The Unity of Opposites

One of my pet peeves (and something of which I am all too frequently guilty) is treating Africa and Africans as monolithic constructs. While this does not typically extend to treating the continent as one country that speaks “African,” the images of political anarchy and its attendant violence and chaos, vast plains filled with wildlife, remote rainforest villages, and colorful, bustling markets predominate in media outlets. While the Democratic Republic of the Congo has all of these, it is much more and I have come to experience it as a unity of opposites composed of vast contrasts: a bundle of contradictions that, as my greatly missed late cousin Phil Bonz used to say, “boggle the mind.” In the entries that follow I will attempt to describe these contrasts and relate how they fit together to create this idea called the Congo.

Most obvious in this area are the economic contrasts, which permeate every aspect of life here and determine one’s station with a level of finality absent in the West since the Middle Ages. Poverty is well known and well documented in Africa, but there is also wealth here, and it is not only in the hands of foreigners. Wealth and power in Kinshasa are flaunted Mafioso-style: flashy cars, expensive suits with diamond cufflinks, Rolex watches (real ones, not the knock-offs available in the Grand Marché), an escort of sunglass-wearing armed thugs, and expansive villas are de rigeur for the lucky few.

Besides the tiny number of wealthy there is what passes for a middle class: expatriates, businessmen, and local professionals such as doctors and lawyers. Even at this level, however, the disparity between a middling expatriate bureaucrat such as myself and a renowned host nation medical researcher is significant, with the latter earning much less than the former. I had the privilege of visiting the offices of the doctor that discovered and reported the first outbreak of Ebola, and his office reminded me of my company orderly room when I was in the 82^nd Airborne Division in the mid 1980’s, housed in wooden WWII barracks. This included his computer, which still ran DOS-based software and included a screen with glowing green dot-matrix letters that I haven’t seen in decades. Electricity? Sometimes, he replied. Compared to my spacious and comfortable office with multiple computers and generator-guaranteed power his space was modest to a fault. I still complain about my creaking internet connection, though.

Meanwhile the bulk of Kinshasa’s eight million inhabitants live a life reminiscent of Dickens’s London: for them no electricity or running water, no trash collection or postal service, no public transportation, and only the most rudimentary medical care. We ruefully call the part of town in which we live “Planet Gombe,” because it is so far removed from what the bulk of the populace experiences every day. A trip to the airport, which is on the outskirts of town, or to our favorite crafts business, which is run by the Mennonites and housed in a residential neighborhood outside Gombe, is enlightening. These neighborhoods typically consist of a warren of mud alleys lined with tin-roofed cinder-block shops and residences. Often there is an open sewage ditch choked with trash and refuse, which floods with the frequent heavy rains. Malarial mosquitoes breed in the standing water, creating ideal conditions for the continent’s number one killer. Rebecca cycles with a group of embassy folks on Sunday morning and the trips typically end up in the quartiers populaires, and these are an even better way of getting an appreciation of la vie Kinoise. I can’t bring myself to get up and move that early on a Sunday, particularly with church following hard on the heels of the ride, so I defer to Rebecca on her experiences.

So where’s the unity in the opposites? Life is precarious, even for the most wealthy, due to the political and economic instability that are rife here in the Congo. Today’s Big Man may be back in the village, or worse, tomorrow depending on the ebb and flow of commodity prices, the whims of the international community and its attitude towards the country, and the activities of the omnipresent rebel groups striving for their turn at the feed trough. The ultra-rich may have the chance to flee to a comfortable exile in Belgium, South Africa, or the Med if they have adequate warning, but their hubris often leads them to remain until it is too late. For the rest, however, life’s uncertainties are a part of the landscape that we expatriates cannot even imagine. In the face of these uncertainties, Congolese of all stations approach life with a mixture of joy, fatalism, good humor, resignation, grace, love of family, and insatiable demands for assistance that is itself a reflection of the contradictions inherent in their daily lives.

As much as many in the West search for the “extreme,” be it in sports, consumer products, or recreation, daily life in Kinshasa is about as extreme as it gets for Congolese, who come in their thousands, rich and poor alike to the big city to pursue their dreams. As an expatriate I am insulated from life’s vagaries here, but in my discussions with my fellow congregants on Sunday and in my work-related interaction with Congolese I have at least a glimpse of it. As Thanksgiving weekend comes to a close and I ponder our many blessings, I note that few in the West can appreciate these extremes other than military personnel serving in combat zones, police and firefighters, medical professionals, those living with chronic illness, and others who confront the existential on a regular basis. Thus I am thankful for the material blessings that shield me from life’s hard realities but more thankful for and humbled by those brave souls who confront them with grace and poise on both sides of the Atlantic.