Kin not give you a mundane life?
This morning when I sat in my car staring blankly at the traffics on the streets of Kinshasa, at the thongs of people waiting patiently for a lift along the roads, at the dirt in the numerous chicken holes in the pavements, the grey and ignorant sky high above, I was wondering if I need to follow the steps of Mr Kurtz in the deep jungles, or to float with the steam boat of captain Conrad along the mighty and mystic river of Congo to really feel the heat or the heart of this darkness.
Tomorrow I will be the one who leave Kinshasa but I will come back one day to find out that May is no longer here. Among the few and small things I wanted her to keep was a documentary film about Congo river, a meticulous and beautiful work of the famous Thierry Michel with my words on it: Just something to remind you of Congo or the Heart of darkness, where I would not be able to survive without receiving love and comfort (if not solace) from people like you!
Would I survive a city like that?
How you could hate a city like that? A city that is so sunny most of the year but offers little else. A city that is so rich of the poor and so poor in term of hopes. A big city that dreams the dreams so small.
How you could hate a city like that? A city that is so sunny most of the year but offers little else. A city that is so rich of the poor and so poor in term of hopes. A big city that dreams the dreams so small.
A couple of days ago, I met a young woman, a country fellow who came to Kinshasa on a visiting trip paid by her husband company to see if they can move here for a job. The trendy and beautiful woman told me with her un- Hanoian accent that she was shocked and she found this city was impossible to live: the streets full of miserable people, the strong smell of the house maids who seem never get that the black and the white clothes must be washed separately, her illogical phobia of Aids and other african desases that prevents her from touching even the chairs and the tables in the places she visited.
I don’t know what to advise her? She might forget or just ignorant about how poor and brave we, the Vietnamese used to be and still are in some corners of the country that she might never set her eyes on.
Kinshasa is a city that makes the weak tremble. I tremble sometimes. But sometimes, I also fell for it. “An exquisite, broken thing of pain and beauty”
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