Earth from the sky

Kinshasa is finally on the map for users of Google Earth! Okay, so if I’m honest, Kinshasa from the sky looks like a horrible, sprawling metropolis. But if you zoom in close enough, you start to see the trees – sandwiched as they are between the myriad houses. More to the point, try to spot the golf course near the river, with a cemetery right next to it. We live a couple of blocks west (I don’t think F. would approve of my giving out the exact coordinates on Internet, but happy to send them to those who wish). If you scroll southeast from there, you should find the stadium – Kinshasa’s pride and joy. And beyond that (to the south), is “la Cité”, aka the real world. One part of it is commonly known as “Chine populaire”, and seen from this angle it’s easy to understand why!


Not that exciting, really, but I’m still a novice to Google Earth, and therefore feel a novice’s enthusiasm. For instance, with a few clicks of the mouse sitting here in Kinshasa, I discovered that there is a new zebra crossing on the street where my parents live and where I grew up – pretty cool, eh?!