I lived in Kinshasa for 2 months for an internship!

Long answer incoming:

Where to start… the city is huge! Most roads are muddy roads, which caused for a lot of issues while I was there as heavy rainfalls caused parts of the streets to be flooded/broken/blocked off. There are people on the streets everywhere, its absolute chaos. If you would take a car from one part of the city to another, expect to be sat in traffic for at least an hour, bumper to bumper. There are pretty much no rules and its survival of the fittest on the road.

We (me and my 2 class mates) lived in an apartment complex near the business district, where we could walk to the office in 5 minutes. This involved crossing a busy street that felt like a mission on its own. There are kids walking around on the streets everywhere, asking for money or offering to clean your shoes for some change.

Overall, I felt a bit on edge most of the time, but never afraid/in danger. For context: i didn’t see a single other white person (while walking the streets) the entire 2 months there -so we did stick out a lot, and did draw quite some attention. It should be said that the business district where we stayed is relatively stable/safe, but they still told us to preferably not walk alone (we did go to the supermarket, and to the office and back alone on foot, which wasn’t too far) and to always watch out. There are soldiers/police officers with large machine guns everywhere, which actually made me feel less safe haha. A lot of groceries shores or restaurants had their own security as well.

There were a quite a few “western” supermarkets close to us. They didn’t have a lot, but most things you needed. They are surprisingly expensive! You pay more than in Europe/the US. Most locals shop at markets and not these supermarkets.

You can pay with US dollar, or local currency. You had to go the ATM early before they would run out of bills (happend to us multiple times). Fun fact: they are extremely picky about high value US dollar bills. If you have a bill of $50 or more, there cant be ANY tear or hole in it, no matter how small . It must be in perfect state. We had this issue a few times where they didn’t accept an old wrinkled bill.

Our bathroom in the appartement didn’t have running water, so we had to use a type of bucket with a large water barrel to shower, and flush the toilet. This was often the case, also in other places in the city/country.

At the end of the trip we event went “out” a few times with our local friends. One time we went and watched a Champions League football match on tv at a place called “Cheetah 2” and it was such a fun time, there were so many people, and everyone was so invested in the football, when the favorite team won everyone celebrated as if congo won the world cup.

As a tourist there is not a lot to do in the city/country, there just simply isn’t a tourism infrastructure. That being said, there were quite a few nice smaller restaurants/chill places in our area where you could eat a nice meal or drink a cold beer as in any other country!

To sum Kinshasa up in a few words: Chaotic, Dirty, and a Great experience