Glitz and Gloom

In the goldfish bowl of Kinshasa society, we meet a lot of diplomats and ambassadors. How privileged to be a diplomat, and how glamorous to be driving one of those cars with a flag! And those glittering balls! All that champagne!

The reality for some is very different. When a regime is running into hard times, the first thing to go is finance for diplomatic missions. The DRC’s Embassy in London has to rely on visa fees for its survival. As a result they have routinely done a midnight flit from the premises they are renting because they cannot pay the rent. For politicians for many countries in Africa, being made an ambassador is the equivalent of being sent into exile, often an exile where you are scrimping and saving just to survive.

It’s not just Africa. Greece had hard times in 2009, and the Greek ambassador – a man who is friendly enough, though he could never be called joyous – told us that he hadn’t been paid for three months. The protruding ribs of his dog proved that he was telling the truth. The crumbling walls of some other embassy residences in our street (Tanzania, Czech, Guinea) reinforce the message that diplomacy can be less than glam.

And income? Surely diplomats get huge salaries? We have three Japanese embassy people living above us. They represent the second biggest economy in the world (well, third now, thanks to China), but live in a state of deprivation. They have to hire the furniture for their flats from the embassy; none have got the money to own a car, and the embassy cars they drive are ten year olds, just good enough to get around in.

It so happens that we got to know a very nice young couple from an embassy of a country in Asia Minor, the identity of which cannot be revealed for reasons which will become clear. He was number 2 in an Embassy of three. He lives with his wife in a tiny and grubby flat just opposite the embassy. Their water supply is erratic and the drains undesirable. Their income is so tiny that they can afford nothing better. They do not speak French and feel totally isolated. Their only fun is the occasional shopping trip into town in one of the three embassy cars.

When they first arrived, life in the Embassy was tense. He and the Ambassador did not get on. The situation was not helped by the fact that Madam Ambassador hated Kinshasa and the embassy, which also serves as the residence. It is a very attractive Islamic style building with a large colonnaded entrance, so that even though it is shabby it has some grandeur. She didn’t see it that way and set about preparing plans to “modernise” it, by removing the obviously Asia-minor features and converting it into a chilly air-conditioned cell.

Then she turned her attention to the young family. On one occasion Madam Ambassador wanted to visit a friend, but couldn’t do so because the embassy car was being used by the number 2’s wife. She exploded with rage. The next day an instruction was issued that under no circumstances was he, number 2, or his wife allowed to use any embassy car for private purposes.

The Ambassador and his malicious wife were transferred about a year later. The departing chief left a note for his successor which criticised the performance of Number 2. One of the new ambassador’s first acts (before even seeing how true the assessment was) was cruelly to show the note to the hapless young man and warn him that he was being watched.

This was surely the last straw. Our bullied young man tried to apply himself to his work in an effort to forget the misery of his life, while his wife’s only solace was the monthly meetings of the international women’s club.

A few days ago, she who must be obeyed had a phone call from the chairwoman of the international women’s club to say that the young diplomat’s wife been asked to leave their meeting and return to the embassy immediately, as her husband was seriously ill. We soon found out that it was a cruel euphemism for the fact that he had shot himself twice in the head and died on the spot.

The tragedy was heightened by the fact that he was his parents’ only surviving child. Both his siblings had died young. Could one ever grasp the extent of the pain that they must be feeling?

Meanwhile, how is the Ambassador reacting?

Is the embassy flag at half mast? Are you joking?