As we left, I wondered – what am I gonna see in the DRC? – Well, all I could do was wait and see… cause it was nothing compared to anything I have ever seen or imagined. Every travel unravels a view of your origins; what could be better and what you take for granted.
We were booked on a 9:30 morning flight that would take 4 hours to arrive in Kinshasa. Just after we were served plane breakfast, Prince K gooied up… Kids! Quite a start to a holiday. The flight felt lonnnnnnnnnngggggg! I just wanted to get out and see the place.
As we arrived, I got anxious as the view from the plane seemed like ‘home’ – my home village
Phokeng in
Rustenburg. Sparsely populated homes with no roof s and some abandoned looking houses. As I got out the plane; the weather was perfect – warm and humid; not hotttt like I had been warned by others.
As we were going thru customs or immigration; really can’t tell the diff, this old lady behind kept poking me to go and the officials insisted I didn’t go past some line there…eish! A welcome to another country as I couldn’t hear a word they were saying… Nada! Nothing!
Hated part of my holiday
I was not allowed to take pictures and as soon as you get off the plane. You are warned not to take pictures. So most of my pics of what I saw were taken from inside the car.
Electricity outages; tjo! I felt like an idiot for complaining when we were getting loadshedded here last year… You get places where the power levels are so low you can’t even use a microwave oven, some places have about 8 or 9 hour power outages daily and some places where they have no power for weeks!!!
Selling Electricity
So you find some people selling power at the street corner with generators and batteries for you to charge your phone or laptop…
Did-not-like-at-all part of my holiday
The government has a lot of work to do. Everything seems expensive… people are poor… You see a lot of people just loitering. The Chinese people are supposed to be building roads but I saw them doing a lot of damage than fixing.
I hated the fact that some old trees, some seemed older than 100 years old, alongside the main roads are being chopped down.
Best part of my holiday Freedom! Freedom! Pure Freedom and peace! Everybody exaggerates African countries as war filled mini-beiruts with falling buildings, flies and bombs all over. Nope! Lies! You walk around and people are happy to interact with you.
There is a sense of being free and not being in any danger at any point.
Everywhere you visit people offer you sodas or beer… this was weird to me because older people here will not offer you a beer but soda. The food! I ate, and ate and ate and ate and ate! I enjoyed everything I could drink or get my hands on.
Nandos
There is Nandos in Kintambo Magasin – but there was no freaking way I was gonna spend $15 on a ¼ chicken meal… I’ll eat my R33, 95 meal in msanzi, thank you! Like I said, most things are expensive! So I went to the local grilled chicken place called Maman-colonel…
Local Grilled chicken spot!
The best bread in the world is made in the DRC– the bread is called Upak (pronounced eee-pak). I swear I could move to the Congo for this bread! I ate it every day and even brought some back with me – yah, I know you are not allowed to travel with food!
I also went to eat at a touristic place called
Jardin d’Eden in Kinkole; great place with a live band and great food… they can improve the service.
Jardin d'eden bill
I went to Fally Ipupa’s first concert to launch his new album, Arsenal De Belles Melodies, at the Grand Hotel. I had a great time but am still shocked that the ticket price was $100 per person. Maybe I shouldn’t have converted the value to rands to see how much I paid to see this hot chocolate! BUT I would still pay it again to go watch him! Lol!
I saw the advert and had to go!
He had excellent supporting acts such as Mokobe, Fanny and Kris... check Youtube for their stuff.!
Strangest part
It is impossible to drive faster than 60 km/h. The roads need some work, there are no clear signage, no traffic lights and traffic or policemen (you can’t tell the diff, they wear the same uniform) can jump in front of the car at any time.
As we drove to the place we were booked in, a policeman (I assume) jumped in front of the car because he has to stop us for tinted windows. My car windows in msanzi are darker than what I was in, so I was in shock at 2 things – 1. this man just had to jump in front of the car to stop us, 2. He was insisting on getting into the car with us to discuss the problem.
taxi!
The normal driver there drives as bad as the taxi drivers here so yep, the taxi drivers are worse! BUT there are very few accidents than here… i will never complain about our taxi drivers ever again!!!
There are people that sit in the street corners with stacks of money in front of them… yep, foreign exchange. You bring the dollars and they change to the local currency.
foreign exchange
AND No one harms them… with the amount of security vans being bombed here for cash *sigh*…. But like I said before the crime level is almost non-existent and I pray that it is always like that. The feeling of freedom is wonderful!
I am definitely going back! May even emigrate there – wonder if I can get a refugee visa if I say that criminals are after me for being black? Lol! Anywho, a beautiful country with beautiful people and well worth every dollar I spent to experience it.