And the winner is...

Thirty-six suggestions (a third of which were provided by Nicole alone), and not a single one correct!

The correct answer is: a stalactite. More precisely, a stalactite taken from below in one of the Mbanza-Ngungu caves in Bas-Congo.

Since no one found the correct answer, first prize goes to creativity. And the winners are:

§ Carole and the polar bear footprint! Carole’s full answer was: « L'empreinte de la patte arrière droite d'un ours polaire qui, dans un effort désespéré d'adaptation au réchauffement climatique, a pris des vacances dans un Club Med Congolais où il s'est enfoncé profondément dans la boue en essayant d'apprendre à parler l'Hyppopotame local. »

Prize:

(One of five who live in our courtyard)

§ Close second is Dad and his bicentennial tree-cum-cheese platter: « C’est la coupe (section) d'un arbre katangais bicentenaire qui a vu passer Stanley lorsqu'il recherchait Livingstone dans le coin, et qui sert aujourd'hui de plateau à fromage »

Prize:

(From Madagascar)

I know, I know; the Congolese way is clearly seeping slowly through my skin and into my veins, and already I am handing out prizes to members of my immediate family. Worse, I set up a so-called ‘committee’ to bring a semblance of neutrality to the proceedings. We even have a name, le Comité des Loups-Garous, after a game a group of us played well into the night during our week-end trip to the Mbanza-Ngungu caves.

So in an attempt to redress the balance somewhat, I have introduced another prize category:

§ The prize for cleverness goes to Damien and his helicopter’s view of an open-cut mine.

Prize: A detailed, independent investigation into resource exploitation and conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Thank you all very much for being so responsive!

Quiz

What is this?

There will be a prize for the first one who guesses correctly, and a prize for the most creative suggestion.

Elementary, my dear Watson

The mystery of the living room bugler is resolved. Yesterday morning, as I walked through the courtyard to get to my office, I noticed the poor devil (a little old man lost in a uniform he no longer fills out) getting ready, shining his antique bugle vigorously and generally making himself look a lot busier than he needs to be. I asked him kindly if he could please aim his instrument away from the houses behind him, and towards the police building. He gave me the vigorous nod and “Oui Maman, merci beaucoup!” so characteristic here (people call each other ‘Maman’ and ‘Papa’).

Thirty seconds later, the now oh-so-familiar insufferable notes began, and I realised that the sound was coming from the back of my office near our house, not from the front of my office near the police building. I stormed out of the building and sought the man out. He was standing in the small space between the building where my office is and the outer wall of our flat, quite contentedly aiming his bugle towards our living room window and playing the damn thing with all his heart. No wonder Fred and I thought the man was in our flat! He didn’t even notice me approaching with a deep frown on my face and my hands on my ears.

I tap him severely on the shoulder, and he turns to me with a large, proud grin.
- “Excuse me, what are you doing?” I ask.
- “Practicing my bugle for when the General arrives.”
- “Excuse me, why are you aiming your bugle towards this particular window?”
- (still beaming) “So as not to disturb the other policemen while I practice my bugle.”
- “Excuse me, do you realise that this is a house? That people actually live here?”
Suddenly a look of deep distress creeps onto his face as it dawns on him that I may not be here to congratulate him on his exceptional musical talents, but rather to proffer some kind of criticism. You have to feel sorry for the poor sod.

So I explained, more gently than intended, that there had been complaints from the people who lived there. I asked if he could please practice his bugle elsewhere, particularly on Saturdays and Sundays. “Oui, oui, bien sûr Maman, je ne le ferais plus, c’est promis!”

This morning, no bugle practice under our windows. Ah, the quietude. The only time I heard the bugle was when the General arrived, and it was even worse than usual. I couldn’t help wondering if our friend had decided to skip his practice altogether, now that I’d given him a good excuse. This may yet return to haunt me.

With a little help from my friends

Celui qui, tout au long de la journée,
Est actif comme une abeille,
Est fort comme un taureau,
Bosse comme un cheval,
Et qui le soir venu est crevé comme un chien,
Devrait consulter un vétérinaire,
il est fort probable que ce soit un âne !

(Cheers, Marc S.!)

Home Sweet Home

Finally, I can give the long awaited news that we have moved in, properly this time, to our new flat. For once, I’m not writing from the terrace of a restaurant, or from a stuffy hotel room, but from the comfort of my own home. Specifically (since that seems to be what is requested of me), I am sitting at a big wooden desk in the guest room, under a window that looks out onto the small swimming pool we share with our neighbours, and plants, lots of plants everywhere.

The landlady’s obsession with plants, with which she has filled every corner of the flat and garden, is one of the main redeeming features here. The pool is surrounded with greenery, making the small terrace, complete with bar and barbecue, into a tropical haven, somewhere I can happily imagine coming home to in the evening to relax after a day’s work, hopefully catching the last rays of setting sun. Similarly, our flat has this otherwise quite ordinary internal courtyard, a glorified entrance really, but with the help of some twenty lush plants it is transformed into a verdant oasis of tranquillity……………………. In every respect except the revolting smell of overflowing septic tank that sometimes wafts over from our neighbours’ on the other side of the wall.

Our neighbours. The one factor inexplicably overlooked when signing the contract. I am absolutely, wholly to blame since I work there. A welcome twist of fate that allows me to nip home at a whim, not least for a bite to eat at lunch. But living next to Kinshasa’s police HQ definitely has its down sides as well.

Dawn on Saturday. Our second night in the flat, but last time we had to get up at 5am to catch a flight. We are both physically and mentally exhausted after two weeks in the field, Fred in Rwanda discussing how to prevent genocide, me in Kisangani and Goma experiencing first hand some of the crazy contradictions of working in a country like the DRC. We are both thrilled to be back home with some space to breathe, but mostly desperate for a good night’s sleep. Dawn on Saturday, sometime between 6.30 and 7am…

Rev-eil-lee! Rev-eil-lee is sounding.
The bugle calls you from your sleep; it is the break of day.
You've got to do your duty or you will get no pay.
Come, wake yourself, rouse yourself out of your sleep
And throw off the blankets and take a good peek at all
The bright signs of the break of day, so get up and do not delay.

Get Up!

Or-der-ly officer is on his round!
And if you're still a-bed he will send you to the guard
And then you'll get a drill and that will be a bitter pill:
So be up when he comes, be up when he comes,
Like a soldier at his post, a soldier at his post, all ser-ene.

We woke up with a start, opened our eyes wide and burst out laughing: “Oh, shit!” I’m not sure how much longer we will find this amusing though! Every morning, lunch and afternoon, without fail, except possibly on Sundays, an old, rugged, rusty bugle is brought out and played slowly, painstakingly, loudly. Every time there is a long pause and you prepare to take a deep breath of relief, the bloody thing starts up again even more loudly than before, so loud in fact that at one point Fred and I both jumped out of bed in disbelief, convinced that the guy must be standing in our living room.

Now I lived 6 months right next to a mosque in Jordan, and I was frequently drawn from sleep by the call of the muezzin – in fact, I learned to really like it. But nothing, nothing could have prepared me for the agony of a badly played bugle first thing in the morning. If ever motivation was needed to support a country in reforming its police, this would be it. I hear that France is getting rid of its famous gendarmes, subsuming them slowly to the national police to make a single civilian police force. Civilian force. No bugles. Great idea.