English: Kindu is the provincial capital of Maniema. The crumbling buildings and river port are mute witnesses to its quiet prosperity before the war. Boats used to be sent in pieces by rail from Lumumbashi and at Kindu they would be assembled to move the products of the numerous mines up and down the Congo river to Kisangani. The big barges now stocked on the banks of the river rust quietly under jungle foliage.

I wandered along the dusty streets of Kindu and came across the defunct post office. I was able to take a picture of the rotting post boxes before a meths drunk bare chested man emerged from the wreckage to harangue me.

In most parts of Congo people are quite ambivalent about photographers or even like the attention. In Kindu many people don’t want to be photographed nor do they want you to photograph the town. It as if the camera makes painfully obvious the heights from which they have fallen.