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.
Since leaving Kalemie, we had been running due west,
following a ridge line above the north hank of the Lukuga River. I
had been told we would turn due north near the village of
Niemba, a tiny place memorable only because it was the site of an
important bridge on the old railway - the one used, at various
times through the twentieth century, by my mother, Evelyn
Waugh and the swashbuckling gunboat crews from the Royal
Navy. Come the twenty-first century and the railway has been forgotten as a means of travel, mainly because the bridge at Niemba
had been washed away by floods. But it was still strategic enough
to attract the attention of warring factions and for two years,
around 2001, there had been a great deal of fighting in the area.
This explained why, when we arrived at a fork in the track - the
first junction we had seen in eighty kilometres since Kalemie -
we found a soldier in the uniform of the Congolese army sitting
under a tree. I have no idea how long he had been there, how he
was resupplied or how he protected himself. The Congolese army
has no aircraft or helicopters, and so he must have made his way
there on foot along the same awful track we had used. I did not
get the chance to find out, because Benoit clearly saw in the
uniformed soldier the potential for problems. Gunning the engine
on his bike, he swept past the soldier before he could gather his
wits and try to stop us. Benoit was sticking to the
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.
Since leaving Kalemie, we had been running due west,
following a ridge line above the north hank of the Lukuga River. I
had been told we would turn due north near the village of
Niemba, a tiny place memorable only because it was the site of an
important bridge on the old railway - the one used, at various
times through the twentieth century, by my mother, Evelyn
Waugh and the swashbuckling gunboat crews from the Royal
Navy. Come the twenty-first century and the railway has been forgotten as a means of travel, mainly because the bridge at Niemba
had been washed away by floods. But it was still strategic enough
to attract the attention of warring factions and for two years,
around 2001, there had been a great deal of fighting in the area.
This explained why, when we arrived at a fork in the track - the
first junction we had seen in eighty kilometres since Kalemie -
we found a soldier in the uniform of the Congolese army sitting
under a tree. I have no idea how long he had been there, how he
was resupplied or how he protected himself. The Congolese army
has no aircraft or helicopters, and so he must have made his way
there on foot along the same awful track we had used. I did not
get the chance to find out, because Benoit clearly saw in the
uniformed soldier the potential for problems. Gunning the engine
on his bike, he swept past the soldier before he could gather his
wits and try to stop us. Benoit was sticking to the
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