Wednesday, February 22, 2006
The Cold War in Kinshasa, Saturday Night.
The next morning a hotel worker named Armand was sympathetic to our unwillingness to pay the hotel’s inflated breakfast prices. He walked us to a two table broad plank café where everything was one tenth the price. We just happened to fill the four remaining chairs around a man reading an artsy French hardbound cartoon book. He turned out to be a journalist for the society section of Le Phare, one of DRC's quotidian newspapers. Tcheke turned out to be a good friend and a wonderful host. He and Armand took turns showing us through Lemba and Super Lemba-the young and lively neighborhood into which the old man had guided us. It was home to both men from their infancy and both were especially fond of it. I hadn’t expected to see nearly this much of Kinshasa by foot. There was no noticeable police or military presence, despite the huge traffic and tens or hundreds of thousands of people, so I asked about security in the neighborhood and for us specifically. Armand laughed. That is not a problem. If any one comes to make a problem with you, others will stop them. There are many sportive people here who are studying karate and martial arts. When somebody makes trouble, those men stop them. I looked around trying to spot the administers of this justice.
That evening we met up with Tcheke and his friends who were ready to show us Kinshasa on Saturday night. The country's most famous singer is the spokesperson for Primus, the country's most popular beer. He was performing a free concert at an outdoor city park in another section of town. Approximately five thousand people crowded in front of his stage, at least 95% of them were men. Thankfully, few of them were drinking the beer that was flowing at promotional rates. Djibili, the musician, dressed like a pudgy, flamboyant ninja in flowy black MC Hammer pants with red sashes over his loose black top. He accompanied his monochromatic and edgeless, bouncy, percussive dance music with a strong voice and cookie cutter lyrics. The performative highlight was definitely his synchronized rump shaking lady dancers. When they returned the stage to Djibili and his line of dancing men, hundreds of people loudly booed. I may, in fact, have been one of them.
When I was beginning to feel safe in the 1am downtown Kinshasa semi-circle of my new friends, Djibili interrupted one of his songs to sound the alarm: Armee Rouge. Armee Rouge, a cry picked up by a crowd suddenly frantic and pushy. Tough and fully matured men squirreled into the crowd and away from the five meter swath carved by the Red Army's early departure. The Red Army hardly filled its corridor of deference; two or three dozen young men and boys swaggered, quickly, through the cowering audience and into the dark. They wore no colors. Some members must have been twelve or thirteen years old. None appeared to be over twenty-two. Nevertheless, one of the most famous men in the DRC had to warn a mob of thousands to get the hell out of their way. I was not waiting eagerly for crowded panic; so I remained in flight or flight mode for the next hour. I can't imagine any gang in the United States commanding that degree of dreadful respect.
Twenty minutes later people were yelling—Dragons Dragons—and pushing in the opposite direction. (Both times our hosts corralled us protectively away.) We left before the KGB and the CIA, gangs that apparently enjoyed the show enough to see it through. Tcheke's friend, Joe, explained that the gangs were able to come to this show without great violence by agreeing, in advance, on which distinct areas they would occupy while spectating. They simply need to throw a few punches for the red exit carpet to roll out.
We left when it became particularly obvious that about two dozen people were gradually closing in around our group, dancing into a bizarre clump well behind the thick packed fans. We all felt it at nearly the same time. When Joe said, I think its time to go, we all filed out, smushed into the little sedan and drove to an open air dance club within our price range. That means we encountered a sleepy crowd of sad looking men watching a handful of the city's less florid night walkers dance with themselves in the mirror. On the bright side, my Turbo Kings ("An Affair of Men"-a billboard slogan that can put Tuuli in a bad mood for nearly thirty minutes) were cheap and it was calm enough to converse with our friends.
We spent Sunday with Tcheke's pleasant family, eating the delicious home cooking of his mother, who is widely known as Mama Tcheke, despite her healthy quantity of other children.
The next morning a hotel worker named Armand was sympathetic to our unwillingness to pay the hotel’s inflated breakfast prices. He walked us to a two table broad plank café where everything was one tenth the price. We just happened to fill the four remaining chairs around a man reading an artsy French hardbound cartoon book. He turned out to be a journalist for the society section of Le Phare, one of DRC's quotidian newspapers. Tcheke turned out to be a good friend and a wonderful host. He and Armand took turns showing us through Lemba and Super Lemba-the young and lively neighborhood into which the old man had guided us. It was home to both men from their infancy and both were especially fond of it. I hadn’t expected to see nearly this much of Kinshasa by foot. There was no noticeable police or military presence, despite the huge traffic and tens or hundreds of thousands of people, so I asked about security in the neighborhood and for us specifically. Armand laughed. That is not a problem. If any one comes to make a problem with you, others will stop them. There are many sportive people here who are studying karate and martial arts. When somebody makes trouble, those men stop them. I looked around trying to spot the administers of this justice.
That evening we met up with Tcheke and his friends who were ready to show us Kinshasa on Saturday night. The country's most famous singer is the spokesperson for Primus, the country's most popular beer. He was performing a free concert at an outdoor city park in another section of town. Approximately five thousand people crowded in front of his stage, at least 95% of them were men. Thankfully, few of them were drinking the beer that was flowing at promotional rates. Djibili, the musician, dressed like a pudgy, flamboyant ninja in flowy black MC Hammer pants with red sashes over his loose black top. He accompanied his monochromatic and edgeless, bouncy, percussive dance music with a strong voice and cookie cutter lyrics. The performative highlight was definitely his synchronized rump shaking lady dancers. When they returned the stage to Djibili and his line of dancing men, hundreds of people loudly booed. I may, in fact, have been one of them.
When I was beginning to feel safe in the 1am downtown Kinshasa semi-circle of my new friends, Djibili interrupted one of his songs to sound the alarm: Armee Rouge. Armee Rouge, a cry picked up by a crowd suddenly frantic and pushy. Tough and fully matured men squirreled into the crowd and away from the five meter swath carved by the Red Army's early departure. The Red Army hardly filled its corridor of deference; two or three dozen young men and boys swaggered, quickly, through the cowering audience and into the dark. They wore no colors. Some members must have been twelve or thirteen years old. None appeared to be over twenty-two. Nevertheless, one of the most famous men in the DRC had to warn a mob of thousands to get the hell out of their way. I was not waiting eagerly for crowded panic; so I remained in flight or flight mode for the next hour. I can't imagine any gang in the United States commanding that degree of dreadful respect.
Twenty minutes later people were yelling—Dragons Dragons—and pushing in the opposite direction. (Both times our hosts corralled us protectively away.) We left before the KGB and the CIA, gangs that apparently enjoyed the show enough to see it through. Tcheke's friend, Joe, explained that the gangs were able to come to this show without great violence by agreeing, in advance, on which distinct areas they would occupy while spectating. They simply need to throw a few punches for the red exit carpet to roll out.
We left when it became particularly obvious that about two dozen people were gradually closing in around our group, dancing into a bizarre clump well behind the thick packed fans. We all felt it at nearly the same time. When Joe said, I think its time to go, we all filed out, smushed into the little sedan and drove to an open air dance club within our price range. That means we encountered a sleepy crowd of sad looking men watching a handful of the city's less florid night walkers dance with themselves in the mirror. On the bright side, my Turbo Kings ("An Affair of Men"-a billboard slogan that can put Tuuli in a bad mood for nearly thirty minutes) were cheap and it was calm enough to converse with our friends.
We spent Sunday with Tcheke's pleasant family, eating the delicious home cooking of his mother, who is widely known as Mama Tcheke, despite her healthy quantity of other children.
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