VW Vans I Have Known

Volkswagon Vans, Mercedes Benz, and a variety of SUVs are the most common cars I've seen in Kinshasa. Also some bizarre "skidunks" (swahili for junky car) made of various bits and pieces that often spew black acrid smoke. But it's the Volkswagon Vans that seem to be the most useful, as they're used as taxis that drive people all over the city.

I've heard that all taxis have to be painted blue and yellow (the colors of the Congolese flag), like this one:


I don't know how strictly enforced that is though, because I definitely see a lot of taxis that aren't painted those colors. VW Vans are so common that when I decided I wanted to photograph some I stayed in the same 20 foot radius and captured all of these and more in about 30 minutes.








There are no seats in the taxis, except for the occasional blue plastic chair. They're stripped completely on the interior and almost every residential street I've walked down has a taxi driver fixing his taxi outside his house. I often see customers getting out and pushing a broken-down taxi or helping get it out of the mud. The sliding doors on the side don't always stay shut and there's often someone having to hold it closed as they bounce along the dirt roads.


Here's "our" taxi, that we own (okay, okay, it's a Toyota, not a VW). Note the press pass in the front window and the the lack of...well...anything inside. It's useful for packing in film equipment and coolers full of soda water and our wonderful crew.


I'm lucky and usually grab a cushy seat in one of our beaten up station wagons, so I haven't ridden in it yet. I like to sit in the very middle of the backseat in our cars so I can see straight out the front window.

The lights are flickering and there's a humongous thunderstorm raging outside. I bet the power's going to going out any second. It's getting to the point where I might have to write a love song to our trusty generator.

Update: That thunderstorm? Flooded our bedroom. As in, inches of water and dripping walls. We wrung heavy wet towels into a bucket and unplugged all the soaked electronics. Good thing I have a waterproof pelican case for my cameras! It was swimming in rainwater.