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Central Africa:
Borders
 Author:
Lee Ridley - 1993
Posted: 9 August 2002
Trying to head west from
the Zaire border town of Bunagana was proving to be quite difficult.
Because the currency had begun an unstoppable slide the previous
afternoon, and was nearing total collapse, the 80 million Zaires
I had with me were worth less than $1. We could barely afford a
bunch of bananas, let alone pay for a taxi had there been any around.
If you wait long enough
something will come along. It's just a case of whether you have
to wait for a couple of hours or a couple of days. We were lucky.
The big old open back truck that pulled into the village saw the
business opportunity and was soon loaded up with about twenty locals,
plus the two of us.
The road to Rutshuru
was just a dirt track through the jungle, rough in places but altogether
much better than I would have expected. Military roadblocks were
commonplace, occurring about every 15 - 20 minutes, and generally
entailed the driver having to part with a few cigarettes before
we were allowed through. At one of the stops we were able to pay
a little boy who appeared out of the forest to bring us a pineapple.
It all seemed to be too easy, until we were stopped by a less jovial
group of "soldiers" fronted by a fat Major who wanted
more than just a couple of cigarettes. As he went round the truck
questioning people and taking whatever he wanted that fell to hand
easily, I moved my arm round behind my back so that when he reached
me he wouldn't see my watch, cheap as it was. But he saw Tracey
first and, taking her by the hand, started to pull her down off
the truck towards him, muttering something about how beautiful she
was, all the time fingering the safety catch on his beaten up old
rifle. I was very aware of his colleagues holding their firearms
in my general direction. Tracey resisted quietly, but firmly, and
for whatever reason this guy gave up and moved on to me. "Give
me money," he demanded, to which I deftly produced my visa
card from my breast pocket and declared "no money." What
was I thinking of? I didn't care if he took all of my Zaires. It
wasn't worth much and there was little chance he would have found
my concealed dollars without a thorough search. All he did was spit
at me and move on.
We reached the main road
at Rutshuru after about 2 ½ hours from having left Bunagana
and that was as far as our ride was going. We didn't want to stay
in Rutshuru because it was an absolute pit, there were no hotels,
and nowhere to change money. It was still only lunchtime, so we
thought we might as well try to push on for Goma, which is a much
larger town. A helpful local chap showed us where the buses stopped,
but said the last one was two days ago and there was no way of knowing
when the next would be. All we could do was wait. Whether it's me
who's lucky or Tracey, I do not know, but we struck gold again when
after only half an hour a shiny new Toyota Landcruiser pulled up
and a couple of sixty-something French women spoke to us in broken
English asking us where we were headed. It turned out they were
both missionaries and were on their way to Goma to pick up medical
supplies. We were welcome to a lift.
The road to Goma was
in good condition and the journey was relatively short. En route
we drove along the base of the active volcano Nyiragongo. The last
eruption had been less than a year before and there was still an
ominous cloud of sulphurous smoke shrouding the summit. I watched
Nyiragongo intently, all the way wondering what the chances were
of a repeat performance. That could make for some interesting photos.
We only stayed in Goma
for two days, enough time for us to clean ourselves up, change some
money and decide which direction to continue in. Rwanda looked a
good option and as we had already had our visas issued back in Nairobi,
Rwanda it was. We crossed the border at Gisenyi with minimum fuss
and hopped straight on a minibus for Kigali the capital city. We
passed through fantastic, scenic countryside, along well-kept roads
through terraced valleys, with no sign whatsoever of Hutu / Watutsi
tensions, the troubles and hardships of Zaire comfortably behind
us.
The Lonely Planet listed
a decent sounding mission on the outskirts of Kigali and so we made
our way there as soon as we'd arrived. They only had dorms, but
hey, we were in Central Africa, what did we expect? We took care
of the "hanging the mosquito nets" ritual and went into
town for a mooch around.
A few days later whilst
walking in town a fella bumped into Tracey and she felt a tug at
her bum bag which was hanging on her shoulder. The zip was open
and the guy was looking back at us nervously as he walked away.
Nothing appeared to be missing, but just to be sure, I ran after
him. At first he ran but quickly stopped through fear of attracting
attention to himself. In these parts of Africa thieves are chased
by huge crowds of the public and dealt with extremely violently.
I made him empty his pockets but he hadn't taken anything. Then
we noticed a guy on the other side of the street regarding us intently.
We think they were working as a double act and the guy we had caught
was only intending to unzip the bag in readiness for his accomplice
to finish the job.
After a week in Kigali
we headed back northwards to Ruhengeri so I could go volcano climbing
in the Virungas. In all the time we had been in Rwanda there had
been no signs of tension and no-one we'd spoken to had even implied
that a day out in the mountains might not be the safest thing. This
day things kicked off big time…
Tracey decided to stay
at the mission in Ruhengeri rather than spend the day slogging up
the muddy slopes of Mount Visoke. I set out early in the back of
a pick-up truck with another British backpacker and our own personal
armed guard, there to protect us should we encounter any Water Buffalo
or Elephants. Before we even reached the lower slopes of the volcano
we began to hear gunfire going off in the hills around us, the occasional
shot audibly whistling past us. Our guard seemed unfazed by this
latest turn of events so I naively assumed it wasn't all that important.
The volcano was a tough
climb, but at the 14,000ft summit we were rewarded with a fine view
of the crater lake. Our guard told us that the opposite side of
the crater was in Zaire but wouldn't allow me to walk round because
he assured me I would get shot at; I wasn't convinced.
On returning to the mission
later on I found Tracey beside herself with worry; the gunfire had
been sporadic all day, the mission staff noticeably agitated.
We decided to move on the next morning and thought it best to join
up with a group of Australians that we'd met. Safety in numbers
and all that…
They were heading south
to Burundi with the intention of catching a boat from Bujumbura
that would take them down Lake Tanganyika to Zambia. It took all
day to get to the south of the country and involved a big row with
a minibus driver at Kigali who wanted to charge us all double because
of our rucksacks, even though they fitted nicely under our seats.
During the commotion some little bastard helped himself to my Walkman
out of my rucksack pocket. I'd had had that for years!
Rather than cross the
border right at the end of the day we stopped for the night in Butare
a few miles short. The evening was uneventful and we all had an
early night.
At about 4:30am the drums started; speeding up and slowing down;
deep, ominous, foreboding. I've still no idea if it was just a village
entertainment thing or if here in central Africa they still use
drums to communicate, but I'm telling you, these drums were sinister.
They finally quit at about 8:30am.
An hour later we found
ourselves waiting outside a small eatery for a couple of taxis to
arrive to take us across the border into Burundi. While we were
waiting, a smartly dressed American guy who claimed to be working
for the UN approached us. In his hand he held a typed report that
was purported to be going out on that afternoon's BBC World Service.
It read "Situation in Burundi deteriorating rapidly. 14 bodies
seen floating in the river close to the Rwanda border gate the previous
evening," plus a whole lot more that I can't remember. This
guy was insistent that we didn't carry out our intention to enter
Burundi. A quick discussion and the Australian group decided that
they would go for it; they had to catch that boat. Tracey suggested
that we should take the UN guy's advice but I felt happier sticking
together as a group.
The first taxi came and
half of the group crammed themselves in. We said we'd wait for the
next one. It came shortly after and off we went. Our taxi had a
serious leak in the radiator and we had to stop every fifteen minutes
or so and wait for the driver to leg it down to the river that followed
the road, bottle in hand, and top up.
At the border we caught
up with the others and found ourselves at the end of a queue of
hundreds of people trying to leave the country. We were bumped straight
to the front of the queue and were through within a matter of minutes,
arranging for a minibus to Bujumbura. I don't fully understand why
so many people were trying to leave Rwanda for Burundi because on
the other side of the border it was far worse. Along our entire
route the roads were lined with an exodus of people walking towards
the borders with their belongings packed up and balanced on their
heads. We were driving towards whatever it was they were trying
to get away from!
Aside from the folk trying
to get out of the country, we also saw many aggressors hiding out
in the quieter areas between villages. Our driver explained that
we wouldn't see much trouble in the daytime as generally speaking
the fighting people slept or rested during the day and went out
killing after nightfall. Even so, we saw many young men squatting
by the side of the road sharpening spears, machetes and axes. At
one point we were driving past a high embankment and a group of
men stood silhouetted against the sky waving spears at us as we
drove past. There didn't seem to be any firearms evident in this
conflict, just big fuck off blades. Gradually the number of fleeing
people along the roadsides dwindled and as we drove into the central
parts of the country we found all the villages deserted, some of
the houses burned out, most just boarded up. About 5 miles short
of Bujumbura we rounded a corner and saw ahead six guys standing
across the road wielding spears and machetes at us, clearly expecting
us to stop. There was no way our driver was going to oblige and
see every one of his passengers butchered before eventually having
his throat slit, so he put his foot to the floor and drove straight
at them. Tracey and I were sitting in the front with the driver
and just as we drove at them I saw all but one dive out of the way.
The one who didn't tried to sidestep the minibus and swing an axe
through the windscreen. As I saw the axe come round I brought my
hat up in front of Tracey's face and braced myself for the explosion
of glass. Somehow our driver managed to swerve in time to avoid
the swinging axe and, unbelievably, we were through, hearts in our
mouths. This was about the hairiest moment we had had in all the
time we were in Africa.
The sight of Bujumbura
down in the valley below and Lake Taganyika shimmering as far as
the eye could see was a welcome one. We very shortly passed through
a military checkpoint and into the "safe" environs of
the city centre.
We stayed in Bujumbura
for a couple of days before moving on. That's another story.
Author: Lee Ridley
Contact: news@polosbastards.com
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