HIGHLIGHTS OF THE HORROR
Tanja Truscott recalls a wonderful journey with Zaire’s ‘diabolical’ transport system
ZAIRE, 1986. A vast country stretching over the equator, now renamed the Republic of Congo. Our guidebook notes: “There is certainly no hurrying through this place, even if you wanted to … with few tarred roads and the most diabolical transport system in the world.”
It was this very diabolical state of affairs that led us to spend hours and hours in the company of local travellers and allowed us to meet the friendliest and most hospitable people on earth, amidst the chaos.
A group of women found us a seat among the bananas on the back of a crowded truck, others a bunk on the riverboat. Many either shared their meal with us next to the broken-down train, or cooked our provisions en route.
Our journey back then started in the north, on the Bangui River at Zongo. It took us two weeks and a few exciting truck rides along inevitably pot-holed reddust roads to get to Lisala on the banks of the Zaire River.
Here we spent a week waiting for the boat, which was rumoured to be broken somewhere along its route from Kinshasa. Once the boat came into view, it was a sight to behold. Literally thousands of people were crowded on the seven rusted and dented barges tied together with old pieces of steel cable and rope. The washing tied between the railings, the tiny stores set up in the passages and the frantic activity gave the entire structure a carnival-esque air. Once moored, everything came in motion; bodies and provisions of all sorts were pushed and pulled in and over the railings in great haste.
When we managed to clamber aboard, we were sternly warned to keep a close watch on our baggage while our friends set off to secure bunks. We now had ample opportunity to watch the proceedings from on top our bags. There seemed to be a frantic hurry to get on and off the boat. Men shouldering enormous bags of coal competed with villagers, trading and buying suits, suitcases, Vaseline, pigs and chickens in the passages and on deck. A live crocodile was carried on and tied up at the back with its jaws lashed. Later on in the week, it was slaughtered to feed the staff.
During the next few days, we explored the flotilla. The driving force behind the barges was a large tug, which also contained a few first-class cabins. The rest of the barges housed the majority of the passengers and the traders, mostly women on stools next to coal stoves. These were the takeaways that kept the passengers fed. Most of the food was delicious and, during the ensuing days, we ate crocodile (remarkably like chicken), goat and monkey fried in palm oil, and smothered in variations of chilli and tomato sauce with cassava, the glutenous mixture and main staple of any meal.
To pass the time, we lay on the roof of the cabins watching the impenetrable wall of Zaire’s rainforest glide by and the acrobatic stints of riverside villagers, hitching a ride with their pirogues or dugout canoes to trade their wares or buy clothes, stationery and luxuries such as soap and cigarettes. We watched women prepare soft palm grubs as snacks; we taught men backgammon and wrote in our diaries. At port calls, we jumped off with a piece of soap to find a bathroom and thus avoid having to wash in the only two toilets on board, which reeked of ammonia.
After a lazy week, we arrived in Kisangani, from where we had to take a small train to pass the unnavigable bend of the Zaire River. Here we spent two days
camping in front of the station gates, as we had been told the train could arrive at any time and would not wait for us. Girls spent hours plaiting our slippery hair into a variation of their local pin-cushion style. Our heads looked like spiders with the tightly tied plucks of hair at right angles to our pale skulls, but we got nothing but praise from all our fellow campers.
Eventually the train arrived. It resembled a Wild West Show and was to be the most frightening part of our journey. As it was full to bursting by the time we got near it, we were allocated seats on the top of cooldrink crates in the baggage compartment. Here, we were soon to find out, the train officials gathered to punish ticket offenders. As night descended, we tried as best we could to merge with the shadows cast by the oil lamps, the floor awash with beer, while drunk officials beat and kicked offenders.
A very long 12 hours later, we arrived unscathed at the sleepy village of Ubundu to catch our second riverboat.
Here the Zaire River is a lot narrower and the boat was just three barges long and far less crowded. Gone was the onboard market on which we depended for food. Hastily we bought some provisions at the local market before we embarked. A woman offered to cook for us and we gratefully handed our banana-wrapped rice, peanuts and dried fish to her.
Our stops were much more frequent, the pace more leisurely and we had ample opportunity to buy more provisions and take quick swims where there were no crocodiles.
By the time we arrived at Kindu, we had three offers of accommodation until the train would arrive to take us further south to Lubumbashi.
In Kindu, we stayed with Kalala, his two wives and seven children in a three-roomed house. Kalala, being a palm-oil trader, was fairly well off and his house was roomy and built of bricks. In the day we had at our disposal Aimée, his first wife, who ground fresh peanut butter for us to have with the cassava we would eat on the train.
The train itself was exSouth African, without windows, lights, doors or mattresses on the bunks. We had our first breakdown just two hours out of Kindu and we remained there for 12 hours. It took us six days to cover the 1 000km to Lubumbashi.
But it was absolutely essential to break down every so often to have enough time to wash, eat and buy provisions. Many passengers ate, slept and stood in the passages. We were lucky to be able to share a bunk and, once again, we were spoilt rotten and looked after by our fellow passengers and train officials.
When we eventually arrived in the metropolis of Lubumbashi, we were also virtually on the Zambian border. We had to leave Zaire, this wonderful country where we had spent seven unforgettable weeks enjoying its diabolical transport system every step of the way. — ©