The DRC is a French-speaking country and the second language is Lingala. Most people tend to mix the two languages, especially when they use numbers, they say them in French. The city of Kinshasa is located on the Congo River and the capital of Congo, Brazzaville, is right across the river. I was told that these are the closest capitals in the world. The DRC was colonized by Belgium, thus the influence of French and European culture. They even use the Congolese Franc (as well as US Dollars). In fact, you can pay in Dollars at most places, but you may also need to pay in the local currency. If you need to change to Congolese Franc, you just go to the end of the street and find a money changer. The current rate is roughly 500 Francs to $1. The money changers have bricks of money. In the morning, many Congolese eat bread with butter and jam and drink coffee or tea.
The streets of Kinshasa are crazy. The roads cannot handle the amount of traffic that there is. There are huge pot-hole in the middle of the street and the lane lines are not really visible. The main streets are paved, but most of the side streets are sand. I felt like I was on the beach because of all the sand. I went into town during the first few days that I was in Kinshasa and I think I spent more time in traffic jams then actually seeing and doing things. Just like in Nairobi, you can buy many items from street vendors. One of the main vendors sell pure water (Eau pure). They have a huge plastic bag on their heads with smaller (500 ml) bags of fresh water. They even have a "call" that they do to get people's attention. A big shock for me was the local public transportation. In Nairobi, we have matatu - they are mini-vans that carry about 15 passengers. You do see some over-stuffed matatu in Kenya, but that pales in comparison to the ones in Kinshasa. So the transport in Kinshasa have little restrictions to the vehicle and number of passengers. They will take any car and pack (like sardines) people into them. They would take a mini-van (like in Nairobi), but strip the inside and put benches so they can fit more people. They will even have people enter and exit from the trunk. I saw dump trucks loaded with people. As you can imagine, if there were to be an accident, the fatalities will be high.
From the time you enter Kinshasa at the airport, you know that corruption runs deep. If you aren't Congolese you will have problems entering the country. I have heard stories of the immigration officers saying you don't have the proper documents to enter and will ask for money to allow you to enter. You do need to get a visa before you enter. In order to get the visa, you need the visa application, passport pictures, and a notarized letter of invitation from someone in the DRC. God really helped me with my visa. I got the letter from Pastor Bin Moussa on Thursday (a week before I left) and I went downtown to get the visa. It usually takes 48 hours to get, but that would put it on Monday (Christmas Eve) that I would get the visa. God moved and I was able to get the visa in 3 hours. Praise God!
Apart from corruption, the western part of the country is quite stable. I felt more secure in Kinshasa than in Nairobi. I stayed with Pastor Bin Moussa and his family. They had a three-bedroom house with a cement wall. There was no guard and no spiky things on top of the wall to prevent people from climbing over. Throughout my entire time in Kinshasa, I saw a handful of non-Africans. I can now say that I have been to the "true" Africa.
I will tell you more about the details of the trip in my next post.
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