I had the privilege of working with the UNICEF office in Bangui in early 2009. What an interesting place this was - in the middle of the African Continent and cursed with the evil trio of underdevelopment, extreme poverty, and possessing natural extractive resources (in this case diamonds, uranium, and timber) that will ultimately exploit the people and harm the land.
Luckily there's a murky brown river here, where at the very least fish can be caught for sustenance. The soil is such a bright red that it is unable to sustain much vegetation beyond mango trees and cassava. Even the simplest things such as onions are imported all the way from Cameroon. Locals buy and eat monkeys caught outside the capital. When one is nearly starving, it seems improper to judge how you are getting your food.
Malaria is endemic here. In the month that I've been here, at least half the office has caught malaria. The Malarone I've been taking seems to be protecting me somewhat, but nothing can protect my sensitive stomach from the water and food - no matter how careful I am.
There's one major road through the capital, dammed up by multiple makeshift "checkpoints" to extract money from any expats or private companies that brave the roads to transport goods and cargo. This can be seen as corruption (and accurately so), but it seems more to be a very strong sense of doing whatever is necessary to get by today, with little thought of how it might affect everyone else, tomorrow.
