Kinshasa map is at:
http://www.1uptravel.com/worldmaps/d...f-congo13.html
(Kinshasa locator at:
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/cia03...emrep_sm03.gif).
The Kinshasa map is a huge image, and you may have to set your monitor
to its highest resolulution and STILL do some major scrolling to find
your way around town.

I'm presuming that the single road to the airport is Boulevarde
Lumumba and that the road from Kintambo to the school is the (rue) dl
l'Ecole.

Good to hear from you, Myron, and I'll be worrying about you 'til you
advise us that things have settled down and you are OK.


-Richard, His Kanubic Travesty
--
================================================== ====================
Richard Hopley Winston-Salem, NC, USA
rhopley[at]earthlink[dot]net
Nothing really matters except Boats, Sex, and Rock'n'Roll
rhopley[at]wfubmc[dot]edu
OK, OK; computer programming for scientific research also matters
================================================== ====================

"riverman" wrote in message ...
"riverman" wrote in message
...

Right now, the crowd is outside the wall in front of my building, chanting
and banging on the gate. There are whistles blowing and a lot of noise.
Its
pretty scary. I'm going to go gather stuff and wait for this to blow over.

More later
--myron


Well, this sure is an adrenaline rush. The crowds are marching past the
campus about every 10-15 minutes now, headed towards Kintambo. At this
moment, a small crowd is banging on the metal gate about 50 feet from me,
yelling anti-Bush slogans. I'll be goddammed if I'm gonna take a rock in the
head for HIM! But worse yet, it seems that reason for the uprising is doing
that 'morph' thing that can become very dangerous. First, they are angry
that the UN let the rebels take Bukavu. Then they are angry at all UN folks,
then they are angry at any UN, USAID, NGOs etc. Then they are just angry. I
sure don't want to see it spread to being angry at schoolteachers!

For a frame of reference, here is a description of Kinshasa and the lay of
the land, and where the mob scene is:
The town is elongated in an E-W direction, at the far eastern edge is the
airport and an industrial zone connected to town by a single road. The UN
compound is about 2 miles west (towards town) along that road, then another
3-4 miles and you are in the outskirts of town. That entire stretch (airport
to town) is a bustling mass of humanity, with sidewalk stalls, dilapidated
shantytowns, torn-up roads and spaces crammed with people. On any given day,
there are millions of people 'milling about' there.
Once you reach the center of town, the roads spread out into a large grid of
urban sprawl. The urban zone is about 3 miles E-W and 5 miles N-S. There are
two main roads that run across it, E-W; the southern one is '30th June', and
one block north is 'Avenue de Justice'.
Then another single road continues west for 5-6 miles to reach the western
nexxus, called Kintambo. Another mass of hundreds of thousands of folks
live/work/survive there. Then another 2 miles west and you reach the campus
compound. So we are on the opposite side of town from the airport, the UN
compound, and most of the ugly rioting.

However, it appears that even Kintambo is caught up in the frenzy today. My
gardener came in and said it was too dangerous for me to go off campus, or
even to be seen walking around campus, so he went into Kintambo and got some
phone credit cards for me. When he returned, he said to keep my head down.
I've just packed my emergency evacuation bag with passport, cash (not enough
freaking cash!!!), change of clothes, etc. The word just came to me (about
10 seconds ago) that, if the mobs breach the campus gate, to go to the
assembly hall at school where we will barricade ourselves in and await an
evacuation. Hopefully this is all academic preparation, but at least there's
a plan.

More later
--myron

"riverman" typed:

[snip]

Thanks, Charlie. If we evacuated, I'll be needing to borrow a rod at the
SanJuan miniclave. :-)

--riverman
(and some diapers.)


Oh. THAT kind of "evacuated". At first I thought you meant, like, if
you flew away on a plane or sumpin'.


-Richard, His Kanubic Travesty
--
================================================== ====================
Richard Hopley Winston-Salem, NC, USA
rhopley[at]earthlink[dot]net
Nothing really matters except Boats, Sex, and Rock'n'Roll
rhopley[at]wfubmc[dot]edu
OK, OK; computer programming for scientific research also matters
================================================== ====================

Oci-One Kanubi wrote:

Kinshasa map is at:
http://www.1uptravel.com/worldmaps/d...f-congo13.html
(Kinshasa locator at:
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/cia03...emrep_sm03.gif).
The Kinshasa map is a huge image, and you may have to set your monitor
to its highest resolulution and STILL do some major scrolling to find
your way around town.
More at:
http://www.reliefweb.int/w/map.nsf/wByCLatest/368DBC624D09AFDD85256A0900707F46?Opendocument
(downtown map of Kinshasa)
And others at:
http://www.reliefweb.int/w/map.nsf/Country?OpenForm&Query=Af_Congo+(Democratic+Republ ic+of+the)

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/zaire.html
This is the first map from above that you can zoom in or out on.


--
Frank Reid
Reverse Email to reply

Oci-One Kanubi wrote:

"riverman" typed:

[snip]

Thanks, Charlie. If we evacuated, I'll be needing to borrow a rod at the
SanJuan miniclave. :-)

--riverman
(and some diapers.)

Stay safe, Myron.

Oh, and do us both a favour and pick a more peaceful (and less
interesting) place to live for a while.

Sounds like things are quieting down there now, but to me it seems that
such a quick rise of mobs can happen anytime in a country like that.

All the best!

Wilko

--
Wilko van den Bergh Wilkoa t)dse(d o tnl
Eindhoven The Netherlands Europe
Look at the possibilities, don't worry about the limitations.
http://wilko.webzone.ru/

"Frank Reid" wrote in message
...


Oci-One Kanubi wrote:

Kinshasa map is at:
http://www.1uptravel.com/worldmaps/d...f-congo13.html

This is a good map for reference. Here are some landmarks for those who
might want to mount a search for my flyfishing gear when this blows over.
:-)

The school is located at A2, at the bottom 'point' of the large right-hand
green area. For those with the more improved map skills, subdivide each map
square into 10x10 additional squares, and I'll give coordinates in Lat/Long,
with (1,1) being the top, left corner, (5, 10) being the middle of the right
edge, and (10,10) being the bottom right. So the school is located at A2
(8,8), on the east side of the main road. This is a rather old and outdated
map, as there are some other roads not shown, and that main drag is now
called Route de Matadi. Ave du L'ecole is several hundred yards southwest of
here, and unused and impassible from a bridge washout. Camp Tshatshi is
where the coup attempt was last month, and the gunfire was in the street
between us. The current military roadblocks are at the bend in the road (A2
(6,7)) and where the road crosses into square A3), as that is where the mobs
were moving and bashing at our gates.

Some major rioting today was at B2 (5,3), which is the nexxus of roads in
Kintambo, and some cars got smashed up there. The worst of it, however, was
across town at the UN headquarters (C1 (6,6), right where the '0' of '30
Juin' is) and the BIG riots were at G4 (9,5), in Masina, at the MONUC
compound. Unfortunately, Ave. Lumumba is the only road to the airport, so
although some flights came in today, not one person was there to board for
the outbound and every plane that came into Kinshasa left empty! The
military ran a convoy to bring the few incoming folks through the riots into
town.

For historical reference, the place where we got held up at gunpoint last
year is B2 (4,5) on the extention of Komoring, which is not shown. There's a
nice little restaurant at C1 (5,7), and the place where I fish the big river
is at A2 (3,5), on the south side of the island.

Everything seems to have quieted down outside now (thank god!) and the word
is that a few rabble rousers are stomping around downtown, but getting
chased around by the police and military. There hasn't been any more gunfire
since midday, and the helicopters have stopped their rounds. People are
saying that more mob action is expected tomorrow, but that the bulk of the
frustration has been vented and we expect it to be a lukewarm event.

Whew, today was just freaking scary at times, I tell you what! But at least
the Congolese guard outside with the seriously mean-looking dog is well fed.
I brought him a 3-course meal and told him (in French) "Thanks for being
here!"

--riverman

thinking about you myron - stay safe

sheila

"riverman" wrote in message
...


Whew, today was just freaking scary at times, I tell you what! But at
least
the Congolese guard outside with the seriously mean-looking dog is well
fed.
I brought him a 3-course meal and told him (in French) "Thanks for being
here!"

--riverman



OK, here's the latest updates, and it had information that hasn't hit CNN
yet, as I have been talking to some high-ranking folks in MONUC and the
embassies.

Last night, the folks who had weathered the mobs at the UN compound got out
and came home for a change of clothes. They said this was definately a
semi-organized mob action, not a military one, as the vast majority of the
crowd was hopping off the train coming in from out of town, and only a few
were getting bussed in from Kin. More significant, though, was that the
mobbers were going home for lunch and dinner, leaving the compound pretty
well unmolested from dark until dawn. My friend left around 10pm last night,
and flew across town in his UN vehicle at about 140 kmh, and said the
streets were completely bare. Not one car, only a handful of pedestrians.
The military curfew apparently worked to stop the riots.

However, last night at 4AM, the South African embassy evacuated all their
nonessential personnel (84 women and children), but they are currently
stranded in Lumumbashi, as their flight does not have clearance to fly over
Zambia. Today, the UN is arranging evacuation for all their nonessential
personnel, and have already started moving families and personnel into the
center of town, into the Grand Hotel. (Those of you who have read "In The
Footsteps or Mr. Kurtz" will recognize that auspicious name.) Anyway, the
word in the UN is that there is the full expectation that, within the next
2-5 days, the Vice President who went to the east to see about the rebel's
occupation of Bukavu, and who remained there while the rest of the
government officials were evacuated back to Kinshasa, will declare the
eastern province a soverign state, enlist the aid of Rwanda, and there will
be a civil war! MONUC still does not have a mandate to do anything but
observe, so they expect some whiplash for not taking up arms against this
rebel VP, and are making arrangements for an evacuation of all non-military
personnel if it comes to a civil war. Just to be safe, I have cancelled my
trip to the interior for next week, and changed my flight to Brussels from
the 19th to the 13th. No one knows what a civil war will do to Kinshasa, but
to make matters worse, several of the major airlines (Air France, SNBA
(Sabena), South African Air) have cancelled flights in and out, so those of
us with tickets out next weekend are not certain to be able to get on a
flight. A lot will be resolved this week, and we'll have to see if the
eastern province secedes, if the airlines decide to fly, if we get
evacuated, or if nothing happens and it all returns to the local version of
'normal'.

I did some soul searching last night, and decided that there was really very
little here that I could not replace, so if we get quickly evacced, it will
unfortunately be goodbye to my fishing gear, as well as my stereo, golf
clubs, clothes, camping gear, etc. But the good news is: it will be summer
vacation! :-)

Anyway, time to redo my 'go bag' for a longer-term evac, inventory my house,
and finish doing grades. Thanks for letting me air out the process of the
last 24 hours; it helped. Hope you all enjoyed the ride. :-)

--riverman