Mad Bob, and where in the world is this?

I say!

I was speaking to Wilson the other day. I like to talk to the servants one-to-one every now and then - helps keep up morale and such like - and I say, I find him quite an intelligent chap. I'll say more about that in a future post, but during our conversation the other day we were discussing his background. I wrote previously about where he got the name O'Brian, and it turns out that he is also a quarter Badibanga.

I had to search my memory, but I remembered that the Badibanga originate from The Congo. In fact, the Badibanga reside near Kananga in Katanga Province. If you don't believe me, check out this population map of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and search within it for Badibanga. Well, I say, we had some fun thinking up rhyming songs for Wilson after that one.

But that is rather beside the point. Katanga is in a big mess at the present time, and I asked Wilson what he could remember of Katanga, but he never lived there. It was his grandfather on his mother's side who came from that province. In the 1950s, Katanga was a wonderful place if you were white - the roads were good, the railway worked, steamers called in at the ports such as Albertville - and it was peaceful.

Now, there is very, very little of what we would call civilisation there. It is a completely lawless land. The roads have deteriorated into poor tracks. There is no electricity. There is continued fighting, in which many thousands of people have died, though few report on the fighting. There are no boats, and very little industry.

This got me thinking that although Mad Bob (Mugabe) has destroyed what was once the beautiful and prosperous country of Zimbabwe, there is still much further that Zimbabwe can fall.

A sad thought.

This got me feeling a bit of the perlerorneq, as the Eskimos would say.

But to cheer me up, I hope anyone reading this will have a go at my new quiz question.

So...

I took the above snap on a fairly recent hush hush trip. Can you name the location?

MM III