the panoply of coffees being offered, order one of the cup sizes
expressed in fake Italian, and send vibes of existential compassion to
us Kin coffee-loving denizens criminally deprived of that daily
elemental pleasure.
And don't you ever forget to drop something into the tip cup for those
Starbucks heroes clad in green or black aprons. There was a red sign
at the now defunct "Ed's Bar" in Boston that read: "Tipping isn't a
city in China." You remember that...
In Cambridge, Massachusetts--an islet of madness surrounded by the
sanity of Boston; a madness that got the city the dubious
qualification of the "People's Republic of Cambridge"--I used to
"diss" Starbucks in favor of our 2 local "1369" coffee shops, as did
other Cantabridgians.
Well, being now in a city without coffee shops, I've outgrown that
ill-advised anti-corporate romanticism. I wish Starbucks were as
ubiquitous here as in American cityscapes.
Kin is simply hell on earth for those of us for whom a morning coffee
is an experience akin to satori--a shame for this country that once
was a byword for robusta and arabica coffees.
Well, they nonetheless sell here a very bad made-in-Kinshasa coffee
called "Carioca" in 25-g plastic packets that has neither aroma nor
taste to speak of. I still have to find out whether this coffee is
home-grown or imported and just packaged in Kin.
But fortunately now and again a relative who lives in Bukavu would
come to Kin on business trips and bring me one or two 250-gm packets
of Burundian "pure arabica coffee" with "sealed-in aroma" produced by
a company called OCIBU (see snapshot of the packet above).
This past Sunday, my Bukavu relative brought me one paltry OCIBU
coffee packet, which gives my mornings these days some semblance of
normality. But, alas, for how long?...
In the early afternoon of Wednesday, the Raïs read his State of the
Nation address in a soporific drone for more than 2 long hours. Not a
balance sheet of realizations but a petition in bankruptcy as it was
yet another recitation of promises. The Raïs didn't once mention
coffee among the crops he wanted to see their production resume--as he
did for cotton in Gemena.
Well, coffee and palm oil (another erstwhile major export of the
Congo) ought to have prominently figured on the list of the Raïs.
What's more, it's my contention that cities without coffee shops are
travesties of cities...
(Bookstores and cinemas have also vanished here, a far cry from the
urban standards of Nairobi where I used to buy books and enjoy movies
at the cinema of the open mall of the Village Market a short drive
from where I used to stay on Kitisuru Road.)
And as I sullenly look at my dwindling OCIBU arabica coffee packet
this morning, I measure the extent of this country's economic and
urban collapse. One American social scientist spoke of the frightening
"villagization of Kinshasa." That truth has only recently sunk in...
This is an unfriendly city for the urban "flâneur" (stroller)--what
with open sewers, brooks choked by shitty refuse and plastic bags and
bottles as well as layers upon layers of plastic bags...
Frustrated and in a Starbucks-blues mode, I drink up the last drop of
the third cup of my morning Burundian coffee in the city-village of
Kin...
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