My first hours in Congo.

My impression is that of cosy chaos and of a city that doesn’t look like a city at all, the buildings are fairly small and the roads are quite narrow and dusty. The roadside shops remind me of those in Cape Town near the town ships and the hotel we are staying in has a colonial feel to it and looks like it hasn’t been updated since. Vergane Glorie as we would say in Dutch. It all has a certain charm to it though, it is like walking into a new world.

So in that respect it is exactly what I expected from it, it will be like nothing I have seen or experienced before. I look forward to everything they will throw at us.
During the flight I had a first glance at the programme and it looks like a packed three weeks. With 5 days spent in a local family during which we will develop a project of unknown content, the lovely uncertainty of it all.


When we landed we also met the Congolese students for the first time, they sang their University song and pulled off a beautiful sound. During our transit time in Addis Abeba we had made an attempt to preparing a wee dance and song and ended up performing a childrens song by K3 (three guesses which one). The Belgian transit passengers got a great laugh out of it.
The sun is shining bright and there is a blistering heat so it couldn’t be more different from cold and rainy Belgium. Even now during my first couple of hours it feels like all that is far far way, and I mean that in the sense of metaphorical distance.

Ineke Hulselmans