nate89
Member
- Joined
- Dec 21, 2010
- Posts
- 139
I have recently started a company dealing with IT in the health industry for poor countries and I've got a lead to a potential partner that operates in DRC.
The meetings have gone well and I have been invited to travel to DRC for a few days or possibly a week out to their current operations in Lubumbashi - or rather a small town just outside of it.
This is probably a big stretch, but has anyone here had experience in DRC (let alone Lubumbashi) and if so how has it been?
It is quite a promising lead, but at the same time my biggest concern is safety seconded by culture shock. The company I am dealing with is a relatively large Western organisation so I am guessing that it must be reasonably safe, but... it is the DRC after all.
I've been reading about the history of the country and it has definitely had huge issues (and still does).
Slightly off topic, but I think the most gory thing I read so far was:
President Kasa-Vubu remained in power and Katanga's Tshombe eventually became Prime Minister. Lumumbist and Maoist Pierre Mulele led a rebellion in 1964, successfully occupying two thirds of the country, and turned to Maoist China for help. The U.S. and Belgium once again got involved, this time with a small military force. Mulele fled to Congo-Brazzaville, but would later be lured back to Kinshasa by a promise of amnesty by Mobutu. Mobutu reneged on his promise, and Mulele was publicly tortured, his eyes gouged out, genitals cut off, and limbs amputated one by one while still alive; his body was then dumped in the Congo River.
The meetings have gone well and I have been invited to travel to DRC for a few days or possibly a week out to their current operations in Lubumbashi - or rather a small town just outside of it.
This is probably a big stretch, but has anyone here had experience in DRC (let alone Lubumbashi) and if so how has it been?
It is quite a promising lead, but at the same time my biggest concern is safety seconded by culture shock. The company I am dealing with is a relatively large Western organisation so I am guessing that it must be reasonably safe, but... it is the DRC after all.
I've been reading about the history of the country and it has definitely had huge issues (and still does).
Slightly off topic, but I think the most gory thing I read so far was:
President Kasa-Vubu remained in power and Katanga's Tshombe eventually became Prime Minister. Lumumbist and Maoist Pierre Mulele led a rebellion in 1964, successfully occupying two thirds of the country, and turned to Maoist China for help. The U.S. and Belgium once again got involved, this time with a small military force. Mulele fled to Congo-Brazzaville, but would later be lured back to Kinshasa by a promise of amnesty by Mobutu. Mobutu reneged on his promise, and Mulele was publicly tortured, his eyes gouged out, genitals cut off, and limbs amputated one by one while still alive; his body was then dumped in the Congo River.
