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.”