Of landlords and representatives

I'm thankful that I didn't have to deal with many landlords. It's crazy dealing! The norm in PNR is you contact an agent, tell them what you're looking for and they'll do the "work". For each day they take you apartment/property viewing, there's a 5000FCFA charge that's minus taxi fare or fuel if you are driving.
Apartments abound in PNR, it's the standards that present problems. What is a bedroom to you may well be an entire apartment to another. And Congolese love entertaining, that shows in the layout of the properties - living room is usually the largest. 

Back to the agents. It took only one day for me to give up this agent business. The one I got through a colleague in the office took me to some hardly remarkable ones, I was fortunate to have "Hollon" come with me plus another male colleague and a driver. They were put off by the apartments we saw and the locations so I know I wasn't being picky.

Narkwor and Juliet offered for us to move in together to the 3 bedroom apartment if I couldn't find a place. It is a lot easier to get a multiple bedroom apartment than a one bedroom. I took up the offer.

It's best to go property viewing in the rainy season - gives you a good idea of what to expect with regards to road passability and the quality of roofing/windows & doors. You are sure to know if the place gets flooded. There's nothing like light rain in Congo. You've been warned.
To secure a place you need to pay 3 months security deposit. That's it. Rent is collected monthly. Be careful though, rent usually comprises utilities but some landlords try to pull a fast one on unsuspecting tenants.
You may pay extra for back up electricity and water. Supply in some areas is erratic but it's safe to say it cuts across. Some places get water supply once a week, electricity goes off once a week as well. Other places do not receive water only once a week, electricity supply may just be like a switch in the hands of a child with a huge sugar rush.

Most landlords have a representative especially if they don't live in PNR. The representatives can be a different headache altogether.
Like Emery, our landlords rep. When I encountered him, he came across as a cool & level headed guy. The devil is in the detail.
Emery showed up between the 8th & 10th of every month to collect the rent unfailingly. There was a power crisis which made the erratic supply even worse. He'd show up from time to time to collect extra monies from tenants for fuel to power the gen set or water from a delivery truck when the taps had not been flowing. Most homes have a sort of storage facility. For some reason that of our apartment was in the ground. Never made much sense to me given it's a 3 storey structure. In my lay mind, placing the storage above the structure makes it easy to receive water without resorting to an electricity powered pump - extra cost. That's not the weird part. The pump was constantly on. Whoever designed the system chose to have residents using water from the storage all the time instead of using the taps and resorting to storage when the taps weren't flowing.

Given the frequency of collection we figured someone was running some game on us. We were right. Turned out we were the only tenants out of 6 paying our rent faithfully, we also were the only ones paying the extra charge for back up electricity and water. We stopped paying.
Not too long after that Emery showed up one day for rent. Narkwor was out of town, I think. Juliet was @ work. I paid the rent and he handed me a sheet from the Congolese tax collection agency. It was an invoice for rent tax. I queried him. How could we pay tax on a property that we didn't own? In fact I  said to him "tax is collected on what you earn so you are to pay the tax for the rent you collect". He tried to sell me a story in frenglish. He spoke a little English but mostly he tried to run this game in French! I told him to come back later.
I called Congolese colleagues to verify, none of them had heard of this tax. Juliet got home to a tax invoice with her name on it and boy, did she get annoyed. I even sent this invoice to the office, office manager said it looked dubious. I called Emery and told him we were not going to pay said tax but he wouldn't budge.

We recruited Evariste - Congolese colleague who is very popular all over town - to sort the issue out. Emery showed up to the apartment with a file full of invoices and receipts to prove his claim. Juliet wasn't having any of it. For me, it was comedy, I kept laughing the whole time. Evariste's verdict? The guy wasn't being straight with us, some shady dealing was going on. 

About 6 weeks later the landlord showed up for an impromptu meeting. Mind you, we had never met him.
He had somehow got wind of this tax hustle. He collected all the invoices in disbelief and issued a decree, if you like. No one was to pay any more rent to Emery. There'll be no more extra charge for back up electricity and water, those were also part of the rent charge. Turned out Emery was even issuing his own receipts for monies he collected. We never saw him again.

Our first problem with the new rep? The gen set wouldn't start on a day the lights had gone out. We were all at work and so naturally we didn't know what was going on.  We got home and still no light, the caretaker said he was going to get fuel for the generator. An hour later, still no electricity. Apparently the gen set wouldn't start as it hadn't been serviced in a long while.
There's no way you could sleep without electricity. See, the windows were all made of glass, no netting for you to even open for air. So opening windows was out of the question. Besides, mosquitoes in PNR are not forgiving. You could dispense an entire can of insecticide in a room and still come back to the sight and sound of mosquitoes.
I called this new rep and all he had to say was to pardon him and that he'd asked for the set to be serviced the next day. I asked him how he expected us to sleep in "windowless" rooms. About an hour later the generator was working. I don't know what happened.
We were to have another problem collecting our security deposit when we were leaving. We resorted to not paying rent for 2 months but that wasn't enough to cover the deposit we had paid. I found out from Andy it was rare for landlords to return it. He had been in about 3 places but had never received a dime. We gave it up.

TRASACCO APARTMENT & FOOD FAILS

Sharing an apartment with Narkwor and Juliet was fun. When you share an apartment with friends you can bug them to cook something you're craving, pinch what they've just cooked or laugh the life out of them in crazy situations. It happened a lot, all the time.
Like the time I got home from work after a straight day, Narkwor should have come with me but she had to work longer as usual to make sure everything was in place. I left the office an hour after my shift ended, that should give you an idea how long Narkwor worked after her official closing time. Her shift ended two hours before mine. It was always like that for her.

Anyway I had a late lunch and I needed a dessert to satisfy my sweet tooth. There was nothing. I opened the tin of Milo and there it was, as inviting as freshly made chocolate. The Milo had solidified. I took a bite and couldn't resist so I helped my self.

Then I thought to send her a message - I had eaten her "chocomilo". Her response left me frozen in spot for a while. She had actually been saving it for a time when she'd savour it. I had just consumed the entire thing. I spent the next 2 days dodging her @ the apartment and @ work. 😂😂

I needed to go to the newsroom where she was and I chose to slip in unnoticed. She did notice me and mentioned my name when I thought I was in the clear to exit. We laughed about it.

Juliet loves to come home to sweet aroma from the kitchen but I didn't always cooperate in that regard. I am a librocubicularist. That annoys her.

I can still hear her scream ringing in my ears, "you spent a whole day at home and you didn't cook and you're reading in bed"😂😂.

It's imprinted in my memory, I don't know what can get it out. You should hear her hustling Narkwor to prepare kenkey for the weekend. Smh

Actually the book I was reading that day belongs to her, I "borrowed" it while she was at work.

I once lent a book I borrowed from Nii Smart to Shaban. It was in my possession so technically I could lend it. 

Shaban had said a few days earlier that he wasn't a fan of the author. He couldn't put the book down when he started reading.

In fact, I walked in on him reading on his prayer mat during lunchtime. That isn't the interesting bit. Days later Narkwor went to the bank, banks in Congo are notorious for their poor customer service which leads to long queues, Shaban was standing in one of those reading the book I lent him. Narkwor didn't let him be. That story cracks me up all the time. Never say you don't like something when you've not even tried it. Lesson learned.

I think I should tell you about Juliet's food adventures. We all have cravings for meals that remind us of home. That's why there are thriving businesses the world over selling, transporting a taste of home to expats. Sometimes it isn't possible to get what you want. Juliet wanted palm nut soup - gh style. She saw palm nuts in the market and thought "how difficult can it be?"

The answer to that depends on how you look at it. She bought the nuts. A few days later I was to meet her at the market after I knocked off. I showed up to a scene of Juliet standing next to a mortar and pestle. She wasn't about to give up on that craving!

To cut a long story short she boiled the nuts and proceeded to pound them, it must have been a Saturday. It was a tiresome process, I don't ever remember pounding palm nuts to be so difficult. Perhaps that should have given a hint of what was to come. In fact, an elderly neighbour looked up from his compound and commented " c'est dur uh?"

Ça va faire tres bizarre!

So work on the soup proper started. Spiced protein(s) of choice, garden eggs, okro etc then the pounded nuts. You should know cleaning up after preparing palm nut soup is another headache. After about 30 minutes I went to the kitchen to grab some water and spy on the soup. I stood for a while and said to myself it will come out well eventually. It didn't. 15 minutes went by and the content of the pot looked rather "sleepy" and thick. More water should do the trick. It didn't help. Narkwor joined us in the kitchen and exclaimed "what is this?" There was not a hint of oil on the soup and that is quite queer! And it still looked weird. We tasted it, had to mehn. Let's just say the soup didn't stay on.

Another time we run out of corn dough. She badly wanted to eat banku. So again after a day at work she headed off to the market, got some maize and soaked it in water for 2 days. She enlisted the help of a Congolese colleague to find a corn mill. They got the milled corn to the apartment and my sister was delighted.😀😁

I got home to her prepping the meal, only it never cooked. How? I don't know. Over an hour and it was sloppy in the saucepan - somewhere between porridge and a thick mess. She wasn't going to waste food. She dished it and tried to enjoy it. Julie, how was it?

Knee (not a spelling mistake), was always up for some food adventure. What do you expect? Dude isn't great @ cooking but he tries. The name, Knee, that's how our then head of office pronounced Nii, we took to it and it stuck. We still call him that. He called me Hama, please don't ask me to explain.

Knee came over to the apartment quite often and we had a grand old time cooking and putting him to work. He washed dishes, ground pepper, poor Knee. One time I didn't realize the tilapia I bought from the market had not been scaled, the innards had been cleaned out though. I put together some spice rub and fried it with love 😜. Narkwor prepared some banku, Knee must have been on pepper grinding duty. It was a beautiful sight. Only for the first taste of fish to be filled with scales! All the goodness of the spice rub was on there. I couldn't believe it.🙈

As for food-fails, there were a number of them. Not so much because of a lack of cooking knowledge as it was a case of forgetfulness. What television can do.

I once burnt a whole pan of shito, it tasted like charcoal grit in oil. Oh, I tried to salvage it but a decorated donkey is still an ass.

On two occasions Narkwor set out to make some quiche. It started as quiche, went into the oven as quiche but came out as something else. Both times she had been engrossed in what she was watching on tv. Television is definitely not a friend when it comes to monitoring food while cooking.

Sometimes we were too tired to cook or just didn't feel like it. Thing is in PNR you have to know what to expect from a restaurant/food joint before you order. It is not a rule. It's just to keep you from wasting money, time and taste buds.

Knee took to ordering pizza and coke, I don't know how that counts as food but he did quite often. 

I tend to experiment with recipes quite a bit but when I don't want to cook, I don't want to cook. Actually, I visited the market only about once a month, in the rainy season make that once in 2 months. We bought in bulk, we had to for we didn't know when next we were to find the ingredients we preferred in the market. Supply is erratic in Pointe Noire - something to do with transportation from the farm gate.

And you have to "stall shop" to get good produce at good prices. Don't think of keeping to one seller, he/she might be selling something else the next day. Most traders sell what is readily available, tomatoes today, onions tomorrow. Anytime it rains you can expect to wade through mud in the main foodstuff market - marché OCH. Not knee level, ankle level but it still isn't something I'd willingly do. That's when I rarely visited the market. I just looked @ what ingredients I had and which I could borrow from Narkwor or Juliet to prepare something. Or sometimes I'd pass by marché Mpita to pick up a few things as it's a very small market and you could just buy what you needed right on the pavement.

Sometime in 2017, we discovered an Attieke & tilapia joint close to the apartment. It belonged to an Ivorian lady. She sold other foods but the grilled tilapia and Attieke was our choice. It was a welcome treat. We patronized it a few times and then I didn't see the owner there anymore. Her staff told someone to my hearing that she'd gone to visit Ivory Coast. No big deal. The staff continued selling. Only for about a week more.
One Tuesday, for whatever reason, I went to work without lunch. I didn't get anything I wanted @ lunchtime so I skipped it with the plan to just indulge in some Attieke and tilapia after I knocked off. I knocked off @ 5pm and checked to see if the lady was there on my way home. She wasn't but it was not an issue as she usually set up after 6pm. I went home and got back @ 7pm. It was a horror movie. She hadn't shown up neither had her staff. I was hungry and had no cooked food @ home. I walked back dejected and had some tea. 

That lady never came back till I left Congo, only God knows what happened to her.

If you want good food in PNR, Andy is the go to guy but I know a few. La voile blanche has great steak(and cool ambience). Food factory is the place for sandwiches. Le Prince is the place for lunch buffet and Andy's famous Gaspard has nice African dishes. 

2faced Ismail

It turns out Ismail and I go way back, same school, a friend of a childhood friend.
I was to find out in Congo that I knew the guy from my early years. It really is a small world. A random conversation in the group chat on happenings back home led to this discovery. I don't remember him that much but that's a surprise given how vivid my memories of my early years are. But he was there and one day I'll remember, I sure will.

I had suffered a personal tragedy a few months before joining Africanews. I had been trying to make sense of the situation, I still am. Once Ismail realized the connection, we had a private chat and something he said sparked light in a very dark place for me. Like I said forging ahead after that tragedy is a lot of things, difficult, confusing, painful. The light he sparked has helped make sense of the times and find my way a step at a time. I'll always be grateful for that conversation though he may never remember what he said. 
So here's classic Ismail - tough and yet sweet, like a pomegranate. He will try to contest this softness but charle, je m'en fou. It is what it is. It's a façade, the toughness. 
See, Ismail grew up in a place where you had to be tough to survive. You needed steel & grit plus a lot of street-sense. He's the polished version of the typical but I believe he has also been shaped by his many experiences: a nature-nurture situation at play. Which side of him you get depends on who you are to him, I guess.
He thinks he's tough but you have to meet Inna to know he isn't at all. He may look like a meigida but like we say in local parlance "everyone has a master". I'm not suggesting Inna is and I'm not suggesting she isn't. I'm just saying Ismail isn't only what he comes across to be.

He may change, life has a way of shaping you, smoothing the roughness, revealing the shine, changing perspectives.

You can never say for sure how anyone's journey will fan out. It would be boring if you could. So I'm excited to see if Ismail becomes tougher or softer. I will be there to remind him of what he used to be like - he'll only be too happy to if the tables were turned.

A tribe called DYNASTY

Air Ivoire

May 9, 2016 etched in my memory as the worst flight experience ever. I arrived in Abidjan an hour after take off from Accra. I was to spend the next 9 hours in the terminal waiting for an evening flight to Brazzaville. What was to be time spent people watching-reading-gaming-reading and more people watching soon became hours of boredom. It was not the busiest day at the airport so in the first hour and half the terminal emptied steadily. By the second hour there were just 2 passengers in the terminal, a man seated about 3 rows ahead with his gazed fixed on the TV screen and myself, praying it will be one of the days when time run fast as if in a sprint. It was not to be. Agony.
By the fourth hour I had stopped reading, my terminal companion grew tired of the screen. I found out he was Ghanaian en route to Bamako and he didn't realize he'd spend most of the day at the airport until the flight touched down.

Houphouët-Boigny airport terminal companion

Bored stiff and uncomfortable,(airport terminal seats don't make for great places to wait especially without a lounge pass!) he decided to pace. After a while he got tired of that too.
I hate inactivity because I get bored at the drop of a hat but I just couldn't read and there was nothing else to stimulate my mind - not even the conversations in my mind could get me out of the predicament. I sat, stood, paced, slouched - rinse & repeat till about 5pm when passengers trickled into the terminal. By this time I was ready to jump up at the sound of boarding call but that was also to delay. The flight out was scheduled for 7pm, by 6:30pm there were boarding calls for every 7pm flight except mine.  I made my way to the boarding gate anyway and joined a queue of restless passengers. They had only been at the terminal for about two hours and were complaining - I had been there for 8! Slowly the clock struck 7 and we were still inside the terminal - no information from flight operators - not a word? 7:30pm...8pm still nothing. Passengers sat anywhere they felt comfortable with luggage strewn all around. I stood ready to cry. What a day!

8:30pm - boarding call for flight to Brazzaville via Libreville. Oh no, not a stop! I was too tired for a stop!
Sometimes things just go haywire and you can only control your reaction.
It turned out the day's drama needed another twist.
I was one of the first few to board the flight yet it was already full! Every passenger before me stood in the aisle puzzled. The attendants were out of their depth.
It turned out instead of an empty aircraft from the hub we had been kept waiting for another which was also heading to Central Africa but from a different origination. Someone had chosen to put us on a flight which was already almost full and a crew which had also knocked off and were set to go to their home cities. They had to make way for the first few of us. What happened to the rest? I have no idea.

We sat on that tarmac for 2 hours after the delay in the terminal but again no one thought it was important to give out any info. The pilot went from the cockpit to the tail without so much as an acknowledgement, on his way back a fellow passenger asked him what we were waiting for? Dude mumbled some inaudible words and walked off. The aircraft started to feel too small - every inch of space taken up by passengers - it wasn't a big aircraft to start with.

Just before midnight, taxi-ing then take off. Finally! But no. 2 hours in and I start having a sneezing fit...it was just too congested in there. I sneezed till we landed in Brazzaville 3 hours late shortly after 3am. The airport staff weren't a happy lot. Went through arrival formalities and thought to wait out my connecting 7am flight to Pointe Noire.
Then I thought what if the staff from the hotel reserved for me to spend the night had been waiting? True to word they were...sleepily holding up my name.
Got to the hotel just before 4am. I was to head back to the airport @  5am. Too tired to be annoyed and sleepless, I watched the clock till 5:10 when the bellman showed up to pick up my luggage.

PNR Airport

The 1 hour EC AIR flight to Pointe Noire was everything a flight should be - clean, spacious and good service...No drama.
Drama was waiting just outside the arrival hall. After clearing formalities I stood outside with no sign of anyone to pick me up and plenty of people ready to fleece another foreigner. Finally I gave in - the next "helper" to show up could tell from my limited French that I was English speaking. He tried to persuade me with the few English words he could manage & some sign language to allow him get me a taxi.
Thing is, I didn't even know where I was going! The lodging address from my mail was unfamiliar to those I encountered and to top it up the drivers wanted FCFA5000 to drop me off. Where? I really have no idea. You should know the standard taxi fare in PNR is FCFA1000, for short distances its FCFA500. I convinced Mr "bilingual" to lend me his phone which I used to call the contact @ the office I was supposed to take up post. For some reason, I had no network on mine though I had gone through the process to ensure my roaming service worked back home, story for another day. About 30minutes later I was headed to the lodging. T-I-R-E-D & H-A-N-G-R-Y

I couldn't report for duty on that day after all that hassle. I did show up for work the next day bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
Oh wait, the lodging had no food and I, no knowledge of the city - I sent a message to Narkwor who showed up with Nii Smart after work to shepherd me to her apartment and gave me my first proper meal in over 24 hours. That's when I met Juliet - I only knew her on TV back home. New bonds being formed, old ones being strengthened.

Day 1 - R(h)oll on

Narkwor told me to get a taxi and tell the driver "en face station snpc". Africanews is on the 4th & 5th floors of the building. I didn't see any sign to show Africanews was in that building. I looked around and right across the street familiar words, "Food factory". Someone in there must speak English I thought to myself. How wrong I was! I tried a number of times before the gentleman in there made out the channel name, Africanews. I had been at the right building after all.
My day was just about to get hilarious.

Office manager, Ghlane led me to HR & Admin. Ghlane is really sweet you should know but again she forgot to offer me an on-boarding package. C'est la vie.
She introduced me to my "funny man" for the day - I had heard his name earlier from a francophone. Ghlane is bilingual so she said his name in English and I didn't realize I was dealing with the same fellow. Roland is pronounced something like "Hollon" by the French. Here's the catch: Ghlane phrased it perfectly - "He's French speaking, doesn't understand a word of English, he's to take you through all the admin aspects, I don't know how you two will manage but I'm sure you'll be fine".

"Hollon" really doesn't seem to think language should be a barrier, it really shouldn't be but when you're communicating and expect to be understood its a huge hurdle if you don't speak much of the same language.
He went on a monologue for the first few minutes in French and what i'd later learn to be Kituba. I sat across smiling and wondering what on earth he was yakking about? Then the real headache. He asked for some documents - all of which I had mailed weeks earlier to the office. I told him so in English. Then he went off again on another monologue. A one-man-show of sorts for a one-lady-audience. Classic Hollon - he's wonderful. Ask Shaban.

Oi Shaban was yet to report for work and I had no idea who he was at the time.
After over an hour of French-English exchanges, Hollon decided he needed some more fun. He was to take me on a tour of the office, really an introduction to staff - I dread stuff like that, went through it with a plastered smile. Hollon wouldn't stop talking, he really loves the sound of his voice & laughter lol. I couldn't match the names to the faces right then but one I could with eyes closed was I-s-m-a-i-l, web-page manager for the English desk. He came across as cool but opinionated. Ask Shaban again, he knows. He's worked with the dude for years and wrote a blog post on Monsieur Akwei. Find it here. Made my life easier. Merci Shaban!

Blame it on the I-guy

As Shaban explained Ismail is first class opinionated and sometimes brash. If he decides to strike you off his books, he does so like a peeved teen girl. Juliet will testify. I don't make baseless claims.
Ismail is to blame for some of the troubling times in Pointe Noire or rather I have agreed to blame most of it on him.
Before I tell you why, let me tell you about Shaban - half wordsmith, half Arabic school teacher, the rest is just bonus. Bearded and lanky, he appeared reserved & distant the first few times. It was just because like me, he's not naturally given to making first time acquaintances and then friends. He does better if you made the effort or so I thought. He'll explain if he feels the need to - I blame Ismail for that. Like I said, Shaban is gifted with words. He can write rhyming sentences in a blink of an eye especially if he needs to tease the life out of you. If he's not friends with you that is not bound to happen. It's his friendship language I guess.
See now I have forgotten what I set out to write here...Ismail again.

Nii Smart and I worked in the same newsroom before joining Africanews. He joined in February, I in May. He was to me what a spy is to an ordinary citizen, polite but cold. He isn't cold to everyone he just has his days and put-offs but if you are just unfamiliar or acquainted, he's cold.
By now we were becoming friends and the ice was fast melting. He may never admit it, but he can't do much without my help. Ask him when he's had a shot or two. What is it about alcohol that gets people talking?

Without trying the 6 of us had created a bond. To be fair, the 5 had a bond before I showed up, it just got stronger with a new member. Trouble wasn't too far off.
Ismail taught me the workings of the company's cms, he and the planning officer thought i'd learn in three days, I did...in 30mins. Prior to that Narkwor took me through the editing software and news organizer the first 2 days. Juliet took on the baton in the days that followed. Shortly after I figured all was not well in the newsroom. For whatever reason some fellow journos were not comfortable with the number of Ghanaians in the newsroom 4 broadcast + 2 digital journos. There were 5 Cameroonians, 6 Kenyans and other nationals in the newsroom alone. Company-wide there were more Cameroonians than any other aside the Congolese. For the life of me I still don't understand why this was a problem to begin with, I have stopped trying to. I joined a newsroom of professionals or so I thought. Nationality never mattered to me and I tried more than I had in my life to get along with all. A few people just felt threatened by us, we get the work done - efficiently, effectively, professionally, and they tried to rope others in to their baseless beef. We still got along with those who wanted to get along. I once said to Shaban when we spoke about the situation "you don't have to like me, we don't have to be friends but work is work and I am a professional". He agreed with me. We carried on effortlessly bonding, goofing, helping each other to the annoyance of a jealous few. Cette vie!

Trouble is the country after South Africa.
Narkwor won the CNN African journo award for health reporting in 2016. She went on her annual leave then the awards night and came back to work after about 2 weeks.
Someone lobbed a "grenade" into the newsroom. They tried to accuse her of bias, of trying to give every good thing to her compatriots especially regarding reporting trips. It didn't stick.
Juliet was the only one of us to have travelled a number of times, none of those was funded by the office. That's what they didn't know. Juliet's sports trips were funded by CAF as she served on one of those numerous committees.
Narkwor was accused again of bias for saying "Certain journos here will not be allowed to read voice overs in newsrooms in Ghana" she had been referring to a general disregard for standards expected of an international channel. She was, after all, the deputy editor-in-chief in charge of the English desk and had tried severally to correct basic mistakes & get journos, some of whom had no prior tv experience, to appreciate the need to stick to international standards and a house style. A lot of it was futile. When she stamped her authority, she was called bossy and rude.

Narkwor isn't the tallest person in the room. For whatever reason some folks felt, that plus the fact that she's female will make her a walkover. That's what I figured. She maybe under 5 5" but she packs a punch. As Shaban will say, don't bring yourself. She's a live and let's live kindda lady. You underestimate her @ your own peril. She fought their fire with professional fire.
What has that got to do with Ismail? Like Shaban said, he's opinionated and doesn't take certain things lying down so of course he tried to counter some of the happenings in conversations with some journos, poking his nose where it rightly belonged. The situation affected him(and Shaban) too in a bizarre way, trouble was also brewing in digital - in there it was a French desk - English desk wahala. That's what it seemed. Of course it didn't make sense given that they didn't have the same readership and targets but hey troublemakers don't care if they make sense, do they? He is better placed to explain this matter. Like that of the newsroom I stopped trying to understand long ago.
Narkwor was accused of creating a Ghanaian dynasty, it became our nickname, we fully embraced it.
Oh, us girls shared an apartment, I don't know if or how that played in the wahala

Well we lived and enjoyed it. We had meetups, the first being in Ismail's new apartment in Pemba, his new bride Inna Sunshine invited friends from the office to sample some Ghanaian foods. Folks showed up, Ivorians, Cameroonians, Kenyans, Beninois, Nigerians & Ghanaians. Like I said we tried to get along with everyone in spite of the goings on.
After that day things just went south as they are bound to in baseless attacks. We carried on with our meetups.

Inna left and in her absence Ismail tried to pass off rice & beans cooked together as waakye. Sacrilege!
Waakye is known by its distinctive reddish brown or brown colour derived from millet stalks, depending on who does the cooking. The colour sets waakye apart from rice and beans.
Shaban passionately defends Ismail in this matter and I just don't understand. This is when you understand how Ismail rubbed off on Shaban. Just wrong. Wrong Influence but what's a girl to do?
Time was when Shaban will go the other way on seeing an empty beer bottle/can along a path, according to Ismail. Nowadays, he's a little more liberal thanks to Ismail. That doesn't mean he drinks, Ismail, Shaban, Juliet and I are teetotallers. But we are glad to sit and watch Nii et Narkwor figure out what their drinks are made up of. Like this time @ Courtyard grill.

Weird drink

On va la boîte, Allons boire la bière

Beer is the official drink of Congo, la boîte is the official hangout spot. That's what I think, you're free to disagree.
Every single person who tried to befriend me invited me to the night club to hangout and drink beer. Neither features on my to do list. I turned the invitations down and yet they kept coming. It turned out it was normal, after all, official drink and hangout.
To have drinks in Pointe Noire for a lot of people, I observed, is to have at least 5 bottles of beer. Billboards advertising beer litter the city. No gender discrimination, it's rather a competition perhaps to determine who can drink more, men or women.

PHOTO CREDIT: @Shaban

Folks stumble out of clubs in the mornings. On some Sundays on my way to church @  9am I witnessed arguments among patrons of various clubs. Weekday mornings were no different, its common to see people leaving clubs @  7am. I wondered when and if they did get to work.
Many nights on our way home from work after the last shift @ 12am we'd witness bars and food joints coming to life in places like La base & Pemba. Those areas never sleep. Actually La base is the equivalent of Ghana's Lapaz, only much smaller and tempered.

Je n'aime pas la boîte de nuit mais j'aime beaucoup la boîte de jour!

Associate Member

La voile-Gaspard-La voile-Courtyard grill.

Next meetup, cocktails @ La voile blanche.
Just unwinding, laughing, teasing each other and enjoy the evening sea breeze. I forgot to invite Ismail, he found out and was peeved. He left the group chat. Like I said, he quarrels like a peeved teen girl. We kept it like that but never left him alone. Even Shaban did not try to get him back. We had a few more meetups, everyone was invited and everyone showed up including Ismail. He still was out of the group chat. Oh, he actually created the group.

La voile blanche

Narkwor and Nii decided to get adventurous during one of those. They ordered "blue lagoon". They got blue drinks in a glass with a hint of vodka. Only God know what was in there.

Blue Lagoon

I invited Andy to meet the rest of the tribe. Andy is my friend from church. Pastor Patrick sent him to pick me up for service when he found I was looking  to join a congregation. We became friends. He became an associate tribe member.
Andy - much like the go to guy for all the cool joints in PNR. PNR is quite small you should know. It is said you can walk across the city in an hour!
Where was I? Ah yes Andy.
He loves his food, who doesn't especially when it is really good. He knew every place where the food popped. There aren't that many in PNR. Knowing the right ones makes you a very important member of any squad. 😉
Trouble is while I love good food, I have a stomach the size of a bird's and its quite disturbing to sit at a buffet watching all the good food you can't eat just because you're had a few spoonfuls to your fill. Mehn its such a heartache!
Even more of a heartache when you're at the paying end. Like the lunch buffet @ Le Prince the last Friday I spent in PNR. He paid about 10,000FCFA per plate. I didn't even eat a 1000FCFA's worth. Sorry Andy.

Sometime in 2017, things got to a head. Juliet was the first to resign. She had had enough and was ready to move on. Like Narkwor she was attacked by colleagues frequently. Juliet is 50% kindhearted 50% crazy. )mp3 ns3m hunu. She doesn't take certain things lying down. When she decides to strike you off her books, Ismail's looks and feels like kindergarten. On days when they are the subject of each others ire it's joyful drama. Pure bliss.😃😆

We took a 3 day girls trip to Brazzaville, all evidence on instagram kind courtesy the dynasty's instagram model. We had a swell time.
The tribe had a send off drink up for her @  La voile blanche.
Juliet left for Ghana. I resigned 2 months later, it was becoming too much of a toxic culture and I chose to jump.
My send off was @ Courtyard grill where Nii had a "killer burger".

The killer burger

Next evening Andy took us food sampling  at Gaspard. Boy, we had a good time.
Narkwor found a Ghanaian Congolese couple who hosted us twice. The 2nd time over an all Ghanaian menu. Shaban & Ismail were put on grilling duty. We fired Ismail for doing a poor job. Shaban continued whilst scrolling through his phone. Its a millennial thing no? Using a phone while doing something else, this time by an open grill. Good decision, Shaban, good decision. Remind me never to a leave a pet in your care.
We welcomed 2 new Ghanaian journos who were fortunate to enjoy homemade meals on their first day. They even had plenty leftovers to take home for the next few days. I thought of my first day in PNR.
The dynasty spread across the world. Narkwor left some 2 weeks after I did. Juliet in Wales, I in Ghana, Narkwor in Turkey.
The boys couldn't survive without us lol.
Ismail followed suit and months later Nii Smart did. Andy did not work with Africanews but he also left Congo. See, he'd been in the Central African region for about 7 years and he just felt ready to go home. Shaban is the last man standing, our "blowman" as we call a movie's protagonist in local parlance.
Don't think he's by any means weak without his tribe for he can take an army down with his words, so far he's done tremendously well.
So we are still the dynasty, I don't see what can change that. We are stronger. We'll meet up for drinks and fun somewhere across the globe. The world is our oyster!