I drove. Sorry, I didn’t drive. I was driven from Gombe to Limete to meet a client this morning. On the way there, we saw a dead body on the road. Most probably a hit and run in the evening. No one did anything. Just tires around the corpse. And everyone driving around it. We didn’t see any police.

We also saw motorcycles taking over our lane, some were even being picked up onto the sidewalks to avoid the traffic! There were also huge piles of garbage left and right, yellow public transport minibuses or “esprit de mort” or “Fula fulas” as they’re called, that were chock full of people and things.

Some motorcycle taxis had goats on them! Puddles of stagnant water from last night’s rain and mud were everywhere. Filth and plastic in gutters. A 2 by 2 lane was turned into a 5 by 1 lane. Luckily everyone was going in the other direction. Motorcycles almost always nearly scraped the car.

We sat in a lot traffic on the way back. The filth along the main roads was impressive and depressing.

On the way, a man with a microphone was yelling at passers by to help a 6 year old kid who was seated next to him. The boy had a swollen tongue so big that his mouth couldn’t close and was completely open. His tongue was pink and red. The man asked us to pity the poor boy in Lingala but we all just passed them.

We also crossed many sellers on the road. After seeing juicy mangoes on the sidewalk, I jumped out as the traffic stopped again. I bought 2 bags of precut mangoes (they say I shouldn’t buy cut mangoes, that it’s not clean, maybe they’re right), one was for me and one was for my driver.

A boy sitting behind the mango-selling lady told her in Lingala “Tell him they’re 5000 FC each” after she had told me that they were 1000 FC. I got angry at him and said “Keba na yo!” (Watch out!). He looked shocked. The lady laughed and said “A zo loba Lingala” (He speaks Lingala). I paid and left.

As we kept driving, I noticed many sellers of plastic flowers. I asked my driver why. He said it’s because students were graduating. I was still shocked by the number of sellers of plastic flowers and not real ones!

Eventually, after standing still for hours and saluting many cops, we made it back to the office.

That’s just another normal day in Kinshasa.