Latest from Kinshasa...

Things were quieting down a lot here in the past few days. The airlines had
resumed flying; a few with 'special schedules' that involved minimal time on
the ground, but they were flying. Shops are open, and I went out to the
city center for dinner each of the last two nights, feeling the calm
returning. I had just started putting in internet time looking for rental
cars in Wales and making housing arrangements for next week, as my plans are
now to get out of here on Sunday. I *almost* posted online yesterday that
all was well, and thanked everyone for your emails of concern and
encouragement.

However, this morning, another coup was attempted, and its all up in the air
again as to whether or not the planes will fly. No one knows anything at
this moment.

I was awoken by a phone call from my boss at 4 am saying that there was a
coup attempt going on, to stay indoors and to stay down. It was dead silent
outside, the power was out, and I could see my neighbors (including my
bosses wife) in the yard talking, so I grabbed my go-bag and flashlight,
told them where I was going, and hoofed it through the woods on campus down
to my girlfriend's house, as I knew she would be terrified. When I got
there, we quickly tossed together her go-bag, then nervously went back to
sleep. Suddenly, the gunfire erupted outside the school again, along with a
few very long, loud blasts from a .50 cal. A few mortars went off, and then
a tank let go with a BABOOOM!! No one reported hearing an explosion, or the
whistle of the outgoing shell, but it was only about 50 meters from our
house and it knocked things off the dish rack and rattled the windows and
doors. If you have never been near a tank firing, you're missing something.
If you haven't been near one firing with incoming rounds coming in to a
position right near your house, you ain't missing anything!! A short while
later, an APC with a roof-mounted 50 cal drove right past our house, several
guards with AKs at the ready riding on top, and turned down towards the
city. I guess at that particular moment, with the tank shaking our fillings,
the stress from the past week of uncertainty, and hearing the continued
gunfire around me was the worst time of the past few months. I was pretty
spooked.

After that it got quiet, with sporadic gunfire farther and farther away, and
then I started intercepting the UN announcements telling the residents of
downtown to stay indoors and stay low. Eventually, those reports turned to
an 'all-clear' and the word was that it was over by 10 am.

Anyway, the current word in the news is that at the time we got our wakeup
calls at 4AM, the rebels (a band of about 20 palace guards) had taken the
radio and TV tower, announced their coup, and turned off the city power.
Then the next half-hour of silence was them heading up to the palace. They
got intercepted at the military camp right outside our school, so the
gunbattle we heard at dawn was the government troops surrounding the rebel
band, and the tank fire and 50 cal fire was the gunbattle with the rebels.
The APC that drove by was the rebel leader and about 8 comrades escaping,
and the last we have heard is that they managed to get beyond the city, out
by the airport (damn), and were being pursued in a rolling gunbattle.

At least the gunfight is going in the other direction, but this puts
everything back into uncertainty mode. I have a week before my course in
England starts, so I can wait for the flights to resume, but of course I'd
rather be casting dries to seatrout in Wales than hiding out in my house
waiting to be hit by a stray round. My neighbor said he found some dirt
craters in his front yard from the gunfights, so we are definately in the
line of fire now. If no other groups take advantage of this unrest, this
might turn out to be a one-time thing. Otherwise, its the slippery descent
back into hell for Kinshasa, and I can't wait to get out of here for the
summer!

More if it develops. As it stands, all is calm again, there's no word on
flights, and I am definately keeping my head DOWN!

--riverman