Kinshasa

It’s been an absolute age since I’ve written on my blog, but I’m being inspired by my new team-mate who is busy typing away on hers.
I’ve just come back from a trip to Kinshasa, the capital of DRC. It might be in the same country, but it’s still a 4 hour flight to get there (compared to a few minutes to cross the border into Rwanda). I liked it far more than I thought I might – there’s a lot of greenery around and the roads are fairly open. The number of tarmac-ed roads also surprised me, in my head it was a bit like Goma but slightly bigger, but really it was more akin to Kampala or Nairobi. The one main boulevard has 4 lanes of traffic in each direction (yes! Actual lanes!) with traffic lights which count down so you know how long you have to wait (would be good to have them in the UK). There was definitely a higher level of affluence, with many clean, impressive buildings and shops similar to the UK with glass windows…
It’s taken me a year and a half in the Congo before visiting the capital, so I didn’t want to just stay in the hotel the whole time. With the Congo river just a couple of minutes from the main road, I asked if we could go and see it. However, apparently there’s only one place where you can actually *see* the river as opposed to the many industrial works, and that was a 20 minute drive away. It seems that no-one has caught on to riverside bars and restaurants… The river was pretty big, but not quite as large as I was expecting after seeing it in Kindu, half way through it’s journey. I think that it’s a bit further on, nearer the sea where it gets even wider. It was pretty big though, and we could only just see Congo-Brazzaville on the other side – Kinshasa and Brazzaville are the two closest capitals in the world.
We also found somewhere just around the corner from our hotel which had amazing pizza. It has to rank amongst the top pizzas I’ve ever had, and definitely compared to anything that I’ve had here. There was also a TV at the outside restaurant, and so we followed some of the Congolese news. Realised that it’s not something that I keep track of much in Goma, although I’m not sure if that’s me (i.e. not listening to TV/radio) or if that’s Goma – being so far away from the capital you’re less interested in what all the Ministers are up to and the forthcoming Presidential election.
The reason I was in Kinshasa was a meeting that ECHO held to discuss the strategy for next year. Was an interesting meeting, though I think I’m still not quite used to the life where you go on a 3 day trip with a 4 hour flight in each direction just for a 2 hour meeting…! It wasn’t as if it was very expensive though – ECHO has a free flight service for humanitarian workers, and I managed to get quite a lot of work done away from the interruptions of the office. Am glad I went – and glad to be back home in Goma again.