Learning About Trust in Kinshasa

Integrity is the Link Between Trust and Respect

© BERTRAND LAURENT, NOV 25, 2023

I’m an anthropologist who works on governance and development problems around the word. Using my experiences I write about how economic processes and human relationships build (or destroy) social systems and the institutions of governance.

It was years ago but I’ll never forget the last time I landed at the airport in Kinshasa, Zaire. I never before, nor since, witnessed such chaos and abuse. At least eighty market women, each one hauling large bundles wrapped in cloth and laboring with battered suitcases held shut by ropes and straps, had obviously disembarked from the flight before mine. They were loudly arguing, pleading, with expressionless men in uniform carrying weapons. Other men, wearing the same uniform but armed with whips, rushed the women and, as I watched in horror, began soundly whipping them.

The women held their ground and the volume increased while customs officials tore apart the bundles and unstrapped the suitcases. This was a blatant shakedown. The flight before mine had come in from Angola and these market women had obviously gone to Luanda to buy cheap shoes and clothing imported from Cuba and were planning to resell them in Kinshasa’s markets. The customs officials were determined to have their take, and under the bright neon lights the security officers were enforcing it with vigor. I wondered how much the customs officials had to pay the security guards for their enforcement service. I was grateful that it took a while for all the suitcases from my flight to be pulled into the hall, as I didn’t fancy having to join the melée and duck any whips.

But it was a full two hours before half my fellow passengers realized our suitcases would never come. Eventually, when I got back home in Senegal I would find my suitcase waiting for me, having traveled beyond my destination, Congo Kinshasa, to next door Congo Brazzaville and back. It had probably returned to Dakar the day after I had left. In Kinshasa I was told my suitcase would surely arrive the next day.

At my hotel I exchanged my Senegalese CFA francs for local currency, arranged with the concierge to hire a taxi for the entire next day, and tried to call home to let my family know I had arrived. The phone in the room looked modern enough, and the directions were clear: Dial 9 for local calls, dial 8 for international calls. Simple enough. But after eight failed attempts a kind operator interrupted the prerecorded admonishments in Lingala and French and explained to me that I could easily get through on le système international de la OCPT, and I gratefully accepted the advice. OCPT was the government-owned telecoms provider at the time, and I had obviously not successfully accessed its international line when trying my call. After an immediate connection and a crystal clear line on le système I was getting ready to go downstairs to dinner when I heard a polite knock on the door. When I asked who it was, the soft voice behind the door informed me: “Bonsoir. Je représente le système”. Obviously, a modest surcharge paid to the gentleman would reflect the true cost of a successful call. Within a short time that evening I had seen the abuse by customs and security officials at the airport and under-the-table payments to the telecoms company, three ways that a parallel economy eroded how ordinary people related to their government. As a recon trip to gather impressions for a possible governance project, this was certainly going to be an interesting trip.

The next day I set off in my taxi, hired for the day, for meetings I had scheduled with several local NGOs and government agencies. But my first stop was the downtown airline office, where I was assured that since my flight was a daily service, the suitcase would no doubt arrive in the afternoon. As I stepped back into the taxi three men quickly slipped in after me, one on either side of me in the back seat and one in the front passenger seat. They harshly directed the driver to a nearby alley. They were not careful to conceal their holstered guns, and I learned how quickly I could pray and how much I could sweat.

We quickly arrived at the alley. We parked and the driver was told to not go too far and come back later. The driver disappeared even faster than my confidence had, and we all got out of the car. Showing me something that looked like badges, my new fellow passengers announced themselves: “We are police. We are conducting an investigation.”

“Passport please”, I was asked. I handed over the photocopy of my passport, and I found it interesting, without really knowing why, that they didn’t kick up a fuss that I didn’t have my actual passport.

Then came the expected line of query: “What local currency do you have?”

I explained I had some lunch money and money for the taxi, which got them upset.

“Don’t you have any dollars?” No. I explained that I lived in Senegal, traveled with Senegalese CFA francs which I changed at the hotel, and my money was in the safe at the hotel.

“Where is your money exchange receipt?” That was an original line, I thought. I showed them the receipt. They hardly read it and gave it back to me, telling me it was a forgery, that I was in serious trouble, and that they would have to confiscate all the money I had and probably bring me to the precinct office.

At this point I began to think that maybe I’d get out of this alive. I heard myself saying: “OK but you’ll have to give me a receipt.”

There was a pause as they looked at each other, then burst into laughter. I felt somewhat emboldened, so I continued my boldness: “I’m serious, brother, I’m here en mission. This isn’t my personal money, it belongs to my boss, and he’s a son of a bitch. I have to account for it! If I don’t, he’ll think I spent it on drink.”

They found this even funnier and walked away laughing, leaving me some change “for a beer”, they said. As they rounded the corner I heard their leader call out “O! Chauffeur, va prendre ton client!” and my driver cautiously reappeared. I learned at my appointments that to expect my suitcase was naïve optimism, that clothing stores would be closed the next day, and that a tailor should be able to make me a pair of trousers overnight if I could find an honest one.

I went to a large cloth store, found a well-dressed man looking at cloth, and asked him if he was, by any chance, a tailor. “No”, he said. “I’m a Master Tailor”. I explained my need and he quoted a price and we chose about three and a half yards, and he then said: “I need to be paid in advance. And my own shop is some distance from here, so I would have to use my friend’s shop, for which I would have to pay him in advance.” I asked him how much he would have to pay his friend, and he responded about a quarter of the cost of the work. I didn’t know what to think of that. My cultural frame of reference was small Sahelian towns where every foreigner is a guest, not large Central African megacities where cops beat market women. We walked an hour to his friend’s shop during which he greeted most of the idle youths in the streets. I didn’t know what to think of that either, but during the walk through squalid, decrepit neighborhoods I was inspired with an idea. I told the tailor that I would pay him about ten percent more than we had negotiated. I wanted to see if the increase would be reflected in what he would pay to his friend. I was relieved to see that the amount he wanted to advance to his friend reflected the increase I had offered. His friend, who was not at the shop when we arrived, would not know the amount we had originally agreed, so he would not know if the increased revenue I was going to pay was factored into what he was being paid. Only the tailor, and I, would know if he had cheated his friend.

We left the money with his friend’s apprentice. The tailor didn’t ask the apprentice for a receipt. He told the apprentice he’d be back momentarily to start working. The next day I had more appointments in the morning and the tailor said he’d bring the trousers before noon.

When I arrived at the hotel at 12:30 there was no package waiting for me. I looked around in the lobby, in the coffee shop, and back on the sidewalk. No tailor. With a heavy heart I proceeded to the elevator.

And there he was! “I got here a bit early and have been waiting here since then because I didn’t want to leave this for you at the front desk”, he said. “This place is full of thieves, you know. You never know who you can trust. Try these on. I’ll wait, and if any adjustment is needed I’ll do them right away.”

Elated, I went to my room, tried them on, and came back downstairs and showed him how well they fit. He wouldn’t accept any additional money for transportation because, as he reminded me, cab fare had been included in the price we had negotiated. As we said good bye I told him that I’d give his name and coordinates to anyone I knew who might need Zairian tailor in Kinshasa. “Master tailor”, he corrected me. “And by the way, I’m from Angola”. And with that, we shook hands and he was gone. It’s been years, but I can still feel the honest grip of his handshake.

I had seen no indications of trust in my first twenty four hours in Kinshasa. And then, when I showed some trust and vulnerability, it was graciously reciprocated by a man with self esteem. I learned that trust and self esteem go together. When we show trust, we are also showing esteem. A person who does not have self esteem neither merits nor values the trust we show them. Anthropologists often talk with ethicists and philosophers about how this applies to our institutional relationships, because institutions that are not built with integrity do not treat their employees or other institutions with respect. Integrity, I learned, is the link between trust and respect. It is why the person-to-person handshake is still the most powerful way to convey trust and respect, and why our institutions of governance have to be built on integrity.