Living in Kinshasa

August 23, 2020 7:52 PM

Starting in October 2020, I'm going to be spending about one week out of every month in Kinshasa, Congo, for work. My organization hasn't done much work in that part of the world before, and I have a lot of leeway in figuring out my housing arrangements. I'd love to get some advice on longer-term rentals or hotels in the city.

On the plus side: I have a pretty generous stipend for finding a house/apartment; my French is solid and I can read the available housing ads. On the minus: I've never lived there before and don't have a good sense of the different parts of the city. I don't even know what the main newspapers are there. I'd really appreciate any advice.

posted by leslietron to Society & Culture (3 answers total)

I don't know much about DRC, but as a former expat in other countries, my suggestion is to find expats who live there. They don't have to be from your country. Somewhere online, there's an expat community for Kinshasa. They will have excellent advice. It might be on Facebook, but you can also start by searching around Twitter for folks talking about Kinshasa in English. A good recent guidebook might also give you some tips on hotels that expats hang at. I'd say to plan to stay in hotels your first few trips to the city, at least, while you get to learn it and know where you'll be doing and how you want to move around. To be clear, I'm not suggesting hanging out only with expats, but rather finding them to use as resources.
posted by bluedaisy at 10:14 PM on August 23, 2020 [4 favorites]

Best answer: I lived in Kinshasa for a few months in 2014. A lot has changed but also not a lot has changed (I still have coworkers and friends in the city).

Most expats live in Gombe. Expat facebook groups in DRC are pretty active (I haven't been in Kin recently but Goma has a ton) due to the constant flux. You will absolutely be able to find a Kin-specific housing group on FB, likely in English but absolutely in French. If nothing else, add yourself to the Kinshasa Hash House Harriers group and ask there; someone will be able to direct you. The US Embassy (as of 2014) has (had?) a useful monthly newsletter with lots of housing ads; if you're American, you can ask to be added.

As far as hotels, they are invariably extremely overpriced (usually at the US government rate) and not as nice as you'd expect. That's going to be standard. My American coworkers preferred the Memling for month-plus stays; Fleuve Congo and Grand Hotel are other ones regularly used.

Let me know if you have other questions; I asked a q about Kinshasa in 2014 but had no luck here!
posted by quadrilaterals at 6:33 AM on August 24, 2020 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thank you both! This is really helpful.

Quadrilaterals, I definitely have some additional questions I'll send you over MeMail as well -- thanks so much.
posted by leslietron at 11:12 AM on August 25, 2020