Getting away from it all

There was a time when people measured their time here in terms of how long it was before they could leave. Life was, as they saw it, miserable – only compensated for by the extra pay that they received for putting up with it.

Lots of people have been away recently, what with the evacuations and Christmas. It’s very interesting to hear their reactions when they come back. And what do they say? “I dreaded the moment that the plane touched down”? or “All good things come to an end”? or “I thought of going AWOL”?

No: they said “It’s so good to be back” or “I’ve missed it” or “I couldn’t wait to get on the plane”.

What’s happened? We know all about the “absence makes the heart grow fonder” effect, of course, but that doesn’t explain it all. Things are definitely better: the roads are hugely improved, the police are generally less likely to try and nail you for an offence that you didn’t commit, and the choice of restaurants and shops improves daily. Derelict buildings are slowly being restored or replaced and it seems that power and water shortages are less common. And as survival tensions reduce, people seem less scared and more social than they used to be.

But that’s not to say that it isn’t good to get out of Kinshasa from time to time. It’s definitely rather limited as a town, and diplomats suffer more than ordinary mortals because they are not allowed (for security reasons) to venture beyond the embassy quarter and the main shopping streets.

The classic get-away is to go out on the river, and people love to boast that they go out regularly. Some of the embassies have their own boats, so there’s a chance of added cachet if you can claim to go out on one such. Which is what we did this week.

The ritual is that you go to an island for a picnic or barbecue, accompanied by lots of booze. The islands are not the romantic rocky outcrops with secret coves and golden sands of Treasure Island: they are simply sand banks. Some have a few trees, and some even a fisherman’s hut or two, but they are neither permanent nor beautiful. Nevertheless, it’s so nice to get out of the town that it feels very special.

At this time of the year the river is very high, and on our trip we struggled to find anywhere to land. When we eventually did so, our territory consisted only of a small, and very wet patch of sand, abutting a marshy reed bed. But that was enough, and we set up our barbecue and made the most of it. Luckily it didn’t rain, and people could frolic in the water and sunbathe on the soggy sand.

But it was the name of the boat that brought it all back to me. One had puzzled before about why Embassies need boats: would national budgets really stretch to buying pleasure boats for their staff? Not at all: these are the means of escape when things get really really hot, and all else has failed. When the airport is closed and rebels are controlling the streets how do you evacuate the Ambassador and his last few loyal and fearless staff? You put them in the boat.

(Indeed in the last few weeks a colleague had to use one to get to Brazzaville as the road to Kinshasa’s airport was too dangerous.)

The Germans are best placed for this: their ambassador’s residence is on the road along the river, and on the opposite side is a concrete slipway. During the election period their boat was prominently parked in the driveway with a large German flag flying from the stern.

Politically things seem to have settled down. Electoral protests have stopped. The ban on text messaging, which had been imposed to prevent an anti-Kabila Congolese Spring has been lifted.

What really proves that stability has returned is that the German boat has been put back into storage. Because now there’s no need to get away, is there?

Joyeux Noel

Kinshasa’s something of a ghost town at Christmas. And the Pope will surely be delighted when he observes, next time he’s here in December, that it definitely is not commercialised. Sure, there are a few plastic Christmas trees in hotels and supermarkets. And hawkers, ever optimistic, are selling bizarre blow-up Father Christmases. Otherwise the commercial scene is oddly untouched.

But when we drive into town on the morning of the 24th we notice an instant change in comportment. The police come to attention when we stop the car, and salute smartly, hoping for a Christmas present. In every shop that we enter they wish us Joyeux Noel. And I’m sure they mean it.

But, as you might expect, there are plenty of social orphans. Almost all expatriates have gone home. Many combined their evacuation with Christmas holidays to have a seven week break. Out of the total expatriate staff of the embassy of about 40, there are only five left.

On Christmas Eve we, determined to make the most of things, went out with four single women to a restaurant which was laying on a Christmas Special five course dinner. It was typical of these sort of things: we didn’t know some of them at all, and others very little, so had no idea how the evening would turn out. We needn’t have worried – they were funny and fun. We got home at 1.30, and had made four new friends whom we would invite to our party on the 26th.

On Christmas Day we were invited to the Ambassador’s Christmas lunch. We had been forewarned that it would either be deeply dreary and stiff (by someone who had turned down the invitation), or a sort of American pot luck suburban party where everyone brings a different dish. Both were wrong. Yes it was formal, with 26 people sitting around the table, with crested place cards, china and cutlery, but the atmosphere was very relaxed and the wine flowed freely. The ambassador’s wife who isn’t English, and is puzzled by the standard Christmas Dinner, had just got back from evacuation and brought back lots of food from France so we started with pate of foie gras and magret de canard.

But no amount of socialising can remove the isolation that a lot of single people feel – opening their presents alone is probably one of the most poignant things. A couple of days before Christmas one such person was looking a bit rough. “Hello,” we said, “have a nice time last night?” “Oh yes,” he said, “I was at the Ministry of Defence Party.” “Oh,” we said, surprised, knowing that everyone was away, “who was there?” “Me.”

All's well with the world

“A l’Epoque,” as they say here, “we gave our houseboys food every week. After all, if you gave them money they would just waste it.” This system still survives in some households, but not ours. We, considering ourselves progressive, think it’s patronising to deprive the people right to choose how they want to spend their money.

Last year, when she who must be obeyed gave our maid – sorry, we must be pc, “household helper” – her Christmas bonus she was met with a thunderous boot face. “Where,” she said, “is my gratification?”

“And what,” my beloved demanded, “is a gratification?”

“Oh, some chickens, a sack of rice, sugar, tea and other things.”

How dare she ask for more than the very generous bonus we had given her? Within a second, a friendly and trusting relationship collapsed into fury and acrimony.

After some reflection, we thought it might be wise to find out what other people did. Yes, a gratification was, indeed, customary. So we reluctantly did the right thing and gave her what she wanted.

Forewarned is forearmed, and this year when we hear about an establishment which specialises in Christmas parcels we decide to investigate. It is in a remote industrial area, and once we’ve been let though massive unmarked steel gates into a warehouse compound we were shown to a small office which surprisingly has examples of local art on its walls. In front of us in the queue are some men clutching thousands of dollars, ordering their parcels by the hundreds.

The process reminds me of choosing Christmas Hampers from Fortnum and Mason, as there are more than forty different combinations to choose from, ranging in price from $10 to more than $100. We place our humble order of two and are told to come back on the 22^nd.

These are no ordinary parcels – as the photo shows they are Santa sacks. They weigh a ton. As we hand them over we experience the same warmth that the lord of the manor must have felt when handing his peasants their annual sovereign.

But there are also two gardeners and six security guards. They don’t work for us, but we give them a little Christmas something.

We are out for several hours, and when we come back, one of the guards gives us a lovely bouquet of flowers, and our front door is flanked by two small vases and decorated with shrub cuttings. The next morning we get two Christmas cards: one from the guards and one from the gardeners.

God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world. And our palm tree Christmas Tree is looking very pretty.

Butterflies and visas

There is a totally improbable theory that the wind created by the wings of a butterfly, as it flits from flower to flower, can ultimately trigger a hurricane at the other side of the world.

Well, here’s another story of cause and effect, and this one is real.

If the Congolese Government had not decided to abolish the old Electoral Commission, and establish a new one under different legislation; and

If that process had not taken far longer than it should have done, and the electoral commission had not come into being 6 months late; and

If the elections had not been characterised by flagrant abuses due to totally inadequate preparations; and

If the Congolese in South Africa had not protested violently about the elections at their Embassy in Pretoria, breaking windows and scaring the embattled diplomats; and

If, as a result the embassy had not been closed for three weeks, thus forcing us to get a visa for a family member from the immigration services in Kinshasa; and

If the immigration department in Kinshasa had not failed to complete the process in two days as promised; and

If the following day had not been declared a public holiday, at the last minute, to celebrate the Presidential inauguration, thus delaying issuance of the visa again; and

If the next day had not been a day for Christmas shopping or similar things that immigration staff have to do a couple of days before Christmas;

THEN we would not have been waiting for the visa until 11 hours before she had to leave home to catch the flight, namely 7.30 p.m. Kinshasa time.

How come it took so long? The document is a simple one-pager, normally provided within two days. The formalities, including $250 in cash, had all been complied five days before. Even after the document was completed, we heard, it was four hours before the boss signed it. He was there – that we know. Could it be that he wanted to show who was boss? That he was more important and more powerful than we? And that no one could tell him what to do?

Indeed the whole event seemed to be in jinxed, because at the same time that we were supposed to be driving to and from the airport the self-proclaimed President, Tshisekedi was going to take his inaugural vows at the main stadium. This, we were told, was going to cause massive riots, shootings, tear gas and mayhem.

We managed to get permission to use the Embassy’s armoured car to go to the airport, but it turned out that the convoy was not going to leave in time for our flight. Luckily our kind employers said they would pay for four armed security guards to accompany us.

When the day came, we took a route that avoided the supposed hotspots and we arrived in normal time – passing nothing more sinister than a few tanks and bored soldiers, but otherwise without any indication that anything might be wrong. All the security scares, once more, proved pessimistic.

But that was not the end of the affair. Apparently, the type of visa required that passports should be submitted to the big man at the airport who had, once more, to sign every one. And once more he was soooo slow, because, of course he was soooo overworked. And because of the large number of people from South Africa who needed one. So what could have been a quick stamp in the passport was, in fact, a wait for one and a half hours while we waited for him to condescend to do the necessary.

All’s well that ends well, but one wonders how the visa and passport people see themselves. Slaves to a system that overworks and underpays them? Or clever people who can manipulate affairs to their own advantage?

(Admission: at four o’clock on the day we needed the visa we asked the expediter whether the boss was holding out for money. We were so desperate we would have paid him something, but our man said that at this stage it wouldn’t help . . .)

The Phony War

This is an unusual blog, written solely to say that there’s nothing to say. Nothing.

We’ve been sitting around all week waiting for the big bang, when the anger being felt deeply by the people of Kinshasa about the election results will boil over. And what has happened? Nothing.

When anyone meets anyone else, the question is always the same: “What have you heard?” The answer is “Nothing”.

One by one electoral observers issue their reports. None of them say that Kabila didn’t win, but all of them say the results must be challenged: there are too many flaws for them to be allowed to stand as they are. But even though outrage is notched up a bit more each time a new report is issued, what happens? Nothing.

If you ask people who consider themselves closely linked to the opposition what they’re going to do about the election, which almost everyone has admitted was deeply flawed, they say nothing except “wait and see.”

Meanwhile, the elaborate plans to have military escorts for people who need to go to the airport have been shelved. The same security types who supervised evacuations are leaving for Christmas, because there’s nothing for them to do. Nothing.

State of play

So, we’re back to more or less normal working hours and on the face of it things have settled down. So here’s the state of play:

For election observers

As usual the Southern African Development Community (SADC) representing all Southern African countries, which had a huge observer mission, pronounced themselves very satisfied with the results – just as they had done after Mugabe’s totally stolen election four years ago.

Not so the Carter Centre which documented many absurdities such as the results of 3000 polling stations “lost” of which 2000 were in the opposition stronghold of Kinshasa, while in a Kabila stronghold a polling station recorded 99.46% turnout with 100% of the votes going to Kabila. In some counting stations ballots were strewn all over the floor and mixed up. Others were left outside, and official result sheets got wet and had to be hung on washing lines to dry.

The Catholic church has joined the Carter Centre in stating that the results were not credible. The EU is announcing its findings today or tomorrow.

For Presidents

That’s right – PresidentS, because Kabila was pronounced the winner, but Tshisekedi announced that it is he, Tshisekedi, who is President, not Kabila. He's just announced his Prime Minister - Kamerhe, another opposition candidate for Presidency.

Kabila has conceded that certain irregularities took place, but claims that they do not invalidate the results. His position will surely be ratified by the Supreme Court on Thursday.

Tshisekedi has refused to go to court to challenge the results, as he claims that it is stuffed with Kabila judges – which is true. (The Supreme Court had 8 judges until recently, but Kabila appointed another 18 recently, thus ensuring a favourable verdict to any challenge.) Meanwhile, while continuing in his fiction that he is President, he is holed up in his house in Kinshasa. The police use “law and order” issues to prevent him driving around, so he is virtually under house arrest.

For the Electoral Commission

The Chairman has stated, with a sweep of the hand (to quote press reports) that the Carter Centre (a) doesn’t know what it is doing, (b) didn’t have enough observers to make a fair assessment, and (c) is a tool of the opposition. So, he says, the Commission has nothing to be ashamed of.

But its work is far from over. If counting was a problem for 11 presidential candidates, one hates to think of the chaos that reigns in counting stations at the moment as it count the votes for the 18,000 MP candidates.

For the police

The police are congratulating themselves for handling the situation so well, and for that they thank the many years of training funded by the EU and the British Government. This has helped them contain protests extremely effectively, with relatively small loss of life. They have changed their previous style of going into riot situations with guns, and shooting wildly: now they are unarmed, but have state-of-the-art riot protection kit, tear gas and water cannon to do the job “humanely”.

Their tactics have been to throw cordons around all areas of unrest, effectively preventing any movement. In this way they have prevent demonstrations and anti-government (dare one say pro-democracy?) protests from taking place.

For the man in the street

The protests in the days following the election results took the form of burning tyres, blocking roads and establishing a general state of mayhem. They were led by disaffected young men, who often enjoyed a bit of looting too. Almost everyone in the office witnessed some form of trouble. But the police were quick to respond with teargas and similar tactics and activities were suppressed quickly. Since they are underpaid, once they had stopped the public from looting they took their share too.

But many have the scars, physical and emotional, of rough handling by the police. Our driver’s family had tear gas canisters shot right into their house which is fairly near a main road and his children were seriously affected by the gas.

For shopkeepers

Though some of the big shops opened almost every day, it’s a different story for the little ones. Most of them remain closed as the spectre of past pillaging looms large in people’s memories. The windows of clothing shops have only naked mannequins, and others are locked behind impenetrable steel sheets. For the tiny shops in the suburbs, which can’t afford proper protection, every day brings new terrors.

For political observers

While change offers the prospect of progress, it is also a risky thing, so most foreign political observers –for example embassy types – are happy with the result because it represents stability. They feel that they have come to know Kabila and are making a little progress with him. They were worried about Tshisekedi’s wild statements which show no respect for the rule of law. It’s a case of “the devil you know” syndrome which is unfortunately supported by so many historical examples.

For governance advisers

There were moments when we began to welcome the prospect of change which a Tshisekedi government would bring. We thought of the many incompetencies of the previous government – indeed its apparent lack of any real will to make a difference. How good it would be to help put in place effective policies and management. Wishful thinking, of course.

But no matter who the president is, there is a lot of waiting before we have a government The system is that the Cabinet has to be elected by the National Assembly, and it will surely take a long time for the MP’s election results to be finalised. What is more, it is by no means certain that there will be a pro-Kabila majority, so there’ll be a lot of horse trading to be done. Which takes time. Indeed, it might not be until March before there’s a final decision. Meanwhile do we twiddle our thumbs?

For the expatriate community, and especially their security advisers

Was all that security fuss unnecessary? What’s going to happen in the next few days? What’s going to happen to all our tins of baked beans? Our 1500 litres of water? Are we to pretend that we’re still on the brink of disaster? Maybe: the papers are full of stories about electoral malfeasance and we have been promised daily peaceful protests by the opposition which can turn nasty at any time.

If you ask the Congolese they will tell you that it’s not over yet. If you ask me – no don’t, I might be wrong.

Flowers of peace

For most people, the election results were in doubt until near the end, but for the victor they had never been. Just to rub in the fact that the results were a forgone conclusion, within ONE MINUTE of the end of the official declaration, there was a five minute commercial congratulating the victor, showing our beloved re-elected President being adored by villagers (Jesus’s Palm-Sunday-entry-into-Jerusalem-style), driving a modern motor boat (straight out of his election billboards), followed by a sequence of him being hailed by massive crowds in a political rally, to the tune of massed choirs.

We watched the results being announced on the TV. The moment it was finished we heard cars blowing their horns, and going outside to have a look, saw them driving at breakneck speed with people hanging out of the windows waving and yelling.

We had heard that Kabila had pre-booked the ballroom at the Grand Hotel – round the corner from us – to celebrate his victory. After three days of abortive bookings today was the day. Curiosity got the better of us and we walked with the dogs down towards the hotel to see what was happening. From a safe distance, alongside a few bored soldiers fiddling with their machine guns, we could see a massive crowd, protected by many police vehicles, singing, dancing and waving Kabila posters.

Deciding to get no closer, we turned round and started our usual walk. There was no one in sight, but apparently from nowhere a total stranger passed us, muttering, as he gave us a knowing look, “five more years of suffering”. Apart from him the only people we saw were security guards, policemen and soldiers, and a Lebanese family which stopped their 4 x 4 to put a fabric Kabila advertisement onto their rear door, by way of protection no doubt. I wonder where they got it from.

Towards the end of our walk, we passed a row of frangipani trees, their blossoms, having been struck off by the fierce rain of the night before, lying on the grass. She who must be obeyed picked up a selection of the flowers to take home. Just then we were joined by a friend who had also defied orders by going out, and while we were chatting when we heard “Madame!” The shout came from the nearby residence of a dignitary which has VIP protection. Now that he had our attention, a policeman came across the road carrying a bunch of flowers. “He’s going to sell them to me,” she muttered, “typical entrepreneurial Congolese spirit.” Not at all. He had nipped into the garden while we were talking, picked the flowers and made them into the little bouquet you can see above. “It is a present, Madame,” he said, “I can see you like flowers.”

Waiting for??

We had been confined to barracks for four days and NOTHING had happened. For those staff who had been moved to extremely uncomfortable accommodation in the Embassy, the situation was much worse. They were hungry and bored. The young ones (= anyone under 35) decided they were going to go out in the evening, like it or not, and in the face of this mini-revolt the somewhat sheepish security personnel allowed them to go – “but be careful! If anything goes wrong it’s on your shoulders.”

Indeed, as time passed, even the security types were getting bored, or losing confidence, and the next morning, Friday, our routine warning messages were expressed in milder terms. A friend reported that she had dared to go to the Golf Club for a game of tennis, and everything seemed normal, so we decided to join her there for lunch.

It is in the centre of town, reached by the main boulevard which is typically the scene of must hot action. What a let down. We were expecting to have to negotiate road blocks manned by menacing soldiers, the streets to be empty and shops closed. Far from it. Everything was normal. After a leisurely, and not alcohol-free, lunch we went to the shops to buy a few things, and then to an ice cream parlour for a delicious lemon sorbet. “You’ve got to be back by four,” was the instruction, as the results were going to be announced at six, and crowds would start gathering.

But at six they said that the results would be published at 8, then at 8 they said it would be 10, and then at 10 they told us it had all been postponed until tomorrow.

Cabin fever got worse the next morning, made much worse by the fact that no one knew what was going on. Why had the results been postponed? What manipulation was going on? All our sources had the same message: we simply don’t know.

Tempers were getting short, and the situation was exacerbated by worrying portents. One of our neighbours, who is diabetic, had collapsed in a coma, fallen over and gashed his head and had had to be taken to hospital in a state of bloody delirium. Our internet connection had suddenly completely failed and no one was on duty to advise us what to do about it. International SMSs were now also being blocked as well as local ones.

Staying indoors is not much fun, even if you’re prepared for it, so we decided to go into town again. This time everything was closed, with the exception of a new coffee shop which we had found the day before and which had promised to stay open. We were the only customers but there was a full staff to serve us.

Soon after we got home we turned on the TV, and, believe it or not the Government station was preparing for the announcement of the results. After agonisingly slow preparations and agonisingly long pompous speeches about how the law had been followed and the results were free and fair, CDs containing the results of every single one of the 60,000 polling stations were conspicuously given to the Ambassadors present. The ground thus having been laid, the results were read out, province by province. There were no surprises: Kabila had won by a substantial majority.

When the show was over we went outside to tell our security guards. They had already heard, and were not feeling so jolly. They said it meant five more years of poverty, of being a university graduate and having no job, and not being listened to. How, we asked, will the news be greeted where you live? “Not good”, they said, “there are many angry young men. They will cause trouble.”

An eerie lull

The office is closed and we all pretend to work from home. But the gardeners for our flats have conscientiously come to work, and report gangs of youth prowling around their neighbourhood, looting and terrorising. In spite of this, the situation is said to be more or less under control. Shopkeepers tell us their shops will remain closed and shuttered until further notice, and that they have moved their valuable goods to warehouses or their homes.

Along the street in front of us, several large army trucks are seen driving towards the President’s office. Meanwhile, our walk along the river has been closed, and more sandbags are brought in to shore up previously modest defences (against an invasion from Brazzaville?). Above all there’s an uncanny silence.

It’s funny how the history of the DRC and Kinshasa has taught us to expect violence, but when nothing happens what do we say: is it “How silly of me”? or is it “Just wait – it’ll come”? Unfortunately the latter – there seems to be unanimity about that. And the longer we are kept waiting the more absurd the shuttered shops and empty streets seem to feel.

But everyone seems convinced that the worst will happen. The embassy staff who were not housed in the grounds of the embassy started to get nervous, so yesterday they were moved to the few houses in the embassy compound, and had the sensitive job of negotiating whose bedrooms they will use. Security staff congratulate themselves that they have evacuated family members some time earlier. The office of she who must be obeyed is divided into two: one side is now the billet for the local security guards. It is identified by a large carpet – which is to be their mattress until further notice.

Last night we went for a sun-downer on the roof of a flat not far from here. We took the dogs for our protection and their enjoyment. They got into the lift without turning a hair, and once on the roof decided that it was their very own territory to be defended against all comers.

As we sat up there, with a wonderful view of a red sun setting over the glistening river it was hard to have any sense of emergency. But these calm thoughts were interrupted by American Embassy radios spluttering urgent instructions that employees were, with immediate effect, forbidden from leaving their houses, and only in extreme cases, formally approved in advance, could they move, and then only in armoured vehicles. The subjects of these instructions took no notice, and it wasn’t until after supper that they left, in ordinary cars. The sense of unreality intensifies.

There’s almost nothing to talk about except the election. Based on evidence from a wide range of sources, including election observers, the predominant view is that Tshisekedi has won, but that somehow Kabila will be declared the victor. There’s outrage in many quarters about the apparent willingness of the international community to go along with vote fixing in the interest of “stability”.

This morning, a day after the official deadline for announcing the results and the expiry of Joseph Kabila’s five year term of office, we are told that the full results will not be declared for another two days – maybe on Thursday evening. The Electoral Commission is under huge pressure, and their families have also fled, typically to Belgium. All international flights have apparently been cancelled.

Getting information is incredibly difficult: nowhere, it seems, can we find tabulated results. So we channel-hop on radio and TV trying to find out what is going on. Tension mounts and the dogs curl up in the corners looking miserable, also expecting the worst.

But apart from that life is absolutely normal. No worries, mate.

Results??

Unauthorised results of the election have been pouring in. We hear that if you add up the results of individual polling stations, Kabila has been ousted by Tshisekedi. On Thursday Tshisekedi stops claiming that the election has been a fraud and proclaims himself president.

Suddenly, people who were aligned to Kabila start to worry. Panic buying of airline seats starts as people demand to be got out – anywhere will do. The travel agent tells us, hush hush, that Kabila’s wife is on the flight to Brussels on Friday night.

The office’s evacuation plans are notched up: someone is booking us hotel rooms in Brazzaville, and a boat is ready to take us across when need be.

The Friday evening barbecue at the Embassy is well attended, with only one topic of conversation: what’s going to happen. The Ambassador has met Tshisekedi: he’s in a militant mood, and not particularly interested in anything a foreigner might want to say, and when a bunch of ambassadors tell him to accept the result peacefully he is outraged.

Evidently, the way things are going does not please Kabila. The government machine jumps into action: to prove that Tshisekedi is lying the Electoral Commission changes its policy of delaying the results until they are complete, and starts to release them in stages. Each batch is selectively designed to show that Kabila is just in the lead. Conspicuously, there are hardly any results from Kinshasa, where we know Tshisekedi has a massive lead.

That’s not all. To stop (pro-Tshisekedi) rumours, the government closes down the text messaging (SMS) service on the mobile phone networks. This truly puts the cat among the pigeons as far as the safety plans are concerned, which are largely based on SMS systems. I’ve got a Blackberry which has its patent messaging system, so can still receive messages from the office. But Embassy contingency plans to contact staff and citizens in the event of a real emergency are now useless.

It is Saturday morning. The SMS system is dead, and it is pouring with rain. We go shopping. As I step out of my car a policeman offers to share his umbrella with me. It is a small woman’s retractable model and is hardly big enough to cover us both, so he says “you have it” and I take it, with him, slightly sodden, a step or two behind. This, one might say, is public service at its best, but in fact it’s his latest (and clever) money making scheme: brolly hiring. I give him a nice tip and everyone’s happy.

Inside the shop everything seems completely normal. No signs of panic buying, and none of the empty shelves that I’ve seen in similar situations elsewhere, though we make our contribution by panic buying Christmas decorations.

That evening, we go to a restaurant we have never tried before. It’s right in the centre of town, but all is calm. The restaurant is busy. The proprietor proudly shows us his night club next door. Even though it is early, it’s buzzing, in proper Kinshasa style.

The warning messages continue to arrive, but seem oddly out of tune with reality. Are the fears of securocrats misplaced, or is this still the lull before the storm?

Post election calm

A curious sense of calm has descended as we congratulate ourselves on being the brave ones to stick it out, while the chickens have run away to distant shores.

In fact we are all a bit disappointed that there wasn’t a bit more mayhem to test our mettle, even though, as time goes by more and more stories surface regarding ballot-box stuffing and other scandals; and more and more incidents of violence are reported. So that’s enough to keep us on our toes for the next episode which is the announcement of the election results on 6th December. It is expected to be very close. Could the fact that Gbagbo was been moved to the International Criminal Court in the Hague on 30th November be a warning to Kabila not to do anything silly if he loses?

Now is the time to take stock. Are we sure that we have enough to survive? I had a look at our larder. After having eaten most of our emergency provisions, we decided to go for it seriously, and bought a mountain. Then when we got back we found out that, in fact, we had more than we thought already in stock. So here’s an idea of what’s on the shelf:

Baked beans 7 cans
Chick peas 6 cans
Chilli beans 8 cans
Tuna 6 cans
Sardines 5 cans
Tomatoes 5 cans
Tomato paste 10 cans
Milk 10 litres
Cooking oil 3 litres
Butter and margarine 6

Spaghetti - about a ton

We’ve also got lots of chocolate, bread, biscuits, spices, tea and coffee for six months, frozen meat and fish and so on.

The old timers warn that you can’t rely on anything frozen because the electricity will be off so we won’t have electricity so must lay in stocks of food that doesn’t need cooking, but we’ve also got an elderly barbecue and masses of charcoal, and a tiny gas ring just in case.

But man cannot live on bread alone. Even she who must be obeyed needs a bit of alternative sustenance from time to time. So we have 95 bottles of beer, 73 bottles of wine, three bottles of whisky, and a few open bottles of gin, vodka etc.

Why worry?

The morning after . . .

Having an official election observer in the family, we can give an authentic view of what happened in some polling stations. The day before voting starts she is given her official card and an embassy tee shirt to proclaim her role. Armed with two bottles of water, numerous nibbles for sustenance and a large handbag as a weapon, she and her team-mate are driven at 5 a.m. to the first of the polling stations, where the embassy driver will vote.

The first thing they notice is that all the electoral banners and posters, which had until yesterday covered the town from top to toe, have gone. Every one. No one seems to know whose job is was to remove them, but they have been strikingly efficient.

The polling station opens fifteen minutes late, but this creates no problems. In any case there aren’t huge crowds waiting. The station is, like most others, a school, and voters are divided up alphabetically, so that everyone between A and C goes to classroom 1, D and F to classroom 2, etc. The names are on lists stuck onto the wall, so that voters can also check whether they are, in fact, registered to vote at this location. It works well. The staff are courteous, the voting is not as slow as feared, and the queues move smoothly. One of the interesting things was that the format of the voting papers had been changed. Even though all the candidates had been told that the voting papers would be up to 50 pages long, and posters all provided the page number as well as the candidate number, in fact the voting papers were only about 25 pages, printed on tabloid-sized paper. Voters were being told to fold their papers in such a way that their vote was on the outside. Much more sensible.

The driver having voted, they go to another polling station, and a third. Then they try a totally different area, subconsciously hoping to find something a bit more news-worthy than a well-run election. The only untoward thing is that one woman is seen at two stations. Was she voting twice? One can’t be sure.

They meet some official EU observers: very seriously following the 30 page instruction manual that they have been given. And there are party observers too, but since they don’t carry any official badge it’s hard to be sure who is who.

At midday, they decide to have a break, returning in the late afternoon to observe how the closure of the voting stations – supposed to be at 5 p.m. (before nightfall) – is being handled. This typically creates problems if people are shut out before they have voted.

The scene now is totally different. The first school they went to is now the scene of riots. They are told that a large black jeep, without number plates and with darkly tinted windows, had driven into the compound. Armed men (dressed, of course, in black) had then stuffed the ballot boxes with voting papers, and left. You can believe that if you like – but certainly the crowd did, and they were baying for blood. They, in turn, had raided the station and grabbed voting papers which they then tore up and stamped in the mud. There were riot police everywhere, and although fighting seemed to have subsided, it was very tense.

It was at that time that our intrepid election observers heard the rumourville news about the bodyguards of Tshisekedi – Kabila’s main opposition. The story was that when he had arrived at the airport on Saturday for his final rally, his bodyguards had been “arrested”. Today, Monday, their bodies had just been found. Tshisekedi’s followers, who are in the majority in Kinshasa, are likely to get very angry when they find out.

They go to another polling station. This is set in a huge playground which is full of people. They are not queueing, just hanging around. As soon as the Embassy car arrives there is surge of young men, who pack around the car, shouting angrily. The driver opens his window to ask them what is going on. Their issue is simple. The elections are corrupt. They feel helpless, but know that these white people can sort it out. They demand action.

They may have meant well, but clearly this was a situation that was best avoided. Gradually, inch by inch, the driver eases out of the compound and they get away. They try one last station, where they meet another EU observer. She says that the station is just about to close. The rule is that once the doors are closed no one can leave until counting has finished, so they decide to leave the matter in her capable hands and get out before it is too late.

As they drive back they receive a text message on their phones from the Electoral Commission which has accredited them. Voting hours have been extended, and in the case of polling stations that opened late or not at all there will be a second day of voting.

That evening we channel-skip the international news channels, trying to find out what has been happening in our own backyard. The Egyptian elections receive far more coverage, but the DRC gets a small share with pictures of bloody riots, tear gas, anger and confusion. Is it the full story? – of course not, but then it never is.

Waiting for lockdown

It’s two days to go. About half our friends have left, the office is closed until further notice, telephone tree systems for making sure everyone can be contacted have been set up and tested. It’s the last day of campaigning and the two main contenders for president, Tshisekedi and Kabila have organized rallies at the same stadium, thus ensuring that there will be conflict. We get text message warnings to avoid the area. These are followed in rapid succession by warnings that violence has erupted somewhere else, the Governor of Kinshasa has banned both rallies, that Tshisekedi was at the airport, demanding to travel into town, but being blocked by police, that he has gone to the local airport with similar results, that there is fighting on the airport road and 6 people have been killed by Kabila’s armed escort, that all American personnel have been told not to leave their residences, and that a state of emergency is being considered.

The cumulative effect of the messages is quite worrying, but in fact there’s no trouble anywhere near us, and we are not being threatened. We go out for our usual walk with the dogs, and meet US Embassy people who are similarly not worried about the situation; they stroll along in shorts and sandals, enjoying the balmy evening.

But friends who have been here a long time have gone into panic mode. They phone to tell us not to go anywhere: they talk of the risk of being caught unprepared, and the horror of having to spend days on end as a captive somewhere without food or water.

That evening, we’ve been invited to a party given by the Defence Attaché. We know we’re in good company when we see ten military grab-bags on the steps outside the house. Inside are defence attachés from the major embassies and many British soldiers. A Congolese woman who comes from a wealthy family, and now works in a military English language training programme, is very distraught: her family mechanic has been killed in the cross fire when Kabila was attacked on the airport road. But the general mood is far from fearful – indeed as far as the security people are concerned there’s nothing to worry about. The warning messages have made the situation seem worse than it is, because if they didn’t warn people they would be blamed if something bad happened. I chat to an officer who specialises in such situations: his last posting was Libya. Even that, he assures me, was much less bad than it seemed on the TV.

The few remaining fears thus quelled, we go into town to meet two BBC World Service correspondents. They have invited she-who-must-be-obeyed to dinner to thank her for facilitating many of their interviews in Kinshasa. We walk from their hotel to one of the better restaurants: the only people visible are a couple of street kids, who give us a predatory eye, and security guards. Inside the restaurant all is normal, if very quiet. Our hosts talk of the interviews they have broadcast in the past week, and the incredibly good response from their management and the listeners.

The next morning, we go for our walk along the river. There are slightly fewer people than normal, but the sense is that there’s nothing to worry about. The Congolese soldiers manning the check points give us a relaxed “Bonjour”. We bump into a familiar figure, a presidential candidate who is a regular walker, and is generally expected to come in fourth out of the eleven candidates. He has his normal entourage of five bodyguards, and looks more than usually forlorn – or is it worried? Only when he passes our gate and the guards jump to attention does his face light up with a hint of a smile.

Three days to polling day

When you see a truck delivering 150 bottles of water, each containing 20 litres, to the flat of some farsighted people above us, you know that something’s up. And when the Congolese who can afford it are panic-buying tickets to get out – anywhere will do (though South Africa is the favourite with Belgium a close second) – then you know that something’s in the air. They, the Congolese, earnestly tell us that they KNOW (they’ve been here before) things will get bad.

We, living in our expatriate enclave some distance from the political fray, wonder how much we will be affected. It’s different from being in the middle of things, as many of them are.

Of course, preparations for the worst have been going on for ages. We’ve watched in fascination as, everywhere you look, near and far, boundary walls are being raised, metal fences are being covered in sheet steel, all crowned by coils of razor wire. Some pessimistic owners (including our office) have replaced their five year old razor wire, a relic from the previous election, with new stuff. Buildings in the commercial areas that were open to the street have suddenly become enclosed in prison-like fencing.

Embassies, particularly our own, have been stocking up on emergency rations and water for ages, and last week a small army arrived to reinforce the existing Gurkha contingent. A fleet of small boats, Dunkirk style, has been assembled – brought in, in some cases from distant parts, especially for the event – to provide a possible means of escape to Brazzaville, on the opposite side of the river. As always it is the French who are best prepared, and you know that if French citizens are to be attacked, they will be vigorously defended.

When you meet people, the first question is “going or staying?” If you’re staying you can bask in a sort of we’re not chickens like you, gung-ho glory. Of course, in most cases, the people in question have no choice. Whether embassy, NGO, or private company, many employers are taking out their staff simply to avoid any liability in case things should go wrong. The British embassy decided about six weeks ago that all spouses and children and non-essential staff would be evacuated, though most of the others planned to stick it out. Something must have changed, because the Dutch Embassy suddenly decided on Tuesday that all staff must be out within two days. The Swedes also evacuated all but their three senior staff yesterday. We received a notice from our sponsoring international agency stating that although we were not being evacuated for now, they could issue a stop-work order and evacuate us at any time.

Are we worried? Not at all, but that could be famous last words. She who must be obeyed is to be an election observer: armed with two bottles of water and a large handbag, she’ll be in the nether regions of Kinshasa keeping an eye on things. That could be the most dangerous episode.

We received guidance about stocking up on food and duly went to the shops and bought a whole lot of stuff. The only trouble was that we ate it all so had to go a second time. Old timers say that you must expect to have no electricity or water so baked beans seem like a good bet. Flour and, oddly, cereals are now off the shelves, long-life milk is getting low, but for the rest there’s still plenty. All the same, most international agencies have paid their staff early so that they can stock up early, and we have followed suit.

The President is making his own arrangements. He has promised to leave office peacefully if he looses, but has hedged his bets by installing massive guns around his residence, and the tanks protecting his house are seen out on regular exercises. Many say that him loosing is not on the cards: the rumour (“I know it’s true because I heard it from so-and-so”) is that, for example, three million ballots, already marked up, were discovered in South Africa, about to be airlifted to Kinshasa.

The arrangements for the voting are truly chaotic. Many polling stations will have to operate in the open air, as the tents have not arrived. That means that if it rains they will be unable to operate. Some so-called polling stations do not exist at all, and no one believes that supplies to the remote ones will get there on time.

The funniest feature of the election is that there has been such a demand for Congolese Francs, that they have increased 10% in value against the dollar. Why such demand? To pay the voters, silly.