Elections Lockdown

11 December 2011

I am so very, very bored. I have heard the sayings ‘only boring people get bored’ and ‘the only cure for boredom is curiosity’ but I don’t think those people have ever had to sit through six days of lockdown. There isn’t that much happening here; terrible to say, I know, of a contested presidential election where over twenty people have been killed. In my friend’s neighbourhood, Limite, there has been sporadic shooting, close enough to drive her and her family under the bed for protection. But that is over the other side of the city from me. I am holed up in my boss’ compound, right on the river overlooking the Brazzaville banks, and where young men come to fish in their dug out canoes. I feel far from the action, and check the international news sites almost hourly: the New York Times to find out what might be happening outside my own front door. Reliable Congolese news is sporadic, and even the UN-supported Radio Okapi only gives two-minute hourly updates, with nothing in the way of commentary or analysis. Contrast this with the US, with hours dedicated daily to which candidate did what and what that might mean, a year before Election Day.

Drowned dragonfly - but is it artsy?

I am bored. I have: read high-minded history books, low-brow detective novels, every online newspaper under the sun. I have watched al-Jazeera, France 24, and BBC Lifestyle, as well as dozens of films and TV series on my computer. I am sick of looking at screens. I have walked around the compound, done a bit of yoga, gone swimming in the pool, and taken ‘artistic’ photos of bugs who had drowned in said pool.

I was actually looking forward to lockdown: a chance to watch marathons of seriously bad TV with the excuse that there is little else to do. But my intellectual boss has sort of stymied this. Obviously thinking I was only watching “My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding” because there was nothing more engaging on the tele, she has suggested I go through her books, films (the sort that really are ‘films’, not ‘movies’) and historical television series to find something more stimulating. As this is the woman who signs my paychecks, I am a little loath to tell her that, rather than expanding my mind with French literature, I just want to see what happens when plastic surgery goes wrong.

Of course, these are first world problems. I have the means to get out of the country if need be, and we are not yet the target of either side, although this could change if the Congolese don’t feel that the International Community is supporting them. But it feels like the frog boiling on the stove. You can feel the tension, and there is a massive weight in the center of my chest. It is the waiting that, for me, is stressful. I just want whatever is going to happen to just happen already. And then I feel guilty. It won’t be my friends and family who are hurt should there be protests, and should those protests turn violent. Whatever happens I’ll have moved on next year when my contract ends.

We are venturing out tomorrow, going into the office, seeing a different set of four walls. Apparently Kabila and Tshikedi are negotiating, and the streets of Kinshasa are poised for Tshi to give the word to protest. And until he does, the waiting continues.

UPDATE: A week later, and I'm back in lockdown. Last night, the Supreme Court upheld Kabila’s Presidential win, and we don't know how the opposition will react.