Blogs in Kinshasa

The great thing with blogs is that you get to see things as you were almost there. Tim & Kim live both in Kinshasa and have been witnesses to the fighting last week on their respective blogs. I like this picture of this lone gunman walking the streets. And this is what remains of Bemba's helicopter after the siege of his house...

And the winner is ...

The results of the presidential elections were due on Sunday evening. A couple of hours before, fighting started in the streets of Kinshasa between the armed forces of president Kabila and vice-president Bemba. I guess they knew the results because they both finished top and will have to go to a 2nd round (Kabila has 44% and Bemba 20%). It's just that nobody explained to them how a 2nd round works, so they decided to see who gets to kill the other first. Fighting stopped after 2 days, mostly because there were top UN people under siege in Bemba's house hidden in his cave (wonder if Bemba had good wine down there). Anyway it's all quiet now but still tense. As for us, here in East Congo, it's very calm. Kabila scored 96% in Bukavu and has similar scores in the East. Bemba won the Western part of Congo, so there are fears that the country splits in two by the end of the election. Nice isn't it?

Building a deck

We wanted to build a nice wooden deck for the house and it turned out to be as simple as 1,2,3. First you hire 3 carpenters who dig holes to start with. Second, you buy some wood to go in the holes. Third, you buy the planks to put on top of the wood in the holes.

Fourth, you keep cheering the carpenters up if they fall asleep.

Et voila !

Shop with Jesus

There's one big shop here in Bukavu where you can find pretty much everything you need, even for soul searchers on each bill.

Still counting

The first results came out this week but they're still counting. It is a 2 men race as I had predicted: Kabila versus Bemba. Kabila is very strong in the West (in Bukavu he got 95% of the votes!) with Bemba doing surprisingly well in Kinshasa. Big speculations on whether there will be a 2nd round or not. Rendez-vous on 20th August for the first full results.

So in the meantime, let's smile with my collection of funny shops in Bukavu. Usually the drawing does not match the shop to start with as below: I guess it's better to sell alcohol than meat.
And if you do sell meat, it's better to take an original name and partner with the church...