Organized Chaos on the Streets of Kinshasa

The traffic, people, and the way of driving in the DR Congo was unlike anything I’ve ever seen before and I found it quite fascinating.

As I said, The “buses” were quite a bit different than what we have in the States. Almost like mini-vans but a bit bigger.

And dented…

You’ll have to excuse the blurry shots I took since they’re snapped from the back seat of a moving vehicle. 🙂

In most of the buses, the people were quite squished. You could tell from the way they sat when passing by that they were trying to squeeze into as little space as possible so more people could fit.

This particular van was also hauling a bigger load.

Each bus is individually owned and each one has a caller. A caller is someone who just hops on the bus for the day and yells whenever they reach a bus stop, telling everyone where the bus is headed. So all day long until probably 10pm you can hear people on the streets yelling, and I forgot to mention the car horns. They are honking continually from a multitude of vehicles.

The caller for the bus will sit on a seat if there is one, or he will hang out the door because he doesn’t want to take up any seats if there are passengers that need a ride.

But perhaps the most dangerous place to me is the bumper. With the way people drive, I would think you would be very vulnerable riding here and not much to hang onto either.

There were people selling all kinds of things to cars stopped at traffic lights – iPod chargers, cookies, drinks, charts that listed their Presidents, etc.  There were some younger kids, too, and we were told that many of them are orphans from other countries who came to DR Congo in the hopes of things being better for them.

There were vendors all along the streets.

There were people carrying a variety of things on their heads – perfectly balanced. Someone noted that the people as a whole have very good posture and that when they are walking with baskets on their heads they do not step gingerly, but with a very quick step. After I heard that I started watching and it was very true.

I saw one lady start across an intersection and she almost broke into a trot but never did she have to reach up to steady the load on her head. We saw many people carrying eggs – probably stacked 2′ tall on their heads.

Housing

In the picture below, you can see a pile slightly to the left. That’s garbage and it’s not uncommon to see piles of garbage burning – but usually they are small piles. The pollution in Kinshasa was astounding. By the 4th day I was feeling queasy and I attributed it to all the exhaust and pollution. It is so thick. It is not just in the sky, you can see the haze down at street level.

In the background of the picture is housing and we saw a lot of this type while there. We never did go in one.

We had to be careful when taking pictures. Twice we were taking pictures from the vehicle with the window rolled down and some Congolese spotted us and started yelling and shaking their fists. It was rather intimidating.

I love this photo.