Heart of Africa: Stories from a white guy in the Congo: October 2016

Hey folks, I know it’s been a while. Sorry about the wait. I guess I’ve been busy. I’ve been working a lot over the past few weeks in the Territory of Mwenga, so I’ve written a bit about my time there, and also a bit about the things I’ve been reading and thinking about lately.

Mwenga is one of 8 Territories in the Province of South Kivu. Our mission was to a smaller region in Mwenga called Burhinyi. Burhinyi is one of 5 Chefferies (Sectors). In Burhinyi, there are 18 different Groupements. We stayed in Burhinyi center, which is maybe a 2 hour drive from Bukavu. It’s a beautiful town, high up in the mountains, with temperatures normally between 40 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit (I’m just guessing). My co-workers occasionally complained about the cold but I really enjoyed it. It reminded me of home and it felt good to sleep with a blanket, something I rarely do in Bukavu. We stayed at an old missionary house that we rented from a local pastor (a middle aged man with glorious mutton chops).

We were here four months ago (April), for a mission during which we collected information about certain marginalized women in the community. We presented our findings to MCC, which graciously offered us a small budget to work with these women. Our plans to assist them included offering seminars on trauma healing (many of these women have been raped) and entrepreneurship, small micro finance loans to help them start profit generating projects, and a small amount of money to pay school fees for one of their children. After months of waiting, the money finally arrived and we left to begin our second mission in Burhinyi.

Monday the 12th

I arrive at the office around 10 o’clock. Everybody is scurrying around the office getting ready for our mission to Mwenga. Our party includes Moise Mukinje Butumbushi (PPR’s head field agent), Clovis (PPR’s accountant), John (guy from my church who is going to give an entrepreneurship course), Emile (our driver), and me (24 year old white male, generally confused but enthusiastic). We leave the office around noon in the PPR vehicle. It’s a white Toyota Land Cruiser, which is what most NGO’s around here drive. We drive around town for about an hour collecting supplies for our trip. This includes 1 box of fish, 5 cases of bottled water, 5 bags of sliced bread, 1 container of fake butter spread, 2 cans of powdered milk, 2 bags of brown sugar, 5 cans of sardines, and 1 can of sour cream and onion Pringles. We also buy two big boxes of notebooks and a couple boxes of pens, which we will give to the women for their children to use at school. We finally leave for Burhinyi. It seems like the roads are better than they were a few months ago, but it is still a very bouncy ride (I think the roads are better because the last few months have been the dry season. Less rain means less damage to the dirt roads). Everyone is speaking Swahili and laughing. I understand a little bit but not much. I occasionally ask what a word means.

We arrive in Burhinyi around 4. Clovis negotiates with the local pastor over the price of our stay at the missionary house. The missionary house has 5 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. The water is good (pretty much works all the time with good pressure, this is much better than my apartment in Bukavu) but there is no electricity. Moise sends a local boy to fill a bottle with kerosene for the lamp.

Around 7, we walk up the hill to Grants house. Grant is one 3 doctors that work at the local hospital. We eat fish, fufu, and plantains prepared by a local woman. There is also a sort of curry sauce made with oil and tomatoes (very tasty). After dinner, we watch soccer on Grants TV (he has Canal plus which is a satellite TV service in Congo). There is no central electricity in Burhinyi, but Grant has a solar panel connected to a couple of batteries. There are a lot of cloudy days here, so he also sometimes charges the batteries with the generator at the hospital. These batteries are enough to power his lights and the TV for a couple hours, but he doesn’t have a refrigerator. This is pretty normal for Congolese. Most people in Bukavu also don’t have refrigerators (my fellow Muzungus and I were surprised to discover when we first arrived that most Congolese found the idea of leftovers very strange).

Tuesday the 13^th

I wake up around 7:30 and take a cold shower. Around 8, we walk up to the doctor’s house where we eat breakfast, which consists of tea and coffee with sliced bread and Blue Band (fake butter spread). Around 9, we all pile into the Land Cruiser and drive up to the center of town. Our plan today is to meet with various local leaders to explain our plans and get their approval. We met with many of these people when we came in April. First, we go to the office of the Mwami. He is the one in charge of Burhinyi. He spends most of his time in Bukavu and Kinshasa, so he is not around. We meet with his secretary who signs our paper and gives us a stamp of approval. She says she was worried that we weren’t coming back, as it has been a while. Next we go to the ANR office. ANR is the national intelligence service, kind of like the Congolese CIA. I’ve met the guy who works here a number of times, first here and later in Bukavu. It seems like him and Moise have a good relationship. He also signs our paper and gives his stamp of approval. Next we meet with the police chiefs. One of them has a nice mustache but doesn’t speak French. They speak Swahili so I don’t understand much. I speak what little Swahili I can muster, which makes them all laugh. We also visit the Chef de Groupment and the Chef de Post. They also sign and stamp our paper.

It’s now mid-afternoon. We return to the missionary house where we rest a bit. Then we walk up to the doctors and eat lunch, more fish and fufu with lenga lenga (boiled greens) and plantain bananas. We rest a bit more and then leave for Lwinja which is about an hour’s drive. In Lwinja, we meet with the chief in charge of the FARDC (Congolese Military) in Lwinja and Burhinyi. They have a long and seemingly interesting conversation in Swahili, most of which I don’t understand, and then he signs and stamps our paper. Moise and Clovis give me a summary on our drive home. He approves of our plans and will tell his units not to bother us. After returning home, we head up to Grants for dinner, the last of the fish with beans and rice. We talk for a bit and then to go bed.

Wednesday the 14^th

I wake up at 6:30 and take a cold shower. We need to leave early today because it’s a long drive to the place that we’re meeting the women, about an hour and a half. After a quick breakfast (coffee and bread) we leave for Kahrala. The roads are bumpy and full of rocks but the scenery is beautiful. Moise and Clovis point out a hill along the way, where some of the locals dig looking for gold. We arrive around 9:30. We meet with some local leaders, then enter a church where there are about 15 women sitting. Moise tells me that some of these women walked 3 hours to get here. I want to talk to them but my Swahili is not very good and I’m nervous that they will ask me for money. Clovis introduces all of us and begins to explain our project. There are a lot of kids outside running around making noise. It sounds like recess. Some of the kids have gathered around the door and are looking at me whispering and laughing.

Moise and John begin calling the women up one by one, asking them questions and filling out a form on each of them. I approach the crowd and try what little Swahili I can muster. They all laugh at me. I also talk to the local chiefs who speak French. After they finish registering everyone, we have a snack of bread and malti’s (apple flavored soda). Clovis talks a bit more about the program, and Moise announces that we will return on Friday to register those who could not be there today. We pile back in the Land Cruiser and drive back to Buhrinyi. Clovis and Emile head back to Bukavu leaving Moise, John, and I in Burhinyi. Later that night, we go to Grant’s house for dinner (steak and intestines in curry sauce, with fufu and lenga lenga). After dinner Grant and I watch NCISLA (in french). Grant tells me that he really likes American shows because there is a lot of action. After NCIS is over, we watch Brooklyn 99.

Thursday the 15^th

I wake up around 7:30. We don’t have a lot to do today, but Moise says the Mwami is back in town and we need to meet with him. After breakfast, we walk up to the middle of town which is about 10 minutes from our place. We sit around in the main office waiting for the Mwami, who is across the road talking with some people. He’s wearing some type of traditional outfit, complete with a Leopard Fur hat (the trademark of Mobutu) and a cane (he has no trouble walking so I’m guessing it’s a status symbol). The people who work in the office tell us that we need to stand up when the Mwami enters the room. He finally enters the office and we stand up. He doesn’t pay much attention to us, walking into another area. We sit back down. He enters our room again and I stand back up. He leaves again. John laughs at me. I guess we only had to stand up the first time. Someone informs us that the Mwami is going to walk back to his house and that Moise can walk with him and present our project.

We walk with him and Moise presents our project. He doesn’t pay much attention to me, which is refreshing (I’m so used to everyone staring at me) but also intimidating. It’s clear that this man has considerable influence. After Moise finishes talking we leave and start heading back toward our place. We run into the police chief with the nice mustache. I speak a little Swahili and he laughs. Someone comes up and says that the Mwami wants to see us again. We start heading back in his direction.

Things feel a bit tense now. I try not to admit it to myself, but I’m a bit nervous now. I ask John what he thinks is about to happen (cet va passé comment?). He says he doesn’t know. The Mwami starts laying into Moise (in perfect French). Moise stands his ground. The dispute is centered on a person named Lucien who is in charge of development work, that we somehow failed to consult. After some back and forth, Moise agrees that we will take Lucien with us when we meet with the women.

We return to the house and relax for the rest of the day. I’m in the middle of a book called In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz, written by Michela Wrong. The book covers the rise and fall of Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (formerly known as Joseph Desire Mobutu). The chapter I read today is called “A Nation on Low Battery.” The chapter starts out like this:

“By the mid-1980’s, Zaire’s Belgian-installed telephone network had disintegrated to a point where communication – both internal and international- were becoming impossible. It was then that a young American who had recently lost his job at an airline office came up with the bright idea of issuing Kinshasa’s movers and shakers with Motorola radio sets which allowed them to keep in touch with each other within the city limits.

Not long afterwards a private cellular telephone system was set up and the Motorolas were replaced by chunky mobile phones. And so Telecel was born, an example of how a collapsing state structure could be sidestepped or simply substituted when the needs of the elite became acute. Road-non-existent? Buy a four-wheel drive. National television on the blink? Install a satellite dish in your back garden and tune in to CNN. Phone out of order? Hire a Telecel. As Zaire crumbled, one community, at least, could afford to buy its way out of anarchy.” (pg 129)

These Telecel phones apparently had a battery that didn’t work very well. When the power was almost gone, the phone would beep and say “low battery”. The phrase took on a symbolic meaning for a country that was just barely hanging on. Just barely hanging on is still a pretty good phrase to describe life in the Congo.

Friday the 16^th

Today we return to the church in Kahrala to register more women. The Land Cruiser is in Bukavu so we take Motos. Lucian comes with us on his own moto. The hour and a half ride is once again very bumpy. We arrive at the same church and register more women bringing our number up to 28 (we have enough funding to work with 30). After the women leave, I wander around the area a bit. All the children who are on recess stare and laugh at me. I run into a member of the FARDC (Congolese Military) who I’ve talked with a few times. He asks me for money, but I pretend not to understand. I find Moise and we call the motos to come pick us up. While we wait, we check out the local health center. They ask Moise for money and he lectures them on the importance of mosquito nets. Finally, we head back to town.

Back in Burhinyi, we sit at a local shop and drink orange fanta. John and I talk to the shop owner, who tells me he has been married for exactly one month. He also tells me that he went to college in Bukavu. After a while, he shows me his house behind the shop. It’s small but nice. He has a solar panel on his roof and a small TV in the corner. There are a bunch of small kids running around. He says they are his nephews. While I’m doing all this, Moise is talking to Sida who works with the local civil society. We also run into the ANR (Congolese FBI) man, who calls me pastor. I’m not sure how the information man became so misinformed.

Saturday the 17^th

We spend most of the day relaxing. I read a few more chapters of Mr Kurtz. One chapter is about Mobutu’s relationship with Western donors. From 1975 to 1984, Zaire received an average of $331 million in foreign aid per year. Between 1985 and 1994 this number went up to $540 million. Certainly these donors were aware of the corruption and economic failures that plagued the Congo, so why did they keep donating? Why give so much money to a man who drinks pink champagne in one of his 30 mansions while most his country lives on next to nothing? The obvious answer is the cold war. Mobutu was put in power because he supported capitalist policies, and keeping him in control was an easy way for western governments to maintain control over a large chunk of Sub-Saharan Africa.

The less obvious answer is to maintain stability. For all of his horribleness, Mobutu did keep the country together. In a country with 495 different tribes, and countless foreign governments and companies trying to gain control, keeping everything together was not an easy feat. In the early years, it even looked like there was some possibility that Mobutu might be good for the Congo. By the 1980’s it was clear that this was not the case, but what would arise if foreign donors stopped supporting Mobutu. We got an answer to that question when the aid stopped in the 1990’s and that answer was multiple wars, and a massive humanitarian crisis. One could argue that it’s a band aid that eventually had to get ripped off, but a lot of people died when Mobutu fell. It's possible this all could have been avoided if different choices were made, but hindsight is always 20/20.

I think about these things while I hide in our house. Occasionally, I go outside and sit on our porch, but this usually attracts a lot of attention pretty quickly. The whole muzungu thing you get in Bukavu is multiplied by 10 here in the countryside. The people are harmless, but I just get tired of the staring and laughing after a while. One kid comes up and talks to me for a while. He seems like a nice kid. He says that hes in high school and works at his dads farm. After a while, he asks me to give him a cell phone. I think about the $540 million dollars a year that my country used to throw at Mobutu. I tell him I can’t give him a phone and ask him why he can’t buy one with the money from the farm job. He says that he only gets paid in food and lodging. It’s not surprising. I imagine that whatever they grow out here doesn’t sell for much.

Sunday the 18^th

In the morning, John and I go to a local church. It’s all in Swahili so I don’t understand much, but the music is nice. They have multiple offerings, which I find strange, but everyone is nice and doesn’t stare at me too much. On my way out, I run into the guy who owns the shop downtown. He smiles and says hi. We eat chicken and rice for lunch at Grants house. After that I watch a Nollywood movie on his TV about a man and woman who want to have a big wedding but can’t afford it.

Around 5 in the evening, Emile returns with the Land Cruiser and a new addition to our team, Reverand Moise Tambwe. Moise Tambwe is the one who will lead the trauma healing session we have planned for tomorrow. He’s the person who trained me when I first started working with PPR. He asked me all kinds of questions about America, like whether there is a limit on how many kids one can have (he has 9). He also told me that he thinks there is going to be a world war between Muslims and Christians. I’m not exactly sure why, but I really like him so I’m happy when he arrives. We have a meeting, during which Moise Mukinje recounts to Moise Tambwe every detail of our six days here. It takes him like half an hour. I’m amazed at his ability to remember details and weave them together (talking for a long time and using elegant language is a talent many Congolese have).

Monday the 19^th

We wake up early and leave for Itudu, which is two bumpy hours away. We arrive around 9:30, at the church where we will hold the seminar. We go inside and wait as the women slowly show up. I talk with Moise Tambwe who is anxious to get started. I think about everything that it took for us to get to this point. The first mission, followed by months of waiting for funding. The last week, and all the time spent talking with local leaders. I think about the 3 hours the women have walked to get here. I wonder what Moise Tambwe will say and whether it will be worth it.

When we finally get started, Moise Tambwe is speaking in Swahili so I don’t understand much. He motions to John, who starts reading a story in Swahili out of a book on trauma healing and the church. I realize that a French copy of the same book is sitting on the table and start following along. The story is about a pastor in Uganda who serves God faithfully for many years, but finds himself losing faith after his village is viciously attacked by rebels. Moise Tambwe starts talking again and I don’t understand most of it, but I pick out bits and pieces. At one point he says mungu ku penda, mungu ku sikia, mungu ku helewa (God loves you, God hears you, God understand you).

John starts reading another story, this time about a woman whose village is attacked by rebels. During the attack, the woman is raped by a couple of soldiers. She eventually escapes when they are called away to help with something. She hides with some of her friends, but doesn’t tell them about what happened. Eventually, the rebels are forced out and life goes back toward normal, but she feels ostracized within the community. Her husband knows that what happened wasn’t her fault, but still refuses to lie with her. After a couple of months go by, the woman finds out that she is pregnant.

One of the women stands up, and starts speaking Swahili. I lean over to Lucien (the guy the Mwami sent with us) and he translates for me. She says that she relates to this story, because she also feels ostracized. Another woman stands up and talks about how her children are ostracized in school, because they are the children of rebels. More women talk about their difficulties. There are other community leaders there who respond. I realize that we are crossing social barriers here. I don’t understand some of what is said, but I have the feeling that there is important communication going on here.

Later that night, at the doctor’s house, we watch the National Congolese News channel. There were protests in Kinshasa today and at least 20 civilians died. Moise tells me that 3 cops were burned alive. We watch images on the TV of gas stations and stores that were pillaged. I hear the next day that a number of schools were destroyed. I’m dismayed because this senseless violence doesn’t seem to be helping the oppositions cause. You can read more about this whole thing here.

Tuesday the 20^th

Today is the last day of our mission. We return to the church where we met the day before, but there are some people using it. We drive down the road and then walk 5 minutes through the woods, before we arrive at another church. The women slowly pile in again and we start the second day of seminars. Moise Tambwe talks for a little bit and then John does some more business training. I take pictures and try to understand what they’re saying. After we finish, we hand out certificates for their completion (it seems a bit excessive to me, because the training only consisted of John talking to them for a few hours. It kind of feels like when kids get participation trophies. Who knows? Maybe it will be good for their self-esteem). I shake their hands and smile at the camera. We take a few more group photos and then finally head back to Bukavu.

I get home around 5pm (it turns out that in Swahili, this would be 11, because the day starts at 6am when the sun rises). My wonderful roommate Sharon made me chicken curry and rice. I eat it, and then collapse in my bed. As my Congolese host father likes to say, there’s no place like home.

Wednesday the 21^st - Tuesday the 27^th

Back in Bukavu, I do all the things that I normally do. I sleep and watch TV, I finish In the footsteps of Mr. Kurtz, I write reports about the trip, I translate emails from French to English, I write stuff that eventually ends up in this post, and I take Swahili lessons. We also have several more meetings where both the Moise’s again display their amazing ability to recount our entire mission step by step from memory. There are also a couple of earthquakes on Friday night. For the first one, I’m in an internet café. The building starts to shake and everyone scrambles for the door, but by the time I’m out of my seat, it’s over. The second happens an hour later while I’m walking home. I barely feel it, but I see the large cement wall next to me move more than a wall should move. I get home to find my roommate cleaning up the broken glass on our kitchen floor. There are a few more light tremors throughout the evening, but no more broken glass. The next day, Clovis tells me that Bukavu is a tectonic hotspot and this happens sometimes.

Wednesday the 28^th

Today we begin our third mission to Burhinyi. The team includes me, Moise Mukinje, Moise Tambwe, Clovis, and Emile. We take many of the same things as the last time (bread, milk powder, water, but no fish this time). Upon arrival, we make the rounds with all the local leaders one more time. This time the Mwami’s representative tells us that she is sending a different person along (Lucien doesn’t come with us this time). The FARDC commander tells us that there were some rumors about the work we were doing, and his boss called him with concerns. This is related to some of the women we are working with, who may be connected to certain rebel groups. The FARDC commander tells us that it’s good that we kept him informed about our work, because otherwise we might have been arrested. This is one example of why they people I work with are very smart to keep such strong connections with local leaders.

We go to Grants house again for dinner that night. We eat chicken, rice, and cabbage (I don’t know what they put in this cabbage but it was so good, I never knew cabbage could be so good). After dinner we watch a movie about a group of students who rebelled against the Nazi’s during World War II. Grant says something along the line of “white people do this stuff too” referring to the two World Wars.

Thursday the 29^th

I wake up at 6:30 and take a cold shower. After some bread with avocado and coffee, we pile into the Land Cruiser for the two hour drive to Itudu. Today we have organized a meeting with local leaders, to discuss the difficulties and marginalization of the women we work with. We have a long meeting, led by Reverend Moise Tambwe. I understand a little more Swahili then I did a week ago, but still not much. The meeting seems to be productive and at the end, all the local leaders sign an agreement to work with us and help these marginalized women.

Close to the end of the meeting, the FARDC man who is always wearing a Denver Broncos shirt shows up. Today he’s wearing a Del Taco shirt. I point as his shirt and ask him if he likes tacos in broken Swahili. He obviously has no idea what I’m talking about. This is basically a repeat of the first time I met him and pointed at his Denver Broncos shirt. The locals must think I’m very strange.

Later that night, we return to Grants house, where we eat more chicken and rice, and delicious cabbage. After dinner, we watch a French news program. They report about the Congolese Dialogue (things are not going especially well) and also say something about Obama vetoing some bill. Grant tells me it's about Americans suing the country where Osama Bin Laden came from. After I finally figure out that he’s talking about Saudi Arabia, we argue about whether Osama Bin Laden came from Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia (it turns out that Grant was correct). Then we talk about Hillary and Trump. I’ve told Grant before that I’ll probably vote for Hillary. He says he doesn’t think a woman can be president of the United States, but we both agree that Trump is a disaster.

Friday the 30^th

I wake up at 6:30 again. We have bread and coffee (no avocado today) and once again make the 2 hour drive to Itudu. Before going to the church to meet with the women, we stop at the local elementary school, where we work out a deal to pay the school fees for some of the women’s children. We also distribute notebooks. Moise Mukinje and Clovis think it is not smart to just give notebooks to the women’s children (because this might make them more ostracized) so we give them to everyone. The kids are cute and seem nervous to talk to me (a big change from the kids outside who come running to say good morning to me at any chance they get).

After this stop, we go to the church where we meet with the women. Moise Tambwe says a bunch of stuff I don’t understand and they start handing out money for transportation. In this middle of this, Clovis and I leave to go to another school to pay more school fees and distribute more notebooks. The principal gives me a tour of the school, which has kids from grades 1-6. He tells me that the fee for each child is about $1.50 per month, so it’s difficult for them to meet costs. He shows me a hole in the wall that was caused by the recent earthquake. I wonder if they left this hole there on purpose to show white people that they need money. Most of the walls are brick, and it seems like the locals could fix them without too much trouble, but I have no doubt they could use the money. I’m always hesitant to pull out my wallet, because if I give to one person I feel like I have to give to everyone. It’s hard to know how to help sometimes.

After we finish everything up there, we drive back to the church, finish up with the women, and drive back to Bukavu. I go home and Sharon makes me chicken curry again (and it’s delicious). After that, I sleep for a long time.

Saturday the 1^st to Present

A friend tags me in a Facebook post about a Washington Post article. It’s something about mining in the Congo. I don’t look at it because I’m in the middle of obsessively reading this article about Elon Musk and Tesla. It’s a little bit old so you might have seen it already, but if not it’s worth the couple of hours it takes to read it. It tells the history of energy, summarizes the global energy crisis, and then talks about how Tesla is working on building electric cars that will make gas powered vehicles obsolete. This would be a major step forward in solving issues related to carbon pollution and global warming. Perhaps just as revolutionary is the battery that Tesla cars use. It’s called a lithium-ion battery and it’s basically the same thing that they put in smart phones and laptops, except much bigger. This is important because the sun is theoretically an infinite energy source if we could find a way to store it long term.

I think about global warming and energy a lot in the Congo. Most days, when I come home from work, my power isn’t on. It usually come back on around 6:30 or 7, which I’m very thankful for, because most people in the Congo have very little access to electrical power at all (remember what I said about the doctor, most people in the Congo don’t have refrigerators. When I stayed with a friend a few months ago, he woke up in the middle of the night to iron his clothes because that is the only time the power was on). A lot of problems in Congo could probably be solved if they had better infrastructure. This mostly means better roads and better electricity. But what impact would this have on the environment? Most of Bukavu’s power currently comes from hydroelectricity, which means it’s clean. The world should be thankful that Africa has taken so long to develop. If Congolese people lived like Americans, carbon pollution would surely be much worse. This is why the Tesla battery is so important. The Tesla battery makes clean energy more accessible for the Congo and the rest of the world, and that’s a big deal.

I finally make it back to the Washington Post article, and realize that I’ve made a huge mistake in passing it over. The article is called “The Cobalt Pipeline.” I know what the article is going to say before I even read it. The DRC produces 60 percent of the worlds Cobalt, and Tesla needs this cobalt for their batteries. Tesla is building a giant battery factor in Nevada to mass produce the large lithium ion batteries it needs for its cars. While a smart phone battery needs about 10 grams of refined cobalt, a car battery takes up to 15,000 grams. Cobalt demand has tripled in the past 5 years, and is expected to at least double again by 2020. If Tesla accomplishes its goal of changing the car market and making electric cars the standard, I think it might do more than double. 100 years ago, most of the rubber needed for rubber tires came from Congo. Now it seems that Congo again has a resource vital for changing the world.

The Washington Post article describes two different ways that Cobalt gets mined in the Congo. The first way is the normal way, industrially by people with salaries who wear safety gear. The second way it basically freelance. Poor Congolese, without hardhats or shoes dig holes with shoves or their bare hands. They search for certain flowers that happen to grow around the minerals they’re looking for. They sell whatever they find to Chinese middlemen, who eventually sell the cobalt to the many companies desperately looking for this product. As a reader, you’re probably asking an obvious question right now, why don’t they just mine all the Cobalt industrially? Why bother with the freelance nonsense? (if you read the article, you will see that these people’s lives are a few steps beyond difficult)

The answer is not entirely spelled out in the article but it seems pretty clear to me. The many Silicon Valley companies that need this cobalt are trying to keep the prices of their products down. This goes double for Tesla. Tesla’s entire mission rests on its ability to produce an affordable electric car, which they hope to release in 2017. They can keep prices down by buying cheap freelancer Cobalt, because they don’t have to pay for things like safety equipment, healthcare, and fair salaries. The other challenge is that there is not a lot of motivation to invest in a place like Congo, because of the lack of political stability. For mining companies that do create industrialized mines, there is very little assurance that their investments will be protected. So the answer is that freelance Cobalt is easy and cheap for buyers, in a country that is politically complicated and potentially very expensive. This doesn’t work out so well for the Congolese who actually do the mining (you should probably just read the article).

So anyway, that's what my interesting and exhausting life here in Congo has been like for the past few weeks. Here's a bunch of pictures of me and other people in Mwenga. I hope everyone is well.