Petit (tres petit) commerce

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of the world's richest countries, judged by natural resources, and one of the poorest, judged by the amount of wealth that trickles down to the general population. This can be easily seen through a comparison of the relative economic purchasing power parity (PPP) standings versus the rest of the world of the country and one of its average citizens.

In 2008, the DRC's GDP was $20.64 billion, which ranked the country 121st globally. Not great, but ahead of a significant number of other developing countries. In the same year, the per capita GDP (PPP) was $300, which ranked 228th globally! Only Zimbabweans ranked worse, and Afghanistanis earned more than twice as much (Burmese earned four times as much, Vietnamese and Indians almost ten times as much)!

Ongoing armed conflict, of course, is the main reason people cannot establish regular businesses, and is the main reason there is no national infrastructure to support business, with the result that fiscally, the country is even worse shape than the United States under George W. Bush, with revenues of $700 million and expenditures of $2 billion (2006 estimates).

That said, people try to do what they can, and when/if even a tiny amount of extra cash is generated, many people try to convert it into a business of some sort, whether that's selling extra manioc at the side of the road, or making a long trip into a city to buy Chinese-made flipflops or batteries or toilet paper to resell in a rural market.

The above are photographs I took of the weekly market and some shops in Nyanzale, in North Kivu province, and of the "copy shop" in the street outside the main building of the University of Goma. [In the first photo, the guy in the foreground is shouting at me and showing off his best kung fu moves ... he was almost certainly drunk and venting his socioeconomic frustration at the passing white man. In the second photo, as our jeep came into the market, sellers picked up their things out of the road to let us past ... there are so few vehicles the market simply takes over the road.]

Tiring ...

Distance is relative.

Riding my bike in to Tokyo on six lane highways, 80 kilometers takes less than an hour. Here in the Congo, on unpaved and heavily rutted roads, I have rarely seen drivers exceed 40 kph, and 25 kph is far more usual.

The other problem, of course, is tires. The roads are brutal on tire rubber, and flat tires are an everyday occurrence for most drivers. The MSF vehicles I have traveled in are much better maintained than the average local truck, and none of the vehicles I was in suffered a flat tire, but we passed many trucks having tires changed, and once had to wait on a one lane mountain road while a truck driver (pictured) and his assistant (standing on the wrench, tightening the lugs) finished their repair.

The last photo shows a tire on a truck delivering goods to an MSF compound in Goma. You can see an enormous crack running all the way around the sidewall, near the wheel. That will blow out tomorrow, I said to the driver. He replied, "Nah, not 'til next week."

High Life ...

Times have changed in the Democratic Republic of Congo since Mobutu flew a Concorde-load of Champagne in from Paris ... just back (to Goma) from Nyanzale, where there was no Internet connection (!), no phone service, and ... no electricity, thanks to a failed generator alternator. Tres romantique. Photograph of deluxe accommodation attached.

The really bad news: the red wine ran out last night (luckily, I had poured my final glass). The silver lining? I left this morning for a place where the supply is ample. Sante!

Goma Laundromat

Shot this in Goma today, on the way in from the airport (and from the window of a moving, bouncing Land Cruiser, so ... apologies for the quality). But the photo shows dozens of women washing clothes in Lake Kivu, and drying them on the rocks.