They come bearing gifts. Tomatoes, an eggplant, a batch of humus just made the night before. Friends, colleagues, people I barely know stop by to drop off their perishable food. It's food they can't eat in the small time before their departure from Kinshasa. They are bound for vacation, for trips abroad, for reunions at home in whatever land they lay claim to.
Since I am staying, I become a worthy recipient of these small items. I take them gratefully and hope that I too will have time to consume them before they perish. Wasted food makes my heart hurt. Sometimes, staying in Kinshasa has the same effect. I remain to witness the stories of those who cannot go.
While there are more and more recounts of brightness and positivity Kinshasa remains a city, an overwhelming city plagued with dangers. LOOK'iN is one example of a magazine that has great success taking the ordinary and splashing it across glossy pages to transform it into something glamorous. Browsing through its stories, one might begin to get a different image of daily life here. And to be certain, there is an element of culture, art and hope for the future. But for many, life in Kinsahsa remains a battle against fear and for survival of the individual.
It's only the second time a story of violence and apathy has reached me personally, but both times they arrived in a cloak of silence. I am amazed at this process. I welcome a friend to my door and pleasantries are exchanged. He's not so well he says, but still we focus on preparing food and he offers small gifts to the children in preparation for their voyage. He is disappointed because as he was getting out of the taxi, someone grabbed the shoes he bought, but he makes small talk as he hands over brightly colored baseball caps and jackets. Stolen shoes a mere inconvenience of life in Kin.
It's not until much later that he retreats to a bit of solitude and I approach quietly, with patience, to hear the real story. I've learned this is the only way to draw him out. "A man must reflect," he says when I ask if everything is ok. And again, we enter into a discussion that's not really related to the issue at all. More minutes pass before he finally lets me in.
It seems he was on his way- from somewhere to somewhere- the timing is not so clear. Out by 6ieme rue in Limete when he saw a boy that reminded him of his own son. Clean, well dressed. Just a boy walking home. And a gang appeared, gathered him up and began to cart him off. The boy is screaming for help, that he did not do anything and all the people along the road are just watching this. They are hearing his cries of "Where are you taking me?!" and they are doing nothing. It's the koluna, Kinshasa street gangs that are armed, violent and much feared. It seems they do pretty much whatever they want. We'd just been telling stories about them the night before. How, in a certain district, the people are in their homes by 7 pm afraid to come out again. The women who sell bread no longer go to the bakery in the wee hours of 3 and 4 am to collect their wares but wait until full morning light. They don't set out from their houses until 6 or 7 am.
In that night, my friend could see only his son. "I could not support this," he said, shaking his head in wonder at all those who stood by as the boy was beaten and robbed. He approached the group imploring them to leave the boy alone. They began to throw stones and direct their rage at him. He sent his friend off to the corner of the street to call down the police who had gathered there. Eventually the boy was free enough to be sent off running, clothes in tatters, blood streaming down his face and devoid of his telephone and other personal items. When the police arrived, my friend was livid. He exploded in a rage of questions. "How could you just stand there watching?! Can't you tell it is not this boy, clean, well dressed, obviously a student with a family, who has done something wrong?" And the police just shook their heads and said, "It's always like that."
No, it's not always like that. And it needn't be like that if there were repercussions. In our talk the previous night, we discussed how the street gangs often share their loot with the police, or how, if arrested, their friends might show up to pay off the officers who would then release them. It seems a circle of violence and apathy. And what ended up disturbing us both that night was not necessarily the violence but the people. It's the people who don't see their sons or daughters in the faces of the victims. The people who live without security and are consumed by a fear so great they choose to close their eyes and their conscience to the tragedies around them.
That's just one story of daily life here in Kinshasa, without the glitter and the glitz. I imagine a dozen or more similar events played out across the city last night. A real life Gotham City.
