Kinshasa 2025 – International Women’s Day

Kinshasa could not function without the small vendors, mostly women and girls, who are the face of daily markets throughout the city. Notwithstanding the spread of western-style supermarkets from Gombe into most Communes of the megalopolis, most Kinois purchase their daily household requirements from these small-scale sellers who provide an important, convenient service. With the exception of those renting stalls in a few formal markets, they often operate on the margins of legality -- anywhere they can find a patch of space along a public right of way -- and are consequently susceptible to extortion or expulsion by local authorities. On this International Women's Day, let us remember and recognize their contribution.

A vegetable seller on the road to Kimwenza, just off RN1 to Matadi (photo author coll.)

The first formal market in Kinshasa (Gombe) was located on the rail line to Leopoldville (Kintambo) approximately opposite the Grande Poste on Blvd. du 30 Juin. (photo author coll.)

A group of women at the Kinshasa market (photo author coll.)

In 1925 the Crédit Foncier Africain built the Mughal-inspired "covered market"
two blocks south (photo author coll.)

Vegetable sellers outside the Marché Couvert (photo author coll.)

Painter Guilherme Marques d'Oliveira's depiction of the market in 1942 (photo author coll.)

The Leopoldville municipality built a new public market in 1943, four blocks further south,
east of Parc De Bock along Ave. Ruakadingi (photo author coll.)

Selling dried fish at the public market (photo author coll.)

Shopping at the public market in the 1950s (photo author coll.)

Outside the market near the end of the day (photo author coll.)

In 1968, President Mobutu demolished the public market, replacing it with a larger facility on the same site (photo Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, Smithsonian Institution)

Sellers at the Marché Central in the 1970s (photo author coll.)

The meat section of the Marché Central 2010 (photo Beeckmans, 2010)

As Kinshasa continued to grow, shopping at the central market became a challenging logistical endeavor and road side sellers became more ubiquitous.

Off to find a place to set up shop (photo author coll.)

Young street vendors (photo author coll.)

Sellers at Matadi Kibala on RN1 to Matadi (photo mediacongo.net)

Workers bringing produce to the DAIPN market at Place des Evolués in 2018
(photo author coll.)

The Marché Central was demolished in March 2021 after having been closed for a year as a Covid-19 prevention measure. (photo 7sur7.cd)

A new Marché Central, now commonly called "Zando" in Lingala, is nearing completion on the same downtown site. Let's hope sellers and customers will enjoy as nice an experience as the architect's rendering suggests. (photo thinktank-architecture.fr)

Sources:

Beeckmans, Luce. 2009. "Agency in an African City: The various trajectories through time and space of the public market in Kinshasa".

Leopoldville 1945 – Plan de la Ville de Léopoldville

Interpreting Kinshasa “then and now” depends on good archival material. Informed analysis also requires a bit of conjecture. Newspapers and telephone or postal directories are useful, but detailed maps of the city from different time periods can reveal a lot. A recent find is this map produced by Delacre et Soeur of Brussels, ostensibly in 1945. Delacre et Soeur published a tourist brochure, “Les parcs nationaux du Congo Belge”, in 1938, but I have yet to conclusively date this map. 

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All the landmarks are there: the Gare (14), Ndolo airport (3), Hotel ABC (17), Hotel Sica (46) and other hostelries, the BMS Chapel (78), Parc De Bock, the Governor General’s Residence (101), UtexLeo (112), the Velodrome in Kintambo (115), Chanic shipyards (118), the American Baptist mission at Leo Ouest (117). But there are discrepancies which suggest that this is an update of an earlier map in which some, but not all, of the developments during World War Two were captured in the new edition. 

For instance, the map shows Ave. De Gaulle in the commercial district (now Ave. du Commerce, See Jan. 2, 2018), which was renamed from Ave. Travailleurs August 28, 1943, the third anniversary of the Gaullist coup in Brazzaville that brought French Equatorial Africa into the Allied fold. District Commissioner le Bussy and Dr. Staub, Honorary French Consul presided over the ceremony.

Ave. de Gaulle in the 1940s (Ph. author coll.)

However, the Information Service (80) on Ave. des Jardins off Ave. Vangele, does not use the new name of De Meulemeester (now Ave. Kolwezi), which the Comité Urbain changed in September 1944.

The Ministry of Information facing Ave. Vangele in the 1960s (Ph. author coll.)

Even more intriguing is the location of the Coupole (56), the former municipal market on Square du Marche (Aug. 5, 2011), which was relocated to Aves. Plateau and Van Eetvelde and inaugurated at the end of 1943. But no market or any structure is identified in that location. The original market reopened as a night club called “La Coupole” in March 1945. Celebrated local artist, Guilherme d’Oliveira Marques, decorated the interior with murals (May 17, 2017).

The rear of the market from Ave. Cambier (Ph. author coll.)

The Market by Guilherme Marques (Ph. author coll.)

La Coupole advertisement March 1945 (Ph. Le Courrier d'Afrique)

Similarly, Hotel Regina (40) is shown on Place Braconnier, although it actually opened across Blvd. Albert in 1943. Hotel Regina was an initiative of Paul Storey-Day (Mar. 29, 2011), whose mother, Paula Colman, operated the Pension Paula in the former Portuguese Banco Ultramarino (Nov. 1, 2014) on the Place Braconnier location. Interestingly, the Sabena Guest House near Ndolo Prison (4) on Ave Olsen (Apr. 15, 2021) is not identified, although the other main hotels were.

The new Hotel Regina on Blvd. Albert (Ph. author coll.)

Pension Paula on Place Braconnier during WWII (Ph. facebook.com)

The Banco Nacional Ultramarino (Ph. author coll.)

Another anomaly is the US Consulate, which the map locates on Ave Bousin (39) (now Ave. Isiro). At the beginning of the War in 1940, the Consulate was located in a rented villa on Ave Renkin. There is a locator number (35) on this site, but nothing to identify it in the Legende. The Consulate moved to Ave Olsen in May 1943 (Aug. 2, 2018). Intriguingly, No. 39 on Ave. Bousin is where the US Office of War Information opened an office in March 1944.

The U.S Consulate on Ave. Renkin (American Foreign Service Journal, Nov. 1936)

On the other hand, there is no listing for the Italian Consulate on Ave Costermans (now Ave Mongala), opposite the District Commissioner’s residence (68). After Italy joined Germany in the War in June 1940, the Italian Consul was expelled from the Colony, so its absence from the map would seem to suggest an updating of the 1945 edition.

The Italian Consulate, Ave. Costermans (Ph. author coll.)

Over half of the map covers the southern districts -- the African cité -- of which there are less than half a dozen cites. There is the St.Pierre Catholic Mission (136), the adjacent Stade Reine Astrid (135) and the Scheut Mission pool for Congolese downstream from the Funa Club (2). Governmental institutions include the Territorial Administration for the Population Noire (134), Aves. Comfina & Luvua. But the map also identifies a site at the southern end of Ave. Prince Baudouin for a Bureaux d’Administration de la Population Noire, which was designed and built in 1951. 

To the south of this is the “Nouvelle Cité”, developed by Territorial Administrator Dendale, who in August 1943 platted lots to accommodate the influx of Congolese residents drawn by the opportunity for war work (Sep. 30, 2011). Many of the streets were named to commemorate Congolese contribution to the war -- the victories of the Force Publique in Ethiopia in 1941 (Aves. Force Publique, Assosa, Gambela, Saio), the FP field hospital in Burma (Ave. Birmanie) and Avenue de la Victoire. In 1957 the Nouvelle Cité was renamed Commune Dendale and after Independence became Commune Kasa Vubu.

Just north of this, across the Tranchee Cabu, is a site reserved for a swimming pool for Congolese. The original Scheut Mission site downstream from the Funa Club (as shown on the map) was filled in by the US Army in September 1942 to upgrade Ndolo airport to accommodate heavy bombers en route to the Middle East and Asia. In January 1944, the Congo Protestant Council proposed the municipality build a swimming pool for Congolese – within two or three years. Ultimately, the pool, part of Parc Sports Ermens, was built on Ave Ermens in 1946 (May 30, 2021).

Notwithstanding a few discrepancies, the map generally provides specific locations for many rapidly-disappearing colonial-era structures one might find in Kinshasa and wonder what their stories were. 

Sources: 

• American Foreign Service Journal 
• L’Avenir Colonial Belge, 1942-45. 
• Le Courrier d’Afrique, 1942-45.