I’d venture to say that it’d be easier to leave a federal maximum security prison than to get on an Air France flight out of the Congo. Between the time that we first entered the airport and the time we boarded our flight to Paris, we counted a grand total of 15 different security, immigration and customs checks. This included several by the French equivalent of the FBI. By the time we got on the plane several hours later, it felt like we’d won the lottery!
We’ve done quite a bit in the past week, but almost all of it far, far away from anything even remotely resembling an internet connection. Where to begin…
On Saturday we drove out of Brazzaville to inaugurate a lot that Bernard had purchased just south of the city limits in the little village of Makana. The “National Highway Number 1” we took to get there, the main road leading to the southern part of the country, is in extreme disrepair. Unpaved, unbelievably bumpy and so full of potholes you’d think it had been carpet-bombed. In fact, there were sections with holes deep enough to bury a truck in, and we did indeed see the carcass of an old taxi that had been rolled into such.
The Congo government has had the funds for years from the European Union to rebuild the highway since the war, but has found all sorts of ways to delay the project. This is largely because good transportation is one of the keys of economic success, and since it was the northern Congolese who won the civil war they are using methods such as these to choke off the south’s historically higher prosperity. The highway leading north from Brazzaville is of course in mint condition.
On the way we saw scores and scores of abandoned brick and cement houses, many burned but almost all riddled with bullet holes. With this section of the country particularly hard hit by the ravaging that took place during the war, many who fled simply chose not to return, either moving into the city itself or further south.
It is a constant reminder that in the Congo there is always the large shadow of the war looming over everything and everyone. For instance, any discussion of a place or person will always include the phrase “and before the war it was like this…” or “before the war I was this or did this.” And now things are different, and for most not an improvement (although the last 5 years have seen progress, so it’s headed in the right direction—just that nothing meets its past glory or prosperity just quite yet).
Our Makana picnic with the village elders included drinking samba, a uniquely flavored alcohol distilled from palm trees, and of course African drums (using an empty 8-gallon plastic gasoline canister), singing and dancing. Quite the spectacle, and a great way to kick off Bernard’s new property in the country.
Nightfall saw us drawn to the Congo nightlife like malaria-bearing mosquitoes are to a white man without DEET. Felie came with us as we led the evening listening to a live band. At one point they started singing a Celine Dion song, and when I looked up from my drink to see the singer I was quite shocked to see a man on the microphone. He must have lost his balls somewhere.
Felie turned to us and said “I want to sing!” This is quite a healthy desire and perfectly understandable, but the last thing Pascal or I expected was for her to follow this up by jumping up onto the stage and grabbing another microphone. Felie and the man without testosterone then launched into a rather stunning rendition of Celine Dion, with the crowd enthusiastically cheering throughout. As I’d mentioned previously, Felie had been an actress and performer prior to marrying Bernard, and she truly does have a great voice. We followed this by an active evening of dancing in Brazzavilles hippest dance club, Les Diplomates, and I think when all was said and done we all stumbled back home slightly before sunrise.
On Sunday, just a few short hours later, we headed back out by boat to Malamine, which last time had seen us experience close mosquito encounters of the third kind. With us were several of Europe’s diplomatic corps, including the Consulate-General of the French embassy. Since Bernard’s goal is to create in Malamine a sort of “rest and relaxation” area in scenic virgin nature, this was a great way to introduce the location to a number of interested parties.
This time we came adequately prepared with mosquito repellant (and left prior to sunset), so bites were not an issue and we were able to truly enjoy the remarkably peaceful setting and scenery. In what must be a universally cross-cultural experience, the men sat around drinking and swapping stories while the women prepared a delicious meal. The local flavor came from their singing of traditional African tribal songs as they did so.
Monday was one of the few days of our trip where we saw the sunrise at 6:00 AM, on the way to the Maya Maya airport. Our plan was to take the train to Pointe Noire on the coast, but the first section leaving Brazzaville is too dangerous.
It used to be that the train would get attacked by armed gunmen called ninjas on a regular basis. This created quite a problem for the train company, so they hired the same ninjas to “guard” the train during this first section. And of course as part of this guarding the same robbery takes place.
Now one would think that the simple solution to this would be to have some army or police folks ride along with the train. There are several reasons why this doesn’t happen until after ninja territory. First, the ninjas are really military folks from local garrisons in civilian clothing, bankrolled by the Congo airline companies (unsafe train travel means more plane passengers). And second, it benefits the government both to keep economic activity down in the area (much like the highway) and also provides an excuse for additional military operations in the area.
A complex situation that really could be solved in a couple of hours with the right phone calls by the President, but regardless, not one in which either we or our camera equipment would be safe. Therefore, we unwittingly bankrolled future operations by taking a flight from Brazzaville west to Nkayi.
The airport was total chaos. It goes without saying that it was hot and humid, but to that you then add hundreds of shouting people bustling about everywhere with dozens of military policemen shouting conflicting orders.
Like Indians, the Congolese don’t believe in lines (especially if they think they are important, which is a problem as anyone who would have the money for a flight presumably would have some kind of important local social status), but that’s a situation that is easily handled.
Taking all of our tickets (Bernard’s, Pascal’s and mine), I simply ignored the concept of first come first served and muscled my way to the front of the ticket counter. My plan backfired. As soon as I laid our tickets down on the counter next to the others to get processed, someone else laid their ticket on top of mine. And then another. And another. After some 20 minutes there must have been some 50 tickets above mine.
Forget computer terminals. The tickets were processed by hand and boarding passes issued by hand as well, with each passenger written into a log sheet. An hour of interminable waiting later, after fending off countless other passengers trying to sneak in front of me, our turn finally came.
The turboprop airplane was Russian, manned by Russians (they often come down with a whole ready-to-go operation: plane, pilots and engineers). Not very big but reasonably comfortable, one unusual moment came when we saw the captain open the front hatch and load a dozen or so machine guns into the cabin. Not something you see on airplanes every day.
The flight was surprisingly smooth, and the landing top-notch. Especially considering the fact that the runway was an unpaved strip of red dirt in the middle of sugar cane fields. The security officer at the hut that served as an airport terminal was surprised to see three white folks (and quite suspicious), but thankfully Bernard had written orders from the mayor of Brazzaville to create a documentary on the Congo and for all civilian and military personnel to not impede such activities.
From Nkayi we took a small, very beat up van to the neighboring city of Madingou. The road was so beat up with potholes and mud pits (one of which required pushing assistance in order for the van to dig itself out) that the 20 mile drive took a full 2 hours. Packed in tightly, I never would have guessed that our small vehicle could hold 16 passengers, albeit stacked on top of each other in a highly uncomfortable manner.
Bernard’s brother in law, Francois, met us in Madingou. A high school teacher in this small country town of 10,000 people, Francois first led us to the military police outpost to register. Here we had to show our official documents and register our presence. The police lieutenant turned out to be a very agreeable fellow who introduced us to his family and with whom we subsequently ate several times, including once at his house for a delicious lunch prepared by his wife.
We stayed two nights in Francois’ house, which was very gracious of him, and we purchased a piece of foam for the three of us to sleep on in the market. One piece of foam. Three sweaty men. Exactly 18 inches of foam width each.
I slept great, although I’m told I did snore and Pascal says that when he tried to lie back down after returning from the restroom I attacked him when he tried to move my arm (I have little recollection of this supposed incident, although I’ve been told that I do sometimes go on the attack when suddenly woken from slumber).
We spent the following day exploring Madingou, including an hour or so Q&A session with the graduating high school class. It was fascinating to meet these young students.
One of the easy stereotypes that people mistakenly make is to see people’s living conditions in other countries and assume that they correlate to their level of education or intelligence. While in some areas this may indeed be the case, the Congo does have a highly developed educational system modeled on the French curriculum, and I met many a student or teacher living in third-world poverty that could run intellectual rings around their wealthy first-world counterparts.
For instance, teachers and students could be living in tiny shacks with no running water and questionable electrical service on practically nothing, yet knowledgeable about Socratic philosophical thought, algebra and current events in Iraq. It’s a great lesson on not judging by outward appearances.
Outhouses are naturally a fact of life in the Congo, as in many other countries. In Madingou, however, it was the first time I made use of an outhouse by candle light. And instead of toilet paper, we made use of old term papers from the high school. I couldn’t help but chuckle.
Wednesday was one of the hottest and most humid days yet. Even the Africans were dripping with sweat. Us white folks looked like we’d been hosed down by the city fire department.
The train came late, having already passed through the more dangerous ninja territory and now manned and protected by the military police all the way to Pointe Noire. After speaking with the military police officer in charge of security we received permission to film along the way without trouble (although we did have to reconfirm this several times with police chiefs in stations along the way.)
Not only did we receive permission to film, but after speaking with the conductor all three of us got to stand outside on the guard rail in front of the locomotive! With the best view on the train and the wind rushing past us (and of course the adrenaline boost of knowing that a small misstep could send you falling on the tracks directly in front of a moving train) made for an unforgettable experience. Wow!
The Congo countryside is absolutely stunning. Rolling hills and plains, dense meandering forests. In the forests the controller told us that native pygmies still inhabit its depths, shunning contact with others—they watch us pass but we can never see them, he said.
As we moved through the forested Mayombe region, we were particularly lucky that the newer railway line was under construction. This meant that our train moved at slower speeds using the single track older line (circa 1920s), weaving through the dense undergrowth (we sometimes had to dodge branches or hanging vines) and through a series of stone bridges and damp tunnels. It felt like we’d been transported back 3 generations to the edge of civilization.
We stopped at a number of stations along the track, some for up to an hour as cargo was loaded on or off the boxcars in the back, everything from crates of food to livestock. At every station, hundreds of vendors—mostly women and children—rushed the train to sell food, nuts, drinks, yoghurt, fruits and so on to the passengers through the open windows of the wagons.
After night fell and photography no longer became viable, Pascal and I remained on the front of the locomotive (sitting on the hood somewhat precariously) and spent the next few hours singing just about every song we could remember as the train snaked through the shadows of the misty forest country.
At one station, two tough looking military policemen armed to the teeth joined us in front. Apparently the train had been having trouble in one upcoming area with a group of people that wouldn’t let it pass, demanding something which I never did quite understand. They had come to “resolve the situation.” As the one in charge told me: “we are not violent people. We are men of the law. But sometimes violence is the only thing that people understand.” True enough, but I wasn’t quite convinced that I wanted to be sitting right next to them on the hood of the train when it all came down.
Thankfully, we passed without incidence, and as the train exited the forested hills the speed dramatically increased. With the chill of the night upon us this became intolerably cold and Pascal and I retreated to the conductor’s cabin for a little warmth.
Inside the wagons, the military police also apprehended passengers without tickets. And not very gently: slapping them around seemed to be part of the protocol before handcuffing them to the toilet door. One of the young passengers that had sat directly across from us in the very beginning of the voyage and with whom Pascal had had a conversation ended up like this when we returned, and the MPs we befriended joked about all the manual labor he was going to help them out with at the station the following day.
The train rolled into the port city of Pointe Noire some 12 hours after we had left Madingou, to total chaos. With no electricity at the station and thousands of passengers and people waiting for passengers, with the train loaded to capacity (all seats and floor space taken with people and cargo—almost impossible to move from any one area of the train to another), the arrival was pure noise, chaos and confusion.
It’s also a time to be very careful. Gangs of thieves take full advantage of this murky situation and robberies are more than commonplace. Even the conductor was robbed of one of his bags of goods which he had brought, to his very evident dismay. We waited with Bernard until much of the activity had died down before exiting ourselves, our senses on full alert.
In Pointe Noire the next morning we visited a small fishing village on the coast, first making a point to meet with the village chief to introduce ourselves and show our documentation allowing us to film. As his aide guided us around the village, one villager became extremely agitated at our taking pictures, yelling and screaming about how we should not be here and how we were exploiting the black folks and so on. It got to the point where I put my camera away, thinking we’d get into a fistfight (especially when another of his friends joined in.)
Very cleverly, though, Bernard staged a tantrum of his own and feigned deep insult at such a reception and such poor greeting by the village, threatening to call the military police to come down and take care of things if the villagers couldn’t muster some semblance of hospitality and politeness. That worked.
From there, it was a flight back to Brazzaville, allowing us a day or so to wrap things up before our Friday evening flight back to France, where I would spend two days visiting family and Pascal (the bum!) two additional weeks.
Overall, wow! What an incredible journey for us. From spending time with our uncle’s exceptional family, to discovering an ancient culture steeped in the heart of Africa, to journeying through some of the most beautiful scenery, to the sheer adventure of it all, it’s a trip we’ll never forget.
