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Zaire (DRC):
Bunagana
 Author:
Lee Ridley - 1993
Posted: April, 9, 2003
As soon as we had crossed
the border, and even before we had cleared immigration, a dozen
locals had descended upon us offering their porter services. They'd
just have to wait, I thought to myself.
The military officials in any central African state are going to
be thorough and dogmatic, so we made ourselves comfortable, expecting
a prolonged entry process. It seemed like a good time to change
some money and so I negotiated an acceptable rate with one of the
more charismatic individuals. Against all my better judgement I
handed my dollars over to the boy and stood watching and trusting
as he legged it down the track and out of sight.
The formalities were
dealt with remarkably quickly and within twenty minutes I found
myself sitting patiently waiting for the return of my dosh. After
forty-five minutes I was cursing myself for such naivety, but still
I waited. He did return not long after and handed me a wad of notes
that I needed both arms to manage. By chance I had timed my arrival
in Zaire to coincide with the total collapse of the national currency.
Whereas that morning I had received approximately 14 million Zaires
for every US dollar, by the afternoon the rate had dropped to around
80 million Zaires to the dollar and was still falling. Each one
million Zaire note was the size of a British fifty pound note, so
just imagine what you were left with just from changing twenty dollars!
By the next day I couldn't even buy a banana with local currency.
We spent that night in
a mud brick "guest house" about ½ mile from the
border post. The room was filthy, there were pigeons in the low
corrugated roof that kept us awake most of the night with their
continuous shuffling around, but it was dry and there was a lock
on the door. Our room faced onto a central courtyard at the head
of which squatted a fat old woman with a huge cauldron. All the
time she was stirring the contents she was hoicking up great lumps
of TB ridden phlegm and depositing it on the ground next to her.
We thought we might go without supper that night, you know, wait
until the morning and grab some breakfast in the village.
When the evening set
in I left Tracey sleeping fitfully and went into the "bar,"
a small and crowded room with two tables. People were sitting round
the tables, many more were standing, a large ghetto blaster was
pounding out some kind of crappy music and the warm Zairois Primus
beer was flowing freely. The landlord was a 6' plus Tanzanian called
Mohammed, with a bald head and a neat way of removing bottle tops
by hooking them against his wedding ring and pulling sharply.
I remember it was a Tuesday
night and as I sat there and played draughts (chequers) on a chequered
tablecloth with bottle tops, we listened to The Wall by Pink Floyd
and I wondered what my friends were up to back in the UK.
Author: Lee Ridley
Email: editor@fourcornersexplorer.co.uk
http://www.fourcornersexplorer.co.uk
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