After having been with the Toths for four weeks, leaving was unequivocally bittersweet. However, as much as I enjoyed the luxury of lounging, eating, adventuring and working out from the safety of KT’s house, it was time to move on with my adventure. PLUS, my Congolese visa was only valid 30 days from entry […]
Aka… when your friend lets you take over her office for an entire month, refuses to let you pay for anything, and basically reworks her entire life to hang out with you while you’re visiting her and her family in the random African country that they happen to be stationed in. I can’t even begin […]
If I haven’t said this before, allow me to clearly state it, on record, at this time. The expatriot community in Kinshasa is freakin’ awesome. Not only are they sweet as sugar and willing to hang out at the drop of a hat with a random visitor to Kin, but they plan a WICKED party. […]
This is going to be a bit of a photo blog, since I feel like the city tour was a conglomeration of rushing around Kinshasa in our little minibus (with aircon!) to see a bunch of different sites all over the place. This tour was actually the first thing I did without any of the […]
One of my favorite adventures in Kinshasa has been going to “The Beach” and shopping for fabric. While you’re still inevitably subject to the cries of “Madame! Over here!” and “Look, look, Madame!” that you would be in the street markets and craft stalls, there’s just something magical about fabric shopping. Maybe it’s the creative […]
Well, first and foremost, tourists to the DRC are generally unheard of. The majority of this small population typically is reserved for Gorilla Treks in Bukavu/Virunga, on the eastern side of the country along the Rwandan border. Kinshasa tourists, therefore, are an even bigger anomaly. Luckily, I’m completely used to having to explain my weird, […]
When Kristen asked me what I wanted to do in Kinshasa, the first thing (and honestly only thing) I mentioned, was the Bonobo sanctuary. Lola Ya Bonobo is the world’s ONLY Bonobo sanctuary, so who would have thought that it would be somewhere as unlikely as Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of […]
When you’re a suburban kid living in a big city, one of the first things you learn is how to get to a place that doesn’t feel “like the city.” When I arrived, Kristen handed me the link to Azadeh’s blog, which is all about living in Kinshasa and what to do and see…so of […]
Yep. You read that right! Kinshasa’s biggest party of the year is Oktoberfest. Held on Halloween (or thereabouts, depending on how the weekends fall), Germany comes to the DRC in the form of beer and music. Oh, and pagne lederhosen, if you’re so inclined. When I told Kristen what days I was thinking of coming, […]
Waking up on “Day 20” — aka Day 0 of “No More Acacia Africa” was so surreal. Jane had a mondo headache, I had fallen asleep in my dress from the night before, and we were HUNGRY. Classic, really. We had already packed up our bags the day before, and most of the squad had […]
