To Jason Stearns & other friends: I'm fine, but under heavy medication

It's only today that I got to check out my email account--where I found Jason Stearns' comment advising friends to check out on my whereabouts as my silence was worrisome.

Thanks for the query, Jason. I'm fine, but most of the time out of it: I'm mostly sedated, under heavy medication... I got sick, the day after the elections: I was diagnosed with severe malaria and nasty typhoid. That's what you get living in the squalor of Kinshasa slums. Strangely, on the eve of the elections, I was discussing Jason Stearns' Congo theory and his new book against the surreal background of a rundown Matonge sidewalk bar with T.W., a senior political analyst working for the London-based "Control Risk" (I told him "Dancing in the glory of Monsters"--which he'd read--was among the 19 books--mostly novels--I brought this time to Kin)...

Anyway, I'm still dizzy with medications (though symptoms have been stymied), all appetite gone, and I expect to be fully recovered Wednesday, the day after the provisional election result will be announced...

And when CENI announces those results, Kinshasa will explode like a powder keg hit by an RPG. And that's not a figure of speech.

For one Kinshasa, which massively voted for Tshisekedi, thinks that that trend was mirrored countrywide. Any other result wouldn't be accepted as factual here. Fake nationwide projections favoring Tshisekedi are also being circulated by UDPS die-hards--coupled with rumors alleging that Kabila would stage a coup. One or two TV channels that hinted about those projections were promptly shut down by CSAC, the media watchdog (CENI chair Rev Daniel Ngoy Mulunda even appeared on TV to warn that his organization had the exclusive rights on the announcement of any election results)... And the government's nervousness doesn't help: I heard credible reports of people nabbed in the streets for speculating on Tshisekedi's victory. And no one knows what Tshisekedi is going to say when he realizes that all his Kinshasa sycophants' projections are all wrong.

In the meantime, people are really bracing for the worst for next Tuesday. I heard a guy next door advising his family not to celebrate if Kabila were to win for fear of retribution--they are Swahili speakers and the perception among them is that Lingala-speaking Kinois would go on a retributive pogrom against them if Tshisekedi loses!

Again, thanks, Jason, for your concern...