On the corner of Avenue Kasavubu and Pierre Elengesa stood the majority of the country. Turning tricks, scoring dope, just getting by.

“How did it come to this?” She whispered.

“What?” muttered her first customer of the day. “Same price as those across the street?”

She hesitated as the look on the man’s face turned from indifference to anger. These pauses do not meet the approval of the government officials and police officers that visit her after their shift ends. “You want to eat, don’t you?”

She could smell the cheap whiskey on his breath. He wore the suit of a businessman. From abroad of course, he did not speak French.

Her name was lost in the few books she had read before the troubles came. No man will wed her, no pimp will protect her with that violent embrace that she has become accustomed to. She is as hopeless as her utterly collapsed country.

“Yes.” She said, and quietly went to the alleyway.

No condoms, no consent. Only the desperate will to live to the next day.