My Other Life

                                    Tia singa                        Courant eza te                        Changer phase                        Benda courant            Zua neutre na mabeleKobukana te pelisa mwinda

Words, all, to tell a disaster. An economic, a social, a political disaster.

Where I live, in the heart of Kinshasa, there is electricity three to five days a month. On those days, we have light for five to seven hours out of twenty-four. And so objects meant to make life easier—a stove, an ice box—become ornaments; they have no function; they occupy space; nothing more, nothing less. When light comes, it comes in the dead hours, between midnight and 6 AM. While my family sleeps, I write and draw. I live at night.

    My life.My other life.

Once, the situation was unacceptable. It is intolerable now.

Benda courant, or the art of making light where there is none. The principle is simple. You have no electricity. No one on your street or the three streets on either side does either. You all depend on a single switching station, and the cable that links you to it went up in flames last month. So you make friends with people four or five streets away, ask if you can tap into their lines. Some people just go ahead and do it, no questions asked. If you have a little money left over at the month's end, you call an electrician. Today, I have: 220 volts of electricity flow into my computer. I begin to type. Within minutes, the system collapses: 220 volts become 150, then 80, and, finally, 60. Dozens of folks have tapped into my line. It is the neighbor's line, too. He has said yes to too many people: He needed the dough. The switching station can't handle the additional load. And so, again, we move into darkness.

Half my life I have lived in this place where no one gives a shit about anyone else. The concept of working collectively loses meaning before it has had a chance to make a dent. We could all pitch in to buy a length of replacement cable. Sometimes we do. But just as fast, others come together and benda courant. Our light goes, our money—so scarce—too, and, as a result, our will to link arms.

Others think about other things. Some of us think about one thing over and over: this desk we sit at, the paper on which we set out to design objects and buildings and plans, using a candle stub to light our way. Meanwhile, our country exports electricity—sells it, for pity's sake—because, yes, we have that much hydroelectric power and a government which cares that little.

Living in the dark, we have learned to wait even when there doesn't seem to be anything left to hope for. And so we walk the streets at dusk and into the night. Some corners, some alleys we learn to avoid; past 8 PM you meet pomba there: thugs, muggers. Still, it's better to be outside—in the street, you can scream and drink and lie, talk and watch small dramas unfold; in the street, the walls of home can't close in on you as you sit and wait.

                  In the street, we follow small moments of light:

Students travel miles to cluster under a lone halogen or neon lamp.

An incandescent bulb lights pieces of a wall; someone's got power!                    If it's an LED, no one leaves 'til it turns off.

  The occasional bar has an awning lit with colored microbulbs;                                    no reading here—      just beer, but at least you can see what you're drinking.

                    Car headlights give a fizz-fast view of the way.

A flashlight is handy, but too often the choice is between batteries and food.

        If you have one and you've been near a functional outlet in the last few days,        try your cell phone: turn it on and off fast for a brief look at the road ahead.

                    Fire up a match, a candle, a cigarette lighter;                    see what you can see with the...