Get out of your car and kiss me....and other odd adventures in DRC

“Remember what Bilbo used to say: ‘It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”” — J.R.R. Tolkien

As a child, I followed Bilbo's adventures never knowing that I might be closer to his reality one day than I could ever imagine. Stepping out the door in Congo is always certain to lead to one sort of adventure or another. But, as with any long vacation sequestered here on campus, I tend to get led into a foggy haze and my thinking becomes otherworldly. It was in this dream like, slightly confused state that I set out to the closest store to get a few things. Nothing important, just some small unnecessary items. Completely forgetting there's no such thing as a quick run to the store.

I stopped to get cash at the ATM not far from school. The ATM spits out hundreds like an angry llama. I am always intrigued by the idea that you can spend US dollars on the street in Congo...anything bigger than a $5. No one will even look a single dollar bill. When I've received one as change in a bank or supermarket, even I have shaken my head in disbelief as though it were play money. "Can you give me francs? What am I going to do with that?" I say, knowing there's nowhere to spend a dollar. Its amazing how quickly our paper system becomes devalued. And to think, I used to collect change.

With a crisp brand new one hundred dollar bill, I continued on to the "corner store." Once inside, I picked up a few things totaling slightly less than $5 and was promptly told they would not accept my overzealous payment. I've had problems of this sort before in this store. A slight tear, too many wrinkles. They are very particular about American money. Crisp, clean and wrinkle free. But my hundred was fresh from the machine and so I didn't really see the problem. Too big, I guess. I just shook my head, muttering that only in a country such as Congo would they refuse to accept money. It happens all the time. Refusal to bargain to a fair price, refusal to sell, refusal to accept money for a just exchange. Bizarre. In my fugue state, I went out to the car.

There is a "point of no return" in Kinshasa and for me it lies just after the first round about leading to the boulevard and downtown. Once you drive past that, returning traffic could take hours and its definitely a no man's land out there. At the parking entrance, I looked to my left, saw the endless line of cars and decided to turn back towards Kintambo, the busy market area I had just come through. Traffic is often horrendous through there and the streets crowded with pedestrians and sellers make it something o f an obstacle course. However, I figured I could go to a cozy little store tucked on a side street and pick up some cheese, maybe some onions and get change for my oppressive one hundred dollar bill. It's an interesting store that always has a side of goat hanging to the left of the entrance. I guess they are also a butcher. I usually turn my head when I enter to avoid the graphic image. Once inside, it actually seemed like a good plan until, just as I was about to pay, someone came in and asked me to move my car. I was apparently blocking an exit from the driveway. I moved the car and drove away empty handed, albeit for that crisp, useless American money.

I headed downtown weaving through darting pedestrians, trying to heed traffic cop signals and ignoring the street boys that wanted me to perform crazy maneuvers in order to let the taxi buses through. The holiday season in Kinshasa, as in any big city, impossibly adds to the number of cars and confusion on the road. About halfway down, I came to a stop as directed by the officiating officer. He was motioning for a large truck to make a left hand turn from the oncoming lane. However, the cross lane the truck was turning into was not actually moving. The truck could not make it across the boulevard without completely blocking our way forward. At times like these I think of the simple rules of NYC driving, 'Don't block the box.' It seems obvious.

Predictably, the cars in my lane began shouting, gesturing and honking. What was happening before us simply didn't make sense. Our road was open but we were being made to wait for.....well, it wasn't quite clear. I guess it should also be predictable by now but I was taken a bit by surprise when cars started to go around the huge truck....to my left. Which meant they were now on the wrong side of the road traveling against oncoming traffic. "I am NOT doing that," I thought. But I did. I was swept up in the flow of moving vehicles and soon found myself on the wrong side of the road, immediately aware of two distinct problems. First, obviously, I was on the wrong side of the road. Second, and more importantly, the line behind the truck stretched on for quite a distance. There was no immediate access back to my correct driving lane. With safety (and perhaps a bit of mob mentality) in numbers, we all proceeded to drive defying traffic rules and common sense. Think of a car chase scene in your favorite action adventure film...though somewhat slower and with a bit more control. Just as panic began to set in, I saw an opening that would allow me to cross over into the land of sanity. I veered to my right and was soon merging into the world of correct driving laws.

With all of the traffic surrounding me and now coming in a variety of directions, things were hectic and a bit confusing. I had to come to a sudden halt just before a crosswalk where another traffic cop had given the signal. (There are no 'yellow' hand signals that I am aware of here. It's simply a turn of the body and outstretched arms that let you know if you should stop or go...slowing down is for cowards I guess.) I had passed the 'line' a bit and immediately caught the eye of the policeman. He walked up to the front of my car with large gestures. I made my own gestures in return, apologising and recognizing that I was ill placed. I even reversed a bit into an oncoming truck in an attempt to rectify the oversight. Upon reaching my front grill, he made a somewhat hilarious motion of throwing himself on top of my car as though I had hit him. No, no I shook my head. I wasn't even close to you. There were no pedestrians in sight and I had crossed the line ever so slightly. I realized the radio was on and turned it down so I could hear what he had to say.

He began pointing at me and then pointing next to him. He wanted me to get out of the car. I've never had this request before. Usually they approach the window and ask to see your license. If he moved from the front of my car however, I would be free to drive off. He continued pointing and motioning while I continued shaking my head and apologizing, trying to explain the mass of cars and confusion I had just driven through. He put his hands to his lips, Italian style. It was not the hunger sign but the get out of your car and kiss me sign. Or maybe it was my hazy head and confusion that led me to this translation. I simply didn't know what he was asking for. I tilted my head and raised my eyebrows. Was he serious? Someone on the street shouted at him and he turned. He stepped aside from the car, pointed his finger at me and told me not to drive off even as he watched me slowly pulling away.

I had nearly arrived at my destination and so pulled into the lot and purchased a few items. The downtown area was packed with people and events and general holiday commotion. It's like confetti on the eyes trying to discern if there is a real situation or just  a crowd of people waiting for transport. A bunch of police seemed to be surrounding a pushcart. I couldn't tell if the man emerging from underneath it had been hit or was repairing something. It's always that way with people under vehicles.

My return trip was equally eventful in that children seemed to be dashing from one side of the street to the other in a crazy game of 'red light, green light.' This was no game of course, just the ordinary day to day of trying to get somewhere in Kinshasa on foot. I stopped to let a young street vendor escort two little boys most of the way across the street, happy they'd had some help in their personal adventure. He went two- thirds of the way with them and then gave them a slight push as he threw his hands up in the air. "Off with you," he seemed to be saying, as he returned to his post and his friends by the side of the road. I was almost feeling hopeful.

The thing that really stops my heart is the way the smallest of boys who are selling water run after the large taxi buses and cars. The taxi buses don't slow down for them and in order to make the sale they run along side throwing bags into the windows and hoping to catch the bills tossed back to them. Because the taxis tend to create an ominous third lane down the middle of the road, the boys are often caught between rows of traffic. I drive holding my breath for them with a foot on the brake. I was a bit distracted by the scene as several other street kids came up to my window on the right. 'Tis the season and everyone is looking for some holiday cash. I shook my head at them as I eyed a young girl looking to make a quick dash across the road. Anticipating her run, I slowed down. The boys on my right formed a little posse and one of them even stepped in front of my car, policeman style. Really? Accosted by a band of seven year olds. I steered around him cautiously, in wonder at this new boldness. They banged the back of my car a few times as I made my way past them.

I finally arrived at the house with some bread and cheese in tow, still laughing about kissing the policeman. I just can't get enough of these traffic stories. It's a dangerous business, stepping out of your door.

Trouble with travel.....part 2

With repetition comes experience and knowledge. I felt I knew what to expect for the ride back to Conakry, which, while not exactly comforting, at least put me in a slightly better position than when I was riding up to Kankan. I planned to leave at night, hoping most of our journey would be spent with the boys sleeping. Then we could arrive sometime mid-morning and be of less disturbance to whoever would be picking us up. It was New Year's Eve and I should have known that plans have a way of coming alive in Africa, like the wild dogs roaming the streets running every which way but the way you want. Somehow, I always forget this part. It is the deeply ingrained Western part of me that runs by clocks no matter how far removed from time and schedules I place myself. I wonder how long it takes to truly shed this last piece of constriction.

We were waiting in the Kankan gare central. Supposedly, the car would fill up in an hour or so. It was around 4:00 pm. This place looked more like a bus station, with covered waiting area (both inside and outside sections!) There were women selling fruit and cookies. Men walked around selling tea (strong African tea that is aerated between two cups with a flourish. The vendor carries about 3 or 4 thermoses of tea and a small bucket containing minature cups which are placed in water and reused.) We waited. The sun began to set, casting a red glow on everything. We kept hearing rumors that there were only 2 seats left to be filled (this rumor went on for hours, even as people approached, bought a ticket, and took up the wait with us.) Our things were shuffled from taxi top to taxi top as drivers discussed which car was filling up and who would make the journey.

I considered buying another seat as, in the interest of saving money once again, I'd only gotten two seats and one of the boys was riding on a lap. I considered it strongly as the time wore on. Six o'clock came and went. The boys snacked on watermelon and I bought some packages of cookies for the ride. The waiting was becoming painful. It turns out the driver was searching for a full taxi. When we finally loaded up, there were 2 people in the front passenger seat, 4 in the middle seat, 4 of us in the back seat AND one person behind us in the hatch back space.  Of course, he had to lay down scrunched up or sit up halfway leaning on the seat back of our already crowded third row.

I can see us from a bird's eye view, all packed in there threatening to explode like a shaken up soda bottle. The boys were able to sleep a lot and were actually well behaved for both trips considering the tight quarters.  I knew right away that this trip was going to be distinctly different from the last. If the ride to Kankan was with the conservative right, the ride back to Conakry was a rock and roll tour. There were two women traveling with us who did not have papers and the young driver took a direct approach at every checkpoint. Cash in hand. I, and my passport, were no longer the issue.

While this apporach made the road a bit faster to travel on, we seemed to stop a lot more frequently on this trip than the one going out. We had two people who needed to make prayer stops but also it seemed we stopped for eating and rest breaks. (Rest breaks? We just started!) At one of our first stops, which seemed to be near a gas station, perhaps a tiny gare central for whatever town this was.... I got out of the car to stretch and eat an orange. A bull cow walked by searching for scraps and nibbling my peels.  Motos zoomed through town as I watched the nightlife carry out its rituals. Surely this would seem a sleepy town by sunlight, I thought.

We continued on and I dozed a bit as the countryside turned back into tall grass and mud huts. Eventually we came to a frosty stop and I thought I heard the driver get out. The entire car appeared to be sleeping and I wondered exactly what we were doing here. We waited in the still night. Finally I asked one of the men in front what was going on.
"The driver needs to rest," he said. "He couldn't go on." Rest? I still felt like we had just began, like we had finally begun making some ground. Of course, I wasn't driving. But I thought surely he must have known he was going to be driving all night.  Foolishly, I thought he would have prepared for that. I made a bit of a grumble in the back prefering to get out of the car if we were waiting. My knees were screaming and my neck was throbbing. I thought the driver had left the car and I couldn't really believe he'd left us
"....in here like sardines.." I heard it come from the front and genuine laughter escaped from me. I wasn't the only one to be feeling this way. Turns out, the driver was actually in the car, slumped behind the steering wheel. One of the passengers up front tried vainly to awaken him. He could not be stirred. Some of the other passengers argued on his behalf. Once again, my eagle eyes kicked in and I saw us from above, a lonely taxi overflowing with people and bags parked on the side of a deserted road. We elected to get out.

The moon was bright and cast a blue white glow on everything. Just across the small street were a series of covered stalls with benches. We walked over and had a seat in the chilly night air. We sat there shivering and watched our taxi sleeping. It was 3 a.m. After thirty minutes, the driver still hadn't awakened. We began to discus show long a good chauffeur needed to nap. One of the men, the professor, as I came to know him (he taught at the University of Kankan) was even more indignant because he said he had friends at a small town just up the road. Had we continued a bit, he could have found lodging for everyone to rest comfortably. (Although I found this negated the entire purpose of traveling at night. If I wanted to rest comfortably, I would waited in Kankan until the next day.)

We decided to take action and strode back to the car with intention. The driver would awaken. The professor roused the slepeing chauffeur for a good ten minutes. He refused to get up. It turned out the boy in the trunk was also a driver and the passengers convinced chauffeur #1 to hand the car over to chauffeur #2.  Pretty soon we were rumbling along at breakneck speed, hitting every pothole in sight. Chauffeur #1 now resided in the back back back and with every jump of the car he yelled out what sounded like critique and advice. I thought, since he surely wasn't getting any sleep back there, he would have been better off just taking the wheel.

We hadn't gone very far (or so it seemed. This trip was turning into a fragment series of small starts and stops) when we really hit something that threw the car into a swerve. A tire had exploded. We coasted, yet again, to the side of a deserted road.  Dawn was just breaking. There was a comic attempt to put the spare tire on but it turned out that the spare tire was not really fitted for this car. There was a second spare in the space below the hatchback but that tire was also flat. The road stretched out behind us. 

And a similar sight greeted us from the front. Chauffeur #2 hailed a ride (amazingly with another passing taxi!) A few people built a fire along the roadside and the rest of us settled in to sleep in the taxi until the sun truly rose. When the light filtered over the grass and the birds called us awake, we climbed from our slumbering places.

The road was empty save for a few women walking by occasionally. One of the passengers asked a question and was directed to some small shrubs nearby. Everyone started pulling stems and chewing and spitting.....toothbrush au natural. The oldest woman, a passenger without papers, managed to flag a ride and ran off in a lopsided way, clutching her bags and waving. The professor returned from an early morning walk triumphant. He had brought a young boy with a thermos of kankiliba tea and fried cakes.He'd arranged everything, free tea, buy your own sugar and cakes--good cakes made with good flour, he'd watched the whole process himself.

Personalities were starting to emerge. The chauffeur climbed from behind the wheel where he'd been resting. His only concern seemed to be a smoke. I couldn't really be sure since this group spoke mostly in Malinke, but it appeared he was getting the brush off. He was not acting like a good captain but rather seemed to be deserting the ship, passengers and all. Some discussion broke out.

Soon enough, however, things settled down. There wasn't much to do but wait. We took turns taking walks up the road, sitting in the shade of the taxi and waving down passing cars. The same questions were always asked as we tried to determine how far driver #2 actually had to travel to get the tire fixed. It was New Year's Day.

Sometime in the mid morning, a band of children walked by carrying scythes. They made a slow, solemn apporach and for Stephen King fans, there's no need to draw out the comparison. It was actually difficult for me to determine an emotion emanating from the boys with their serious faces---curiosity perhaps, in a muted way. They headed off into the tall grass to begin their day's cutting and collecting.  Soon after they disappeared, a strange figure shrouded in his own bundle of flowing grass steadily made his way down the road. I thought of snapping a photo. From a distance, he appeared to be a spirit from the bush. I never did see a face buried as it was beneath the load. The figure passed by 2 more times and left me wondering if it was the same person and how he managed to always be walking in the same direction without ever returning down the way he had come. Perhaps it truly was a spirit from the bush.

There was really little else to contemplate onn the dry, dusty road. The sun rose above and we began to discuss whether or not driver #2 would ever return. I had no faith in him. A huge truck passed by, stopped to chat and passed water bags out the window to us. I tried to convince the others that we it was time for plan B. Surely we could take some kind of action rather than just sit ....indefinitely. At the very least, I wanted to impose a time limit whereby we would take action if he hadn't returned. I could see us sitting here until 6:00 when the sun would turn the sky rose red for a brief moment before leaving us, once again, in the dark with the cows.

Everyone else, however, held fast to the conviction that the driver would return. They had such faith and patience. I tried to get some it to rub off on me, but mostly I just tried to keep the crabby restlessness at bay and took walks up around the bend. Cars stopped every so often and broke the silence. A particularly fancy car passed by and offered a space to me and the boys for some 45000GF. I didn't really have it to spare and I was also wary of hopping into a car with three men in  flashy clothes and dark sunglasses. I hesitated

and finally refused. The professor gladly paid for the spot. I was happy to remain among the rest of the passengers watching our slow drama unfold. Another taxi passed by and the driver offered me an entire bag of peanut cornmeal paste. I've forgotten exactly what they called this snack but it was so delicious and reminded me of the Power Bars I used to love. I passed out gooey squares to everyone and wondered who would be next to go. 

Driver #2 did eventually return with the tire. He told a tale of riding from town to town, searching for a mechanic. The closest town that could offer services was not an option because the mechanic had gone off to visit his family for a New Year's celebration. The driver had been forced to continue retracing our path back to where we'd originally stopped and I'd shared my orange with the bull cow. It seemed to take only minutes to put the tire on, push the car into a running start (driver #1 had left the lights on all night) and get us on our way once again. It was the only part of the trip when time moved quickly.

The journey to Conakry felt as though it were taking place in another dimension. We made stops too frequently for me. I became tired of climbing in and out of the cramped back quarters (losing passengers somehow did not equal more space for us in the back back AND the driver incredibly appeared to be looking for more passengers.)

We passed through small towns and check points with ease. I kept my passport in my bag the whole time. We snacked endlessly on oranges. We stopped at a gas station, got another tire changed and picked up two more passengers. Driver #2 was once again relegated to the hatch back space. He jumped out at each check point and melted into sidelines. He merged with vendors and buyers and made his way around the check point where he would jog up to us and jump into the back once we had put a bit of distance bewtween us and the militiary. It seemed so simple and obvious I couldn't really believe he was fooling anyone. 

At the gas station, the other passengers bought some kind of meatballs and offered to share them with the boys. Nabih indulged but Mohamed declined. A passenger, whose name I never got, went into the store and returned with some cake bread. He had been so friendly toward the boys while we were waiting, playing games and amusing them. He spoke the most French and also translated the Malinke for me so I knew what was going on.

After many hours, long past sunset, we arrived in Conakry. The road into town was crowded and covered with soldiers. It was here that I had my one and only problem with my passport. I had to go in search of it, aqnd argue for its return. The taxi driver and a few of the passengers followed me. Despite the soldiers repeated, gruff orders and threats towards them, they did not leave. Later they told me that the soldiers wanted them to leave so they could extract a high price for the return of my passport. They'd elected to remain as witnesses. I listened to several soldiers arguing about the correct way to handle my passport. Being back in Conakry, they spoke a mixture of Sousou and French. I knew exactly what they saying and waited for the moment to present itself when I could slip a discreet "tip." Its a delicate process and needs to be timed just right, or so I believe. Unexplicably, one soldier (a red beret) ordered the other (a mere green beret) to return my papers, no tax imposed. Once again, we were on our way. 

It was near midnight when we arrived at our destination, a hazy, dusty crossroads teeming with people vending by candlelight. I got out of the taxi with a suitcase and two sleeping children. The passenger who had been so kind to the boys hailed another taxi for us. The woman we'd picked up at the gas station negotiated the price and I felt like we might actually be nearing the end of this epoch adventure. I was filled with a sense of gratefulness. It seems you're never truly alone in Africa, someone is always willing to help. I'd been keenly aware of this every step of the way. Turns out the trouble with travel isn't really so troublesome after all. Its just a matter of interesting company, an open spirit and the ability to see with eagle eyes.