The most spectacular event in Kinshasa is the daily arrival of the train from the sprawling shanty of N'Djili. The roof is packed with young men jostling for sitting space. The carriages, with no glass to fill the windows, are run by gangs which extort money from the passengers for standing room. The train crawls into Kinshasa and crawls back. Most of its passengers will put in twelve long hours, without lunch, sometimes without water, pursuing whatever cache of small business activities they can to put a meal on the table for their family - once a day.

Kinshasa is a busy city. It thrives with busy-ness. But it is a busy-ness borne out of survival and necessity, no longer the thumping heart of central Africa.

Thirty years of Mobutu's kleptocracy, through which the army, police and civil service continually fed off the people, left a moribund state that provided no architecture of opportunity. No platform upon which to craft a life, no matter how modest, on your own terms. It was a situation that was propped up by western interests as part of the Cold War, in fear of the Soviet and then Cuban influence in neighbouring Angola.

Ultimately, after investing in its descent into corruption, the west put Congo out to pasture.

The Congolaise are barely surprised by this. On the back of Belgian colonisation, which saw ten million people brutally murdered and many more with hands and arms chopped off by the legions of rubber companies, they were not really expecting the west to turn round and offer them development. We had no further use for them. The Soviet threat left and so did the scaffolding that kept in place the corruption of their pro-west government. The only government they had. And Kinshasa was stabbed to its heart.

The stage was set for a brutal war that involved 7 countries, and tore apart what remained of Congo's infrastructure. By recent estimates it has left 5.4 million dead. The biggest loss of life since the Second World War. Current estimates suggest that 1,300 people are dying every day as a consequence of the war.

The conflict has aggravated an already acute poverty, and it has unraveled the social fabric that enabled people to make ends meet. Unemployment is massive. Child mortality is the ninth highest in the world. In a country that is rich in people, mineral resources and forest resources, with a huge hydro-electric potential and the possibility of an agricultural productivity that would more than feed every Congolaise.

Kinshasa itself was once known as Beau Belle for its high life, boulevards, designer clothes shops and vibrant economy. Now it is characterised by open sewers, rotting debris and slums. Children are accused of witchcraft because they have lost their parents to AIDS and their extended family can't feed another mouth. There are 20,000 street children. All live with the threat of beatings, murder and rape. Sexual violence is extreme and staggering. For many women, survival sex is the norm.

But the heart of this city still beats, albeit faintly, beneath the human tragedy of war and corruption. The resourcefulness of the many, in a time of such need, is fuelled by the generosity of the many. As the suffering persists so too does the strength of this spirit.

This is a city where many people have nothing, and yet, they are still prepared to give. Even now, this nobility defines Kinshasa.