Party town

To all of you wondering what I'm up to these days and why the blog is not often updated: I've been working as a consultant manager at the 'Welfare Club', a restaurant/hotel/bar in the middle of the UN compound. More on that soon. But I've also been DJing almost full time for the Bukavu party people. These parties go on until very late
And you can also meet VIP (Tom Selleck from Magnum PI with Alex, Thierry Lhermite in the background)

Bukavu shops

Some new shots of the always-surprising Bukavu shops !
This one is dedicated to football fans...

Second round of elections

OK I am a bit late (did I tell you I now run the UN restaurant?) but here are images of the second round of the Congolese presidential elections. You (surely) know now that the winner was Joseph Kabila (won 58% of the votes), although Bemba the loser is still threatening to make a civil war out of it.

It all started way too early for me on a Sunday morning: 6am. Alex was all pumped up driving us to Kadutu, the 'popular' area of Bukavu (I call it the 'Favela'). Kadutu is a mix of dodgy houses one next to each other, but it has a great atmosphere and is a huge fan base of Kabila as you can see...

Alex was still waking up as we reached one of the schools serving as a poll station. Queues were waiting for us (although it was more impressive during the 1st round). But people were still as happy & proud to vote.

Congolese wedding !

Local weddings are real good fun. First thing you notice: there are around 300 people invited, and in this case we were the only 2 white people.
Second thing: forget champagne and fancy dishes, you get a beer and eat waffles. And don't mention the cake: this one is the only one for all 300 people (rest assured everybody had a piece). Third thing: everybody is very serious at the wedding, you have to seat on a chair and watch the happy couple...
But you are in Congo so everybody ends up dancing eventually.