Little did we know that 13 years after the day we got married, we would be in Kinshasa in a 'shelter in place security posture'. This flyer calls for 'ville morte' - dead city - and is what was distributed in the days beforehand by the opposition parties calling for Kinois (sounds like quinoa, means people in Kinshasa) to stay home on that day. There is no public transportation running and so people stay home.. the city is very quiet.
Ville morte is a passive message of discontent, in this case, about the results of the recent political dialogue, which made some headway on having the opposition more involved in running the government starting in less than three weeks, but did not guarantee that Kabila was going to step down at the end of his term. There were lots of things missing from the agreement that was signed, so discussions are not over yet. December 19th is coming up fast!
Most Americans were asked to 'shelter in place' on that day, which for us means to stay home and make cookies. So we did. As the US government is politically neutral, our Embassy and USAID were open, so Zeric and about 15 others went to work. We do continue to consistently push for the Congolese to adhere to their constitution and to democratic processes.
You'll see that on the flyer that they've given Kabila a carte jaune (yellow card). Next, in soccer terms, he will get a red card (November). Then.. he gets kicked out of the game? Exciting times!
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