“Mambo ya Congo,” or Things Happen in Congo
By Wen Gao
May 1, 2026
Before I went, I knew from the news three things about the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC): malaria, civil war, and Ebola.
I went anyway. I was twenty-two, fresh out of college, and I desperately hoped I could make enough money to build a decent life. A Chinese mining company offered me a great package to work as an accountant for their subsidiary in Congo. I told myself this was an adventure and boarded the plane.
After thirteen hours of flying, I finally arrived in Lubumbashi, Congo’s second-largest city, and principal city of the Haut-Katanga Province. Stepping off the plane, the air—thick and stuffy—hit me first. After two hours bouncing along the bumpy roads, my heart was doing something complicated in my chest. I told myself it was excitement. I did not think about any of that at the time. I was too busy looking out the window. Everything was so different: People carrying buckets on their heads. Women with babies strapped to their backs and, sometimes, another life visibly on the way. A kid of maybe seven or eight, one hand gripping a toddler through the traffic. Pool tables on the side of the road. Curtains where doors should be. I saw a few men wearing puffer jackets, which really surprised me. I thought Congo would be very hot. Yellow metal drums on the side of the road, which I think contained petrol for sale. Kids ran alongside the car, trying to sell banana chips. I pressed my face closer to the glass, watching this new place. The glass between me and all of it was not just a car window. I would not understand that for a long time.
I finally arrived at the campus, its own small world familiar to me: Chinese faces, Chinese food, and Chinese conversations. My dorm was a two-minute walk from the office. I did not need to worry about the commute and could get more sleep. However, that first night, when everything went quiet, the fear finally found me. I could not sleep. I learned that mosquitoes carried malaria. I sat up and checked the mosquito net again and again. For the time I was there, luckily, malaria did not get me. But my colleagues were infected. Some contracted it regularly. The fear never really went away. But I learned to do something with it. I worked out almost every day. I wore long sleeves, long socks, and long pants daily. I tried to sleep for eight hours to let my immune system do its job. I do not know how much it helped. It probably reduced some risk, and it helped me get through each day a little more steadily.
And so, my real life began. I started the job, buried myself in the numbers. Expense reports, journal entries, and one voucher after another were entered into the Systems Applications and Products (SAP) software. Then one afternoon, I was trying to make the big entry balance, suddenly, the screen was black, the fan slowed and stopped, and the hum of the computer faded. The first time, I panicked, as I had not saved an entry. After few times, I got smart, I did my entries in the Excel sheet first, hitting “Ctrl+S” every five minutes. I copied it into SAP as fast as my fingers could manage, racing against the next outage. It was not a skill I ever expected to have, but it was quite common due to the power shortage. Then later, I started bringing my CPA study materials, so when the power went out, I would have something to do. I was no longer afraid of the power cuts. The power could go out whenever it wanted. I was ready.
Same as my fear, I had arrived in Congo carrying my own painted rock. The fear was so real that everything looked dangerous to me. But four years has a way of chipping at the surface.
The company had rules about where we could go. We were not supposed to go alone. But I wanted a small adventure of my own. I wanted to see the outside world.
It was Sunday morning. I was supposed to go to a shopping mall with my coworkers. Instead, I slipped out. I was wandering on the streets, past UN vehicles, past a Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) clinic. Before this time, I had seen these things through a car window, everything framed and distant. Walking is different. My heart was doing something between excitement and fear. People looked at me, and I looked back.
And then I saw a church, grand, rising above the low buildings. Everything else I saw so far was very humble. I wanted to go in to see what was going on there, but I hesitated. Was I allowed to go in? I did not know the rules. I did not want to be a reckless intruder. I knew chances like this were rare. I did not know when I would slip out again. So, I sneaked in, sitting in the back, hoping no one would notice me. It was the first time I was exposed to church. At that time, I knew not a word of French and felt completely out of place, especially in a crowd of people who had somewhere to be spiritually. Then they stood up and started singing.
I rose with the crowd but had no idea what I should do. People turned around and smiled at me while they sang. I did not know what they were singing. I did not know what any of it meant, but the church felt so welcoming and peaceful. I carried that feeling for years. It took a journey of many years and the reclaiming of my faith to realize that my spiritual home had already welcomed me that day.
On my way back, I was still savoring the warmth of the church when I heard it, “L’argent, l’argent!” (Money, money!)
I ran!
The voices followed.
I made a block. I asked myself, wait, what am I running away from? A bunch of six-year-olds? I stopped, turned around. The children had stopped too. They were standing at a comfortable distance, looking at me and laughing. Maybe they had tried to interact with other adults before, but they did not get any response. By asking for money, I reacted. Other people reacted. It was a game for them. The children finally got bored and left.
On the way back, I tried to make sense for myself of why I ran from them, because I felt guilty to think the worst of them. I had assumed kids at their age should stay in their classroom, being kids, talking about what they want to be when they grow up, a scientist or an artist. But those kids probably did not have a chance to do so. I learned how to deal with kids who asked for money. When they came asking for money, I made them a deal. Move that rock. Run to the shop for me. Something small and easy, and I gave some food or a snack to them. I reframed through agency. They learned they can do something to make money, not simply ask.
I sneaked back to camp at a pace pretending nothing had happened after my little adventure. My fear got smaller every day for different things happen in life, my understanding got deeper gradually, and I learned approaches from different directions.
Then, four years passed.
Before I left, I bought a turquoise at the market. It was green, beautifully green. The vendor told me it was local and rare. Yes, Congo has some of the richest mineral deposits on earth, copper, cobalt, and diamonds sitting in the ground under the feet of people.
I gave it to my uncle, who loved rocks. It sat on a shelf for years, a small piece of Congo in an apartment far away.
After a few years, it was accidentally knocked over and broke. My uncle found out it was painted green. Under it was an ordinary rock. And we laughed about how he bragged about his stone with friends for a few years.
Same as my fear, I had arrived in Congo carrying my own painted rock. The fear was so real that everything looked dangerous to me. But four years has a way of chipping at the surface.
Congo was dangerous. I will not pretend otherwise. But danger was never the whole story.
I left Congo. But Congo did not leave me entirely.
I came to America not long after. Life here was hard in ways I had not expected at first. There were moments when the fear came back. But I had learned something in Congo about fear. Get closer. Look at it. It is never quite what it appears to be from a distance.
I stayed. I kept going.
A few years later, I had a word tattooed on the inside of my right wrist.
Courage.
