The road from Kananga to Ilebo goes mostly trough forest, but Pembeyange is situated on top of a hill in a beautiful plain. Really pictoresque.


Upon our arrival in the (small) village everybody went completely nuts. Children cheered and ran after us, we had our usual crowd again. As they guided us trough the village towards the mission it showed that people here do not have notions about cars. They led us between huts, trough gardens, ... This was the way they always took to walk to the mission, but they failed to see that this was impossible with a car. As we did not want drive over peoples houses we backtracked and had to find ourselves another route to the mission. In the meantime the children had great fun climbing on our wheelcarriers. The wheelcarriers are not made for this kind of weight and one of them broke off... great! This was so much fun that the now targetted the other wheelcarrier. Josephine had to walk behind the car to keep the kids off.

Unfortunately the father of this mission was not there, but his apprentice was. A very young guy, fresh out of school. He was not happy to be here, that much was clear. He did nothing else but complain and he would whine on endlessly. He was not a bad guy, but was wan't very good company either.. oh well.

The mission had a small toilet hut. A hole in the ground affair with a roof on top, the roof was very low, which made it difficult to 'do your thing'. When Josephine made use of the facilities she could hear something rustling in the roof. When she look up she was face-to-face with a thin green/brown snake. I had never seen Josephine run so fast! From her description it could have been a green mamba? When told to the 'maman' who took care of the mission she too was scared and with great care she chased the snake a way. "Très dangereux" apparantely.

Progress after day 16. Pembeyangu

Day 17

It is only 50 kilometers to Ilebo from here.

We came across a truck that was parked in the middle of the track. Luckily the surrounding area was pretty open, so we could pass it.

Us: "Bonjour, ca va?" - "Hi, how are you?"
- Them: "Ca va un peu bien " - "I am doing a little bit ok" -> typical Congelese answer this!

Us: "Votre vehicle est en panne?" - "Did you truck broke down?"
- Them: "Oui, mais ils vient avec des nouveaux pièces" - "Yes, but they are coming with spare parts"

So we chat a bit and we ask what their problem exactly was. They left Ilebo for Kananga with a load of building materials for a rich guy in Kananga. Their engine had completely seized. Their cargo was transferred onto another truck and they had taken the engine out and transported the engine to Kinshasa to get it rebuild. In the meantime the truck 'crew' stayed onsite to safeguard the truck. But they were very happy as they just received news that the necessary parts for the engine were now ordered in Germany, so the parts would come arrive in Kinshasa in a few weeks time!

A fascinating story, and they told it as if the was the most normal thing in the world. Fair enough. We said our goodbyes and asked them one more final question. How long had they been here?

"Un peu plus qu'un an maintenant" - "Just over a year"

The following pictures were from within the car when we just tipped over. As it happened again we were just sitting still for a minute before getting into action again. The kids would curiously came and see why this car was on its side, and why the passengers wouldn't come out.



And then they would ask for money.

The rest of the day we spent mostly underground... and quite a lot of time was spent on our sides. Got stuck a few times and our spade saw some hours of work today.






We were too exhausted to be happy that we could finally see Ilebo in the distance. We knew nothing about the city. We would have to arrange a ferry here to get across the Kasai river. Or worst case, arrange a barge to Kinshasa.