pants at your hotel" he says. my hotel is in another country and even if it wasn't i am not taking off my pants! (especially since they are my beloved swedish pants my dad took me to the crazy mall in sweden to buy!).

premium, unleaded, or very aggressive baboon?

 i was looking for a place to eat lunch and everything was called "mama africa" or something like that, but served nothing but $15 club sandwiches and spaghetti bolognaise. i wanted something a little more local, and some dude pointed out this total dump behind some houses, with some crooked patio furniture and ladies making stew on the ground. they were super nice. they had gelatinous okra, the sticky maize stuff, and cold cokes. they even came to my table with a teapot of hot soapy water and a bowl to wash my hands - and take my picture. all for 4$ - or only 900 billion zimbabwe dollars! 

Labels: botswana, travels

posted by lefty at 5:33 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

bits of kinshasa...

i think the street sweeper went that-a-way

bloody goat head served saturday AND sunday!

goat for lunch? pick your parts!

Labels: kinshasa

posted by lefty at 12:52 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

not a tourist anymore..

so there's finally a company that has a shuttle bus between kinshasa and the international airport. it's a total ripoff at 60$, but the most annoying part is that the driver uses the van as his personal delivery vehicle, picking up his girlfriend, running errands, and it ends up taking twice as long to get anywhere. or worse, he'll go to some really ghetto part of town to pick something up and leaves me in the car while he runs off. i have to quickly lock the doors from inside and sit there while everyone and their mom comes up to the window and begs and stares and bangs on the roof, it's a little uncomfortable. i might as well be on the street with diamonds in my pockets.
it turns out papi will drive me in half the time and half the price so i might as well do that, plus papi is really nice. the road to the airport is being redone, but the right side of the road on the way there still isn't paved the whole way so we weaved into oncoming traffic, on the left side of a highway barrier for a harrowing 35 minutes.
 luckily, we weren't the only ones (see photo), we had an old renault espace leading the way, but still, every once in a while you have to play chicken with a tanker truck that most likely doesn't working brakes...

but the best part, is papi's cleverness.
the airport is a classic african onslaught of non. stop. people asking you for money. la lutte, quoi. the first obstacle is the parking lot. there's no set price, you have to negotiate with a mix of police, militeray, and entrepreneurs. today it was guarded by a military guy with "special agent Jacques Bauer" written in sharpie on the khaki strap of his AK. (Jack Bauer is Keifer Sutherland's character in the TV show 24, in case you didn't know). so while 10 different guys are trying to sell me little suitcase locks on the passenger side (the problem being i actually needed one, but how to open the window and not have them all wave their hands in my face and try and grab your money before the next guy), papi is telling jack bauer that i'm from the presidential palace. which, well, is sortof kinda true. one guy totally doesn't believe us and starts yelling, banging on the hood, and i have my huge jackie O sunglasses on and really playing up my disinterested presidential demeanor. we're in a mercedes, dude. jack bauer rubs his chin and thinks for a bit, and then, ok, green light. he smacks the screaming guy for disrespecting someone from the palace and eventually calms everyone down, gives us the salute and says that he will now personally escort us inside. because we are from the presidential palace! everyone stands at attention. i high-five papi who says, that guy isn't going to escort us anywhere, he's just going to be the one who stays by the car and gets 1000 francs at the end. true. 
we unload the car, shoo away the 20 or so one armed scragglers who want to carry my bag, sell me phone credit or bags of tasty grasshoppers. papi does a little change transaction and now has a wad of francs and passes them sneakily to every police officer, guard so he can come in to the ticket area with me. then for some reason, we sit down, we just wait. and i'm wondering why i'm not in the check-in line, but papi says just wait. surely enough a guy in an ed hardy style shirt with "RDC all the time" written in flames comes and collects all my documents to do my checkin for me. because thats how we roll with papi, people do our dirty work for us. this probably breaks every security rule in the book, but whatever. so papi and i are just chillin' hangin' out, adding eachother on facebook, and i pay a guy to get me a lock, another one to buy cigarettes (good gifts for friends!). i told ed hardy before he took off that i wanted a window seat, business class (worth a shot), and that my bags should be checked all the way to Botswana (i have ridiculous stopovers and am cursing my travel agent for making me spend 2 consecutive nights in crappy african airports but i digress). 30 minutes later, and i don't even know how this is possible, ed hardy comes back with my boarding passes and assures me my bags are checked to bangkok. bangkok. i have this handwritten boarding pass for bangkok? no no no. BOTSWANA. Kasane. as it is written on my itinerary. ok ok ok. 30 more minutes. now what. i have to pee. and the n'jili airport toilets are what you enter only in an absolute emergency - like you are being chased by a murderer. the murderer if he is human will never follow you in there. so i usually shy away from any drinking. but papi asks me if i have ever been to the upstairs lounge? upstairs lounge? i've been to this airport what, 7 times in 5 years, there's an upstairs lounge? the only bar i know is a place with 3 broken plastic chairs. it's more of a stand, really. this whole time i could have been in the lounge?? so we go to the lounge. and holy crap it's up on the roof, overlooking the runway, and there's a huge balcony where all the baggage handlers guys are hanging out with their shirts off. this is an outpost of the grand hotel where a coke is 5$ (and a diet coke is 10$??) so, yeah, it's pricey. but it's nice, and the waiters are all wearing red tuxedos. they have a giant air conditioning unit, even though you're outside. luxury. i gave ed hardy 4$ and he complained that he wanted more and then we ignored him until he went away, and papi told me about his family, his philosophy on DRC, his recent trip to dubai. there were signs everywhere that said "you won't miss your flight! see departure announcements on our state of the art TV system!" and then you pan to an unplugged tv on the floor...my departure time had kinda come and gone, so i ask the waiter, how do i know when my flight is boarding? and he gestures towards the runway...do you see a kenya airways plane? i see the congo river in the distance, the junkyard of airplane corpses, a propellor plane loading up 25 barrels of cooking oil, and people wearing blue pyjamas sweeping the runway with rattan brooms, just like they do on the boulevard. when the plane lands, watier tells me, then it's time to go. so i ordered some more beer, avoided the bathroom until i couldn't anymore...drank some more beers, and finally, lo and behold, with only 3 hours delay the plane arrived...and then, goodbye congo, and hello (in 29 hours) 5 star safari lodge in botswana!

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