Oi here…

I will be living in Brazzaville for the next 3 years. I make a note to myself that when I have a visitor for one day in Brazzaville, there are three places that I will bring them to see: the Brazza Mausoleum, the President’s Palace and the St. Ann Cathedral.

The Brazza Mausoleum

The only city in the whole central west side of Africa, I know so far, that did not change its name at independence is Brazzaville. It is named after Savorgnan De Brazza, a French explorer of Italian origin who discovered and befriended the locals of this town. Not only they will never change the name of this city but they also erected a mausoleum, a huge marble monument in the middle of the city as memorial for him. The mausoleum chronicles the details of his life and work in this side of the Congo River with great pride and care. It is impressive to see a white person so loved, revered and honour to such scale in an African city.

The Presidential Palace

I took a picture of the Presidential Palace the first time I saw it; not of the Palace itself, but of a tanker permanently parked in front of the main entrance of the heavily guarded gate. The tanker was raised on a solid stone pedestal with the gun pointed to the gate of the palace. On the tanker there is a sentence written in French which says ‘Plus jamais ca’ (Never again). The President had been hit by the gun of this same tanker one night, and luckily he survived the assassination attempt. This tanker was placed there to remind him of the traitor who shot him, each time he goes in and out of the palace, but it also says a lot about how the current president of Republic of Congo came into power, and what he feels he needs to stay there. I really would love to have all my Interior Alignment ‘family’ over to Brazzaville to see this. It could be a subject of long discussion in our group about the feng shui effect this tanker has on both the residence of the presidential palace as well as all the population which resides in Brazzaville.

St. Ann Cathedral

Another landmark of Brazzaville that is very beautiful is the St Ann Cathedral. This cathedral is under renovation right now. It must be the only Catholic cathedral in the world with a malachite roof throughout.

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