After two and a half weeks in DR Congo, I am back in The Europe and more specifically, Spain. But Congo is not to be forgotten so quickly. Any visit to a tropical region with malaria requires keeping an eye on your health for about a week after you return, since it takes that long for symptoms to manifest. While the treatment is fast and easy if malaria manifests itself, the chances of dying of the disease are actually greater in First World countries because doctors rarely know the symptoms properly and misdiagnose it all the time. There was a girl from Europe on Hospitality Club who was supposedly an experienced traveler that died of malaria, so the threat is there.       But, knock on wood, it's been a week since our return and I appear to be in the clear, so that's good. Sadly there is another threat out there, looming in the very near future. I was reminded of this threat when I heard Tina Turner's "What's Love got to do with it?", which despite the fact I admire the hell out of Tina Turner, is a song that I absolutely hate and grinds on me like the worst of reggae. It was then that I realized that the finals for, Eurovision 2008 are this Saturday.       For those unfamiliar with Eurovision, it is basically a salute to all that is unholy and shitacular in the world of music. Have a listen at the participants page if you don't believe me. Serbia won last year and so the event is in Belgrade this year and it's about as bad as it's ever been. While voted out already, the Irish have a singing turkey as their entry. This is bad, but I still say that my money for the worst entry is in Rodolfo Chikilicuatre for Spain. Go have a listen, you'll be sorry you did.       While Western European countries take the contest less and less seriously each year, Eastern European countries have really gotten in to it and still try to make, "quality" songs. Spain just sort of said "the hell with it" this year and had their selection process be based on MySpace submissions. Naturally, a big fat turd of a song rose to the top because of this.       Someday this is going to catch on in the US and be popular because it's "ironic". I think that a great drinking game should be based around it wherein you do a shot each time "love" is sang in a song. You'd be drunk (and/or dead) within 30 minutes.

One topic that I haven't touched on too much yet revolves around all the expats who are living and working DR Congo. It's a screwy thing that I've only started to have a couple contiguous of thoughts about it. Let's start with what's good about the people living in DR Congo.       For one, this is a country that is tough to live in. Beyond the diseases, poverty, and hellish climate (mostly in the west) these are people that have given a chunk of their lives to try and improve the situation in Congo whether through MONUC, Doctors Without Borders, the Red Cross, USAID, Oxfam, or any other number of aid agencies that are operating in DR Congo. Even if people come with the delusion of grandeur that they're going to be saving African babies from the ravages of war, they are still coming to help. This puts them in a class that's above and beyond the vast majority of the rest of us from First World countries who might donate a little bit of money here and there to these causes if we're feeling really generous. This is what is good about these people and a great many of them work for next to no money when they come, so it really is altruistic and genuine.       Then of course there is the bad side, which I can unfortunately spend a great deal more time on. The worst offenders are the full timers for the UN and foreign embassy staff. Those at the embassies are these banal people with no character or life to them. They epitomize the worst of civil servants, except that they love to get massively drunk and lead these dull lives firmly clutched in their compounds and protected areas free of the country that surrounds them. They earn their large salaries and after a few years, they go to another country to repeat the same thing or they go home to do god knows what, since they're most likely not going to earn what they earn when at the embassies.       But, these embassy people came to DR Congo just for the money, which doesn't excuse the way they act, but explains it to a large degree. Those in the UN generally started off with the assumption that they were there to help. Many came in on the UN Volunteer program which are a group that earn very little and work quite hard. Of these people it seems that there are those that came because they wanted to work in Congo and be part of affecting change. Then there are those that came in to be a UNV just so that they could eventually weasel their way in to a permanent position, which pays exceeding well. While not the case or everyone, a permanent staff for the UN can make upwards of $12,000-15,000 a month. Those who are smart, save this money, and work to eventually move to other missions in the UN. Those who aren't so smart spend like maniacs. They contribute to the fact that it costs more to live in a sinkhole of a town like Kinshasa than in Paris. They create a market for houses that cost $8,000 a month because they want to spend that much to feel "comfortable" because they are under the impression that they've earned this.       Beyond the fact that they earn a lot (MONUC does costs one billion dollars a year to run) is the fact that at a certain point whether it be pay level, career level, or just the amount of years spent in Congo, the permanent staff all seem to swallow the UN Coolaid and fall prey to the premise that the UN is making huge changes in the country. In truth, the changes are small, yet I would never say that Congo could better off without the UN. It's just that measuring the success of the mission by the fact that the Congolese don't throw rocks at UN vehicles anymore is pretty sad.       Life for typical Congolese is not easy and I would never propose that an expat attempt to live as they do. But, this life of living in compounds and being completely isolated from the population of the country creates an unavoidable rift that in my opinion makes it impossible for the UN mission to function within any frame of reality. Sure the staff go on missions to make their never-ending onslaught of reports, but then they come back to their cocoon that cushions from the harsh reality of a rough country.       Many people are burned out. Somewhere around two years seems to be the regular amount of time that people stay in Congo before they can't take it anymore and have to leave. So many don't leave though and stay on for five years or even more. Their reason for staying is that they just don't know what they're going to do next, which has to be one of the worst reasons to stay on at a job and it sure as hell isn't doing the Congolese any good. The money is just too much to leave and the lifestyle is one that none of these people could afford to keep in First World countries. A great many of them are after all living in former Mobutu-ist mansions.       My frustrations with all of this are not atypical. Everyone there is aware of it, but once again, they do little to avoid it because that would mean leaving Congo. It's to a point where if some producer were really crafty, making a Real World or Big Brother or Surreal Life type reality show about a group of expats working in DR Congo would be really compelling. They could cover the Idealistic Newcomer, the Burnout, the Networker, the Partier, the Embassy Man, the Undying Savior, and a slew of other types that all seem to wend their way around this country. Are they "saving" it? Not really, but they are providing some form of stability that will hopefully start creating a stable society upon which one of Africa's largest and most wealthy countries can emerge stronger.

Prior to heading to DR Congo, I kept thinking in the back of my mind, "Sweet pounding hammers and smashing saws, this country must have the mothers of all pravs. Years of corruption, neglect of basic public works, and cars that were the living dead must have created the ultimate hotbed of pravs for the entire world." Upon arrival, the praving part of my brain was overloaded and just sorta fried. The whole damned country is one continuous prav, but it continues in such a way that I could never really figure out a way to capture these things in photos. I mean, how do you capture something that's infinite? It hurts the mind when you follow some wiring for an air conditioning unit that has been punched through a glass window, to then be draped over the outside balcony and fastened to the building with the wiring for something on the floor below, that then loops back up to have a cellphone antenna powered off of it, only to then come back in to the apartment through a crack in the ceiling and be surface-wired in to an "electrical box" above the couch. Or what about the photocopier guys out in the street who hardwired their machines in to the wiring for the street lamps?       I just couldn't do it. I couldn't document all of this. Sure, I got one of two shots off of self-contained pravs as you can see below, but there was no way I was going to shoot everything I saw, especially since photos were problematic. But then it dawned on me that this really wasn't praving. The Congolese did the pravs that they did because that's all they had to work with. To pick at the work they did would be like making fun of someone eating a bowl of rice because they only have rice to eat. In a word, it's arrogant.       I now understand that praving is praving because a person fixes something in such a way that is completely half-assed and in blatant disregard to the proper way to fix it that is indeed available. For instance, why did my father repair the water main to his house with a radiator hose when he had undue access to proper pipe? Simple. The man was a Croatian praver. But, why does a Congolese cut holes in the side of his van for windows? Simple. He needs to be able to have people breathe so that he can drive the car around as a taxi and make some sort of a living. If this work was done in Europe or the US (and we actually did have a van that was like this when I was growing up) it would be and is a prav. When done in a place like DR Congo, it's just survival and to a large degree, I actually respect what people do there despite the fact that they have access to so little.

There are a great number of Catholic nuns in DR Congo. Being that I've never really had much exposure to nuns before, it was interesting to see all of them at work in their various missions from setting up hospitals, to educating the children, to simply helping out people who come to them asking aid.       These nuns happen to be some of the toughest women on the face of the planet though. Whether their will is inherent or backed by their belief in god, they made me feel like such an incredible weakling for getting sunstroke and not getting out of bed for three days. This one nun in Kinshasa got malaria while we were there (I was of the opinion that if a mosquito bit them, then the mosquito would die, but apparently not) and kept going to work each day. To put this in perspective, lesser mortals are out of commission for around a week while taking the treatment, unless the malaria is caught in the absolute earliest stages. This sister also gave us a ride back to where we were staying. She's around 80 years old and drives like a bat out of hell, which is perfect for Kinshasa. A cop in the street was harassing her when we tried to cross and it appeared was asking for a bribe to which she just chuckled and drove on, ignoring him. She knows the system.       Then there is the fact that these nuns have been in DR Congo for literally decades. They came in in the early days of Mobutu, were there through his downfall, hung around through Kabila I's coup, then his assassination, and are still chirping on with Kabila II in power. The chunk of modern history that these women have seen is staggering and again, others in their situation fled during this time, but they all stayed put, continuing to work.       The nuns are crafty as well, making the best things there are to have in Congo. For instance, near the Bukavu airport, there are a group of nuns making some of the best ice cream you'll ever taste. The best flavor being the pistachio of course. They also make paté, sweets, good candles, and fruit wines which aren't necessarily for mass consumption. This group is also cheeky because they claim to have no change when you go to pay. Your options are either get enough items for the amount of money you have or to just let your change "go to the poor."       While I don't like much of what the Catholic church has come to stand for, the work that these women have done for the people in DR Congo is amazing. The only problem is that these women are getting quite old. Most are at least in their late 70's and some seem to be approaching damned near 100. The problem in all of this is that there are no younger sisters available to come in and take their places, which is a tremendous issue as the institutions these women have built up would more than likely collapse without them. It will be interesting to see how the next decade goes in the areas that they are heavily ensconced.

It's probably something of a non-event for seasoned journalists and probably even a bit of a pain in the ass to get their press passes, but I would warrant that a great many of them still have the first press pass that they got.       As you can see below, I managed to get a pass from MONUC, which as explained previously was quite useful. It's very cool that it actually comes on a card that will stand up to the test of time. Ultimately though, it's not the most elite of things since you can find guys selling blank case cards on the street which allow you to make any kind of ID that you'd like. It's also the case that often guards don't even look at them. They see that you're a mundele and they see the blue cord around the neck, so it must be okay for you to go in to HQ.       But that's about it. Now I've got a press pass for the DR Congo mission that's good until October. Note that this is only good there. I can't bop off to New York and get in there. That requires a whole new press pass. I suppose this is part of what they mean by, "Restricted Access".