For all the news of fighting and humanitarian disaster, Bangui was strikingly pretty, with a huge brick church, green hills, colorful 1970s architecture and a navigable river that borders on the Democratic Republic of Congo. Even more surprising was how easy it was to meet people, from the Cardinal in his tidy riverside office lined with tropical plants, to dejected villagers who’d made the gruelling road journey to Bangui to raise funds for relatives stuck in the countryside without food. After meeting a few ministers to talk about what some Central Africans mockingly refer to as “the government of Bangui’’ – the authority of the state barely reaches beyond the city – I called the minister of Agriculture, who answered his phone immediately and invited me to his office in the presidential palace. Guarding a side entrance with a metal door, a few stone-faced Rwandan peacekeepers sat on a wooden bench under a tree offering shade from the boiling sun; their UN armored vehicle stood parked nearby. Like most government structures, the presidential palace was built by Jean-Bedel Bokassa. Feared when he was in power, the late emperor is now fondly remembered as the best leader the country has ever had. I crossed the asphalted inner courtyard past a wilted fountain to meet the minister, who also serves as a presidential advisor. An affable man, he switched off the TV in the hall and we sat down to discuss cattle rustling, which has condemned thousands of herders to a life of acute destitution. It’s one of many tragedies unfolding in the country, but one that’s unlikely to grab international headlines. Bangui’s market was flooded with cows this year, he said: 1,500 heads of cattle a week. “Obviously a lot of them were stolen – more than half of our herders have fled the country. So we went to the market and told tried to figure out how to stop this. But how can one stop food coming into the market? It would have sparked a revolt. People are happy, meat is affordable. We’re the government, but we really felt that our hands are tied.”

-Pauline Bax