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Published: November 13th 2006
There he stood. Half a head taller than me with skin of a beautiful mahogany colour that was almost radiant. His dress was immaculate; the dust filling the air didn’t seem to stick on his newly ironed shirt nor his black trousers. He had a short and sharp haircut that looked as if he’d just stepped out of the barber’s and his cheek was freshly shaved, revealing his strong cheekbones.
Pearls of sweat were breaking through the pores on his nose and at his temples the sweat was so imminent that it had clustered into drops that now ran slowly down his cheeks.
Underneath the temples, big thick veins pulsated and protruded from the skull like a bas-relief that the stretched skin in vain tried to cover. And somewhere within the framework of his body those veins were connected to his dark heart.
-Give me your money! He screamed in my face for the third time. I did my best to become invisible, but the fact that we were the only two white people among a crowd of 2000 black Africans made us stand out like two burning candles in the night.
A few moments
Cramped train
In fear of what would happen if I showed my camera, this was the only picture I dared to take. Aili smelling the sweet breeze of Congolese foot wear.earlier I had witnessed his baton sending men as well as women into loud shrieks of pain and had also seen his fist sink into a young mans face.
-Give me the money! His hate and anger were feverish.
The tip of his baton shed flakes of colour.
-No. I stuttered for a fourth time, hoping that someone in the crowd would stand out and help me, but instead I experienced the opposite.
They - being just as scared as I - did their best to push me out of the 300metres long line of people where we stood awaiting the train and seeking shelter from the brutal use of batons, sticks and bats - which the military and police so willingly displayed.
The sun was setting. We were refreshed by the swim we’d just had with the kids in the small stream nearby and ready to face the border police office.
They did their clumsy best to get some bribes; scrutinizing our papers, searching our bags and asking stupid questions. Then the very same thing happened at the village police station, at the immigration office and at the
Local transport
The once a day busline in action. customs office. A tiresome bureaucracy blues in the jungle. To speed things up I promised everyone a beer at the next time we would meet.
The small village was nothing more than the border officials and their families, a bar owned by the character “Half Face Paul” who had lost half his face in a car accident.
His lower jaw was missing and so was his nose. From the badly damaged right cheek a wet handkerchief hung and his right eye was closed on a permanent basis.
He charged a dollar per picture and was famous for smoking through the hole in his face - a highly appreciated skill amongst the drunk militaries visiting his bar - I was told by the locals.
There was also a scrubby “Chambre de passage” for people that had missed the once daily bus that left at 3:00 a.m., which more or less included everyone passing through.
After an hour Mama Amandine - a fellow passenger from the taxi that broke down in Gabon - arrived.
Just as blithe as before she stepped down from a huge trailer - the only vehicle to arrive during the whole day.
Before it got cramped
The dusty busride taking us south from the Gabonese-Congolese border. The woman closest to the camera is Mama Amandine, resting. We were all very tired after the long and strenuous walk.
A young boy cooked us some food and Mama Amandine promised to wake us up at 2:45a.m. the next day then we went to bed.
Hundred metres away a loud laugh arose from the militaries at the bar.
Half Face Paul was smoking a cigar.
In panicky French, I tried to explain that we were poor tourists and not supposed to pay bribes. At one point I even mentioned that we were working for the church, though that was clearly not true judging by our dirty garments and neglected looks.
He started beating his baton hard against his lower right thigh and stared me in the eyes. At least I think so, since I couldn’t see his eyes behind the fake black Raybans, but I could feel them looking deep into mine as he explain what would happen unless we paid.
After his threat he smiled.
I don’t know why I call his facial expression a smile since it was full of so much hate, so much anger, and so much evil.
But on the face
Sketch of three young salesmen
For one U.S. dollar you get 36 mangoes. These young guys do their best to sell their's. Somewhere in north western Congo. of a normal person it would qualify as a smile, a scornful one.
I was trapped in time.
I tried to wish the moment away but it seemed to go on forever. Eventually a fellow soldier came and hushed him away. Then, a new policemen came and with the sweeping swings of his baton, decreased the lenght of the long queue. The two earlier “croppings” of the queue had sent several people crying in despair to the back of the line. Now people fought hard not to be forced by the capricious baton to leave the line.
- Solidarity. I thought as the hard women pushed me out of the line and I had to take a quick jump to the side so as not to be hit by the approaching baton.
-Mr Boby! Mr Boby! Mama Amandine was knocking on our door. It was time to leave.
At first I couldn’t understand why the truck was so big since we were so few passengers, but as we slowly drove the dusty dirt tracks further south - constantly picking up villagers along the road - I realised that this was
Waiting
Awaiting the train in Dolisie. the only local transport in the entire region.
It got more and more cramped and in every village that was no more than just a few thatched huts, there was also a small police office that we needed to sign in with.
Stamp-happy officers that wasted valuable space in our passports with big unnecessary entry and exit stamps, in every one of them.
I clearly remember the office in Nyanga where the officer asked us to please have a look at his billboard, charmed after he had noticed how much we stared at it already.
The officer happened to be somewhat of a hobby photographer and had a macabre collection of dead people in his office.
An unsuccessful decapitation by machete on a murderer sent my thoughts back to Half Face Paul.
A hanged robber, a man opened up by several strikes of a machete to his lower abdomen. There were thieves tied to their stolen goods outside the police station for a full day to suffer public contempt. Victims of car accidents, a few unexplainable deaths (mostly thanks to my weak French) and then finally the most horrible of them all, a man
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At some random village, time to get some more stuff onto the sinking ship. hanged in the forest.
The police chief explained that he was a political opponent to the president ( I later realised that this was probably a member of the Ninja-guerrilla that had been captured by the government controlled Cobra-militia.). Not only had he been hanged but his executers had poured acid in his face and on his naked body - the outcome of which made him look like melted wax.
All of this tastelessly documented, displayed and explained with a disturbing mix of seriousness and playfulness by the police chief.
There we were. Kicked out of the long line that we earlier had fought so hard to get our place in. We walked the 300 metres to the back of the line and realised that we could not possibly get on the train if we stood there.
We looked in despair at the huge flock of people that stood waiting as two brand new mini-vans drove straight into the open square outside the train station and dropped off a group of young white people.
-That’s my second cousin! Aili pointed and screamed.
We walked towards them. Suddenly there was hope again of
Lounging at the truck
Sun going down a couple of kilometres outside Dolisie. us getting on that train.
They were a group of young Christian missionaries that would travel with the train to Dolisie where some new activities awaited them.
Of course everything was prepared and taken care off by the church which was a cause of great dissatisfaction amongst the waiting masses, as the white missionaries were allowed to enter the train prior to everyone else.
Aili and I walked close by the group, looking down into the ground, trying to act as “Christian missionary” as possible.
It worked.
We sneaked in with the privileged ones and felt an indescribable gratitude to the Christianity that we always distance ourselves from otherwise.
For a well spent extra fee our lower-class-madness-tickets were upgraded to first class - initially, that was.
The truck became more and more packed. People sat everywhere and nowhere, in impossibly cramped positions. People hung in fear of losing them for something even worse.
If five passengers jumped off, then ten new jumped on.
If someone unloaded a huge coffin, then 800 kg of rice were uploaded. In the end it was a miracle that the vehicle didn’t
Turbo king
A highlight to our visit in Point Noire, the lical beer Turbo King with its cool label. A must try on a visit to Congo. collapse.
At some more police stations bald faced attempts were made of depriving us our money but we constantly refused to pay them.
Eventually the sun went down and a full days journey on the truck was about to end. In darkness I rode the last 20 kilometres into Dolisie on top of the truck, clinging hard onto the net that was strapped around the luggage, with some 20 or more other daredevils.
Sometime in the middle of the night we entered Dolisie and while me and Aili were in a blurred state of sleep - the young missionaries left the train.
Three quarters of the journey to Brazzaville was still left as more and more people gushed into the wagon through the windows.
The ticket collector climbed back and forth on the seats of the train since it was impossible to walk in the aisle due to all the people sitting, standing, hanging or leaning everywhere. Along with him came three guards dressed completely in black carrying assault rifles with mounted smoke-grenades.
By sunrise I had completely lost the privilege of having my own seat. Two men sat at my neck rest,
Cute kids
Swimming at the Congolese-Gabonese border. two men stood where I was supposed to have my legs, one man hung halfway out of the window next to me and one man sat at my arm.
As the train entered the Bouenza and Pool regions controlled by the Ninja-guerrilla, young men appeared at every station.
Young men with M16A2:s, FAMAS and the ubiquitous AK-47:s stood proudly displaying their fire capacity at every platform.
They started to climb back and forth in the train asking for “donations” by swaying their weapons against people’s heads. Once again we sat staring into the ground, trying to become invisible.
One man threatened to tell the military to arrest us upon arrival in Brazzaville and he kept on drawing attention to us as the young guerrilla soldiers came by collecting funds with their convincing barrels.
I felt no hunger since my stomach was full of fear, nor was I able to drink any water. After 17 hours I had to climb out through the window to ease myself and then I saw how the top of the train was full of people, many of which must have been guerrillas since they also carried heavy machine guns.
Congos bright future
Swimming kids in the north. The train was so overloaded that we, at a small hill, had to back the train twice to get enough speed to climb it.
As we got closer to Brazzaville the guerrillas left the train which seemed to make the people yet more nervous.
Mama Amandine was a social genius. By the time we’d reached Dolisie she’d conversed with everyone in the truck and had already arranged a place for us to shower and got us some refreshments. Then we went to the train station awaiting the train from Brazzaville that would carry us to Point Noire.
With great difficulties we got aboard.
People already on board hated us for entering their already jam packed carriage. We had to stand up the whole night. At one point I kindly asked a woman who was constantly giving me a hard time by pointing her sharp elbow into my thigh - to stop.
-Forget it white boy! She answered with her eyes then mumbled something in French that caused her friend to give up a contemptuous laugh.
Disoriented and in a bad mood we arrived at Point Noire. Mama Amandine helped us
Congos bright future ll
Swimming kids in the north. to find the Angolan embassy and then went home to her family.
The embassy was not yet open so we had a walk around town.
Down by the waterfront a flood of Toyota Landcruisers shuttled French people to work at the big oil companies that control the country’s murky economy.
At a yacht club we had a shower and a cheap breakfast, then took a cab back to the Angolan embassy. We knew that it might be difficult obtaining the Angolan visas, but we didn’t expect the embassy staff to make it totally impossible for us.
We half-hearted tried to meet their weird demands and had a man write an application letter for us in french at an internet café.
While we sat in the café waiting, Aili’s second cousin walked in.
That was a bit unexpected.
We had a long chat which made us miss the deadline at the embassy who then told us to be back in a couple of days. With only four days left on our Congolese visas - not a chance.
With no apparent reason to stay we decided to leave for Brazzaville. Everyone told us
Congos bright future lll
Swimming kids in the north. that the road was impassable and there was no bush-taxi nor bus service going there. The flights were over booked since one of the three domestic flight companies had got a ban on their planes (most probably because of too little hush-money to the government), so lately people had been standing up in the planes because of a lack of seats.
What was left was the train.
A non desirable last option.
As we arrived I felt shocked and empty. Never before had I felt so unsafe, so scared, so empty, powerless or worthless. I was sad and angry and all I wanted was to leave the country.
Aili had called a number she’d been given by her second cousin and half an hour later a Swedish woman who’s name was Maria came to pick us up.
She asked us about the train journey and I described to her what had been the worst experience in my life.
-Well thank God nothing bad happened. She responded with a sight of relief.
-Nothing happened! I thought as I had a hard time realising how it possibly could have been any worse.
-See, lately the military have been quite unhappy here in Brazzaville so they’ve robbed the train a couple of times, just a few kilometres outside of Brazzaville. Last time was not more than two weeks ago. So you’re lucky.
Aili bought the ticket for Brazzaville and we sat down at the big square outside the train station in Point Noire where a huge crowd already sat.
The train wasn’t leaving for another five hours, but judging by the crowd we realised that it might be hard to find a seat so we decided to stay close to the station.
Suddenly the military and police came running right into the square, beating people with bats and batons.
Everyone panicked.
Loud screams, crying babies and shouting officers. With a thud a man got a stick in the back of his head. Half Face Paul popped up in my mind again.
In a joint operation the officers forced everyone to form a long queue and if anyone stepped out of the line, they quickly came running with their batons. Initially the line was ten people wide, but after the three hours we stood there sweating, pushing and swearing, all scared, they cropped the ends of the line several times.
Amongst the officers there was one policeman that appeared more ruthless than the others. He was everywhere, enjoying the fear that he brought onto people and his baton never rested. Always hitting something; an arm, a leg, a jaw or crushing the contents of someone’s bag.
Suddenly he was right in front of me.
He was half a head taller than me, and I couldn’t but notice how beautiful his skin was.
EPILOGUE:
Maria took great care of us during our remaining days in Brazzaville. In her company I felt safer though I still was shaken after the train journey.
She took us around town and bought us dinner. As we sat talking over dinner we realised that my mother (she’s a nurse specialized in transplantations at the city hospital) had transplanted a kidney on her father, some ten years back.
She told us a great story about her long journey up the Congo river on a ferry that was more of a floating village and other thrilling stories from her many years living in Congo.
Our seven day visa was finished and we had to leave for the only country that I could possibly imagine could be worse; D.R.C. in time for the coming elections.
Beforehand we had heard about body searches for money carried out by the customs (they had forced people to change all their hard cash into the worthless Congolese Franc for a rate that’s more theft than exchange) as one arrives in Kinshasa at the D.R.C. side of the Congo river, so we hid 1700$ in a shampoo bottle and walked down to the harbour to catch a speedboat.
We passed the gaudy mausoleum for Brazza (the city’s founder) that had been consecrated a week earlier.
A multi billion dollar project to prove the presidents hubris.
Down at the immigration office they once again did their best to scam us. The “refuse to pay and pretend to be stupid” tactics we opted for worked great.
After some time waiting in the hot sun we boarded a small speedboat and took off for the other side of the Congo river.
The Kinshasa skyline gave a hostile impression.
Dark high-rises, huge gaping factories and rusty cranes like petrified steel monsters from a long lost past.
About halfway across, the engine died and we started to drift.
I had realised that the heart of darkness exists. At a steadfast pace, it pulsated inside police and military uniforms throughout Central Africa. Feeding ruthless minds with evil thoughts and mental tools of hatred and aversion.
I also knew that at the other shore more of these souls were awaiting me.
So to be there drifting between the two massive Congo’s actually felt safe.
A wet and jolting no mans land.
A border crossing in stalemate.
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Niki
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From Lusaka
Amazingly written. And stunningly breath-taking considering that I already knew some of the stories. One morning in Camper's Kitchen I found a cup with a Boobie-Nystroem-Sun. That made me smile. Kirsten quit her intern and will go to Tanzania. Fortunately, she will sit with me in canoe before that, trying to dodge all the hippos and crocs on the Lower Zambezi (Lee and Kathy convinced us to go). You are still in Livingstone, I guess? See you in Cape Town. Niki