Black Lubumbashi

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Black Lubumbashi

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I turned around. Why, I do not know, there was no reason. I was in the main street of Lubumbashi in 1993 and I realized that I was the only white person in this street which is nearly as long as the Champs-Elysées in Paris. With hundreds and hundreds of inhabitants walking, waiting, sitting, driving, waiting.

I could not care less, what amazed me is that as I had been going around taking care of my business, I had not realized at all that I was the only one that looked different.

I was as safe as I could have been in any street in Paris, even safer. Nobody really cared about me, I was just one among all the others.

They probably wondered what kind of strange foreigner it was that was walking, as foreigners do not have any need to walk as they have cars and chauffeur drive cars.

Like everybody else I was probably looking for some food to buy, which was rather an impossible task in Lubumbashi unless you had a heap of dollars (true or false, did not matter much). I had no food nor heap of dollars and no photocopying machine to make dollars.

For reasons that have vanished in the nights of forgetness, I was working for an American Christian Non Governmental Organization (N.G.O.) named World Vision. They were quite OK, as long as you behaved properly you could do your work without being interfered with. It was preferable not to express doubts about the Republican Party.

Lubumbashi is in the pedicle, that part of Zaïre that tries to cut into Zambia. So in a way I was not far away from home, Zambia, yet I was more far away than I could ever have been.

In the centre of the black ring is Lubumbashi which used to be the Heaven of Copper, one of the richest and most beautiful towns of West Africa. Most of the town belonged in one way or another to the Gecamine which was in charge of the Copper. The Gecamine was the real power and Government. Every body was satisfied as the Gecamine was paying fat so-called taxes to the Government or rather to the persons linked to the Government.

Probably God in his great wisdom wanted to send a message when he made copper the color of blood.

During the happy days, copper would be loaded on trucks and sent to Dar-es-Salaam by the Hell road, the mud road going from Zambia's Northern Province to the port of Tanzania. It was called the hell road, try to drive a 20 tons truck on a mud road during the rainy season !

Then later, the Hell road was asphalted. I once had to drive at night from Dar-es-Salaam to the the Agricultural College, some 100km uptown from Dar es Salaam. Coming the other way were the copper trucks. The rules were very simple, the trucks would drive full speed in the middle of the road and any body driving up-state, fool enough to challenge that rule would only do it once.

Now we are in 1991, there is really nothing left. Whatever was left was plundered a few years ago during the "pillage" when the armed forces went rampant through the town because they had not been paid for many months or years, and they plundered anything they could get, which meant everything. Any civilian who tried to take his share in the looting of the town was killed by the soldiers.

There is nothing left. Well, I am wrong about that. The soldiers are left and they are still as poor as they were in those days, and still unpaid. The looting was not for the soldiers but for the star level grades.

So the soldiers, and the Police, not being paid, had to get their pay themselves, which is not a difficult task when you have a rifle, even if it is debatable whether the soldier has any bullet to fire as he has probably sold them a long time ago.

Things were well organized, the policemen would stop any civilian appearing to have the means to pay something and the soldiers would stop heavy duty truck and take a rather large share of the load, and if they felt in the mood, to simplify things, they would take the load, the truck and the truck driver.

Armed Forces in the Great Lake Region is the nearest I have come to pure Evil, they were worse than any animal. You could never predict what was going to happen to you. During day time it was quite safe, at night when they were drunk and had been smoking, it was not advisable to be caught.

For reasons I could not understand, we, workers of the World Vision, were totally protected in Lubumbashi, even by the policemen/women, possibly because they knew we had nothing worth stealing, possibly because we were something between mad men and holy men, anyway, people best to keep away from.

Better tell you the bitter end of the story immediately, my stay in Lubumbashi did not exceed 3 months and my weight loss was around 4 kg. Not that I wanted to loose weight, simply because it is difficult to maintain a sound fat level when you have no food and no money. Also, to be truthful, I was broken deep down in my soul, Lubumbashi after having served for one year in Burundi, not getting news from my dying father, not having any connection with the family, the only connection with the outside world being the BBC on my short wave 100 dollars radio, being all alone with a stray dog to keep me company, it was more than I could take.

I was recruited in Geneva. My recruiter was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. Having met me, she must have realized that men were not all bad, one year later she vanished and made a new totally different life .... with a man!

I left Paris and is it really worth introducing the idea that you might not be totally versed into the mysteries of African travel ? To travel from Paris to Lubumbashi, you travel to Heathrow, there you take a B.A. plane to Johannesburg, fully packed, were you arrive in the morning after one of these restful nights you can only enjoy in an airplane, feeling as if you had spent the night in a pig sty with a boar poking you in the side every two bells to check whether by chance you would not have any food in you pockets. I used to complain about the Roissy Airport check-out, but after Johannesburg I will never again complain, well, does it really matter if they want you to queue for 3 hours, possibly they were enjoying my company.

A word of advice to airlines : please do not employ Irish Chief Stewards who are convinced that the passengers are not flying somewhere but sitting in a one-man entertainment hall. How can you escape when you sit in an airplane?

Most people claim that Johannesburg is a very dangerous town, I can vouch that this is totally untrue, I felt very safe staying at the Airport Motel and sleeping all the day, already no eating due to certain lack of dollars.

In Paris I had tried to ascertain whether I was really booked on the Shaba Airline flight from Johannesburg to Lubumbashi only to discover that there was no such thing as Shaba airline in the Flight Directory. it was therefore a pleasant surprise to discover at the airport that there was really a Shaba Airline flight leaving at the nice and convenient time of 5 o'clock in the morning.

Indeed at the check-in they showed no surprise when I emitted the proposition that they would carry me to Lubumbashi.

Later I was to learn that Shaba Airline was one of these one-plane companies that business men create when there if no other official way to get you from one remote and unsafe end of the World to the Great Civilized World.

I should really have guessed it, on that flight they could have dispensed with seats for the passengers, except me, as all the business men (120cm waist line) were milling around in the plane, a glass of beer in one hand to slacken the thirst created by the ingestion of gin. It is a mystery how the pilot, if there was any, after all he could have been of these happy fellows ingesting strength giving drinks in the mid-alley, how he could balance the plane with all the passengers suddenly going backwards, then forwards, then drinking to the good health of a left seated passenger, then doing the same with a right seated passenger.

It was one of the merrier trips I have ever had.

According to my friends the worst flight you can ever take is the West African coaster flight from capital to capital where the voluminous business mamas on-board the one hour flight from one town to another, have to show and sell to one another the goods they have purchased. Goods that have been embarked inside the cabin, what happened to the one-luggage limitation?

I do not know whether to call it luck or a miracle or an unscientific coincidence, we did indeed land in Lubumbashi.

The Lubumbashi airport while officially the checking point for entering goods is rather a permanent Christmas day as everybody (including the customs officers) is waiting for the goods purchased in South Africa.

The public is not authorized to enter into the luggage and police control area. Are excluded from this very strict rule

The luggage carriers (who if you do not follow them will continue to carry your luggage until they get home, their home, not yours).

The relatives of the incoming passengers as it would be considered extremely rude not the hug and kiss a shake hand and embrace an incoming relative.

All people having an official function. If you claim to have an official function, then you are an official.

All VIPs, are VIPS all people that feel that they should not wait outside the arrival area.

All persons having given the men checking the entrance gate a minor gift.

As a result the arrival area is a vast confused room, everybody shouting and laughing, some people claiming that they are there to help you collect your luggage, others claiming that you should give them your passport so that their brother who happens to be the passport Officer could stamp it for a minor fee.

I was greeted by my brothers of the World Vision, brothers I had never seen, the drivers of the brothers of the World Vision, the luggage carrier who were related to the drivers of the brothers of the World Vision and the Passport checking Officer who happened to be related to a brother of the World Vision Group. As a result, while normally the control would have found that they had to confiscate half of my belongings, and demand an entrance fee??? for my passport, I was sort of cannonballed out of the arrival area.

I was brought to the hotel.

You may guess that in a very very poor country the hotel would be a dirty little room with cockroaches and mosquitoes. Not at all, it appeared that the businessmen in some dream of a golden future had built something that looked like an improved Inter Continental Hotel.

As most hotels in Africa, it served as a second Palace of the Governor, most business of importance being conducted around some rounds of beer. I do not know really why I bother writing down that information, ifs there any other way to conduct business?

The hotel also provided meals. As most hotels in Africa, they consider that if they are well stocked in beer, they have done their duty concerning the food needs of the customers.

But they were able to serve each day a rich menu, the menu being rich mostly on the list, should you have the bad taste to select anything else than chicken soup, you would be looked at by a very sad waiter who would have the sad task of informing you that regretfully today the Hotel did not serve

steak ?

fish ?

pork ?

eggs?

No, chicken soup was the main and only course, which marries quite well with anything, especially if anything is nothing.

Incidentally the price of one chicken soup was 5.000.000 Zaïre if you paid with big bank notes and 50.000.000 Zaïre if you paid with small bank notes. Do not try to understand. The Shaba region had not accepted the last devaluation of the Zaïrian money, as a result we had a double currency system, which really did not matter as the only currency was the dollar.

At the end of my stay the Government decided, prompted by exterior influences, to introduce the new Zaïre which would be worth 1.000.000 old Zaïre, the old currency becoming obsolete from day to another. There was only a minor problem. All the new Zaïre notes were in Kinshasa, 2000km away, none in Lubumbashi.

In Kinshasa the clever men soon discovered that on the new Zaïre the President appeared wearing a tie, which was totally impossible as he had proffered a law called the a-bas-cos (no suite) and forbidden the wearing of a tie. So the thiefs went around the poor people offering in their kindness to take these fake notes and leave them an I.O.Y in exchange.

Let us go back to my Hotel.

If you asked why other families were eating items not on the list, you were informed that it was not forbidden to bring item that the Chief would be more than happy to cook for you (and his family and brothers).

I stayed in that hotel for a couple of weeks, until something more suitable was found for me.

One day the management of the World Vision made a deal with a family and I moved in a 3 bedroom house with garden.

So, considering that at this moment you might have problems understanding the estate situation, let me summarize:

One house for a family of three to four persons.

My suite case

My shortwave radio

One cooking pan

One bed

Myself

And, well, and, well, I believe this was all there was in he house.

No curtains, which did not really bother me, but it meant that anybody having in mind to borrow some of my belongings had a free information about my movements.

Well I forgot the most important belonging, when the family left the house, the house dog refused to jump into the van, so here I was with a dog. At least I had somebody to talk to, my first task being to try and bring that dog back to some human shape providing him with food.

In Africa a dog is considered to be able to take care by itself of its food needs.

The suitcase was to prove much more valuable than I thought in the beginning as I discovered that if I used it a food storage device, it avoided having the feed also all the insect population of the house.

This thinking is very superior, it has just one flaw, have you detected it?

To protect your food in a suitcase, it might be advisable to have some food that you have to protect. Which I did not have.

It would take some time before the World Vision Brothers became aware than even a white man does occasionally need food and introduced me to the Greek shopkeeper.

Why do you need to be introduced?

This is Lubumbashi, a huge city, with only one food and one power that manages to import food and sell it (in dollars).

Outside the shop you have a each day a rugby maul forming consisting of 100 to 200 Lubumbashi citizens claiming that they have the need and right to enter the shop.

At the gate you have two to four policemen or soldiers who hit at anything that gets within reach of the stick they carry.

Inside the door, should it open, and it does occasionally to let out a customer, you have 10 to 20 soldiers whose duties are not very clear.

Once I had been introduced and declared a brother and a dollar carrying brother, I had my entry into the shop, if I managed in some way to squeeze through the black wall of 200 citizens trying to do the same thing as I. Which I could not.

You faithful reader who accompanies me in story may feel that there is much dotting about food and very little about the country and the people.

While I have the highest regard for the opinion of you, faithful reader, may I suggest that you have not really experienced what it means to have no food, no money and no future and that under such conditions your thinking tends to be rather one tracked?

Everything was about food, rather the lack of it.

For a normal family with children, some children were called Monday child, the other one Tuesday child. The Monday child would get food on Monday and be left to care for himself the other days.

For the first time of my life I was to discover the "gray" children. They were covered by the street dust of the dry and looked like some kind of living Halloween disguised child. Giving the choice between trick or treat, there was not much you could do.

And it was my job, I was here to try and find some way to make food grow.

My boss was a one armed Zaïrian brother.

He was an abandoned Kinshasa kid. He used the usual procedure to feed himself, he went from one funeral to another as food is always provided to the mourners.

He went on the Party rallies, again food (and drinks) freely provided as long as the participants shouted loudly their enthusiastic and spontaneous support of whoever it was who was footing the bill.

On one of these rallies they were traveling on the back of a pick-up, as usual two times or three times more than are allowed on the platform and the pick-up turned upside down. His right arm which had been waving enthusiastically at the crowd was crossed and amputated. Which proves how lucky he was, the normal procedure was to die.