Progress on day 20. Last village before Loange river (don't know the name)

It's been 25 days since we entered DRC (I started counting the day we left Lubumbashi)

Day 21

When we got up in the morning we were immediately informed that the big truck had still not made it up, so we were not in a hurry.

We had some more nice talks with Germain and his wife. We wanted to give him something as he had been so kind to us. We carry a small photo printer, so we decided to take a picture of them and print it off. When we told him we wanted to take a picture from him and his familiy he ran off quickly..

Half an hour later he came back, in a costume and shiny shoes. His wife was dressed up nicely and even the kids had their Sunday's clothes on. They looked fantastic!


The (tatty and tired looking) mundele on the right looks fantastic too! ?

School grounds usually have a lot of kids around. We counted them and stopped at 400. That's more then 800 prying eyes. Not just kids though, quite a few adults too.


If I had to choose one picture to describe our Congo trip, that would be the one!

We decided to drive back to the begining of the descending road, a few kilometers out of this village, in the hope to find some peace and quiet. That way we would also not loose too much time when the truck finally reaches the top.

When the truck finally reaches the top.
If the truck finally reaches the top.

With a bit of luck.

...

...

At 6.30 that night we were parked next to Germain's house again. The truck did not make it up today..

Germain's wife was so pleased to see us again as she could thank us again for the picture we had given her. She had shown it to all her friends and was very proud of it.

Later that night somebody came to tell us that they were going to work trough the night to get the truck up.. So maybe we'd be able to move again tomorrow?

With a bit of luck...

Day 22

At 4 that night we were awoken by the sound of a truck engine nearby. Finally, the truck had gotten up the hill (it took them 4 days). It was still pitch dark, so we tried to sleep a few more hours. But the anticipation kept us awake.

We said our goodbyes to Germain and had a quick talk to the truck driver. He was not amused. He started from Kikwit two weeks ago. He said if he'd knew about the state of the roads, that he would have never taken this job. The GSM operator is paying him well for the transport, but he has to pay the local 'helpers' to get him trough here, he will have to be lucky to make a profit out of this ride..

We plummeted down the hill and were grateful that the truck has just passed. They had broadened the road and levelled out the deepest ruts. We still had a struggle as the trucks massive wheels and ground clearance were no match for our little Landcruiser.

Three hours and 5 kilometers later we arrived at the ferry...

Oh boy...

There was a police officer at the ferry, and one or two onlookers. But apart from that it was surprisingly quiet. The police officer ordered one of the onlookers to go and get the captain. We sat down and waited in police guy's little hut. He was nervous and young. We joked around a bit with the people who were asking for money and cadeaux. Annoying, but not as pushy and aggresive as we were used to by now.

The policy guy then told us we had to register. We did not feel much like it, but hey, if he wants to copy over all of our details in his little book, why not. When he was done he asked for money as he had registered us. We politely told him that registration is not a paying service in Congo. It never had been.

That's not true he said, it is an integral part of his job to ask for money from people who pass trough here. We had a chuckle but stayed polite and told him that if that is the case, then why is it not in writing anywhere.

He then caught us by surprise by claiming it is written in the official police handbook! He got up, and got out this little black book. It was titled something along the line of "Official guidelines for Police officers in the RDC" (not sure about exact title).

The first chapter were the 'ten commandments' of the police officers, the third item read:

"Créer une base de données de tous les voyageurs dans votre regio"

He read it for us and said:

"Créer une base de donnes de tous les voyageurs dans votre regio"
"Create a base of donations from all travellers in your region"

We couldn't believe what we heard. Had they really constitutionalized corruption? If this was true we would have little choice but to pay.

In disbelief we took the book out of his hands and read the phrase again. Yes, it was really written here...

It took us a minute before we realised that it was not "donne" (pronounced "don", like in Don Quichote) but "donnée" (pronounced don-E).

What was actually written was:

"Create a database of all travellers in your region"

We had to try very hard to keep our laughter down. At first we tought he just tricked us into it. But that was not the case, he genuinely believed it was written that he had to collect money from travellers. He had no idea what a database was.