MORNING IN KINSHASA. By nine o’clock, the street vendors are already hungry. They woke up at five. They walked several kilometres with their meager merchandise perched on their heads. Their bellies are empty and their eyes are empty. Impatiently they wait for government employees and NGO and UN workers to purchase a pack of Marlboros, which will give them enough to buy a few fritters and calm the complaining of their empty stomachs that you can actually hear out loud. I admire their resilience. So much hunger and poverty, and so little anger and envy in their eyes. I buy cigarettes even if I don’t smoke, and Dentyne Ice gum even if I don’t chew it. I buy fruit juice, wondering if it will give me the runs. I don’t give to beggars, but I do to vendors. I play the game of work for pay. I always pick up my change. I pay the fair price, the White price, of course. But it’s fairer than fair. It seems there are more car horns here than in Montreal or Paris, and as many traffic lights, but they don’t work. A sort of imitation modernity, an ersatz of Western society and its wealth. Meanwhile, we inhabit an exuberant urban jungle. To my surprise, I feel quite at home in this perpetual excitement, the excessive shouting and laughter. Why does this disorderly life please me, while I fear the slightest tremble that Myriam sets off in my mind and body? I must like disorder that comes from the outside. I’ll have to resolve that contradiction; my answer is not convincing. But later. Right now I have to talk to Josué.