I say this …but it would be funny if they were all really saying “Cheap bastard” behind my back. “Iz it cos I iz white?”…”You can’t hold the white man down! Notes to myself and to my friends. So his brother slowly walked him over to me (he was still crying, while everyone else in the village was laughing and tutting) and I bent down to shake his hand “Bonjour papa, sava?” …and he continued to cry, but the thought was there. Some of our richer relatives haven’t got the time to take her in and keep her under their care and supervision so there she stays, and I found it kind of depressing. Join Facebook to connect with Estelle Saka Saka and others you may know. Facebook gives people the power to share and makes the world more open and connected. He was staring in the same way that a young baby would stare at new company suspiciously until they got to know them later in the day. But once you get to know him he lets his guard down a bit and I enjoyed trying to make him laugh with my butchered Lingala. In other words, it’s the hard way round, but a less selfish route. Join Facebook to connect with Davina Saka and others you may know. None of this really had the air of disappointment or desperation though, and it was all pretty casual and friendly. (Below is a beardless pic from my visit with her three years back). This place is situated in Bandundu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, its geographical coordinates are 4° 36' 0" South, 17° 49' 0" East and its original name (with diacritics) is Saka. It was also pretty deep considering that my first impression was that she literally has nothing. She’s a champ. At the airport we said goodbye in true unsentimental Kimbangi fashion with a man hug and a “See you at home”. After a couple more failed attempts Dad finally tutted, paid him half a fare and we got the hell out of the car. The starers always become bashful and friendly once you communicate and their suspicions and inquisitiveness just evaporates. Booking.com, being established in 1996, is longtime Europe’s leader in online hotel reservations. He still waited there as I walked towards the one and only gate. Matondo had one story in particular which caught my attention, which he shared with us over a beer. The location, at the time, was nothing special, but has since become a bit of a hot spot, on a busy main road. Let me stress again that my parents are by no means rich. “Yeah standard, you should fire him” I said. He would always be the first one up in the mornings filling up our buckets of water, he would be the one who did all of the cooking and he could have quite happily done this trip without me and saved himself a lot of hassle. “Nah, I never liked England I just came for you” he quickly corrected me. I found out that Grandma never remarried, so from 1986 to this day she has remained single and faithful to her departed husband. Oil on canvas. Je suis nay in Kinshasa!” (“Not mundele! So we get to the vast bit of land, and I’m pretty shocked by the size of it. Saka A cataphract -style parade armour of a Saka royal, also known as "The Golden Warrior", from the Issyk kurgan, a historical burial site near ex-capital city of Almaty, Kazakhstan. Dad has a bit of a soft side sometimes with his actions, even though his words are usually much more severe. Now I shower. Maboke: A freshwater fish cooked in large marantacee leaves. So about ten seconds in I hit a bit of a ditch and needed the boy’s assistance again. And this will in turn, also make a profit, and the land will increase value and so on. Lutumba worked in road construction for the government and his wife, my grandma, worked as a house lady. Ideally, how the system should work, is that you wait for confirmation that the container has arrived and then book your flights to meet it during the 10 days which the port stores the container free of charge (and you would then spend a month or so afterwards selling the goods). Where is my home, ey? Then there was a bang. And what I keep trying to convince him about is that he needs to build more and capitalise on the prime location he owns land on”. So it was just funny to me really that such obstacles were put in place and it probably spurred me on even more. His mum then picked him up and said something about ‘mundele’ and I said “Mundele te! “Fighting Ebola is all encompassing work” The only reason I picked up on it was because of the swift head-chopping action he made half way through the conversation. Vous allez adorer cette recette facile et rapide. Served with rice, Saka Saka/Pondu, fryed Bananas/Plantains and sweet potatoes, the red ones, american I think. The pili-pili saka-saka diaries. Chat with your soulmate in Saka. Le virus du Sida chez moi dans ma famille. He was lucky that the minibus driver hadn’t got out to assess the damage, but it was so crowded and chaotic that everyone just wanted us to get a move on. Soka (vattendrag i Kongo-Kinshasa) , Kasaï-Occidental, 6°06′39″S 20°33′49″E  /  6.11097°S 20.56352°Ö  / -6.11097; 20.56352  ( Soka (vattendrag i Kongo-Kinshasa Mundele = white man = opportunity for cash (or mbongo as they call it). And now it’s only half done”. Another policeman with an AK was on the other side trying to move cars about in order to make room for us to slide back in. Showers are so much easier in England. “England brought me down. It turns out that it’s easier to just cut their heads off sometimes clearly. Kongo: Dalapo ya Kinsasa. me. We fill up all four large canisters, screw the lids shut and place them, tightly compact, into the wheelbarrow. Apparently if you want someone to go to jail you have to pay for their admittance and even their meals whilst they are there, so you need to really want them to go to jail. All the while the street was roaring with the sound of car horns and shouting, and high-beams were our only guide back to our lane in the darkness. I felt really bad about her living conditions when we left and quizzed Dad about it. “Argh!”, the driver said lifting his hand off the wheel and covering up. Saka, who was born in England, is very grateful to his parents whom he credits for his fledgeling football career. Literally 100% of the time when you walk down the road and you see someone staring at you – as soon as you just initiate and say “Bonjour” they always smile and say bonjour back. Suddenly some police/military men showed up out of nowhere and rushed towards us; some with truncheons and a few with AK47’s. The driver continued his attempt to cross back over onto the other side of the road, whilst creating minimal damage to the minibus which was already significantly scratched. Anyway, so there is one tap in our little area of the town, about a quarter of a mile walking-distance from our house, and this time Dad wanted me to fetch our supply (rather than the teenage boy of the family living next door who we share with). I am frequently reminded by Dad and his friends that money talks in Congo. Midpoint: -12.09488,30.45209. Growing up, my dad was also very likeable and friendly to everyone who came to our house. Saka Saka: Ground cassava leaves cooked with palm oil, peanut paste, beans and salt fish. Saka Saka, also known as Pondu, is a typical Congolese recipe that uses cassava as the main ingredient, usually accompanying smoked or salted fish caught in the Congo River (although meat is also sometimes used).The fish is cooked along with the leaves from the omnipresent cassava. Or…maybe I did, but I definitely didn’t realise the scale of what he was dealing with out here. Served with rice, Saka Saka/Pondu, fryed Bananas/Plantains and sweet potatoes, the red ones, american I think. “Wait….Wait a minute” I say, trying to break in. Please check your browser settings or contact your system administrator. Everywhere I guess…I have no allegiances. The funny thing is though, when I asked my Dad “Would you ever have expected that you’d be living in England?”, expecting a sort of rags to riches reflective answer, he was far from sentimental about it all. Then I found out that there wasn’t even any travel insurance currently available for Congo. Once a day in Boma, we would head down to the depot and see how Dad’s employees were getting along with the sales. Charles has known my Dad since school, so they both trust each other (which is a serious currency in Congo), but he also knows what he’s doing in the property business so he’s a good man-on-the-ground for our family. So, naturally, I thought I would leach on to all of his hard work and join at the last minute. We can’t seem to shake this whole father-son dynamic, which means that he is constantly ‘looking out for me’ and scrutinising my every move. Well basically, in the same way that in England it is noticeable that I am a darker shade of white and therefore am black; in Congo it is noticeable that I am a lighter shade of black and therefore am white. There was always a bit of a language barrier growing up which I resented him for, and I would usually go straight to Mum with all of my questions. You can use that fat to brown the chicken pieces. As you would expect, I was advised quite a few times by my parents not to come along, but generally speaking never in a really serious or adamant way. 3 pneus June 21, 2010. And Eric was Joe’s even skinnier and gaunt older brother, who was quiet but friendly when spoken to. They can’t always be ‘on’. “People are always afraid of what’s different” – The philosopher Yul Brenner from Cool Runnings. I have transcribed this for you, word for word, for your entertainment and here’s a link to listen along: I don’t know if Mum tell you yesterday…in Congo they got a trouble. Three gigantic tires (“pneus”) were seen a week ago by the narrator, stacked like 3 fat bagels in the middle of a road intersection in Paka 120, a large popular and sandy neighborhood of Pointe-Noire. 5. The reality is that she doesn’t want to come to England, she doesn’t want to leave her neighbourhood and she likes to be around the friends and family that are taking care of her now. The loud passenger sitting to my right kept pretty schtum throughout the whole drama, but I broke the silence after a moment with a little laugh/nose exhale, and everyone then followed suit. Mundele!” and told me to get out. So they have a problem, trouble, war. Cassava leaves (saka saka), pounded and cooked, are always a favorite. They talk to strangers like you would talk to your siblings – or at least how you would talk to strangers after a couple of pints. Powered by, Badges  |  To think, all those puddles that I somehow managed to step over without him pointing them out to me. “Muy est difficile en Congo, eh?” (Me trying to say in Lingala/French that water is difficult in Congo). And that’s pretty much all I got out of him, to sum up an hour of Rene’s side of the story. Even mixed race people like myself attract a lot of attention, which ranges from stares and whispers to one student who literally stopped in his tracks with an open mouth when he saw me. I am not trying to make light of this is in any way but he spoke about it in such a casual manner that it was surreal to say the least. Elena. He’s a genuinely decent and trustworthy guy, which I’m told is hard to come across in Congolese business partnerships, and I wish him all the best out there in Boma. A couple of weeks later I was back up in London and received a pretty hilarious voicemail message from Dad, in his thick accent, about the current political situation over in Congo and how I shouldn’t make any preparations to go. I’m not sure if this stems from having British-educated smart-arses for sons, but he has always strained to remain dominant around me no matter how old or supposedly wise I get. I should also mention that the military tends to keep things in line, in their own radical fashion, to the point where most of the crime committed in the city is done by the military themselves abusing their power. And meanwhile we were trying to force our way back into the right lane, so our back left end was sticking out. Later I was speaking to Dad about it and he was pretty livid, and deciding on whether or not to fire him. Why was our grandma living in conditions that would make a westerner on the tube donate if they saw a picture of her lifestyle? One canister abandoned ship at this point, but I didn’t let that slow me down and left it for the boy trailing behind me to collect. But the problem was that the minibus driver in front was growing more and more impatient and receiving a bunch of horns from the people behind him, pressuring him to make a move. The bus stopped right in front of us and continued to beep in short bursts, whilst our driver tried desperately to find an opening on the right hand side. I said “It’s been a good two weeks” and he laughed and replied “OK, OK”. Anyway, it was all good… I needed a work out didn’t I. Next stop was Uncle Charles Diawaku’s office for a quick drop in. Could “saka” be a Congolese pronunciation of “cassava”, doubled for an emphasis on quantity to name a dish wherein cassava leaves are the key element? I wasn’t spoilt as a child and I always assumed we were actually pretty poor because we didn’t have fancy/frivolous things like all of my friends (I’m glad this was the case on reflection), so hearing about this land really was a surprise to me. My mum and dad met at the school as colleagues, when my dad returned from university to teach agriculture, and they later moved to the capital together where they started a new life. My dad, myself, and lots of people send her money and she is happy where she is despite how it may look to me. One of my jobs was to unscrew all of the pedals and wheels from his big stack of bikes in order to make them compact, so I made my way through about 10 of the 150 before getting a bit bored. We still didn’t know at this point whether or not the second container would arrive whilst I was there, on April 25th as planned, but all we could do was hope (because, you know, how could he possibly manage without me). Moke (D.R. Me and my dad’s eyes were fixed on the minibus at the left side and the gap between us, saying standard backseat-driver stuff like “Careful” and “Easy”. Shower, shower, shower” x45. Today when Dad woke me up he had a special task for me to do, unlike the other days, when he just does it for fun. It’s a louder way of life but a more external and honest one because they wear their hearts on their sleeves. Their excuse was that I could have been a refugee using the river to breach the neighbouring country Angola, which is just on the other side (you can see it’s shores, and can often see their lightning first, as a precursor for Boma’s). We have a trouble, I don’t like you to be dead there. But I like the dude, he seems legit. I had a lot of questions about it as I’m sure you do but, even if I could speak the language, I didn’t want to probe him on this particular subject. So I loaded up the wheelbarrow with four empty canisters and set off with the boy from next door so he could show me the way. “Ok, we’re good” I think. But then so was Dad. After about 20 minutes everyone started to get uncomfortable and agitated and the latest addition to the cab did his best job at peer-pressuring the driver into becoming more and more reckless. The reactions from Mundele and Matondo were often in the form of laughing, and then often severe. I asked my dad about it later and it turns out that he was calling me a ‘runaway’, because I live in England now. So we load them all up again and I assure him I’ll be fine this time (I’m not sure which of us I was trying to convince). It’s always friendly and I was used to it from my last trip so it didn’t particularly phase me, but after a while you start to feel like a two headed man in Leicester Square. When you encounter faces that have never seen ‘your kind’ before, you are pretty much a representative whether you like it or not. And Dad already knows all this stuff and is working on it, little by little, with whatever money he has. Meet pretty women and single men. The house was filled with all sorts of second-hand crap and Dad was in full-on, 24/7 container mode. It would be pretty funny if I did the opposite though and scared the life out of him “Remember it was the white man that did this to you! It would have been great to put subtitles to it and see what the hell they were talking about. He spoke to my dad in French mixed with Lingala and as usual I would sit quietly, ‘let the grown ups talk’ and then ask Dad for a quick summary afterwards. So three days, four days now, since last week they don’t go to work. Samba Mapangala is a Congolese singer and bandleader who has been based in Kenya for most of his five-decade musical career, most notably there creating and leading Virunga, which has been one of the most popular bands in East Africa for more than 35 years.. It was mostly plain sailing (ish) once I got into a bit of a rhythm. This tractor, at the moment, is at a depot in Boma, along with the rest of the stuff that he shipped in the earlier container, of which there is now only 5 engines left to sell. When I pitched the idea to my mum and dad, they seemed pretty on-the-fence about it. Welcome to the Saka google satellite map! So we get out of the car and Dad tells me to take off my flip flops (which have been pissing him off a little bit for the whole trip so far) and put on some proper boots so we can now trek through the land to the farming area. And I could tell he was weighing up whether or not to give him another chance. After some more small talk about his astonishment at my Lingala and where I’m from, he eventually, very cordially, bids me farewell and returns to his original post. And the third stage was just blind rage. It hit me pretty hard. Kinshasa Tourism Kinshasa Hotels Kinshasa Bed and Breakfast ... the French fries and saka saka, less so. I really got along with Joe which made it all the more distressing when I found out about the tragedy regarding his youngest baby boy. But nah the teenage boy came and helped me get unstuck of course. To which she laughed and relayed the message onto the baby. Followed by a long scratch, as we connected and slid past. The head balancing tekkers in Congo is unbelievable. Halfway there, travelling uphill, I think to myself, “I’m struggling here, and the canisters aren’t even full yet bruv”. So anyone and everyone Dad knew in Brighton ended up being roped in to help out and I could only hide from it all for so long. After finishing school he was a member of several 1970s Kinshasa bands: he sang with Super Tukina who recorded his first hit, "Satonge," then he joined Super Bella Bella alongside Jean Bosco and Mongoley, a guitarist formerly of Orchestre Lipua Lipua, and he also played with Bariza and Saka Saka. We finally approached the entrance to the house and my dad and the ‘Nkolo Mboka’, who lives next door and owns the house we were renting, were laughing and watching my triumphant return into the driveway. Dad would sometimes seem to be amused by the conversation but then at other times incredibly angry and direct. “Now, I must shower Mr David. Happy holidays and a happy New year. Chez Flore: Pluses and Minuses - See 25 traveler reviews, 5 candid photos, and great deals for Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, at Tripadvisor. So after four days in the capital we set off on a 12 hour drive from Kinshasa down to Boma, via Kimpese – the village where my dad grew up and met my mum. “Madness” I said to my dad, who was shaking his head. “Voilà!” he says. Then suddenly you see their faces change from staring-in-a-trance to becoming coy and shy as if to say “Oh yes, sorry, hello, that’s right you’re a person, I forgot for a second cos you don’t look like me”. So basically the last trip, 3 years ago, was a touristy family holiday, seeing the sights, visiting relatives and so on. Now to elaborate on this message; Dad didn’t want me to go because I am, as they say in Congo, a ‘mundele’ (meaning ‘white man’) and would therefore be a hindrance. After a minute of trying to convince him that no African would appreciate it, we decided to put it back. A lot of people have thought it to be strange that, as a mixed race person, I would still be called a mundele over there. To make things a bit less biased though, I’m sure he found me equally as annoying to be with for two weeks – sponging off him, bugging him for translations and generally being a mundele hindrance. So there will be riots and striking…and therefore no money…and therefore if they see someone who is a lighter shade of black they may assume they have money…and therefore rob and/or kill them. 0 Likes. This house has been a steady-ish form of income (and problems) for my Dad for a long time as he has rented it out to several families. Yet at the same time very honest about her health situation, as when I asked about it, her face suddenly changed and she quietly said “Not so good”. sajead saka-saka | Democratic Republic of the Congo | Responsable contrôle permanent crédit et contrepartie at Rawbank | 139 connections | See sajead's complete profile on Linkedin and connect Connecting local responses around the world, Posted on June 10, 2009 at 3:46pm It would have been good to have been there when the container arrived, and helped with the unloading and the madness involved with the rush-of-sales when the items are first put on the market. Badger was the affable one, round faced and with a bit of a belly. So we flagged down the next car that happened to have space for two and was headed in the same direction, and headed off about 7pm in the pitch black of the city. Dad works 7 days a week in his taxi to afford to get this container stuff on the move, and he is relying on selling the extra items in order to cover a lot of the costs – and even then he’ll be lucky to break even. “Exactly” he said. Joe was the boss; tall, skinny, stern and serious for the most part, but we ended up becoming good friends (suited up in the picture below). The car, as well as everyone inside, was fuming as the driver pulled over to the side of the road and rolled to a stop. There wasn’t much tying me down in England and I figured I could do with a bit of excitement. In my Dad’s case he thinks with his mouth perhaps too much, but at least you know what you’re getting with him. Hi Elena, Thank you very much for writing again! At this point I was so bored of the traffic that I was thinking “Yeah, sure, why not”, and to be fair I had seen a lot worse driving on this trip so far. I’m 25!” etc. As I’m writing this I still don’t know whether or not he let him go, but I’ll let you know later on how it turned out. BIO Moke was born Monsenguro Kejwamfi in 1950 in Ibe, Bandundu Province, Democratic Republic of Congo. He has crutches, to add to his X Factor sob story, and has just begun to serenade me at the table opposite mine. And I guess we have never been majorly close. Le virus du Sida chez moi dans ma famille. Archive for the ‘Saka-saka’ Category « Older Entries. Panyandraning kaca panyandra barkasé kapacak ing ngisor. So this two weeks really will be the most time we have ever spent together alone, in such close proximity, and a good opportunity to quiz him on a lot of stuff that I don’t know about him. Saka Saka Organisation RDCCompetence Skype and telephone asakasaka My dream: Kinshasa competent against aids I'm proud of: RDCCompetence work. It’s common to see four people on one motorbike and groups of people piled in, around and on top of cars. We proceeded on foot. Now, surely even the most die-hard cynical atheist couldn’t help but see some of the beauty in that. ... Présentation recette : Envie du poisson fumé? Moke (D.R. I couldn’t find the right words to ask for a specific diagnosis or analysis beyond that, so she just kept repeating it. I was starting to get a lot of compliments on my lingala (even from Dad) and I think after three or four more weeks I’d be pretty much fluent. Reading this back, it sounds like one of those cons, where all that’s left to say is “Now I just need you to invest $20,000 and I assure you that you can capitalise on this goldmine”. My dad pointed out that he often has ‘starers’ in Brighton as well, who would divert their eyes to the floor whenever he met their gaze. Everyone used to tell me how cool he was, which I appreciated a lot actually, but I had to also convince them that he was a tough guy on the sly. But as I say, Charles and my Dad go way back, and my Dad is already fully aware of the increasing value of the land that he owns. “You paid him to do a job, and he didn’t do it.”. Ringkesan. But from our car window we caught him secretly stealing bunches and throwing them over the side to a friend down below who was hiding with a bag to fill. The Constellation video, where we journey in less then 2 minutes from space, through nature, to villages, in homes and back while exploring what the Constellation stands for. saka saka My last trip to Congo, 3 years ago, was my first return to the motherland in 21 years since my birth. By the end of my time in Boma I was starting to feel pretty accepted and a part of the group (although you wouldn’t tell it from the picture below where the tourist is the only one smiling). So no insurance it is. Remove the layer of fat that is on top of the fruit pulp. And suddenly a minibus came charging towards us with one long extended beep whilst high beaming us to death. Meet and match with the best looking singles in Saka. The guys were Joe, Badger and Eric. I assured him that if I were to come along, I would give him my undivided attention, treat it as a work trip and would be his loyal employee, so eventually he came around. So here we go. By this time we drew a bit of a crowd and I heard a lot of the usual mundele whispers. I supposed mummy tell you already, when you spoke to him, but if not I will speak to her later. “Argh, something about there being too much rain or some rubbish”. So I had a little walk around Boma and found, what became, ‘the spot’. Enjoy local food such as Le Pondu. (Sitting around chatting, by the way, is pretty much the standard here, as most people spend a decent chunk of their day doing just that. Saka Saka's Photos. Now this makes it sound like it is a mad lawless town like Deadwood, which in some ways it is, but evidently this law of the jungle must keep people in line out of common sense and necessity for their lives to function properly. Saka Saka Organisation RDCCompetence Skype and telephone asakasaka My dream: Kinshasa competent against aids I'm proud of: RDCCompetence work. I’m told later that this house was the first to be built in this area and they paid the water company for a pipe straight to their doorstep. off. Palm wine: A tipple made from the sap of palm trees and fermented by natural yeasts. “Are you joking?” I said out loud, not that anyone could understand me. The election isn’t for another year after I am travelling there anyway, so there wouldn’t be much sign of rioting and resistance just yet. I was born in Kinshasa”). It was a little Skol bar on the riverbank with the sun blazing, amazing views and an acoustic guitarist jamming in the corner. ... Archive for the ‘Kinshasa’ Category « Older Entries. Lifting up my friends and hugging them and calling them ‘big boss’. Barkas iki saka Wikimedia Commons lan kena kanggo proyèk liya. So for the first time in my life the white card is preventing me from doing something. She is a tall, skinny and frail lady, with pretty much no hair on her head, living with my Auntie Michaelle in an area called Makala. Maplandia.com in partnership with Booking.com offers highly competitive rates for all types of hotels in Saka, from affordable family hotels to the most luxurious ones. “What the hell is going on?” I think. March came and Dad flew out solo to crack on with the first container. We get to the house, which apparently has gated access to this tap, and begin to load up our canisters. “There is no secret, only God!” she answered, which Dad relayed back to me. When there’s no English people to share the experience with, you are forced to just adapt and get on with it and there’s a lot less time to reflect and say “This is nuts”. Why doesn’t he just sell all of this land, quit all of the hassle, quit driving the taxi back in England, and then use the money to invest in something which requires a lot less involvement. Central Africa people seem to be unique in their consumption of cassava leaves, which are cooked as greens. So I found myself jotting things down as I went along as Dad tends to just shrug everything off. 1. To be fair though, after hearing Dad’s side, it didn’t really matter… because it sounds like Rene messed up. Spending every waking minute together was always going to produce some interesting results, but wow. And my dad also insists that her simple diet and lifestyle, free from an overload of unnatural chemicals, is really the way forward, if you want to know her ‘secret’. As I walked into their little home I was guided straight away into Grandma’s room, where she was lying flat on the hard concrete floor, with a sand bag to rest her head on. Add the contents of the tin and a little water. We drove by some livid faces and I’d be interested to know what kind of language they were using, but eventually we got out into the clear. Saka i Kongo-Kinshasa. During these first few days in Kinshasa, upon my arrival, we received the bad news that the second container had been delayed yet again, and would NOT be arriving during my two week stay in Congo. So to shower we would just use a jug to splash ourselves with cold water from the buckets, which doesn’t sound like much fun, and it wasn’t, but due to the heat it was generally quite refreshing.