(PHOTOS 1 & 2: An unidentified photographer puts up a brave face and gives a thumbs up as she's being mobbed and jeered for snapping Congolese female hawkers at Maluku wharf on The Channel of the Congo River)
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Don't be fooled by the light, mischievous grin this unidentified woman was flashing at me or the thumbs up she's giving to me when, as she was being copiously jeered by a small crowd, she noticed that I had quickly pulled my iPhone from my pocket to take a picture of her.
The scene happened this past Saturday at Maluku wharf, on The Channel of the Congo River.
The photographer had just taken a dozen or so of what seemed to me close-ups and mid-shots of four female hawkers (two of whom are seen from the back sitting on the top left of the picture).
A moment earlier, on two separate occasions, I clearly saw the photographer kindly asking for and obtaining permission from her subjects to be photographed.
That's why she was somewhat taken aback when her shoot caused a spontaneous uproar from the onlookers, who were mostly the well-to-do urbanites from Kinshasa that crowd the rural commune of Maluku on Saturdays.
"This is so outrageous!" scolded a chubby authoritarian female Kinoise wearing a wig and sunglasses. "You come here from Europe to take pictures of Congolese that you'll show back home to mock us!"
"She'll get tons of monies from those photos!" someone else yelled. "She should pay her unwitting models!"
The Congolese male escort of the photographer attempted to pacify the angry onlookers by saying that he and the photographer worked for a well-known global Catholic charity.
That was apparently the wrong thing to say, as it caused more jeers, sneers, catcalls and swears directed at the Roman Catholic Church.
I was definitely the comic relief the photographer and her male companion desperately needed to defuse the tension: I claimed I was taking their pictures to shame them!
This allowed them to swiftly move away from the outraged onlookers who by this time were applauding me.
That incident will no doubt stand for that photographer as a cautionary tale reminding her about things you simply don't do in Kinshasa.
Like talking on an expensive phone in a busy street: Kinshasa is a city of phone snatchers.
Or walking closely behind another pedestrian: this is a city of heavy spitters and you risk being drenched in other people's saliva by closely following in their footsteps! Or on the back seat of one of those ubiquitous motorcycle taxis...
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Photos by Alex Engwete
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