May 2009
93 posts
Au Revoir, Kin la Belle
Today was a hectic mess of plane ticket catastrophes. There was a good few hours where Owen and I thought that we weren’t going to be able to leave at all today, as there was no record of my flight in the Brussels Airline’s system. Luckily, with the help of an incredibly patient Owen and our travel agent who woke up to our call at 5am her time, we’re set. Now if only the football...
Alone in the House
It’s finally hitting me that I’m leaving. Leaving anywhere for me is always sad regardless of where I’m headed. I moved around so much as a kid that I feel acutely aware of how relationships can get dropped when space suddenly intervenes, how experiences warp and names fade and memories start revolving around photographs or stories you’ve told a thousand times. I’m...
Hectic Achievement
The past 24 hours have been the culmination of Kinois education and increased bravery. Yesterday, I attempted my first serious haggling with two men on the side of the road selling Tintin figurines. I was all prepped and psyched about it all, and got out of the car confidently. Unfortunately no matter how much I tried prices slipped by miniscule amounts for me. Owen, on the other hand, was much...
2 Days
I’m getting on a plane the day after tomorrow. It feels strange—every part of it, but also the idea that soon I won’t be posting to this blog every day. I feel like there’s still SO many things I didn’t talk about, and so many photos I didn’t post. Have I really succeeded at all in portraying even a tiny percentage of my experience here? I have no idea.
I would...
Photo Shoot, Congo Style
Today I was assigned the task of photographing the dozen or so people who make up our crew, to accompany their bios on the company’s website. The photos are not in any way finished yet, but I thought I’d post some teasers, because it was honestly, in my 7 years of doing studio photography, THE MOST FUN SHOOT EVER. The secret? Beyonce. All those slightly awkward mostly nude shoots I did...
Bandal
Yesterday we spent a few hours shooting in a lovely part of Bandal district. I haven’t been anywhere quite as nice as this outside of Gombe—it was lovely and fairly quiet, with little paved roads and colorful houses and terrace restaurants with big plants growing all over the porches. There’s the occasional man wheeling an ice cream cart around, the houses all have doors instead...
Crackling Heat
Today we shot at an ambitious four destinations, and it was the second hottest I’ve been since I arrived in Kinshasa (the first being the warehouse by the docks my third day here). On every hot day there is sweat and uncomfortableness and fidgeting and gasping and exclaiming “il fait tres, TRES chaud!” to one another, but after a certain point I can ascend it. The heat gets so...
We did a lot of filming on the streets today, and it was liberating and terrifying and gave everyone a huge rush. My impression of Kinshasa has been one of boxes—you drive from walled-in box to walled-in box, whether it’s a house, a compound, a cafe, or a school. Everything has walls, and when you’re in the middle of the street on a day like today the chaos is deafening. My ears...
6 Days
I have six days left in the Congo. Which also means six days left of this blog. As much as I’d love to continue it when I get back to the USA, I don’t think my life is quite as interesting there and Photokapi needs to stay what it is. If / when I come back to the DRC I’ll probably start it up again and let everyone I can know. And if I miss blogging too much in the USA maybe...
A Taste of Yesterday's Shoot:
One of Those Nights
Last night the hot water heater in our bathroom exploded. It was pouring rain out and so we didn’t hear it, and it was only during a slight lull in the water pounding on our tin roof that Owen heard a drip, drip, drip coming from behind the bathroom door. Needless to say it was flooded, and if there wasn’t an inch and a half step down into the bathroom from our bedroom it would have...
Lost Voices, Foam, and Tailors
I’ve lost my voice and Jama spent a couple hours this morning foaming at the mouth. Contrary to expectations, I don’t have malaria, and she doesn’t have rabies. Good thing too, as there was a rabies vaccine shortage when I was getting shot up to come out here and I didn’t get one, but the tentative diagnosis wasn’t totally unfeasible as we do have bats living in our...
What We May Have Lost
Kids here seem to watch out for each other. Yes, there’s brawls in the street and egos and minor jealousies or tragic-seeming injustices committed but in general, they all take care of each other. I’ve seen this happen in the USA between siblings, particulary older watching out for younger. But here, when there are several families living within one parcelle, with business conducted in...
Jama
The tiny kitten we adopted two months ago has GROWN. No longer is she the scrawny little baby whose eyes had just opened, and whose back legs were too weak from malnutrition to walk straight. She’s become a lanky perpetually starving adolescent cat and is a far cry from the days where I had to squeeze drops of water in her mouth to keep her hydrated. I really wasn’t sure she’d...
