A Tale of Two Cities: Kinshasa (part 1)

So, as promised in the last post, here are the rest of the photos/info from last weekend.  Pictured below are two of my new UN friends.  Jones (left) is an Ethiopian engineer and left last Wednesday to Bukavu (over by Goma).  Ricardo (right) is a Brazilian human rights lawyer and left Tuesday to somewhere in the middle of the country that I don't remember.  There was also an Italian, Elisa, who went somewhere near the ocean, though I can't remember exactly what she was doing there.

 And these are some of my mosquito bites.  The other foot also looked like that, as well as both legs below the knee.  I originally counted 87 bites, but now that the swelling has gone down and they've become little red dots and scabs, I've counted 116.  They itched like crazy for the first half of the week, too.

Anyway, backtracking a little bit, last Saturday Delphin and I went to the National Museum.  Apparently it used to be Mobutu's (the dictator from 1965-1997) residence. Well, one of them anyway. The view below is from the entrance.  Kinshasa is on the right and Brazzaville (Republic of the Congo) on the left.

 The museum had a bunch of traditional masks, pottery, statues, etc, and information on some of the different cultures.  It was pretty interesting, though small.  There was also a huge statue of King Leopold out front, which I found surprising. It's kind of like having a huge statue of Hitler outside of the Holocaust Museum.  For a history of the Congo and the atrocities committed there, I would highly recommend reading King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild. I borrowed Delphin's copy here and read it in two days.  The short version of the colonization and recent history: King Leopold of Belgium managed to finagle personal ownership of the entire Congo. He treated it like a completely unregulated factory for ivory and rubber, and some pretty horrible stuff happened that I won't get into here, some of the worst human rights abuses in history (the population was reduced by half, estimated around 10 million people).  Leopold was essentially forced to give up the country to the Belgian government in 1908, and while the situation improved slightly, it was still one of incredible exploitation.  Eventually the country gained it's independence in 1960.  Patrice Lumumba was elected prime minister, but he made the mistake of seeking an alliance with the Soviet Union during the cold war.  With the help of the US, Colonel Joseph Mobutu overthrew the government and executed Lumumba.  He was pretty much the African version of Leopold and held power until 1997, when the leader of a rebel group, Kabila, took over.  Kabila was assassinated in 2001 and now his son rules the country.  Below is a map of all of the languages spoken in the country, as well as the official language of the area (large color blocks/words):

 A map of the different tribes, with Delphin pointing out his:

 Delphin is originally from Kikwit, and Régine's family comes from the Kasai region in the middle of the country.  They don't speak each others' languages, so speak in French and Lingala.  The kids speak mostly French, but are also proficient in Lingala.  Because there are so many linguistic and ethnic groups, the people here like to say that there are no ethnic issues because everyone is a minority. The war going on near Goma right now is actually rooted in the Rwandan genocide. The ethnic violence spilled over with the refugees and now it's the Congo's problem (and all of the Congolese I've talked to are quite upset about the "imported war").  One of Mobutu's chairs:

 Some traditional masks (does anyone else find these really creepy?):

 Yet another mask (check out the photo in the lower left to see the outfits that go along with it. You're welcome for the nightmares):

Anyway, after the museum we drove to a site overlooking the river.  Well, in the rainy season anyway.  In the dry season, a huge patch of land is uncovered and used as a rock quarry:

 A bit closer:

 We could hear the pickaxes clinking, and occasionally a boom of dynamite.  We walked down and climbed over all the rocks to get to the river (really fun, though I'd recommend wearing appropriate shoes/not a dress if you ever try it):

You can't really tell, but there was a giant whirlpool in front of the rocks.  I actually couldn't tell which way the river was flowing!

People swim in the more protected areas between the rocks, but this guy decided that the open river was the place to be.  Nothing like risking death to make your swim extra invigorating:

 I dipped my foot in the water and it was actually pretty warm.  I tried to ask Delphin if schistosomiasis was a big issue there, but I didn't know the word in French.  When I tried to describe it, he thought I was talking about leeches and assured me that there weren't any there.  Well, I still don't know about the schisto, but I'm glad the water's leech free I guess.

 Some of the rocks were enormous.  Hence the dynamite (or other explosive, I don't really know):