Our Christmas present to the Governor

Last Monday there was a public announcement: all cars must have road licence disks for the current year (cutely called “vignettes”) by the following day. Massive numbers of police would be checking cars, and those without a disk would be severely penalised.

These disks are issued by the city of Kinshasa, and the proceeds go to it and the Province which shares the same boundaries. The only problem is that, as far as I know, they are not sold at a regular place. For example, one year the sellers located themselves in the middle of a roundabout. On another occasion they were in the forecourt of a petrol station.

On Monday our driver, when he brought the news, said that the sellers would be stationed at a very busy commercial centre about five kilometres away. We gave him the $100 we thought it would cost, and off he went.

Seven hours later he was back. He told us that some people had been queuing since 6.00 that morning, but when he arrived he was only number 38 in the line. By any definition that should mean he would be out within an hour or two.

But no, this calculation ignores the possibility of a simple queue-jumping system. Namely that if you offer $50 to the supervisor you can be seen straight away. To make matters worse, a lot of the queue jumpers were agents wanting to buy for tens or twenties of cars. As a result, by the end of the day, they had only reached number 33 of the honest queuers.

Our driver is not one to put up with this stuff in silence, and by shear force of personality he was served, so that by 5.00, he was back at the office with the vignette itself.

Meanwhile there was talk around the town about how the money would be used. The consensus was that this was a fund-raising exercise by the provincial Governor to buy votes in order to stave off the current impeachment process against him (due, partly, to allegations of corruption). And, of course, for his Christmas festivities.

The next day traffic was very light as most people hadn’t had time to get their vignette. But by 10.00 that morning news that changed everything went viral, as they say: the Director General of the Kinshasa Tax office and his deputy had been arrested for corruption. This gave people the confidence to emerge again, and we’ve seen no road blocks since to check compliance.

Aha, you will say. The Governor impeached, and his tax chief arrested for corruption. Obviously, they’re cleaning up the system. Putting Kinshasa, not to mention the Congo, on the straight and narrow.

Alas, it’s not like that. These events are highly selective. The Governor has made himself unpopular in many ways, and is paying the price. As for the tax collector – sure, there’s probably plenty of evidence. But he’s one in a cast of thousands. So why pick on him?

A night to remember

It was all at the last minute: we scored an invitation to a guest-only fashion show organised by Vlisco. That’s probably a name that doesn’t mean much to most people: they are a Dutch manufacturer of batik cloth (deriving ultimately from their Indonesian colony) – or, as they call it, wax prints. They were established about 170 years ago, and their brightly coloured and elaborately patterned cloth quickly became highly sought after. To this day it is worn for smart occasions all over Africa. Although hundreds of cheaper versions are produced (think China) Vlisco remains the fabric that people aspire to. So it should, at between $100 and $150 per 6 metre piece.

The show starts at 6.30 according to the invitation. We are a bit late and just as we were driving out of our compound realised that we had left the invitation behind.

Our destination was the Memling Hotel, the grande dame of hotels in Kinshasa, now about 70 years old, but still managing to keep its air of Belgian sophistication, with prices to match. But in a part of town infested with menacing street kids.

We were stopped at an intersection, and within view of the hotel, when suddenly three doors of our car were opened. Normally our doors lock automatically, but by opening it at the last minute to get the invitation it seems that we had overridden the system.  Suddenly we felt incredibly helpless.

On the passenger side a tall scruffy boy said “ça va” while trying to snatch N’s handbag. Another one was searching the back seat, while I was struggling to stop my door being opened wider than a foot or so. N was wearing a tight evening dress which is a bit of a constraint on leg movement, but she had the presence of mind to swivel round and give an almighty kick to the attacker’s stomach. Meanwhile I started to drive off and in a matter of seconds the affair was over. But not for us.

Arriving at the hotel we were treated like royalty by the hosts of the event and a bevy of very attractive women – all in Vlisco fabrics – who showed us to our place.

“I need a drink”, said N. Although it was more than 20 minutes after the show was supposed to begin there was no sign of any activity so we asked our neighbours to keep our seats and slid down to the bar. A glass of sauvignon blanc each – “only twenty dollars sir” – and we felt better.

In the end, in good Congolese tradition, the show didn’t start until about 8. By that time, we had been re-seated on the front row of the catwalk which, although it has social cachet means that you’re under blinding lights. One mustn’t complain: it gave us a very good view of the dresses and the models’ stern but fine faces.

Fourteen designers had been selected to participate: each had two dresses on show: one in the first half, and one in the second. Judging would only be based on the dresses shown in the second half.

It was stunningly well rehearsed, presenting different tableaux and movements for each two or three dresses – more interesting than the standard walk-on walk-off system.

At half time – while the models were changing into their second dresses – the compere introduced us to “The Doctor” who, much to our surprise and delight turned out to be a singer. His first song was Caruso, made famous by Pavarotti, followed by an equally famous (in Congo anyway) Papa Wembe song that the audience started to join in, and then a beautiful Ismael Lo song.

The second half followed the same pattern. It was followed by the introduction of the judging panel that included lawyers and accountants to ensure that the process was free of corruption. While the judging was taking place, the Doctor entertained us again.

Tension mounted. The judges couldn’t make up their mind, so all the models were brought back again.

Finally, the winning designers were announced, Oscar’s style.

The panache of the event was slightly dented by the fact that winners had to climb rather steep steps up to the podium. Some found this embarrassing as their movement was restricted by their weight and or their tight dresses. But the drama was ended when a couple of men made themselves available to politely heave them up.

The event was followed by drinks that included, yes, Laurent-Perrier champagne, which helped to put the earlier horror behind us. All’s well that ends well. Sort of.

Postscript: As we left, we bumped into Vlisco’s manager and host of the show. She said that the singer really is a doctor. She’d just discovered his singing skills by accident.

Africa descending

I’m not normally prone to depression, but the hotels of Africa can be very depressing. I’ve written about the experience before, so don’t want to be a bore, but what is truly sad is that so much money goes into building them, but then . . . nothing. Even in remote areas there are marble floors, elaborate ceilings, fancy curtains, and up to the minute sanitary fittings.

I was staying in one such hotel in Goma, only to have my guest experience dulled by the fact that even though the bathroom sported the latest sanitary ware and Hans Grohe taps (very expensive German ones) there was no seat (it had obviously been broken by an earlier guest), neither the basin nor the bath had a plug, and the curtains had pulled away from the hooks and were sagging helplessly. In another one, in Bukavu, the opening to the en suite bathroom was an inch narrower at the bottom than the top so naturally the door had no chance of closing.

It’s a bit similar when it comes to breakfast. We all know that supplies can be difficult, but I’m not sure whether that’s the problem. One day bread, the next day none. Once a week there’s margarine, and never butter. Pawpaws and melons grow like weeds, but one day there’s fruit, the next day nothing.

Then I realise what’s happening. The unfortunate staff are working on their own. They get no support from the big boss who owns the place. Any expenditure has to be justified to him or her in detail and only grudgingly paid after many days. These are not doss houses: they charge between $75 and $100 a night. But that doesn’t matter. Someone up there thinks that the establishment will run itself.

The total absence of middle management has its impact on morale and performance. No one checks up to see when the room has been cleaned or whether all the towels are in place. No one checks to see whether the lights are working (many of them aren’t). No one checks to see whether the little safe in the room is working.

Meanwhile in the kitchen the cooks struggle to cook a menu they neither understand nor like. The hotel in Goma had a five page menu which looked very impressive, but the results bore no relation to the dish’s name. Goujonettes de Tilapia, which should be small fish fingers in bread crumbs was a sloppy mess of fish and mushrooms in white sauce. Pizza was some cheese, olives and ham on a sweet pastry base. Escalope Viennoise looked like a Wiener Schnitzel, but was cooked until it was rock hard.

Lack of management is a problem, but there’s another one: that making repairs is something that should be done tomorrow. I remember visiting a school in South Africa where one classroom was out of use because it was used to store broken wooden desks, cupboards and chairs. Any competent carpenter could have repaired them with nothing more than some glue and a few nails in a matter of days.

For readers who are squirming about this apparently racist labelling of Africa as being incapable of good maintenance I need to point out that it is now a mantra among Africans throughout the continent. “Why don’t we, or can’t we, maintain things?”

In Ghana we met a Ghanaian, who had spent time in the US and had come back to a senior position to oversee the property portfolio of the national insurance fund (SNIT). The hotel we were staying in was one of their properties. Near a palm fringed beach in the tourist resort of Cape Coast. It was relatively new. We were sitting outside and as he looked at the rotting timber fascia, at the cracking and damp stained plaster, and a cracked window pane, and he said: “What’s wrong with us? We Africans just screw everything up.”