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
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
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