Blood River (11 page)

'It will take twelve minutes for the glue to be ready,' Benoit
announced with typical exactness.

I turned back to the feathery grasslands and listened for the
sound of any birdlife. There was almost none. Georges explained
that hunger drove local villagers to trap and kill birds as a source
of meat. Exactly on cue, twelve minutes after administering the
glue, Benoit and Odimba replaced the tyre and we were off again.
And exactly twenty minutes later we had our first encounter with
the mai-mai.

The track had narrowed to a thin file between dense undergrowth
and I saw Benoit slow to negotiate a tricky bit of ground. All of a
sudden he braked and flung his weight to the left, desperate to
avoid something. Slowly from the bush on the right side of the
track emerged two gun barrels - rusting Kalashnikovs - held in
the bony, dirty hands of two anxious-looking people, a teenage
girl and a man old enough to be her grandfather.

I swallowed drily. Meekly dropping my gaze to the ground, all
I could see were Georges's feet as he slipped off his bike and
walked forward, talking all the time in a reassuring tone. He
spoke in a blend of Swahili and a tribal language. Calmly, Georges
turned back towards me and asked me quietly for cigarettes. I had
a couple of packets on me, but they were crushed in the pocket of
my trousers. This did not bother the mai-mai. I handed over two
particularly mangled-looking specimens and watched as they
delicately stroked them back into shape, licked one side to slow
the burn rate and lit them. I had stolen a better look as I handed
them over. What I saw were the modern descendants of the
African tribesmen met by both Stanley and Cameron. They were
wearing the same necklaces of feathers, bones, and fetishes
described by the two nineteenth-century explorers, but their clothes were more modern - unmatching khaki trousers and
ragged T-shirts - and they had nothing on their feet.

I watched Georges rummage in his shoulder bag and produce a
wad of pamphlets. I recognised them as publications from the
MONUC base back in Kalemie, a sort of local newsletter with
photographs of UN-sponsored events and good-news stories
about the peacekeeping mission. These seemed to have a magical
effect on our two armed interrogators and they immediately
lowered their weapons and began to laugh and relax. With colour
photographs and print, these magazines were evidence of a
modern world and here in the Congolese bush they clearly had
some status.

Through Georges's smiles, he calmly told me what was going
on. `They are guarding their village. It's just a few hundred
metres over there in the hush, but they know that if trouble
comes, it comes along this track. They told me there is a bigger
mai-mai group in the area, and they have heard of villages being
attacked and people killed. But as far as they know, this other
mai-mai group is around the village of Mulolwa up ahead on
this track. There is no problem with these guys, but we must be
aware of the other group. They will definitely give us more
trouble.'

Growing in confidence, I asked the old man his name. `Mikejo,'
he said, pulling heavily on a second cigarette I had given him. He
had red-rimmed eyes from a night's guard duty and his skin was
pale from the thinnest coating of dust and fissured with age. He
was the same small, pygmy build as Georges. Mixing between
pygmies, central Africa's oldest indigenous people, who lived in
the central region's forests as hunter-gatherers for thousands of
years, and Bantu tribes, who arrived here about 1,000 years ago
before persecuting and subjugating the pygmies, blurred what
had once been a clear distinction. I could not tell if Mikejo was a
pygmy proper, or the offspring of some ancient merging of central
Africa's oldest and newest bloodlines.

The mai-mai of eastern Congo are known for their cruelty,
violence, even cannibalism, but in this old man defending his
village I saw something less threatening. With his venerable gun
- it was highly unlikely he actually had any live rounds - he was
simply defending his bush home. He belonged to mai-mai who
act like a Congolese version of Dad's Army, trying to protect their
villages from armed attack by the many outsiders who have run
amok here for the last forty years. These local mai-mai do not
cause major problems because they rarely move far from their
home villages. It is the ones who wander who cause the chaos.
The nomads survive by plundering whatever they can find. It is
these mai-mai marauders who are responsible for the lawless
cycle of murder and reprisal that has paralysed this region for so
long.

Benoit was anxious to get on and, with a nod from Georges that
indicated the danger had passed, he restarted his bike and
careered off down the track. We followed, but we had not got far
when we had our second flat tyre, this time on Fiston's bike
where I was riding pillion. I felt the rear go soggy, causing us to
slew to one side, and then we were down to the hard rim,
bumping to a halt.

After the calm of the first repair, this second one was much
more tense. Fiston showed no knowledge about how to repair his
bike and had no tools or repair kit. Benoit and Odimba took
control. But when they opened up the rear wheel of Fiston's bike,
they lost their cool.

'Look at this inner tube, Fiston,' Benoit said sharply.

`There are more patches on this tube than the original tube. It
must have been mended twenty times. And look here at the side
of the tyre. It is worn away from being pulled on and off the
wheel. It's almost useless.'

As Benoit tried to work out how to stick a patch on an existing
patch, Fiston stood in glum silence. It was clear he did not really care. All he wanted to do was get back safely to Kalemie, and a flat
tyre was no bad thing as it would bring about his return journey
quicker.

I found the whole situation bewildering. I had been planning
this journey in my head for years, trying to anticipate and
deal with every conceivable problem. I had never thought that
the success of the whole trip might turn on a perforated inner
tube.

It was the first time I had heard a tone of anger in Benoit's voice.
It was contagious and I began to fret. My early morning excitement had long gone and I was trying to calculate the impact of
these delays on our journey. After Kalemie, my next safe haven
was in the town of Kasongo, where Benoit's Care International
colleagues were based, but that was still almost 500 kilometres
away. With marauding mai-mai in the area, Benoit knew that to
dawdle was dangerous. He had hoped that if we got away early
enough we could possibly reach a ruined mining town called
Kabambarre, 300 kilometres from Kalemie, tonight. Benoit was
confident he could find somewhere safe there to spend the night.
With these breakdowns, it was looking increasingly likely we
would have to overnight in the bush.

There was now one other thing to consider. Georges said the
news about the mai-mai group at Mulolwa chimed with what he
had already heard on the rumour mill back in Kalemie. This
group had some ruthless, godless gunmen and he was anxious
that if we were to get through safely, it would be important to
catch them at the right time of day.

`These guys get drunk and stoned by the afternoon, and you
don't want to he negotiating with them in that state. We must get
there as early in the morning as possible for the best chance of
getting through,' was his advice.

Staring at Odimba as he mended the second puncture, I started
doing the mental calculation. We could only make Kabambarre in
one day if we averaged 20-25 kph and so far we had covered about thirty kilometres in more than two hours. And the precious
protection of morning from the mai-mai of Mulolwa was fast
disappearing.

By the time we got going for the third time, my stomach was
knotted and my knees were beginning to ache again.

Five kilometres later we had our third flat tyre. The rear on
Fiston's bike had gone down again.

Benoit was getting agitated. He discussed options with Odimba
and decided what we needed was some water to check out exactly
how bad Fiston's troublesome inner tube was. After botching an
emergency repair and pumping up Fiston's rear, we scooted on a
kilometre or so until we reached a village, where Benoit stopped
and started talking to a group of children. Like the pygmy community I had seen on the track up to Mtowa a few days earlier,
this village was a collection of small huts, made with materials
from the bush - frames of branches covered with grass. The only
remotely modern thing in the entire village was an old, rusting
wheel hub, a relic of the days when normal road traffic passed
this way. Benoit decided this was a suitable receptacle to carry
out the repair and while he filled it with dirty stream water and
began working on Fiston's lacerated inner tube, Georges
beckoned me over to a small boy wearing rags.

'He says this village is called Ngenzeka and that there was
fighting here a few years back. He asked if you want to see the
bones.'

The boy had the expression of an old man on his ten-year-old
face. It was care-worn, cold and unsmiling. The arrival of our
small convoy must have been the most interesting thing to
happen in Ngenzeka for months, but there was no sparkle of
excitement in his expression. I soon found out why.

He took me a few paces off the track. The bush was thick, but
he skilfully slipped through the branches. He was wearing
nothing but some grubby brown shorts, several sizes too big for
him, but he twisted and shimmied without getting snagged on thorns that teased out my hair and scratched my skin. After a few
minutes I emerged from a thicket to find him standing over a
human skull, bleached on the ground. There was no lower jaw,
the front teeth were missing and I could see a web of cracks in the
cranium. The boy spoke quietly.

`There was fighting here one day. We do not know who was
fighting who. We just ran away into the bush. But when we came
back there were too many bodies for us to bury. Some of them
were left out in the sun like this.' The boy's description was as
matter-of-fact as a news reporter. As we walked back to the track
he pointed to other human bones lying white among the green
undergrowth.

Benoit was not interested in old bones. Shaking his head he
announced that the inner tube on Fiston's rear wheel was,
basically, ruined. He said he had repaired it properly for the
second time, but could not guarantee it would work and suggested that as we were already way behind our safe schedule,
Georges should set off back towards Kalemie with Fiston, leaving
Odimba and him to carry on with me.

This prompted an animated discussion with Georges. Georges
insisted that we all continue together, as he could walk back to
Kalemie if necessary. It boiled down to this: Georges felt as if he
had not done his job; he had not talked us past the Mulolwa
rebels; and he was reluctant to head home before he had earned
his fee. It was an astonishing display of duty.

Benoit finally issued an ultimatum. `Okay, we will carry on, but
if the tyre goes down again, that will be it.'

We did not have to wait long to face the ultimatum. Less then five
kilometres from skull village, Fiston's rear wheel was flat again.
The morning had been wasted and we were not even halfway to
Mulolwa, the village rumoured to be a mai-mai stronghold.

Benoit was angry, I was jumpy and Georges was apologetic.

`I want to help you, but I know you have a long way to go and you cannot keep stopping like this.' Georges tried to sound
positive.

I was sad to say goodbye, but I gave him the donation I had
promised for his pygmy group and posed for a photograph. It
shows me lowering over his tiny form. I am wearing grubby
trousers and a polo shirt with a faded sunhat crammed on my
head. Georges is much smarter with a fresh-looking long-sleeved
shirt, belt and pleated trousers. Pygmies have been stigmatised
over the centuries for being primitive and backward. I know who
looks more backward in that photograph.

`The parting of good friends,' Georges said shaking my hand
and smiling, after Benoit had fixed Fiston's wheel for a final time.
Georges jumped up behind Fiston and the pair set off back in the
direction we had just come from. I feared they would have a grim
trip home. The tyre on Fiston's bike would most probably go
down again, and they had no tools to repair it.

Georges had behaved impeccably towards me. He had been
willing to risk his life for a stranger, and there was genuine regret
that we could not complete our journey together. His behaviour
contrasted with Stanley's account of the unreliability of his
expedition members during his trip through this same territory in
September 1876:

Unless the traveller in Africa exerts himself to keep his force
intact, he cannot hope to perform satisfactory service. If he
relaxes his watchfulness, it is instantly taken advantage of by
the weak-minded and the indolent ... their general infidelity
and instability arises, in great part, from their weak minds
becoming prey to terror of imaginary dangers . . . my runaways fled from the danger of being eaten.

I did not have to worry about Benoit and Odimba's `infidelity
and instability'. After the departure of Georges, they were
desperate to get on with the journey. Benoit did not waste another second. He rejigged the luggage, ordered me to ride pillion behind
Odimba and jumped back on his bike.

Without Fiston and his faulty bike, our progress improved and
my spirits picked up. The kilometres began to slip by and within
an hour we had covered as much ground as in the first five hours
of the day. Benoit seemed to be almost enjoying himself, attacking
the track with his bike, flicking branches out of the way and
jumping over divots. Behind him the emotionless Odimba just
quietly got on with the task in hand.