Shots Across the Water, page 12
The next day we saw for ourselves how Western visitors typically travelled. About mid-morning a large open-sided lorry filled with seated travellers drove up the road. The passengers were leaning out, pointing their cameras with long lenses at the many people, including Rob and me, who were walking. The lorry shot past us, churning up the road and covering us and our co-walkers in dust. This started a conversation where it emerged that one of the reasons we were popular was that we did not take photographs. There was some fear of photos and many older people told us that cameras took their benevolent spirits away. This was interesting. Before I had set off I deliberated about bringing my camera, deciding not to as I thought it would get in the way of connecting with people. There had been many moments when I regretted not having a camera and many years later, while writing this book, my publisher was disappointed that I didn’t have any photos of the journey. But it was the right decision and I’m glad that I had the foresight to offer my respect in that way.
One of the many interesting things about walking was seeing the differences between villages. Many were vibrant places where everyone seemed motivated. At some others people sat around, doing little and looking miserable. I talked to some of our co-walkers about this and got varying explanations. Some expressed negative views about the people of certain villages, something I have come across back home in Britain. Others talked about traumatic events related to the various wars in the region. And one just said ‘malaria’. I instantly felt more compassionate towards these people. Trauma and illness were more than enough to generate the apathy and depression that I encountered.
The next day was a slow day as I could not walk fast or for too long, so it was good to hitch a long ride in the early afternoon which moved us forward on the road to Kisangani. We were dropped off mid-afternoon at Bafwatongono and we set off walking again. It felt easier for me after a couple of hours travelling in a vehicle. Sure enough late afternoon we were invited to stay in a village, eat and talk long into the night.
The following day took on the same pattern. We walked most of the morning, managed to hitch a ride around the middle of the day and then walked again late afternoon, before being invited to stay, share dinner and talk. We were getting into a rhythm but knew it would end soon. By the afternoon of the next day there was more traffic on the road and more people walking, often carrying goods and possessions on their heads, or pulling laden carts. There were many more villages and more food to purchase. We were approaching Kisangani.
We decided to try and hitch a ride into the town, which was a good move, and a very friendly businessman took us in his jeep. He told us a lot about Kisangani and its history, as well as great places to visit. Given the places he recommended, I suspected that he thought we were far wealthier than we really were. But he did drop us at the French Cultural Centre in the centre of town and close to the river. We went in and were offered a room at a very reasonable cost. We shared a twin bedroom with hooks for our mosquito nets, a fairly clean shared bathroom down the corridor, and to top it all, air conditioning. I had got used to sleeping drenched in sweat, so this was a treat.
That evening we went off to look around the town. We soon heard beautiful singing from what sounded like a choir. We followed the sound and quickly came to a church that was packed with people, all singing and clapping. There were drummers laying down a beat and a couple of guitarists. It was exciting, upbeat and very popular. We were invited in and enjoyed this dynamic and noisy form of worship.
Kisangani was the largest city we had been to since Kampala. The population in 1980 was 290,000. It is situated on the Congo River and is the end of the navigable part of that river for large waterborne cargo boats travelling the 1,060 miles from the capital Kinshasa, making it a significant trading and strategic town. We walked around but I did not take to it in the way that I had Goma. We tried to speak with a number of local people but never really got very far. I didn’t blame them – why should they be interested in two scruffy-looking Europeans?
On the River
We walked down to the river to see the pêcheries where the Wagenya people fished using their ancestral and unique techniques. They had constructed a system of wooden tripods, anchoring them in holes created naturally in the rock by the river current, then fixing large conical traps with wooden scaffolding into the rapids. They then caught the fish from the traps by hand. It looked dangerous and every so often one of them fell in the water and swam back to the shore. They were great swimmers.
Later on we went to the port to see what our options were for getting a boat downriver to Bumba at the top of the bend in the Congo River. We had a crazy idea to travel down the river on a piroc (dugout canoe) but after we practised on one for an hour we agreed that we weren’t strong enough. There was also the risk of contracting bilharzia if we capsized. Schistosomiasis (bilharzia) is a serious disease. Contact with fresh water containing a type of parasitic flatworm called schistosoma causes infection. Once absorbed these parasites live in the veins. Most of the eggs they lay are trapped in the tissues and the body’s reaction to them can cause massive damage and often death.
The public ferry went from Kisangani to the capital Kinshasa each week. A pontoon ferry, much the same as the ferry on Lake Aswan between Egypt and Sudan, it was quite expensive. Jake, the Peace Corps medic, had warned us off this. But we also saw quite a few private goods vessels and thought we might be able to hitch a ride on one of these. We had a few conversations with boat captains but no one was interested. We found the harbourmaster and asked his advice. ‘The boats move in and out every day,’ he said, ‘so come again tomorrow morning. I’m confident that you will find a boat going to Bumba.’
That evening we went to an outdoor club where we were told the best band in Kisangani would be playing. They were fabulous, playing the best of Zairean music. The band was large, with musicians playing electric guitars, bass, saxophones, trumpets and congas, along with female and male singers with divine voices. The soulful music they were playing, soukous, had great dance rhythms but was often tinged with sadness. This is a part of the world that has suffered, and sadly continues to suffer, and the music felt at times reflective of this.
We went back to the port in the morning and started asking captains for a lift to Bumba. At the third attempt we walked up to a small diesel tugboat with four barges. There was a man who looked European on the jetty and we approached him.
‘Are you travelling via Bumba?’ asked Rob in his best French.
‘I am,’ he replied in perfect English. ‘I assume you would like me to take you there?’
‘Yes please,’ we both replied.
‘Yes, I can do that,’ he said. ‘I think it will take two days to get to Bumba. My name is Daniel and I’m from Israel. I have been taking goods up and down the Congo for three years.’
‘Thank you so much,’ we both said, introducing ourselves and explaining that this was part of a longer journey.
‘I am not sure when we will depart but expect it to be later today. Please get your bags and come back as soon as you can,’ said Daniel.
We went off to the Cultural Centre to get our bags and were back at the port before midday. Daniel showed us one of the barges. Cargo was typically stored below deck but this barge would be empty for the return trip so we could sleep there. We could cook on the barge as there was a small gas stove and there was a very rudimentary toilet. The boat had come up from Kinshasa with a full load on all four barges, but was going back with just two of these full. We went to a nearby market and bought enough food for the journey before returning.
The barges were tied up together beside each other, with the tug tied to a small jetty. That meant we could get on and off our barge by walking over the decks of the others and the tug, which was good, because the wait lasted the rest of the day and when night fell it was clear that we were not going anywhere. We slept on the barge and Daniel was nowhere to be seen. He had two crew and they indicated that he would be getting drunk in a nearby bar.
Darkness fell. We had eaten and got inside our mosquito nets before the mozzies arrived. We heard a noise outside and Daniel staggered on to our barge. He was drunk in so far as he was slurring his words and was a little unsteady on his legs. ‘We leave at sunrise,’ he announced. He produced a bottle of whisky and three small glasses and poured a drink for each of us, carrying on until the bottle was empty. So our first night on the River Congo involved getting drunk and listening to Daniel telling me what a terrible life he’d had since his wife had left him in Israel.
But he was true to his word and despite what must have been quite a hangover, we set off at sunrise. Rob and I helped the crew untie the barges and then tie them in a row, bow to stern, with the tugboat, named ‘Moto’, at the front. The crew of two had been joined by a river pilot, essential as there were shifting sandbanks all along the river.
Since leaving Israel I had travelled on foot, buses, trains, ferries, cars, lorries, matatus, pirocs, dhow and now a river barge. This small convoy of barges gently manoeuvred out of Kisangani and started down the majestic river. The Congo is the second-longest river in Africa. Along with its main tributary, the Lualaba, it is 2,715 miles long and its basin occupies 13% of the entire land mass of Africa. What first struck me was the width of the river. It was about one mile wide at Kisangani and apparently by the time it gets to Kinshasa it is over twice that. I had never seen anything like this.
We had a peaceful ride, although there were inevitable engine breakdowns, but nothing serious. On both banks of the river was dense rainforest with the occasional village. We passed quite a few families living in large dugout canoes. The children waved and shouted at us and we waved and shouted back. The tug steered a zigzag course down the river to avoid the sandbanks. It was a lovely day, ending with a breathtaking sunset over the water. As darkness fell this convoy of barges moored for the night. Anchors were dropped from each barge and then tied together with some slack in the ropes. Rob and I shouted ‘goodnight’ to the crew, captain and pilot across the water on the tugboat. We cooked up a simple supper and settled down for an uneventful night.
We set off at sunrise with the crew quickly getting the barges back into convoy formation. I spent most of the day sitting on the deck of our barge. It was mid-afternoon when the tugboat suddenly stopped and all the barges continued to move on, bumping into each other. Luckily no one fell into the crocodile- and bilharzia-infested water.
The tugboat had hit a sandbank. Although we had a pilot on board, the sandbanks in the Congo River move and shift all the time, a challenge even for an experienced river pilot. Captain Daniel decided not to listen to his pilot and instead got angry, taking his anger out on the sandbank by trying to reverse off it and then, even worse, trying to drive over it. The tugboat got more and more stuck on the sand and eventually, with much swearing, he gave up. By now it was close to sunset. Too late to do anything else other than stop for the night.
The sun fell out of the sky very quickly. In a few minutes a sunny day turned dark. I still could not believe how fast the sun set and rose, despite having been close to the Equator for over two months. It was very dark. And very quiet. The engine of the tugboat had stopped and there was no activity apart from muffled swearing in English. Except for the sound of the mosquitos. There had been a loud buzzing noise every night we had spent in the rainforest, and here over the stillness of the water it was even louder. We sat below deck inside our mosquito nets, knowing that the mosquitos would soon come. We ate a small meal of peanuts and dried banana. We did not know how long we would be stuck on the sandbank, so food had to be rationed. After eating Rob and I chatted a bit and then fell asleep.
I woke up in a sweat. It was dark and I was itching. That didn’t feel right. I turned on my torch and was horrified. All I could see were mosquitos. They were all around the space we were sleeping in. I turned on my torch and in the beam there must have been many thousands of them, frantically flying around. But worst of all was that the mosquitos were inside my net as well as outside. There was a gaping hole in the net where I can only imagine that the sheer weight of the number of mosquitos had broken through.
There was nothing I could do. I got up and climbed on to the deck of the barge. I didn’t dare turn on the torch again as that would attract more mosquitos, although I couldn’t imagine more bites than I already had. To say that I was itchy would be an understatement. My body was on fire. I knew that scratching was the worst thing I could do but it was hard to resist. I could not dive into the river due to the risk of contracting bilharzia. There was nothing to be done but wait out the night.
When the sun rose I could see the extent of the damage. I had bites pretty much all over my body. Rob found an almost empty tube of bite cream in his tiny rucksack and I set about covering the worst of these bites. And then I took the small sewing kit from my rucksack and started to repair my mosquito net as best I could. All the time I had one thought on my mind. Malaria.
Meanwhile Daniel and the pilot had been busy. The crew were standing on the sandbank digging a channel to bring water up to the tug. One of the barges had an outboard motor, presumably carried for accidents like this. Sadly the river was not tidal this far east. There were multiple attempts by Daniel in the now motorised barge to pull the tugboat off the sandbank. For two hours there was no movement after each attempt so then the crew would dig more sand and then he would try again. Eventually the tug started to move a little and an hour later it was back afloat. Rob and I were anchored a little way off with the remaining three barges, with a grandstand view. We cheered along with everyone else.
We set off again having lost some time and as the sun started to set we arrived at Bumba. As it was late Daniel said he would load up in the morning and suggested we stay the night on the barge. We were delighted as it saved looking for somewhere and we set up for the night. I hoped that my repairs to the mosquito net would work. They did, but I was itching so much that it was difficult to sleep.
Back in the forest
We left the barge in the morning, thanking Daniel and the crew. Almost immediately we got a lift on a lorry which dropped us off after an hour. We started walking. After a few miles we arrived in a village where a church service was in full flow. The church was a large shed with no walls, open to the outside. It was packed with people who were all singing and swaying to a beat provided by six musicians playing guitars, drums and rattles. Bunting all over the church was swinging with the music and it looked like the church itself was swaying.
Rob and I approached and some of the people waved at us to join in. The service was mostly music; even the occasional short periods of prayer were spoken melodically. I’ve been to church and other religious services in my life but I have never felt so uplifted by religion as on that day. It was magical, spiritual, natural and a celebration of life in one of the poorest places on earth. After the service quite a few of the congregation gathered around and spoke with us. They wanted to know all about our travels, where we had been and why we were doing this. They offered us something to eat and then we set off walking again, with some of the younger members of the congregation joining us for the first mile or so.
After about an hour’s walking a lorry stopped and picked us up. It was a beautiful drive through the rainforest. One of my most vivid memories of the whole trip is of that afternoon. As the lorry was driving, clouds of butterflies of all colours flew up from where the tyres met the dirt of the road, enveloping the sides of the vehicle. It was the most colourful show I had ever seen.
The lorry drove us into Lisala and we found a simple hostel to stay the night and a food stall where we ate our first hot meal in two days. Beans and manioc, of course. My itching had calmed down a bit. The most exciting thing about Lisala was that I managed to buy a far superior mosquito net. Rob was so impressed with it that he bought one too.
The next day was one of the hardest days yet. We set off at five in the morning thinking we might get a lift with an early-morning lorry. We walked almost 10 miles and came to a village where we were told that the mosquitos only disappeared for four hours a day. The mood of the people was very low there and I could see that a lot of people had malaria.
We hitched a ride on the first lorry we saw, which was headed to Gemena, about 60 miles further on. This lorry was very full of people and everyone was standing crammed together in the back. We stopped in the afternoon to cross a river on a small ferry which was fine, but then the trouble started. First a heavy sack of grain fell on my foot that was still recovering from the parasite. Then as we were getting back on to the lorry after the ferry crossing a man jumped on, landing on my head. As he did, all his luggage emptied over me including two litre-bottles of petrol. My clothes were soaked and I was miserable. I tried to be calm but one of the other passengers started remonstrating with him and there was a fight. Luckily at that moment the lorry lurched and everyone had to hang on tight which defused the moment.
Thankfully it wasn’t too long before we got to Gemena where one of the other passengers suggested that we walk up to the Catholic Mission which might put us up for the night. We were welcomed by nuns who were so friendly, taking pity on us and particularly me in my clothes stinking of petrol. They led us each to a room of our own with clean white sheets, showed me to a bath and, while I soaked away weeks of dirt, washed my petrol-soaked clothes. They gave me clothes to wear and took us to dinner in their dining room. And in all of this generosity there was no demand to pay or even pray. They were so kind. I was brought up a Christian but left the faith in my late teens. That night I was really touched by their kindness. I had my best sleep since Lamu.
The next few days were much more relaxed and we returned to the rhythm that we had entered into before Kisangani. We walked in the morning, typically with co-walkers who were moving from village to village or en route to foraging or hunting in the forest. We joined some of them one day and discovered herbs that were used to bring down fever. Around the middle of the day we typically managed to hitch a lift and walking later we would be approached to stay the night in a village, complete with food and talking with the young people.
