Scavenger Hunt, Kinshasa Style

The past few days have been a blur of location scouting, prop hunting, and shooting in the hot sun. On Wednesday I went out with a few of the crew to hunt down such miscellaneous items as a machete, a couple of wigs, men's pyjamas, a full size bed, etc. In an American city that would be hard but in Kinshasa? Let's just say that in five hours we'd collected a mere four or five of the items we needed. It was like a slightly dangerous very sweaty scavenger hunt involving some crazy driving skills.

The first place we stopped at was the Commerce district, a bustling "downtown downtown" that was packed with people and various shops and cars and men helping people park their cars. I hadn't brought a camera case with me and had to leave my Canon with our driver to keep it safe, as theft in that area is huge. Sure enough, as soon as we'd slammed the car doors this man ran past us at full speed, pursued by two others. He'd stolen someone's bag and when they caught him they beat him up. I couldn't look after the first punch but I heard it.

Entering the Panya (traditional Congolese fabric) Store was a breath of fresh air--literally. They had a huge fan blowing and fabric covering all of the walls in beautiful folds (I wish I'd been able to take photos), and in the middle of the room was a MASSIVE pile of cloth and women sifting through it. In the middle of the cloth pile there was a man standing on a cardboard box dancing to the hip hop music that was playing, holding up bits of fabric and measuring them with his arms and talking about how beautiful they were and complimenting women and basically being a salesman. He had so much energy! In the 45 minutes that we were there the song continued on repeat and he never faltered.

Afterward we drove the two blocks to the Grand Marche, a huge outdoor market I'd heard about but could never actually imagine. This time Coco and Francis insisted on holding me and Mimi's hands as it's not a safe area at all. I've been stared at a lot in the Congo for being white but never as much as in the market--people couldn't believe I was there, AND holding a Congolese man's hand. All the comments they made were in Lingala but I wish I knew what they were saying. When we stopped in a salon to buy some wigs Coco put an afro on me and the ENTIRE store including everyone on the street outside stopped and stared and laughed so hard I thought they were going to fall over. Coco was trying to tell me in French what was so funny but could he could only gasp out "mundele...mundele!" (white person). There's photos of this somewhere out there...

For the past couple of days we've been filming in our Parcel, the little plot of land and house that we rent in a middle-class neighborhood as our permanent set (more on that later). After spending hours sitting right outside the gate in the residential street and watching people go about their lives and making faces at the staring children I feel so lucky. I doubt that the majority of the foreigners and expats here have seen the neighborhoods and things I have in just the past few days--even Owen has never been anywhere like the places we were prop hunting. I am so grateful to be surrounded by a crew of people who push me and show me the depths of the real, and sometimes harsh Kinshasa. It's difficult and exhausting and confusing and at times a little terrifying for me but I'm never unappreciative of the experience.