Day 27

We did not feel like getting out of our tent today. It was very unlikely that this would be a fun day. We had to arrange to get our car fixed here and I had no idea where to start. There was nobody we knew here that could help us.

When we opened our tent the crowd was there already. Approximately 100 man and children. They crawled in eachothers necks to get a better view inside our tent. That is not a pleasant way to start your day! Even before we are good and well out of our tent the truck driver we had a fight with last night approached us. He was shy now and friendly. He told us he was a very good mechanic and that he wanted us to hire him to fix our car. Sorry dude.. no way!

With all the onlookers still there we talked to the driver of the father of the mission (temporarily out of work due to lack of car). He was a mechanic too (everybody is a mechanic here) and wanted to help us. To us that looked like the best bet. In a city where there are no cars it is very hard to find a mechanic that has some experience with Landcruisers. At least we were sure this guy had seen one of these from closeby. with our experiences from last night fresh in our memory we first discussed about the price. It is quite common to pay 'per job' for these kind of things.

The idea is that we would try to get the rear axle fixed so we can drive to Kikwit, we would try to get the front axle fixed there or in Kinshasa. For this the mechanic asks 200$US. That is more then he would earn in a year. He explains that he would have to rent tools and it's not just for him, but for an entire team. Eventually we settle on 50$US for the labour. We are still grossly overpaying them, but we feel we have no choice.

After the negotiation I plainly ask them if they had asked so much money just because we are white. They felt uncomfortable with the question but confirmed.

I am not a mechanic. But neither were these guys. They had the skills to make everything work, but they did ugly things. They only knew two tools: a hamer and a screwdriver. And the screwdriver was mostly only used in combination with the hamer. The entire process I had to keep watching them to make sure they did not round any more bolts or hamer my axle to pieces. The moment I turned my back I could hear them banging away.


Once the hub on the rear axle was removed, they had to remove the broken bolts. There is no electricity in Dibaya-Lubwe. The generator of the mission was broken. They did not have an electrical drill anyway. But they did have a manual hand operated drill. It must have been quite the tool 100 years ago, but nowadays nobody would even consider to use this to drill into metal. Needless to say the the drill bits were not of the best quality either. They would drill out the holes and tap new wire into them (1 size bigger). Our hub was buggered anyway so I let them do it. It took them an entire day of turning that drill!


By the end of the day all bolts were cleared, new threads were tapped and fitting bolts (of horrible quality) were found. It had gotten too dark already to re-assemble everything. Tomorrow morning they would be able to fit them and by noon we would be ready to go again! Great!

Day 28

I wish I could say that we got used to looking into 100 faces first thing in the morning. But I can't. It annoyed us immensely to have this crowd looking at us. From the minute we opened our tent in the morning until we close it again in the evening. They 'work' in shifts so they do not miss any action.

We really looked forward to drive out of here again. It was just a few more hours of work to get everything assembled. The hub was fitted again and the oil on the diff changed (lucikily we had bought diff oil in Zambia!). At 11am sharp we asked our mechanics to give us a push and the engine promptly sprung to life. That is a good sign already!

Carefully I drive backwards a bit. Ok!
Forwards a bit. Ok!

I tell the guys I am going for a quick test drive around the mission. We drive out of the gate (the mission had a gate, but no fence) and...

*TAK*TAK*

Josephine and I looked at eachother. We laughed. That would have been too easy, wouldn't it?

The mechanics pushed us back into the mission. The fixed hub was still ok, but our little mishap had probably damaged something inside the differential as well. That is bad news as this meant we had to replace parts. A manual drill would not provide a fix here!

So be it. The mechanics took out the differantial. The planetary gears (do you guys know what I talking about when I use those terms? not sure of the correct terms in English) were completely shot. The sun gears had some chipped teeth but could still be used (hopefully).

We needed two new gears. They did not have two new gears in Dibaya-Lubwe.

We called up the father of the mission, who was on holiday in Kikwit. In the mission in Kikwit they had a bigger workshop and had better access to supplies. I eventually talked to a mechanic in Kikwit. He promised me to call me back in an hour. Two hours later I called him back... he had forgotten. Another half hour later came the news: no such parts to be found in Kikwit, but they could be ordered from Kinshasa. It would take 2 to 3 days to get them to Kikwit(by air). And then we had to foresee transport from Kikwit to Dibaya-lubwe. The cost of the transport alone would be immense and it would probably take in excess of a week. Plus, how do we get the money to Kinshasa? You cannot buy things on credit here!

Time for plan B: we started inquiring if there wasn't another Landcruiser close by, from whom we could 'borrow' some parts. It appeared that a remote mission, some 40km from here had a Landcruiser that had engine problems. We might be able to source some parts from them. Unfortunately they could not be reached as they do not have cell phone reception there.

It was our best bet so we made a plan. We would rent a little motorbike for our mechanics, they would ride to the remote mission and hopefully they would be allowed to dismantle the axle of that landcruiser to 'borrow' the parts. If that would not be possible, they would ride on to Kikwit and try to find some secondhand parts there. In the best case they would be gone for 2 days. In the worst case it would take weeks.

Between the time we knew which part we needed until the time we had finalized our plan with the motorbike was 4 hours Time flies when you are improvising.

We had the great prospect of spending some leisurely days at the mission. Our crowd would be thrilled!

That night we felt like we had deserved a beer. We found the beer in the other catholic mission, the one from the sisters. Upon entering their mission it was like entering another world. They had a nice vegetable garden and flowers. Their house was clean. The sisters did a lot of work here, mostly as nurses in their hospital and orphanage. They made some extra money by selling beer. They were the only place in town that had a regular supply and, most importantly, they had a fridge(on gas)!

It was heaven to be there. The sisters were really nice and smart ladies. Good mannered with a healthy dose of humour and interest. It felt so good to be able to have a normal conversation for once. A conversation that did not leave us guilty as would normally be the case. A conversation the not lead to begging. A conversation where we did not have to think about every word we said.

We crawled in our tent. A 100 people made sure that we would not feel too much at ease.

Day 29

We did not have anything to do today but to keep out of trouble and wait for our mechanics. We slept until the sun transformed our tent into a sauna. Upon opening our tent we were greeted again by the looks and laughter of our crowd. The first thing we heard today was somebody shouting from a distance "Eh Mundele -Donnez-moi de l'argent!" -"Eh mundele - give me money". A very good morning to you too!

We would move our chairs regularly around the car, trying to escape the onlookers. Minutes later the crowd would then move too so they could see us again. They always kept a distance of 20meters or so, but nobody talked to us. From time to time they would shout something (usually begging). We tried to be as uniteresting as possible...

After a while I got really fed up. I took my chair and put it close to them. I sat down, facing them. I looked straight into their eyes. They looked straight back. I just sat still for half an hour, hoping they would get bored of looking at me. Or possibly even embarrased. But I lost. They did not loose interest.

I tried talking to them, explaining that we would really appreciate if they stopped looking at us as we would like to get some rest. I avoided the word privacy as it an unknown concept here anyway. I only got blank stares in return. From the back of the crowd I could here somebody shout "Donnez-nous de l'argent!" -"Give us money". Shortly after followed by "Ce n'est pas vorte pays!" - "This is not your country"

This made me so angry. He was right ofcourse, this was not my country. I was nothing more then a visitor. I had no other intentions but to explore their country and meet the people. But they did not want me here. They wanted my money, but not me.

We did meet a few interesting people though. A teacher from the local school came to see us. It was a math teacher. He had heard that I am a computer engineer. He had a question for me. He had heard about Internet and how it was such an interesting tool. But what is Internet exactly? I asked if they had computer here. They did not. He knew there were computers and Internet in Kikwit, but that is several hundres of kilometers from here.

He kept me busy for many hours. I tried my best explaining him all the different components and concepts. Everything from a modem to a webpage. I drawed him diagrams and everything. But I am a bad teacher I guess.. I could see he had difficulties understanding it all. How do you explain Internet to somebody who has never seen a computer? He took my notes and said he would teach his students about 'Internet'.