What did the capitol city of the Congo look like in May of 1997 when a new dictator came to power?
Kinshasa had become the third largest city in Africa; over five million people.
But:
- There was no postal service or public transit system
- Despite an abundance of rainfall two million people had no direct access to water.
- Ninety-five percent of the people were informally self employed doing such things as: carrying luggage, selling bags of cassava flour, shining shoes, hawking everything from cigarettes to nail polish.
- There were 600,000 civil servants who went to work daily in suits and ties, but seldom received a salary. Many of those who did receive salaries were paid as little as five dollars per month. Graft, bribery and extortion had become ways of life. There were 120,000 uniformed soldier to pay. According to the first dictator, Mobutu, who had now been overthrown, they did not need to be paid as they had AK-47s.
- Garbage accumulated in open sewers and heaps where it rotted and was eventually burned.
- Half the population lived on one meal a day. A quarter of the people ate one meal every two days.
- The zoo had become a collection of rusty cages. Two of the lions had recently starved to death. Other animals were kept alive by a group of expatriates who brought food from upscale hotels to feed the remaining monkeys, chimpanzees, antelopes and snakes.
- The nation’s economy was one-third of what it had been in 1960 when the DRC was under the rule of the Belgians.
- Inflation was at 750 per cent. Five per cent of the population had salaried positions.
- When the new dictator went to open the vault where the wealth of the government should have been, he found that there was only a fifty franc note left behind—an insult.
- Shanties seemed to grow by themselves apart from any guidance—city planning was non-existent.
- The parks were filled with homeless people by night.
- This was the capitol of the twelfth largest country in the world which could only lay claim to 2000 miles of paved road.
My plans are to go to relatively more peaceful area—Lubumbashi. There I will live in a guest house with barred and shuttered window and a steel door.
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It looks as if the little girl on the left, Zephanie, will end up living in the wilds of Wyoming. That makes it all worth while.
P. S. We are making plans to bring Pastor Didier to the U. S. He needs rest and medical care; hopefully the medical care will be taken care of before he leaves the DRC. He has malaria and typhoid.
