Shots Across the Water, page 13
Shots across the water
It was our last day in Zaire and we were heading towards the border. We needed to get there soon, as our visas expired that day. As we got closer the forest started thinning out and we could see small grassy hillocks, fields and signs of agriculture. We eventually arrived at Zongo on the Ubangi River, the border between Zaire and Central African Republic (CAR). It was a tiny place, with a few shacks and a run-down immigration building with the roof falling in. It was quite chaotic. On the shore were a number of dugout canoes which were the only means of transportation across the river to the modern city of Bangui that we could see in the distance.
We were very relaxed going into immigration, our passports were fine and we got our exit stamps. The problem came when we reached the customs office, which was a tent on the shoreline. The customs official looked at our passports and then asked for our currency declaration forms. No problem, as we had got these signed at the bank in Goma where we had changed dollars into zaires, the currency. We handed the forms over.
‘You have not spent enough,’ he said. Rob, who spoke the best French, explained how we had travelled and that we had not spent very much money. This didn’t work and the customs official became angry. He demanded that we pay a lot more, basically all the money we had. This sounded like a demand for a bribe. Luckily he had not taken our passports, which were back in our passport bags around our necks and under our shirts.
The customs tent was right by the dugout canoes and we had the exit stamps that we would need to enter CAR. The official went outside and walked to the immigration building. This could get very complicated. Rob said, ‘Let’s get in this dugout.’
There was one moored a few feet away and we ran in and told the ferryman to set off immediately. He got going at some speed. We were halfway across the river, which was fairly wide at that point, when we saw lots of activity on the Zairean side. Men were shouting and waving at us. Then a shot was fired.
We looked back and saw more shots hitting the water and only just missing our dugout canoe.
‘Plus vite, plus vite!’ Rob shouted at the ferryman.
Democratic Republic of the Congo
In the 1990s the Rwandan civil war and genocide had a significant impact on Zaire and in 1997 Rwandan and Ugandan forces invaded. President Mobutu fled and opposition leader Laurent Kabila marched into Kinshasa, declaring himself president and reverting the name of the country to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Since the late 1990s, conflict in eastern DRC has led to approximately six million deaths 18. As of 2024, the country is the fourth-poorest in the world 19.
15Foreign Travel Advice: Democratic Republic of Congo November 1, 2023. & gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/democratic-republic-of-the-congo
16Mobutu Sese Seko was President of the Democratic Republic of Congo from 1965 to 1971 and then President of Zaire from 1971 (when the country changed its name) until 1997 when he was deposed and exiled.
17 dw.com/en/are-white-mercenaries-fighting-in-the-drc-conflict/a-64407711
18 cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/violence-democratic-republic-congo
19 gfmag.com/data/economic-data/poorest-country-in-the-world
6
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC,
CAMEROON AND NIGERIA
Central African Republic
Gunshots and paratroopers
We were in Central African Republic (CAR) territorial waters by the time the shot was fired. We looked back and saw more shots hitting the water and only just missing our dugout. The boatman paddled even faster and the shots on the water receded. In no time we were on the riverbank at Bangui. To our surprise a French paratrooper in khaki combat uniform, a red beret and with a sub-machine gun walked down to meet us.
‘What was that all about?’ he asked. Rob explained what had happened with the customs official and the paratrooper replied, ‘Don’t worry, it happens all the time. This is an extortion racket which they try on foreign travellers.’ He went on to tell us that shooting was less common but that they would have known that the shot would not have reached us and that it was done for show.
‘Will the boatman get into trouble?’ I asked.
‘Not at all,’ the paratrooper replied. ‘They regularly take people across the river who the customs officers try to extort. It’s all part of the show.’
My heart rate had shot up and despite the explanation took a while to calm down. I’d had a gun pointed at me on a few occasions, but I had never been shot at before. It was one of many firsts on this journey and one I would prefer not to repeat.
He smiled and then welcomed us to CAR and walked with us to the immigration office, which was a lot smarter than the Zongo centre. We were each issued with a temporary entry visa and told to attend the Ministry of the Interior within five days to get a full visa to visit the country.
Then we entered Bangui. The centre, by the river, was modern, with wide tarmac roads, long avenues of trees, roundabouts and low buildings. We could see the French legacy immediately. The shops were full of goods, there was wealth on display and there were many more Europeans around, more than I had seen anywhere on the journey. And it was expensive.
We found a very basic room to stay, a shed with a dirt floor in a poor area of the city. There was a rough communal toilet in the yard with no door. It was somewhere to sleep but we would have to find somewhere else soon.
There was a post office with a Poste Restante, so I was able to get mail for the first time in a long time. I had 12 letters from my parents and sisters as well as friends from Bristol whom I had written to ages ago.
So why were there French paratroopers in Bangui? Jean-Bédel Bokassa was a military leader who became president of the country after leading a coup in 1966. He declared himself Emperor in 1976 and was known for his cruelty and extravagance. In September 1979 there was a bloodless military operation led by France to depose Bokassa and reinstate the exiled former president. By the time we arrived in Bangui 10 months later the French paratroopers were maintaining law and order, but the politics were still unstable. Despite this, the city appeared to carry on a normal life, albeit with paratroopers with guns ever present.
Rob met a French teacher who invited us to stay at his large house in the city. It was really lovely with use of the kitchen, swimming pool and a great music system. This was the most luxurious place I had stayed all year. Rob and I went a bit over the top on little luxuries such as French chocolates and even eating in a restaurant one evening. I bought a couple of shirts in the market as my last decent one never recovered from the petrol soaking. I spent some time by the pool writing replies to all my friends and family, but not telling my family about the shooting.
Rob and I needed visas for CAR as we only had the temporary ones, so after five days we headed off to the interior ministry where they gave us only fourteen days from the day we arrived. That wasn’t a lot of time, leaving us only nine more days in the country. We also obtained visas for Cameroon, our next destination.
This brought to a head a discussion that had been bubbling under for a while. Rob and I had been travelling together since Lamu. We didn’t always agree on what we wanted to do. I had begun to find him a bit irritating and he was feeling the same way. We sat and had a coffee in one of the French-style cafés and agreed to go our separate ways for a while. We both felt sad and agreed that we wanted to meet up again after a break. We decided to meet in the Cameroonian city of Ngaoundéré on August 15th, two days after we would have to have left CAR and a reasonable 170 miles from the border. We also agreed that whoever got there first would wait at least two days for the other, after which we could carry on with our respective journeys. We felt closer than we had for some time, while at the same time I felt relieved at the thought of travelling alone for a bit. Little did I realise what lay ahead.
On my own
Rob left two days later. He headed northwest to the border with Cameroon. I had done some planning, given the time restraint of the visa, and estimated that I would have time to travel to Mongoumba, a small town on the Ubangi River about 75 miles south of Bangui. This was in the opposite direction to Cameroon, but I had heard that there were indigenous tribes in the area. Spending the short time in the indigenous village in Zaire had been a real highlight for me and I just wanted one more opportunity to meet with indigenous people before I finally left the rainforest.
I walked out of the city and very quickly got a lift from a UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) lorry. My mood, which had been low in the city, lifted as soon as I was back in the forest again. The UNDP team stopped a few times en route at the neat plantation and forestry villages. I enjoyed travelling with them as they told me a lot about the development and economic challenges in CAR following the devastation created by Bokassa.
We came to the river near Mongoumba and I said goodbye to the UNDP. They were intrigued that I wanted to visit indigenous people. I walked to the river where there were plenty of pirocs and paid for a ride across. Once on the other side I was back in the rainforest with its sounds and smells that felt so familiar. By a stroke of luck I met three young local men, one of whom said, ‘Come with us; we will take you to the village. We are going to a ceremony to commemorate the death of an indigenous elder.’
I was touched that the local people held their elders in such respect. ‘Will it be appropriate for me to attend?’ I asked.
‘Yes, the more people who give their respects the better it will be for the afterlife of the elder,’ he replied.
When we arrived at the village it was much larger and more permanent than the one I had been to near Epulu. Many of the men wore a piece of Western clothing (shorts and T-shirts) but the women and children wore the traditional small loincloth, typically made of a bunch of leaves. They did not have painted bodies but many had patterned scars on their faces and stomachs. Most of the men and women had shaved heads with little tufts of hair sticking above their foreheads.
Women, men and children were dancing in a line around the settlement, swaying to the beat of the drums and rattles, singing and wailing as they went. As the men moved they did a type of shivering that moved all the way up and down from their feet to their heads. The women and girls swayed and shuffled in perfect unison, singing in perfect pitch. There were two albino women who were the most boisterous of them all, eagerly showing off their moves. This was very different from most of the albino people I had encountered so far on my journey, who had often looked so shamefaced as they were typically marginalised. Later the chief gave a speech translated for me by one of the men who brought me to the village. He said that the dance would raise good spirits who would protect the tribe and respect the dead.
When the celebration was over my three friends for the day took me to see some other of the smaller indigenous villages. There were women pounding the manioc and squeezing oil out of the palms. The men smiled and encouraged us to sit with them and drink a form of beer. Not a great taste but an honour to be offered this.
After a really memorable afternoon, my three friends and I walked back to the river. We all went back across and walked into the town of Mongoumba. One of them took me back to his family home and they kindly put me up for the night in a small shed at the back of their house. It was only when I got there that I realised I had temporarily travelled into Zaire illegally, as the river is the border.
I spent the next four days travelling on minor dirt-track roads. As far as the town of Boda I was still in the rainforest but after that the trees thinned out and there was more agriculture and larger villages. I got back into the rhythm of walking most of the day, getting a lift for part of the journey and staying the night in a village, talking into the night. I found that I could do this on my own, without needing someone else to travel with or translate. One of the great joys of travelling alone was that I met people whom I enjoyed travelling with. In particular I had enjoyed travelling with Rob and Henk on this journey but I needed this time on my own. I enjoyed being able to make my own decisions. I walked a bit less every day, especially in the middle of the day as it was very hot and humid. I had more contact with people and my French improved significantly.
I had set off on this journey a young, naïve white man who lacked confidence. But in travelling I found I needed to start up conversations with people I had never met before. I needed to stand up for myself in tricky situations. And I had to ask for help when I was in trouble. All this was new for me. And the more I did these things the richer my journey became. I started to build a quiet confidence in myself that set me up for the rest of my life.
I headed from Boda towards a village called Carnot but soon heard that the road was closed so turned around and walked back the way I had come. Finally a lorry gave me a lift to Yaluke, getting me much closer to Bouar and towards the border with Cameroon. We passed and sometimes stopped at villages along the way. They all had little markets where I could buy peanuts, peanut butter and dried bananas which I became a fan of and still am. On the road there were butterflies of every colour possible, with clouds of them appearing as a lorry or car passed and even when I was walking. I’ve never seen so much colour. Many had wings like surrealist paintings, others that were like line drawings of clouds. This was some of the best walking of my whole journey and I was rarely alone as local people walked the roads so much. I always felt safe walking forest roads.
After another beautiful day’s travelling, I spent what I thought would be my last night in CAR with a family in a village just outside the small town of Baoro, close to Bouar, where I needed to get a ride on to the Cameroon border at Garoua-Boulaï. It was a journey of 125 miles and the road was in pretty good condition with plenty of traffic, so I was confident that I would get to the border before my visa expired at the end of the following day.
Kindness of strangers
I woke up early with a mild headache and a strained feeling in my eyes. I put it down to tiredness, although a little part of me was suspicious that this was something worse. But I was determined to continue travelling and said my goodbyes to the family I stayed with, leaving them one of the London postcards as a gift.
I set off walking along the road but quickly felt much worse and after about 30 minutes I collapsed at the side of the road. I was still conscious but all the energy seemed to have left my body. I have no idea how long I lay there but eventually heard some noises. A vehicle had stopped and there were people talking. A hand came down and helped me into a car. I had the presence of mind to check that my bag was with me and then they drove off with me collapsed on the back seat.
There was an intense discussion between the two men in the front of the car. I could not make it out as they spoke in a combination of French and Sango, the two official languages of the country. I was very dizzy and not doing well at all, but as far as I could gather they were worried about being seen with me in case there were official repercussions. I tried to talk in French to them, but no sound seemed to come out of my mouth.
We arrived in a larger town that I assumed must be Bouar and they helped me out of the car into a street that had nice detached houses with small gardens. They told me to get help and drove off. I forced myself to stagger up to houses and ask for help but most people looked frightened. I don’t blame them – it could have been dangerous if a European died on their watch. And I must have looked ghastly.
Eventually I walked up to a house that was bigger than the others. As I approached a man came out, took one look at me and said, ‘Please come in and rest at my house.’
‘Thank you,’ I said as he took my arm and walked me down to a small building in the garden. I sat while he set up a bed with a mosquito net and I dragged myself in. By now I had a terrible headache, my eyes ached and I was sweating with a fever. My throat was really dry and to cap it all I had diarrhoea.
I must have spent the rest of the day in and out of sleep. It was a relief to be on a bed but I was in a strange, depressed altered state. I started hallucinating and what I saw was scary. Sometime in the night I had a brief moment of lucidity. I had malaria but much worse than last time. And then I remembered the night on the Congo River when the mosquitos broke through my net. It was about three weeks ago. The incubation period in most malaria cases varies from seven to thirty days.
In the morning, I felt much worse. Michael who had taken me in the day before was a Regional Director of L’UNICEF en République Centrafricaine, the national branch of UNICEF. He could see I was pretty ill so got me up and drove me to the pharmacy in town. He was a well-known figure and must have used his influence to get me treated quickly. I was given an injection of Quinimax and would have to come back for another one the next day.
I wasn’t really aware of all this but Michael told me afterwards. I am so lucky to have met him and in rare moments of lucidity I felt so grateful to him and his family. I can’t imagine how I would have managed to get treatment without him. I forgot that I was now in the country illegally.
But most of the time I was feeling terrible. Despite eating nothing I was sick on a regular basis until eventually there was nothing left to come up. The headache was the worst I have ever experienced, my stomach hurt, my throat was raw and to add insult to injury the injection in my buttock made that very painful. Malaria is a really nasty disease and yet I was one of the lucky ones – I was getting treatment.
Later that afternoon my headache had subsided quite a bit, but my stomach was still painful, especially when I coughed, which was a lot of the time. The injection must have been working despite, or perhaps because of, the pain in my buttock. That night I had a feverish night of hallucinations and nightmares. There were monsters in the room, I was eaten alive by millions of mosquitos, I had parasites under my skin. And more that, thankfully, I can’t remember.
