Kinshasa Market Scene

The Polaroid camera I gave to the market informants enabled me to get snapshots of how business was transacted in Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). The upper left was of three stolen logs loaded in a metal cart. It would be sold to market women for firewood to brew the hard alcohol called lotoko.

In the top right, the smoked fish in the woven vine basket came from tributaries off of the Zaire River. Each basket weighed from 35 to 45 pounds and cost 650 million Zaires. At a rate of one million Zaires per US dollar, that was just over 72 dollars.

The lower left picture shows another scene at the market: a man has been hired to climb a palm tree to collect the palm nuts. In public places, a tree was "owned" and the fruits belonged to an individual or family. The last picture shows Kela, who sold potted plants and dried arrangements. He had other business on the side -- at the time of this picture he was trying unsuccessfully to sell monkeys to the Russians who were at the port in Matadi.