La vida diaria en Brazzaville (República del Congo) no parece fácil. Apenas podemos encontrar calles asfaltadas que faciliten su tránsito. Pequeños y grandes montones de basura se apilan a los bordes del camino, el barro parece brotar a borbotones de la tierra durante la época de lluvias, gruesos nubarrones grises cubren el sol hasta teñir sus rayos con un tono blanquecino, los niños juegan descalzos, parece que las esposas dedican diez horas diarias a tender la ropa, tienden ropa sin parar, con mucho cuidado para que el barro no la vuelva a manchar. Camisetas del Real Madrid (de la época anterior a Cristiano Ronaldo) con el nombre del jugador arrancado son un atuendo habitual. Que los niños chillen y se peleen en la calle es una escena habitual. La palabra que no quiero utilizar se desliza con total libertad por las calles mugrientas de Brazzaville y mancha sin escrúpulos, como el peor villano, el futuro de aquellos chiquillos; es la miseria del continente más hermoso del mundo. Sencilla, al natural.

Then there is a bestial rupture of this depressing scene. A gentleman appears on the scene. The elastic walking of his manages to overcome each of the puddles, stops, shakes brown and bright leather shoes. He continues his walk swinging his shoulders forward and back, swelling the lips that radiate a natural, sophisticated pride. His hands are not avoided by heading to his suit of his suit every little time, they pinch the suit, as we would do to check dreams, and, satisfied, he continues to walk with this elastic and great movement. We have encountered a Sapeur, the most beautiful scene in Brazzaville. It is a Congo dandi, a perfect gentleman from the African continent. And he finds us in turn, he delights with our unpredictable presence, studies our clothing, and after that he puts his hand to the hat to lift him a few millimeters while he smiles and shows us a snack of white and magical teeth. He then does the forest spirits, disappears in the gray bustle of the city.

Origin of Sapeur

The Congolese Sapeur was born from humiliation. The pride that shines in your clothes works like a shield against humiliation. Although pride sometimes pushes him to humiliate himself even more. To understand its quirky existence it would be necessary to go back to the years of colonialism and detach ourselves from our old white skin, even for a few minutes, just to wear the resistant and mountain texture that surrounds the Congolese. It should be remembered the genocide led by Leopold II of Belgium and meet the weapons and military equipment that crawled through the trenches of the First World War, similar to slaves, torn from the green jungles to be dive in fire and terror. It would be necessary to understand the inherent difficulty to be African in the Europe of the 20s, and the inevitable contempt they suffered from the hands of the European. We would have to suffer the unspeakable, accept that suffering, and then seek pride in suffering.

The Congolese Sapeur was not born in the Congo but in Europe, in the streets of Paris, when the first immigrants sneaked in risking the skin in the old continent and sought to desperate a way to fit into the sophisticated French society. Walking through the Elyseos fields during the 1930s we would have encountered charming and uprooted characters that dressed in the required neatness. Following the European call that intended to "dress the wild black and take it by the good path of civilization", they complied with the rules required to belong to a privileged society, then they dressed in the best garments they found and adopted the careful ways of man " civilized". Giving him a personal touch that would "Africanize" the clothing imposed by Europeans. Until World War II arrived and African thought took a radical turn. It turns out that the Congolese, the Keniates, the Senegalese, the Nigerians and so many other Africans received during the conflict a rifle and the order to end the German enemy, and the Congolese, the Kenyans, the Senegalese and the Nigerians discovered a secret that the European had centuries hiding them.

They saw the European who was bleeding the same as them and shouted at his mother with the guts appearing between his fingers, witnessed the target that murders another white, discovered the weakness of the powerful white man, his lustful humanity uncovered to blank.And the African soldiers (about one million of them fought in World WarThe striped pajamas, the same as they in the English and Belgian concentration camps, and assured that the white man also cried, that he was weak.It was the spark that ignited African independence, led by war veterans in Europe, ecclesiastics and organized left groups.

Evolution of Sapeur

“Captivated by the snobbery and refined elegance of the coast of the coast, the Congolese domestic ones rejected the second -hand clothes of their lords and became tireless consumers and fervent connoisseurs, spending their brief salaries extravagantly to acquire the last Parisian fashions. " Thus defines the historian Didier rgondola the impulses that led to the creation of the SAPE, the société des ambianceurs et des personnes elégantes (society of (creators) of ‘environments’ and elegant people). The pride that reported to dress with the appropriate garments led them to be considered an anticolonialist movement (because colonialism sees the colonized and does not know how of the key gears that allowed the independence of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo. Do not think the reader that the Congolese dandi is pure attire. It is African pride, it is the color of the earth, the blood that throbs with a fearsome fierce. His pride quickly spread to the rest of the Congolese during the 60s and now they are free, or everything free that a man can be down there, in the streets atrafacked in Brazaville.

During the 80s, they tried to ban sapology in the public spaces of the Congo.These gentlemen who wear such striking fabrics and show the people the possibility of aspiring to a better, more neat and more desirable life in a junction where good, I neat it and the desirable enter the category of the world of dreams, they supposed an discomfortFor colonial governments, yes, but also for later governments that sank their countries in the well where they are now.It was only a luck that this prohibition was brief, and today the Sapeur are considered cultural icons of the Congo and more and more Congolese are aspiring to belong to this select society.Similar societies have even been created in cities of Kenya and Tanzania.

Brief guide to belong to the SAPE

First, you must wear brand clothes.That the brand is more or less luxurious (and therefore, more or less expensive) does not matter too much, as long as the clothes are branded and not a falsification.Falses are not allowed in this select group of elegance and color.Then we would find characters who ask for millionaire credits in Congolese francs to buy three nine -year costumes of Emilio Tucci, or young enthusiasts who dedicate three years of savings to buy a couple of J.M shoes.Second -hand Weston.They are brought by the Congolese who return from France for the holidays, as small treasures taken from the country of wonders.And I wonder if the shoes are true, if the crocodile skin that they take care of so much will be real, or the poor Sapeur have been scammed by their French cousins.

In the houses of the dandis, entire cubes can be found with ties and scarves, entire cubes encased in the corners of their cheap cement houses. The walls are naked and dirty, their bed is limited to a small crazy cot on the ground, some have no job to feed their own, their children are born, sick and die, but they are ties and scarfs cubes and suede hats and Armani leather and suits. A paradox? Stupidity? They say they need to appear wealth and a high social status in front of their neighbors. They need it. Even if they have to jump ridiculous between the puddles on their street so as not to stain their shoes. Although his stomachs rujan by hunger. Fashion is your addiction. An addiction to pride that was born from deep humiliation. It is terrifying but, in turn, it is part of that kind of human articles that make the terrifying something equally beautiful, admirable, bright. Children run behind them, young people dream of getting a job that allows them to save and buy their first tie. His color suits shine in the abandoned misery of Brazzaville.

Some even ruin to adopt this superfluous appearance that does not report any tangible wealth.They are ruined superheroes;Or they are superheroes, precisely, because they ruined.A type of incomprehensible courage is needed for us when spending the savings of a life in a couple of shoes that God will know if they are false.They must show an exquisite education, smile to everyone, move with adequate elegance, dress in a colorful and original way, unlike European dandis that do not leave cream and dark colors.They are a fierce pride pigtail.If you visit Brazzaville, Kinshasa, Nairobi or Kampala on occasion and get to cross with them, do not dare to judge them or laugh at their diverse attire.Remove them, respond with education to your greeting with a hat.They are stronger men than you and I will never be.And much more elegant, this is taken for granted.