Postcards From The Edge: DR Congo
I had finally, joyfully slipped into a lovely dream where the mosquito buzzing in my ear had been transformed by some somnambulistic sleight of hand into the comforting hum of an air conditioning unit. As if by magic I had immediately forgotten where I actually was, 14 of us stuffed end to end in a tiny hut in the middle of the rural village of Kinkosi. We had, in all fairness, stayed up past our bedtimes the night before, villagers and visitors huddled round a fire as we exchanged stories and songs while the sun bled into the horizon and the stars shone above us with an unfamiliar clarity. There had been highs (a beautiful call and response worship hymn sung in the native Lingala), lows (our inexplicable decision to respond with the Grease Megamix) and laughter as people took turns to entertain the group. And there I was performing ‘Jaberwocky’ to a bunch of village children who had no idea what in God’s name was going on as I stomped around the fire, face pulled back into a gurning death mask of horror, roaring surrealist verse into the night sky.
But that had been then, and now, as I was blissfully carried away on a tide of sleepy nothingness, I heard a voice cut through the fug...
“We need to get out of here. Now!”
And we were done with the sleeping. In the next few frantic minutes it became immediately clear that a storm was coming, one of sufficient intensity to make the roads out of the village impassable if we didn’t leave in the next five minutes. Half-asleep, half-understanding we dressed, threw our stuff into our bags and ran for the truck, the rain beginning to thunder down around us as we jammed into every available space on the two tiny 4x4s. Twenty minutes of aggressive driving later, the soggy landscape flying past our window in smudges of reds and green, we were on tarmac and safe, our little convoy catching its breath and laughing at our little adventure.
And as we clapped each other on the back and congratulated ourselves on our ‘lucky' escape, on the other side of the country, tides turned, forces fell and people lost their lives. Thousands alone and displaced, facing an uncertain future and the every present threat of more violence to come.
We play at being travellers and story tellers and sometimes we get caught up in our own fictions.
Real life is a scarier, more unpredictable place.
with shoes. Naftikos dr dre
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