Around Town

It is against the law to take pictures of public buildings in the Congo. Why? I don't know, but I read that if they catch you they can confiscate your camera, throw you in jail and/or beat you up. I figured that if I just descretely snapped a few photos from the car as we drove by, it would be low risk. Besides, I don't know which buildings are public buildings and which are private buildings. I can't tell you what these photos are of, but this is downtown Lumbumbashi, the second largest city in the DRC. The tallest buildings that I've seen here are about ten stories high and there were only two of them. Most of these are three to five stories. There really is not skyline of Lumbumbashi.

Theese photos do not do justice to what the city streets look like. There is a lot of trash in the streets and almost all of the buildings are in poor repair. The Belgians developed the Congo based on slave labor from the late 1800's until 1960, when the native people took over the government. You can tell that this was a nice city. It even had electric trolley cars (We saw a remnant of one). Since 1960 there has not been any improvement in the infrastructure. I'm told it is because the government is so corrupt that they take all of the tax money and don't devolop the cities or the country.

This is one of the major intersections downtown. It isn't really too crowded on Sunday afternoon. There is a roundabout in this intersection and if you look closely you can see the statue of an elephant.

There are a lot of buildings that look like they are partially built, or remnants of once really nice buildings. There is a Sheraton hotel that hasn't been cared for since the 1960's so it is no longer in use and the building is just a shell.