Whew!

It’s been a hectic six weeks, starting with the mass evacuation of all British and American citizens (which is only now being ended); the election being postponed and eventually held in what can only be described as rickety form; the announcement of results that everyone knew were cooked, and finally the acceptance that it was better to accept cooked results than start fighting again.

Because although the Catholic church had monitored the ballot carefully and made a public statement to the effect that their results were very different from the so-called official ones, and a whistle-blower had leaked results from the electoral commission that substantiated their claim, it was still remarkable that there would be a peaceful transfer of power to an opposition party. Rumours of a back-door deal between the outgoing and incoming presidents to protect the interests of the previously ruling party were not enough to spoil the feeling: we’ve made it! We’ve got a new government without a coup!

As inauguration day approached worries about the ability of the new President to govern were pushed away, and a massive sense of relief swept through Kinshasa. Think of all the bad things of the last decade – maybe they’ll end. Particularly the vicious oppression of all dissent. And, sure enough, one of the few promises made in the inauguration speech was that all political prisoners would be released.

On the day after the inauguration the previously half empty streets of Kinshasa were suddenly full again. It’s not normal to welcome traffic jams, but they were a small price to pay for a return to normalcy. Car parking around our favourite lunch-spot was totally full. Everywhere, people were celebrating. Overnight it had become bad form to criticize the result: instead one should celebrate what is, without doubt, real change. As if to underline this, another rumour spread like wildfire: “The police have stopped demanding bribes”

From behind the curtain

Readers will know that there’s been a bit of trouble in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Violence was expected around the time of the election, so we were told to get our ten days before it. I was due to return on the 4^th January, but was told to delay my return until after the 15^th. The US was following the example of all of the other foreign missions but many were even more cautious.

Some successful demonstrations in the last few years have been organized through WhatsApp and SMSs.  So the DRC government, confusing ends and means, have closed down the internet for the third time in a year. Simultaneously Zimbabwe, facing massive riots, has done the same.

I wouldn’t call myself an internet freak. My phone reports screen time at the end of every day, and it’s less than an hour. BUT, you quickly forget how much we rely on it. In the old days we used to get a paper.  Today we get emails highlighting today’s stories, or turn to the papers on line. We used to listen to the weather forecast on the wireless, now we check our phone. We used to have encyclopaedias to solve disputes or even just get information. Now – Google, in a flash. We used to have letters, now email, with a peppering of FaceBook and sometimes LinkedIn.  And talking about news, even though we’re thousands of miles away we listen to the Today programme on Radio 4 every morning, and lots more besides (how else to understand Brexit?) – thanks, of course to the internet. Finally, of course, there’s Netflix, our only way of seeing a whole lot of films and TV series. All this is possible in a town with no bookshops, no postal service, one cinema, and a very limited range of anything except good food thanks, of course, to the internet.

But wait, there’s more. WhatsApp and Skype have revolutionized our lives. We can chat to whoever we like whether they are in the DRC or lower Patagonia. Since it’s virtually free we talk more and longer. And those expensive crackly phone calls have been consigned to history.

That’s the social stuff. Besides that there’s the business stuff. We get all our bills by email, indeed all communication such as “We want to offer you a job in . . . “, or nasty letters from the bank about credit cards or overdrafts.

That’s insignificant compared to the trouble that businesses – and the aforesaid banks – must suffer. The close down has not been for a few days: it’s been weeks!

For us it’s been a life changing experience, full of strange gaps. My beloved’s comment is to the point: “Now we’ll have to talk to each other”.

(Alert readers will ask themselves how I can post this if there’s no internet: a secret – someone has managed to do a back-door deal to keep theirs going)

PS Just after I had written this, just to prove me wrong, the internet pops up again. So no need for a back door deal.