Kabila’s reticence also marked his personal life. He kept out of the limelight, avoiding cocktail parties and other social events. He would wake up at around 6 o’clock in the morning, check the news and his e-mail, and work out in his exercise room, lifting weights and sweating on his stationary bike. Before he assumed the presidency, he lived in a modest townhouse with his common-law wife, Olive Lemba, a light-skinned woman he had met in the eastern Congo during the AFDL. He doted on his young daughter, Sifa, named after his mother.
