While in Kasongo I stayed at the Catholic diocese, which was a lovely spot with well-kept grounds and aging but classic buildings. One morning I walked in the area around the diocese. This is what I found.
One of the classic buildings I found was the diocese mechanical and woodworking shop. I felt like I was stepping back in time to an era when things were bustling. Indeed, the Congo once was a busy commercial country. But that was all but lost through the mismanagement during the Mobutu regime from the 1960’s until the 1990’s, when the Great African War started and raged for more than a decade in the eastern Congo.