Paris

It was a nice day to take the train yesterday evening. The TGV travels at close to 300 km an hour and posts close by fly by in a blur as the French countryside rolls by. But the train is nice and stable and in 2 hours I am in Paris. I hadn't been in Paris in a long time and forgot how nice it is.

With Anne and David in a café across from the Louvre.

Today is the perfect day to be in Paris. The sky is blue with a light wind. Temperature probably around 23 degrees. Tuesday the Louvre is closed. But we get to see the behind the scenes, going into the research and restoration department, underground. Laboratories abound with people working meticulously over centuries old pantings and vases. David Kolin, a scientist we were filming said there were people working for months and months to restore just a few square centimetres of a painting.

A great day to be in Paris!

It is not easy to film in the Louvre, nor any museum for that matter. In Greece, we had to pay and in the Louvre, we needed written permission to even film outside. And sure enough, when we went outside to film the pyramid and around a security man came up within just a few minutes.


After the filming, we even had a little time to enjoy Paris, sitting on a wooden bridge across the Seine and had lunch on a terrace in a café. Our train for Brussels leaves at 19:01!

Luxembourg to Paris

Heading to Paris this evening on the TGV. Tomorrow we will film in the Louvre! It is the second part of a story on 3D scanning of art objects. We filmed the first part in Crete and now in the Louvre and then in a museum in Brussels.


I didn't know you could have an electronic ticket on a train like you do on planes. It is pretty easy. You just put the code in machine at the train station and your real ticket pops out and you get on the train. For the return trip from Brussels, I was able to get a journalist reduction and only paid 17€40! and that is round trip because the discount doesn't work on one-way tickets.

Mbuji Mayi - Kananga - Kinshasa

Heading back to Kinshasa. You have to arrive very early for the UN flights. Our flight is at 13 :40 and we are at the airport at 9 :30 to pay local taxes and get checked in. It’s not like a normal check-in. We wait outside until our name is called and then they weigh our bags and do a light security check. Then we wait around for 3 hours.

I did get to see the same helicopter crew as on the outbound leg. Gennady said they have two more months of duty before he can go back to his family in Ekaterinbourg.


Someone told me that the second biggest airline in Africa is the United Nations. They have planes and helicopters all over the place. The biggest airline is South African Airlines.

Mbuji Mayi, Congo

Found out today that Mbuji Mayi means « Goat in the water ». Mbuji is goat and mayi is water. Don’t yet know why the city carries that name though.

Today we went to interview the governor of the Province of Kasai Oriental. He is the most powerful man in the province. Alphonse Ngoyi-Kasanje got rich in the diamond business. He has his own television station where you can see him almost undulated by the people who kiss his hand. He is wearing a sleek blue suit, very smart looking. On the wall of his « Oval Office », there is a painting of him seated with admiring servents around him.

Alphonse Ngoyi-Kasanje, Governor of
Kasai Oriental: Part of the problem or  part
of the solution?

I asked him what was the governement’s role in the protection of children working in the mines and what are the basic principles of his solution. He said he was greatly concerned with the matter and that he was now energetically working on a new law to limit the births of women. He felt the problem was that there was simply too many children and that must be stopped.

I didn’t have any more questions after that.

One of the biggest difficulties in development work or humanitarian aid is incompetent and/or corrupt government officials. The staff from UNICEF said that is an example of the obstacles they are up against. « There are even worse then him ! » complained one.

My report will of course talk about this huge obstacle, but I decided not to put the governor in the report. For one, the interview with the Minister of Social Affaires shows the need to work with the government and the minister is more of a positive example of how attitudes are changing. If I put in the governor, I would have to spend too much time to explain it all, taking up air time for other important points. Secondly, I don’t want to cause problems for those who must continue to work here.

On our last day here, I am frustrated, feeling I haven’t been able to get a lot of images of kids working in the mines in order to draw people’s attention to this horrible situation. But, you can’t argue with young men high on alcohol and drugs and who dance around and shout with their kalashnikov flying. I hope that the images I was able to get will incite people to learn more and maybe to contribute in helping create a better future for thousands of very young kids digging in muddy mines here in the Congo.

Mbuji Mayi, Congo

On a Sunday, there is not much going on, so we sort of take the day off. That means no filming, but I have to go through all the interviews and look over the pictures to see what if anything is still missing.

Just some interesting facts : « Hello » in the local language Chiluba is « Moyo wenu ». When you say it to a group of people it becomes « Moyouen ». In Luxembourgish it is « Moien ». Pretty close, huh ? Maybe there are some common ancestors ?

A joke from the international community : An expat arrives in the Congo and the first month he refuses to drink his beer when a fly falls in it. The second month, he fishes the fly out and finishes his beer. The third month he refuses to drink his beer if there is no fly.

Sights and sounds of today : a little boy, filthy, walking alone in the streets completely naked. He walks past a group of other kids, dressed, but not much better off.

A car speeds by with a young man simply sitting on the trunk, not even holding on.

A policeman walks into the hotel holding a kalashnikov in one hand and handcuffs in the other. He looks around and then heads back out. What was he looking for ?

Mbuji Mayi, Congo

Serge, 13, fills sacks with gravel and hopefully diamonds.

 Louao and Tatine carry water to sell in the mines. It's one
of the better jobs for girls in the area.

The mission today is to get pictures of some of the almost 12.000 children working in mines to illustrate our story. It is not an easy task. The region just outside of the city of Mbuji Mayi is a no man’s land where the law of the Kalashnikov reigns. We can only drive so far and then have to walk. And it doesn’t take long before we run into young men on drugs with the ubiquatous Kalashnikov. The kids work with their hands to support their families and these young men work with their Kalashnikovs. One young boy said he had to pay 200 Congolese Francs to the armed men and he only earns about a 1000 a day.

We were filming when they stopped us, yelling and trying to be as impressive as possible to get some money from the foreigners. They said we were in their area and that we had no permission to film. After a few minutes of heated discussion, we were able to convince them to accompany us out of their region. They let us film a couple of kids in a mine, but that was it. As they seemed high on something, we didn’t press our luck and got out of their region.

Kskuyi doesn't dream anymore. He is 12.

So we weren’t able to film many children in the mines, but we did find some in the village who were willing to tell their stories. It was quite sad to talk with Kakuyi. I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up and what he dreamed about. He said he thinks of nothing. I don’t know if it was just because he was timid, but he seemed like a person completely broken… at 12. He said that if he doesn’t pay the soldiers, they take his clothes and beat him. He doesn’t think there is anything else in this world for him other than a life in the mud of the mines working for a dollar a day. He may be right, but I hope he can find his way into the program in order to put a little light at the end of his long, dark tunnel.

Mbuji Mayi, Congo

First a visit to the Minister of Social Affaires of the province, Mr. Nomami Shodo. He spoke a lot of his needs and what the NGOs and other organisations like UNICEF can or should do and very little about what the government can do. But to his credit, he seemed knowledgeable about the problem and probably receives very little money from Kinshasa to run his Ministry. 

Next we go to the mines and the small villages in and around the mines. Diamonds are everywhere. Or at least you would think so by looking at all the publicity and bill boards advertizing the buying of diamonds. Even on television I can see ads showing guys in fancy suits, stacks of dollars and diamonds, inticing people to sell their diamonds in one bureau or the other.

We went to the village of Bakua Tshimuna where Save the Children UK has a program supported by UNICEF . It is a pilot program to get kids out of the mines and give them some education and professional training.

Tonnerre has just a bike to transport water to sell.

Tonnerre Dimanga is father of 8 children, 3 have died. He is from Kasai Oriental, but was working as a carpenter in Lumumbashi. The war came and ethnic difficulties forced him back to his homeland. But there was no work there as the diamond mine was out of business and other refugees crowded in. Tonnerre didn’t have much choice but to send his 15 year old daughter Ntoumba to the mines. She transported water to the miners to feed the family. Tonnerre is educated and ashamed of what he had become… living in a small shack with hungry children. He speaks perfect French and it is heartbreaking to see such a man in such a dire predicament. When Tonnerre heard about someone offering some education to children in the mine, he went right away to find out more and got his daughter in the program. At 18, Ntoumba now has completed the training and works in a small sewing shop.

Ntoumba is now working in a small shop.

We have to hurry up because the drivers are nervous about «suiciders». These are soldiers, off duty or deserters, with kalashnikovs who in the evening after drinking try to rob those with diamonds walking to sell their find. The drivers want to be out of the area by 4 in the afternoon. So we head out. In the village, men with guns are not rare. One young man with a bandana around his head and a feather sticking out, hanging down the side of his face is drunk and dances around with his kalashinkov swinging. He gets the kids to sing. You don’t know whether to smile or cry at the sight.