Inside I sit on my cozy white couch, the air conditioner blasting. My belly is full from the very berry pancakes my partner made for me, and our little one growing inside me, for I am 30 weeks pregnant. I sit here on my cozy couch knitting a newborn hat for our baby. I look out my window, toward the green vines that reach up and up and up the compound wall, towards the bright equatorial sun, their leaves swaying gently in the breeze.

And just beyond mortars are blasting and gunshots are being fired, I imagine into the crowds. Every so often the crack of a tear gas canister rings through the air and I can hear people in the slums yelling. I climb to the top level of my three-story townhouse and stand on the very tips of my toes so I can see out through the roof window in my bathroom. I see another woman, over the wall, looking out her window, or at least the space where her window should be, on the third floor of her home, where her bedroom should be, but instead, exist only hastily formed walls made of cement blocks, reaching for a roof but finding only smoke-filled sky.

We are both turning our heads from side to side to see if we can catch a glimpse of the source of the gunfire: the Tanzanian and Rwandan mercenaries that form Kabila’s Republican Guard, hired not only to quash the throngs of unsettled citizens voicing their rights to a democratic election but to also crush their hopes of a better life for their people. He is in charge and he will remain in his office until death does he part.

My toes are getting tired. I lower myself and return to my cozy couch downstairs. And here inside I sit.

Magic 21/365, Protest Day, Kinshasa, January 21, 2018