Yet the political chatter is lively and savvy in Ndaku ya Pembe as villagers prepare to join some 25 million of Congo's 58 million people in their first free elections of a president and parliament in 46 years.
The vote next Sunday puts this vast heart of Africa among the continent's growing array of countries that have embraced democracy, however fitfully. If multiparty politics can take hold in the country, after decades of dictatorship, misrule, and two multinational conflicts that came to be called an African world war, all of Africa will have turned a critical corner.
``We need a really credible head of state, one that will take his duties seriously, that will help provide a good quality of life to alleviate the misery, and that means creating jobs that pay a livable wage, not such a pittance that it's hardly worth waking up in the morning," said Guylain Kasongo, a 25-year-old farmer.
He said his small farm plot makes him only about $100 a year -- half the cost of school fees, books, and uniform for his 8-year-old daughter. He also works loading trucks and carrying giant bundles of produce and still doesn't make enough to send his younger girl to school.
He also has to help out his father, an army captain. ``He only makes $30 a month, but in the past three months he's received only one payment of $20," Kasongo said.
In a country of jungles and huge rivers with only 300 miles of paved road, the UN effort to pull off this election is a logistical nightmare.
Delivering ballot slips requires a daily airlift by hundreds of aircraft, with armies of Congolese to deliver them by boat, bicycle, or on foot to the farthest village in this Western Europe-sized country. It's the largest, most expensive election the United Nations has overseen.
Further complicating matters, soldiers and rebels left over from the wars of 1996-2002 continue to terrorize eastern Congo, forcing some 360,000 people from their homes this year despite the presence of some 17,500 UN peacekeepers.
