you know, sometimes being told something doesn't always make it true... it took a couple days of waiting, and a half day of searching to find this little internet café, I hope I can find something a little easier for the duration of my stay.
Well then, where to start... my first impression of Kinshasa can be summed up in one word: Chaos. In whatever way you can imagine that we have rules and order for things in the West, forget that, and imagine a whole lot of people yelling and scrambling for pretty much everything. The airport was totally disorganized, and consisted of a whole lot of yelling and pushing, until my temporary host father's chauffeur (no kidding) showed up with a pieced of paper marked "Joel Marson - Canadien." Close enough. Help! so after paying off the customs agent we were suddeny outside, getting into a beat up old Mercedes-Benz. Next frightening realization: there are NO rules on the roads of Kinshasa. Zero. None. Drive where you want, as fast as you want, and oh, the only unofficial rule is that if you want to pass someone you honk so they know you're coming, making for very noisy scary, scrambled traffic.
My host family is very nice, they've been treating me like royalty, making me somewhat uncomfortable. I told them I didn't want to be a burden on them, but they keep being so damn nice. Like yesterday, while I was sitting on the incongruous leather couch, one of the boys of the house brought me a beer, opened it, and poured it in a glass for me. wow. I don't imagine my awkward thanks fully expressed that this was totally unnecessary (but very nice).
I've already had a couple tours of Kinshasa. It is divided into two main regions, "la ville" which is the developed former colonial central region, and "la cité" where all the poor black people live. I'm staying in "la cité" where the roads make a canadian forest trail look like smooth... I can't believe the potholes (some car-eaters that would silence any complaining Winnipegger), and the general state of disarray of roads and buildings. My host-father's chauffeur, who drove me around today, was telling me that when the new government took over, after mobutu, they didn't do anything to develop the city. and so this is the result.
Alas, I'm running short on time. I'll write again next chance I get! And don't worry, all that bad stuff in the news is happening in the East. I'm in Kinshasa, in good hands!

-joel