A few days ago, browsing AfricaNews, I came accross this video describing the difficulties of getting a taxi in Kinshasa. Since the city doesn't have a formal public transportation system, people have to rely on taxi-vans or regular taxis to get around. And in big city of about 8 million people where a lot of people have to commute great distances to go to work, this means a huge traffic chaos on a daily basis. To get a better idea about what I'm talking about, watch this video:

And if the lack of proper public transportation wasn't enough of a problem for people who can't walk to work, the lack of road maintenance adds up to the daily hurdles of commuters as shown by this other video (it's in French, but the images speak for themselves):

Stumbling upon some blogs, I found a very interesting excerpt from Barack Obama's memoir Dreams of my father which I think is worth sharing. I haven't read the book, which was written almost 15 years ago, but according to the back cover description it's about Obama's emotional journey after his father dies in a car accident. That takes him from Kansas and Hawaii to Kenya trying to retrace his African side by finding out more about his father, and his life away from him that he never knew.

This excerpt is a reflection about his passage through Europe on his way to Kenya, during which he remembers a Senegalese man he crossed paths with in Spain:

By the end of the first week or so, I realized that I'd made a mistake. It wasn't that Europe wasn't beautiful; everything was just as I'd imagined it. It just wan't mine. I felt as if I were living out someone else's romance; the incompleteness of my own history stood between me and the sites I saw like a hard pane of glass. I began to suspect that my European stop was just one more means of delay, one more attempt to coming to terms with the Old Man. Stripped of language, stripped of work and routine - stripped even of the racial obsessions to which I'd become so accustomed and which I had taken (perversely) as a sign of my own maturation -I had been forced to look inside myself and had found only great emptiness there.

Would this trip to Kenya finally fill that emptiness? The folks back in Chicago thought so. It'll be just like Roots, Will said at my going-away party. A pilgrimage, Asante had called it. For them, as for me, Africa had become an idea more than an actual place, a new promised land full of ancient traditions and sweeping vistas, noble struggles and talking drums. With the benefit of distance, we engaged Africa in a selective embrace - the same sort of embrace I'd once offered the Old Man. What would happen once I relinquished that distance? It was nice to believe that the truth would somehow set me free. But what if that was wrong? What if the truth only disappointed, and my father's death meant nothing, and his leaving me behind meant nothing, and the only tie that bound me to him, or to Africa, was a name, a blood type, or white people's scorn?

I switched off the overhead light and closed my eyes, letting my man drift back to an Afrian I'd met while traveling through Spain, another man no the run. I had been waiting for a night bus in a roadside tavern about halfway between Madrid and Barcelona. A few old men sat at tables and drank wine from short, cloudy glasses. There was a pool table off to one side, and for some reason I had racked up the balls and started to play [...]

As I was finishing up the table, a man in a thin wool sweater had appeared out of nowhere and asked if he could buy me some coffee. He spoke no English, and his Spanish wasn't much bettr than mine, but he had the winning smile and the urgency of someone in need of company. Standing at the bar, he told me he was from Senegal, and was crisscrossing Spain for seasonal work. He showed me a battered photograph he kep in his wallet of a young girl with round, smooth cheeks. His wife, he said; he had to leave her behind. They would be reunited as soon as he saved the money. He would write and send for her.

We ended up riding to Barcelona together, neither of us talking much, him turning to me every so often to try to explain the jokes on the Spanish program being shown on a TV-video contraption hooked up above the driver's seat. Shortly before dawn, we were deposited in front of an old bus depont, and my friend gestured me over to a short, thick palm that grew beside the road. From his knap-sack he pulled out a toothbrush, a comb, and a bottle of water that he handed to me with great ceremony. And together we washed ourselves under the morning mist, before hoisting our bags over our shoulders and heading toward town.

What was his name? I couldn't remember now; just another hungry man far away from home, one of the many children of former colonies - Algerians, West Indians, Pakistanis - now breaching the barricades of their former masters, mounting their own ragged, haphazard invasion. And yet, as we walked toward the Ramblas, I had felt as if I knew him as well as any man; that, coming from opposite ends of the earth, we were somehow making the same journey. When we finally parted company, I had remained in the street for a long, long time, watching his slender, bandy-legged image shrink into the distance, one part of me wishing then that I could go with him into a life of open roads and blue mornings; another part realizing that such a wish was also a romance, an idea, as partial as my image of the Old Man or my image of Africa.

Via Osocio (a site dedicated to social advertising and non-profit campaigns) I found this great ad for the Apartheid Museum in South Africa, by the same agency who created that other memorable campaign for The Zimbabwean newspaper.

The text at the bottom of the image reads this:

Twenty thousand South African women of various ethnicities marched on Pretoria’s Union Buildings to protest the Urban Area Act in 1956. The legislation required ‘non-whites’ to carry identification documents. Demonstrators sang a song which included the line “wathint’ abafazi, wathint’ imbokodo.” (you strike women, you strike a rock) and delivered bundles of petitions for the Prime Minister.

In honour of this collective stance, August 9 was declared a public holiday in South Africa in 1994 – National Women’s Day.

With the 2010 World Cup in South Africa just a year away, a few interesting creative projects are popping out around it. One of them (found via the excellent African Digital Art) is Football made in Africa, an upcoming video series that tries to offer a "portrait of a continent that lives, thrives and enthuses on football". The website doesn't contain a lot of information, but it has a very appealing design and a cool picture gallery. As well as a promising trailer, that you can watch here:

This is how they describe it:

Every episode offers an original angle on a story, a slice of everyday life, where football is present everywhere. From the production of goals in the outskirts of Maputo to the atmosphere in bars where matches are aired on tiny TV screens, the harvesting of rubber tree waste to make balls or the beaches of Cameroon where fishermen use their nets to play. The films are funny and poetic snapshots that reflect the unique imagination and energy of the African continent.

Football Made in Africa demonstrates all the creativity and dynamism of the peoples obliged to deploy a fair amount of cleverness and resourcefulness on a daily basis to be able to indulge in their passion: football.

Football Made in Africa is a canvas on which African society is painted. The different episodes are the colours, applied one by one, that produce a diversified picture of today's Africa.

Like Thomas Rid, the author of the blog Kings of War, says:

The permanent stream of gloomy news from the Democratic Republic of Congo is hard to stomach. So here’s something on the bright side: Kinshasa has a space program, “Troposphère”. The report is in French, naturally. But not to miss.

The full name of the rocket is actually Troposhère 5, since it's the fifth one that the DRC has launched. As the reporter says, it was built with "meager means but big ambitions" by a team of 5 researchers who were "encouraged" by the authorities (vice-president Emile Bongeli is shown saying that great things can be achieved from small dreams). Their objective: to send a rat to an altitude of 36km at a speed three times bigger than the speed of sound. Did they succeed? You'll have to watch the whole video...

Today at Kenya Imagine I found an interesting video titled (My Love & Pride) The Africa They Never Show You, which is a photo montage of mostly urban architecture in African capitals. At first I found it amusing that someone felt it was necessary to prepare a 10 minute video of pictures emphasizing that Africa is not just wildlife, jungles, deserts and rolling hills, mud huts, loincloths and tribal life. Many of the pictures show ugly modern buildings, but the point is to show how modern Africa is. So after the first couple of minutes of watching the slideshow I found it quite sad that for people outside of Africa it's not obvious that such a large continent, with 53 countries and thus 53 capitals, urban life exists.

I still think it's an enjoyable video to watch, since like its author says it's not the typical image of Africa shown by mainstream Western media. And although the video is a bit long and I missed a few capitals (like Kinshasa, one of the biggest cities in the continent), it's fun to compare the architercture of the different capitals throughout the continent.

And if you're on Facebook, you can join a group also called The Africa they never show you.

I just found out via Twitter that today DJ/Producer J.Period and ecclectic singer/composer K'naan (that I wrote about here) released a very interesting new remix project titled The Messengers. The project is a sort of mixtape tribute to three musical giants, Fela Kuti, Bob Marley and Bob Dylan which will be distributed online over the course of the next few weeks. This is how it is described at its launch:

Weaving afro-beat, reggae, ska, folk music and rock into this genre-bending musical experience, The Messengers stretches the boundaries of hip hop—and the mixtape genre itself. Remixing the classic work of Fela, Marley and Dylan, The Messengers captures the timelessness of their sounds and the continued urgency of their messages.

[...]

K’naan’s compelling personal story (raised in war-torn Mogadishu, descendant of famed Somali singers and poets) has also fueled his international appeal: bridging styles and audiences; re-invigorating hip hop’s global influence; and altering perception of his homeland, Somalia (recently hailed as the world’s “Most Dangerous Destination” by Forbes Magazine). In hip hop, where MCs wear bullet wounds like badges of honor, few have actually lived through war, and even fewer emerged with a message of peace. K’NAAN has, making his lyrics on The Messengers not just a tribute to Fela, Marley and Dylan, but a testament to the transformative power of music itself.

The Messengers will be released in 5 parts over the course of 5 weeks, beginning today with the first installment - a 3 song digital EP featuring one Fela remix, one Marley, and one Dylan. J.Period & K’naan will pay tribute to each of The Messengers individually with a new release every Tuesday in September, beginning with a tribute to Fela Kuti (September 1), Bob Marley (September 8), Bob Dylan (September 15), and culminating in the release of The Messengers in its entirety (including additional bonus tracks and artwork) on September 22.

You can download the first batch of songs by clicking here, and you can listen to the first one of the three which is a tribute to Fela Kuti just below.

This afternoon I watched the documentary film On the rumba river and, not surprisingly, I liked it. Congolese rumba music, interesting characters who have seen a lot and have a lot to say, amazing photography and a bit of Kinshasa history. What is there not to like? Here's the trailer:

The film focuses on a musician named Wendo Kolosoy, or Papa Wendo, who is considered the father of Congolese rumba (soukous). It opens with his wife cooking lunch for in the backyard complaining about him not having a job while he sits, eyes closed, under a tree. Where would I find work? he responds. These days there are no concerts to be hired for, he says. The film was shot in 2005, shortly after the Second Congo War with the country still recovering.

However, we see Papa Wendo gathering some of his old musicians to play and rehearse, probably for a comeback. He even invites another famous musician from the old days who comes from Brazzaville, across the river and they all have a jam session. He says that now Papa Wendo is all wise like a father, but when he was younger he was a bit of a thug, and often got into fights since he used to be a boxer. Later we learn that he also worked as a river boat mechanic but as soon as he became successful with his music he abandoned all other jobs.

The best thing about the film is not the story, as it's almost non-existent. It's the music scenes, shot with closeups filled with beauty and with a great sense for detail. Those scenes capture a true love for music, and a palpable nostalgic feeling for a past that won't come back. For a golden Congo that doesn't exist anymore.

However, as truly beautiful as those scenes are, I found the film lacking a bit of depth. Perhaps I would have liked to dig a bit more into the history of Papa Wendo and his musicians, of the golden years of the Congolese rumba. And to know more about the role of the river in all that. Instead of those couple of interviewees in the entourage who basically said "life is tough in Congo", I would have liked to hear more from the musicians since the music is what makes the film so enjoyable. Not every documentary about the Congo needs to be a commentary on the war or the hardships that it has suffered.

All things must pass, and so Papa Wendo passed away a bit over a year ago, which adds another layer of nostalgy to the film which now looks like a tribute. With him disappears an era.

A couple of days ago, I saw this brilliant short film titled Impasse and directed by Bram Schouw of the Netherlands :

Although the style is very different, it reminded me of another brilliant short film that I saw quite a long time ago in some film festival. Titled Schwarzfahrer (Black Rider), it also has two protagonists of different gender and different skin color, and it also has an unexpected ending. In this case the film is German, it is directed by Pepe Danquart and it won an Academy Award in 1994.

Although the article then goes on to talk about the "tragedies and turmoil" of Eastern Congo, I found this first paragraph truly refreshing:

When Hillary Clinton visited eastern Congo this week, she stepped into a land of fairy-tale beauty and incredible potential. I remember vividly the day in 1982 when my incoming "class" of Peace Corps volunteers made the same trip. Eastern Congo may be the most magical place on the planet; I remember thinking it did not even belong on this planet, so surreal were its mountains, lakes, volcanoes, and lush forests and farmland.

It's so rare for journalists reporting on the DRC to stray away from the "hell on earth" descriptions, yet this article by Michael O'Hanlon shows it's not that hard. But maybe his familiarity with the Congo, having spent a couple of years as a Peace Corps volunteer, make him see other dimensions of the country. And, although I don't fully agree with his statement that "problems like Congo, Darfur and Somalia tend to get solved only with U.S. leadership", I do think he makes some really good points about peacekeeping in the article. Well worth a read.