Missive from the Congo 010

Originally posted on Mon, 25 Dec 2006 16:18:17 +0200

Decorations at Canada House.
Note the special wrapping paper for the gift under the tree.

Well, today is Christmas but certainly not a typical Christmas for me. First it’s green, though I understand that a green Christmas will be a reality for most people in Quebec and Ontario. It is, however, warm. We went to the pool yesterday PM to catch some rays and relax. The last time I spent time in the pool on Christmas Eve was in 1984. So it’s been a while. Also, while approximately 80% is Christian, and Christmas is celebrated here, you just don’t get the feeling it is Christmas because there are very few decorations. Quite understandable really, Christmas decorations take a back seat to eating and paying rent for just about everybody. Having said that, we decorated a little at Canada House. We took out the small, fake, Christmas trees as well as the snowman and Santa Claus. I also put out the inflatable Snowman that the ladies from work sent me.

A few of us will be hosting holiday meals on a rotating basis. Last night was the turn of a South African lieutenant-colonel named Herman Claasens. He served a large plate of biltong (dried meat like beef jerky) as a snack. The main course was ox tail stew. Very tasty indeed. Tonight we go the British house. Lord only knows what John Kerwin will be serving. Our turn is next weekend.

My Christmas tie from the girls
at my office back in Canada

I went to midnight mass at the cathedral with my boss, colonel Mbengue. He had spoken to the bishop and got us some reserved seating near the front of the church. It was a very interesting service. I did not really understand much of what was going on since most of the service was in Swahili though I knew in general terms what the flow ought to be. There was quite a bit of singing with a large choir taking the lead. Not as energetic as a church service I attended in Bermuda but certainly a little more so than your typical Canadian service. One thing for sure, it was long. Mass started at 11:15 PM and finished at 2:15 AM. So a three hour mass and we arrived 45 minutes early to make sure we found our place. Still, it was an interesting experience. I didn’t understand any more of the mass this time than I did 22 years ago when we went to mass in Cancun but at least this time I got to sit.

As a closing I would like to wish all of you a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

John

Missive from the Congo 009

Originally posted on Mon, 18 Dec 2006 08:16:25 +0200

Today’s missive will be a short one since I have chosen to talk about rest and relaxation in Kisangani. Simply put, there isn’t much. There are no movie theatres, no golf courses or sports centers, no bike paths or skating rinks. There is not even a mall to walk through. Having said that, there are some things we can do as a R&R activity. Chief among these is O’Donnell’s. This a UN club within the logistics “base”, right next to the river. The really nice thing about O’Donnell’s is that it is within a secure perimeter and only UN staff can go there. Therefore you can really relax. You don’t have to worry about being attacked or have to fend off beggars. Service is Congolese however, but you just learn to order things earlier than you might otherwise and it works. Despite being right by the river, there are no bugs to speak of at nice. That too is nice.

The pool at the Palm Beach Hotel in Kisangani

There are two tennis courts at the Hawaii restaurant. Don’t ask me why but they are there. I haven’t played tennis since my first semester in CEGEP and don’t care to brush up but it is a recreation facility of sorts.


There is also an outdoor pool at the Palm Beach Hotel. They charge $5 USD to go swimming but it is money well spent. It feels so good to jump in there. It is a facility that is open to the public but given the cost, it is not affordable for most residents. Though I suspect there is a Congolese price and a “mosungu” (white man) price. Nonetheless, you see a fair number of Congolese families there enjoying the water and sun. You can order drinks and they cook some goat brochette on a fire pit. Ummm… goat.

Finally, we have satellite TV at the house. It is a South African service provide so the selection is interesting. There are about 150 channels though we watch about seven (CNN, BBC, Discovery, National Geographic, History, MTV and sports). There are about ten sports channel with all the soccer, rugby and cricket you can handle. We don’t watch that much but it is nice to know what is going on in the outside world. I might even figure out how rugby is played by the time I leave but I’m not even going to bother with cricket.


Anyways, have a good week. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.


John

Missive from the Congo 008

Originally posted on Mon, 11 Dec 2006 08:15:02 +0200

Since I spoke to grocery shopping last week, this week I will cover dining out. This will be a short missive because there isn’t much to talk about. In Kisangani there are exactly four restaurants that we go to. There are others but they are either out of bounds, usually because of criminality (drugs and prostitution) or of dubious quality (and hence a health risk).

The four restaurants we do go to are:

• O’Donnell’s which is the UN welfare club. It is inside the UN logistics compound by the river. I try to get there every Friday night for happy hour. It’s a good place to meet the personnel from other sections.
• The Hawaii is our local pizza joint. The pizza is ok but just ok. Nothing to write home about so to speak. This missive notwithstanding. The place also doubles as a sports facility during the day inasmuch as there are two clay tennis courts. They are not lit at night so patio table are setup for evening meals.
• The Hellenic is the “Greek” restaurant but the only “Greek” thing about it is the name. The name comes from the fact that it is part of the Greek community center, next to the Greek Orthodox Church.
• The Pssteria is the best of the four restaurants. It has a covered patio and an air-conditioned dining room. They also have the distinction of being the only place in town where you can buy “Tembo” which a brand of beer brewed in Lubumbashi (about 1200 km south of here). I prefer Tembo to Primus though it is much more expensive ($5 vs $1.50).

O'Donnell's - The UN Social Club in Kisangani

With the exception of the pizza at Hawaii, the menus are remarkably similar. Chicken, goat, fish and some beef. There are also samosas which are a kind of deep frying pastry filled with ground beef (or at least ground meat). In terms of sides, they make very good French fries here. It must be the Belgian legacy. You can also get rice. Vegetables are hard to come by and when served come in very small portions. Not that I mind too much personally. They are what food eat after all.

Prices are generally similar with a main course costing between $10-25 USD. The Pssteria is the most expensive and O’Donnell’s the least. Pssteria has the most extensive menu (such as it is) and O’Donnell’s the least. The other two restaurants are in the middle. Needless to say that, with those prices, the only patrons are internationals such as the UN employees and well-to-do Congolese.

So I won’t starve to death but I won’t be getting very fat either. Quality and variety of meals is definitely one this I miss. I’m looking forward to some good cuisine during our holidays in January and I have already chosen the location for the first restaurant meal on my return to Canada.

Have a good week,

John

Missive from the Congo 007

Originally posted on Wed, 06 Dec 2006 07:34:14 +0200

Sorry for the tardiness of this missive. I must admit to having procrastinated while thinking of what to write this week. So anyways here is a little something on eating in Kisangani.

As you can well imagine we cannot simply go to Loblaws and stock up. There are grocery stores but they are more akin to “dépanneurs” than Loblaws. Over the course of time several stores have been identified stores where we can pick up various supplies and food stuff. A lot of what we eat comes from Canada. Everybody who comes over brings about 30 kilos of “non-perishable food items” such as pasta, pasta sauce, canned meat and fish, sauce mixes, rice, etc.

We also buy stuff that’s hard to get or very expensive when we travel. The towns of Goma and Bunia are close to the border with Rwanda and Uganda respectively. They have much better selection and pricing there since a lot of their foodstuff comes from those two countries. Kinshasa also has a reasonable selection but the prices are also very high. Naturally some things are very cheap such as bananas, plantains, papaya, pineapples. I’m not sure how much those cost because I haven’t had to buy any but they are a pittance because they are “grown” locally. I put grown in quotation marks because I have not yet seen anything that we would recognize as a farm. People simply go into the bush and pick these things. We have a couple of banana and plantain trees in our yard. Canada House in Kinshasa has a papaya tree in theirs.

I haven’t personally done a lot of grocery shopping but here are some sample prices (in US dollars):

• Ground beef $10/kg
• Chicken breast $10/kg in Kinshasa
• Cheese $25/kg
• Heineken $3 per can
• Vegetable oil $3 for 500ml of dubious quality
• Loaf of bread $1.20
• Primus (locally brewed beer) $0.65 per quart
• Coke $0.15 per 300ml bottle 

 
Buying beer and pop is interesting. First it is sold in glass bottles. That is normal for beer but I can’t remember the last time I saw pop in a glass bottle but it must have been the seventies. Second, the deposit on a case of 12 beer bottles or 24 pop bottles is $20. The bottles are worth far more than the content itself. Consider that next time you pay $1.50 for a 600ml bottle of coke. In any event, these bottles are old. They are all scratched up. The beer bottles still refer to the country as Zaire. It hasn’t been called that since 1997. I’m guessing that no new bottles have been produced since the early nineties, at least.

In any event, we do manage to eat though the variety isn’t always there. Next week, dining out.

  

John