Bangui

Bangui was founded in 1889 as a French post on the north bank of the Ubangi, at the foot of the rapids that stop river boats coming up from the Congo. The site was chosen for that break in navigation, and the town grew as the transfer point between steamers and porters. It became the capital of the colony of Ubangi-Shari and the administrative centre from which the concession companies, notorious for forcing villagers to gather wild rubber, were run. A grid of avenues, brick offices and the red-brick cathedral of 1937 gave the centre the look it still has, and the city was known as 'la Coquette' in the 1970s.

After independence in 1960 the city was the stage for the country's political upheavals. David Dacko was overthrown in the Saint-Sylvestre coup of 1 January 1966 by Jean-Bédel Bokassa, who crowned himself emperor in Bangui in 1977 in a ceremony whose cost the country could not bear; protests by schoolchildren and the killings that followed helped bring about his overthrow in a French-backed coup in September 1979. Coups and short-lived governments recurred through the 1990s and 2000s, often beginning in the army barracks of the capital.

In March 2013 the Séléka coalition took Bangui, and anti-balaka militias formed against it. The city saw heavy sectarian violence, and by early 2014 some 500,000 people, close to half the city's population, had fled their homes; French troops and then the United Nations mission deployed. Pope Francis visited in November 2015. The capital has been calmer since, and rebuilding, aid operations and government have concentrated here.

Bangui is where Sango, the river trade language that became the national tongue, is most completely at home: it is the everyday speech of the streets and markets, with French kept for administration, schooling and the press. The city draws people from every part of the country, so Gbaya, Banda, Ngbaka, Yakoma and many other communities live side by side, and family ties reach back to villages that city households still support.

Churches shape the week. Catholic and Protestant congregations fill Sunday mornings with choirs and drumming, and church compounds have repeatedly served as places of refuge in times of violence. The Muslim community, long concentrated in PK5 and prominent in trade, keeps its own rhythm of prayer and market days. Rebuilding trust between these communities after the violence that began in 2013 is a live and openly discussed matter in the capital.

Music is the city's strongest cultural export. Congolese rumba and soukous crossed the river long ago and mixed with local styles, and bars along the Ubangi are the centre of evening life when conditions allow. Football is followed closely, dance and drumming are part of weddings and funerals, and the Boganda museum holds what survived the looting of its collections of instruments, weapons and tools.

Bangui had an estimated 889,231 residents in 2020, by far the largest concentration in the country and a population swollen over the past decade by families displaced from the interior. Households spread out from the colonial centre into quarters of single-storey compounds with courtyards, mango trees and unpaved lanes; Bimbo, on the western edge, has grown into a town in its own right.

The economy is government, trade and aid. Ministries, the United Nations mission and international agencies are among the few large employers, and most other work is informal: market trading, transport, repairs, construction, brewing and selling food. Goods reach the city along the road from Cameroon, and when that route is cut or insecure prices rise sharply in the markets within days.

The day starts early, before the heat, with markets busy from dawn and children walking to school in uniform. Electricity supply is intermittent even in the centre, generators are common in offices and shops, and many households draw water from standpipes or wells. Evening comes quickly near the equator, and movement drops after dark. Flooding along the Ubangi and its creeks affects low-lying quarters in the rainy season.

The everyday meal in Bangui is gozo, a stiff paste of cassava flour eaten by hand and pinched off to scoop up a sauce. The most common sauce is ngoundja, cassava leaves pounded and cooked with palm oil and groundnut paste; okra, sorrel-leaf and plain groundnut sauces are almost as usual. Fufu of pounded cassava and foutou of pounded plantain appear alongside gozo on many tables.

Fish is the capital's advantage. Captain fish, catfish and tilapia come out of the Ubangi and are grilled whole over charcoal along the riverfront or smoked for keeping and sale inland. Grilled meat and brochettes are sold at roadside stalls, chicken and goat go into sauces for special occasions, and forest foods reach the markets in season: koko, the finely sliced leaves of a forest vine, wild mushrooms and edible caterpillars, fried or dried.

Fried doughnuts and beignets, roasted groundnuts, mangoes, papaya and bananas are the street snacks. Sweet tea and coffee taken with canned evaporated milk are the morning drinks. Palm wine is brought in from the villages of the Lobaye, a strong spirit is distilled locally, and beer brewed in the city is the usual drink in the riverside bars.