37. People´s Republic of Congo: N'kayi - Brazzaville

N’Kayi, Congo, Monday, 7 March, 1983

(Helena) Don Rogelio’s day starts at 5:40 when he gets up, and he gets to work by 6:00. We got up much later and had breakfast with him at 8:00.  Once again we have a bunch of clothes to wash, so we did that until 1000, when Don Rogelio picked us up to go to the Securité. No problems there but they put two more stamps in our passport, one with our date of departure, so we can’t extend our stay very freely. We had several more errands to do in town, so he showed us where to catch the bus out to Suco II. We had a bit of time, so we looked around the market a bit and bought 5 more little tins of condensed milk for making our dulce de leche. We’ve been seeing such beautiful lengths of cloth all along. Here it’s the same, but for some reason they display them all piled up (crumpled up) instead of neatly folded.

Our microbus out to the country held mainly women and school children, and most of them went to the same little village where Don Rogelio lives. It’s a Suco bus, so we paid nothing.

When don Rogelio showed us the clothes-washing facilities, he sort of assumed I (Helena, the woman) would wash and iron all the clothes.  Well, I’m afraid Dan washed his clothes, but we decided to do everything else PROPERLY. I actually ironed several things including our sheets and pajamas. I don’t think I’ve ever done that at home even, but it felt mighty nice when bedtime came.

So far it has been hard to converse much with him because he’s so busy that we only see him in the noisy open Suzuki he drives, or at mealtime when he listens to the French news full blast. During breakfast and lunch the “boy” (he actually uses the English word) is here, so it’s funny to hear Don Rogelio yell out every so often MICHEL and Michel will yell back “PATRON”. A different world; funny to a point.

In the late afternoon, Don Rogelio took us out on a drive through some of the sugarcane fields. Along with the wood that gets cut, he laments there is no longer any of the wildlife there used to be. All we saw were some bright red-headed birds and a few sage hens. We wouldn’t have known the name of the sage hens if we hadn’t run into Nelson Gros, a Louisianan who is here as a technical representative for CAMECO. Mr. Laneyrie had thought of taking us up a nearby hill, but wasn’t sure of the road conditions. Mr. Gros said it was fine, led the way for a while in his Suzuki, and finally all of us rode to the top with him. Beautiful long view, but Don Rogelio thought it too dark for pictures. Sooo... he asked Mr. Gros if he would be able to take us back up in complete daylight. He is much more independent, so he would be freer to take us up. He seemed glad to do it, so we set a date for tomorrow morning.

Sugar cane fields near Suco II, N'kayi, Congo

N’Kayi, Congo, Tuesday, 8 March, 1983

(DAN) We got up soon after Don Rogelio but before the “boy” arrived, and had a cup of tea. Then I got out the tent, set it up, and worked on it. We’ll see how it holds up in the next rain. Helena washed out some more clothes.

When Don Rogelio came back he brought a young Frenchman for breakfast, so Michel had to set another place and heat some more bread. We had not progressed very far when a Dutchman appeared at the door. MICHEL! There were no more cups, so he had to settle for a bowl (Don Rogelio is all packed, as we said). The Dutchman worked for many years in Rhodesia in the tobacco industry, married a Rhodesian, and consequently speaks excellent English. He thought Rhodesia was deteriorating completely, and assumed we were traveling to South Africa to get a job. “Now that is a beautiful country.”

About then another Frenchman with the company showed up with his chauffeur. MICHEL! No more cups or bowls, so Michel had to wash some cups, heat some more water, heat some more bread. Somehow it seemed more humorous at the time, because nobody seemed in much of a hurry and kept eating. They all got up about 0900 and sauntered to work.

Nelson Gros showed up on the dot and we set off again for the hill. It has a tremendous view in all directions and even has a hut for fire watchers during the dry season. The only trouble, Nelson says, is that they don’t have either a vehicle or a walkie-talkie, and if they do spot a fire in the cane, they have to run the 4 km to the factory housing to reach a telephone.

More sugar cane in the People's Republic of Congo

He gave us some information on the problems with the sugar refineries. He says they still have 5000 tons of the 1981 crop stored at Pointe Noire which has not been sold. Both of the warehouses are full of the 1982 crop and the l983 harvest is coming up in May. This has caused an extreme shortage of money, and they are in need of what Reagan calls “revenue enhancement”. They had not been paid for three months, but had a payday Friday. There is no diesel, so they cannot repair the roads as they normally do at this time. The cane is on a concession of 20 km by 40 km, so they have hundreds of km of road to maintain. (They have a main road every 2 km on the rectangle.)

There is a shipping container of CAMECO spare parts at Pt. Noire, but Suco owes the railroad so much money they won’t transport it. Of the 46 huge CAMECO tractors they have bought at $87,000 apiece, 26 are on the blocks because they have no tires for them. Most of the ruined tires are due to stumps from trees which grow up in neglected fields and were cut off about a foot high. The bad roads wear tires twice as fast, etc., en fin.

Despite the gloomy conversation, we had a most enjoyable outing with Nelson. CAMECO, Cane Machinery and Engineering Company, based in Thibodeaux, Louisiana, only manufactures cane growing and processing equipment, and only markets outside the US, so I don’t feel so ignorant at never having heard of it.  Nelson is the technical representative for the company here and to a lesser extent at a refinery in Cameroon. When you buy highly specialized machinery such as the loaders, lifts, etc. an item is included in the price which entitles you to a “tech rep” to oversee the maintenance. Suco has so much CAMECO equipment that Nelson spends 8 months out of the year here. He works two months in the field and then gets one week back in the US with his family. I’m sure he makes a very good salary.  He had a Sofetel sticker on his car so he must stay in the best hotels; all of that included in the price of the equipment.

He works in Francophone Africa because he can speak Cajun French. In fact, he said he had to learn English when he went to school. He is a Cajun from Thibodeaux itself. We really like him; he was so gentle with his Suzuki jeep, for example. It is nearly as old as the junk everybody else is driving, but he drives it up on a ramp and goes through and tightens all the bolts every two weeks, and the vehicle just purred as he coaxed it along. You get the feeling he treats everything that well. He has worked in this capacity for 18 years, but he says his wife and 5 kids have never lived with him abroad. Later, as he was dropping us off, he explained he himself had only had 5 years of school, and he wanted them to stay at home so they wouldn’t make the same mistake. He said he had never even gone to “hydraulic school”; he had just taught himself by taking things apart.

He asked us if we wanted to make a tour around the refinery, so after taking pictures from the hill we headed that way. We stopped a while to watch maybe a hundred men planting the cane. He says they bought over a million dollars worth of CAMECO planting equipment, but they prefer to employ men to do it by hand. Women do the hand weeding. As far as I could tell, they have piles of cane on the field, and the men walk back and forth, planting stalk by stalk.

He drove us around the refinery and showed us the different CAMECO machinery. We ran into the Dutchman again; he is apparently the advisor for the repair garage. He walked up, leaned in the window, and said, “Those Blacks are lazy bastards, you see how we whites suffer, and it’s not even our damn job.” We never heard him speak but what he was sarcastic or bitter. The contrast with Nelson was great. After giving us such royal treatment, he kept apologizing for not being able to spend more time with us. I understood he had never seen another “American” in N’Kayi in two years. (We can be US citizens if it offers some comfort). An example of his accent: director’s house - deyerectuhz howze (with a slight whistle on the s’s).

The rest of the morning and early afternoon we worked some more on the maintenance of our equipment. I washed both packs, scrubbed the rain ponchos, garbage bags, etc. With my pack, I took it completely apart and scrubbed each of the 11 parts individually, the first time I’ve ever done that.

 

The contents of our two backpacks, completely emptied.

At lunch Don Rogelio suggested we take a paseo to town later in the afternoon. Earlier in our conversation he had lamented all of the money spent on arms in the world, and how much happiness could be bought with a 1000 CFA of bread given to poor children in town. He suggested we participate “dando de comer a los niños”. He has certainly a unique outlook on the world. He has been listening to the French election results and loudly cheering the demise of the Socialists, and has made other right-of-center comments. At the same time he has denounced militarism and described the Falklands war as Argentine military “pavadas” (fooling around.)  Judging from his schedule, and the fact that at 67 he is the only engineer for all of Grandes Molinos who is over the late 50’s, he is a man who has worked hard and well all of his life, and sees that method as the answer.

That afternoon we went into town by a different route expressly, I think, to show us the 7 km stretch women walk twice a day to sell things to the workers at the refinery. We went and bought bread (15 loaves) for the children and made a stop at the store owned by the Portugués -- Ets Fernandes. We’ve neglected to mention another sign of Congo’s non-totalitarianism is many, or most, of the big import stores are owned by Portuguese merchants. Hard for me to understand.

After buying ham and cheese for the house, we tooled off to the poor neighborhood. Before we got there, Don Rogelio predicted children would appear “like flies” calling “Tante Roger, Tante Roger.” Sure enough, maybe 30 kids gathered, but the people from whom he always borrows a table were gone, and since it couldn’t be done right, we tooled off again. Then he took us to tour the market, but it was wrapping up operations. We did run into three Cubans who work at the hospital. One man was smoking a cigar and gave one to Don Rogelio. Don Rogelio put it in his mouth, but later confided if he lit it, it would kill him. He seemed to be on good terms with them but we did not talk long.

Then we went to a friend’s restaurant to drink coffee, but she was gone. Then we went to the Suco I refinery to meet a “truly beautiful” African woman who used to babysit their son, but she was gone. I think by now D.R. was getting desperate. We checked at the train station and found the only viable train came through at 0056 hrs, so things in general did not look good.

I forgot to mention D.R. once asked us to describe our diet. His verdict:  “Hace falta un bife!” So we got protein during our stay. A typical meal started with a salami entree with homemade salami from his part of France (near Lyons). The main course was usually roast beef or pork, then a copious salad from his garden. He claims he has to have greens at every meal. Finally, “MICHEL!! Apport les fromages!” And we’d finish off with a choice of at least three different cheeses. We don’t know if that was his normal diet or if he was trying to make up for his wife’s absence and not having fancy deserts. I don’t know what the effect of our account has been, but he, more than anybody, made us feel at home. Except for this uncomfortable afternoon where he tried to entertain us, we felt very comfortable. He was busy and was not averse to letting us fend for ourselves.

We all went to bed early and woke up at 1150 to head in to catch the train. He said since he would have to hit the deck at 5:30, he would leave us if the train wasn’t on time. We left there, possibly the only backpackers in Africa with ironed sheets and pajamas, squeaky clean packs, and two big ham sandwiches in our food bag. Something had to be missing! Ah yes, the train; it was to be at least 1 hr late when we arrived. The last we saw of Don Rogelio was the back of his orange Suzuki driving into the darkness.

 

Our route marked in yellow.

                                                 

                                                    N’Kayi - Brazzaville, Congo, Wednesday, 9 March, 1983

(HELENA)  When I told Dan just now the Suzuki was yellow, he said, “You mean that wasn’t orange?!”

Our train finally arrived at 4:00, only four hours late (nothing compared to the 17-hour wait in Tambacounda, Senegal). When Don Rogelio dropped us at the station, there was a long line at the ticket window. By some miracle, the line proceeded in a very correct and orderly manner. Who knows, maybe the two orderly lines we’ve seen in the Congo are products of the supposedly Marxist government. In no other country have we seen more than feeble attempts at lines. Mr. Laneyrie had said there might be coche cama (beds) in first class, so Dan and I succumbed to the temptation and paid a little less than double the second class fare to come first class. We could justify this by saying we can’t go all the way through Africa without once traveling first class, and besides, first class turns out to be 2/3 as much as we’ve paid for public road transport here in Congo.

We were glad we’d done that because, when the train did arrive, everybody piled on to the already full second class. Even in First, we got the last two seats that were together. We’d been told the trip would be slow and take at least 9 hours, but we moved right along and arrived at the pretty nice Brazzaville gare after only 6 1/2 hours. As we rode along, the countryside changed gradually until there were a lot more short trees in among the grass.

Having learned our lesson for Congo, I stayed with the packs while Dan went immediately to check in at the Securité. He was gone two full hours, but by some miracle he returned grinning from ear to ear. They hadn’t stamped the passports, but they had informed him we would need a visa to exit, and in order to get that, the people at the Zaire embassy needed to write a Laissez Passer for us which states they will let us in once we’ve crossed the river. MADDENING since we went to a lot of trouble in Dakar, Senegal to get the Zaire visa.

As to the big grin, he had happened onto the USA embassy, gone in, and asked the marine on duty if he knew of any place in town where we might camp. Dan very carefully stressed he answer only if he wasn’t busy. “Don’t worry; we’re not a big operation here.” The marine didn’t know, but he asked a secretary, who didn’t know either, but she asked a first young man, who took Dan to a second young man. They discussed it. The first man took him to another woman and they discussed it. That woman (it turned out she and her husband had backpacked through Africa, sans tent) is in charge of Villa Washington, the recreational facilities they have here for the USA community. She said we might be able to camp at the Villa, but she’d have to talk it over first with the board of directors. She asked Dan to call her in the afternoon, there at the Villa.

So, here we’ve always felt discouraged at our reception at the different USA embassies, and this time they really went out of their way to be helpful and nice. As Nick said, there just aren’t that many USA citizens running around these parts. (Nick is the first marine Dan talked to.)

We had our bread and peanut butter right where I’d been waiting and after another hour Dan called the Washington Villa lady. No word on camping there, but she’d talked to the “gunny”(?) and he’d said we could camp on the grounds of the marine house. If I didn’t know we’re only halfway through our trip, I’d say we’ve seen them all.

We took a long way to get here (it turned out to be just down the street from the railroad station), but it turned out to be a huge, soft lawn and we certainly couldn’t ask for more security. In the late afternoon Dan played a bit of basketball and talked some more with Nick. He was on ground control for a year in Cuba, will be here (supposedly an “extreme hardship post”) a year and then he’ll choose where he wants to go. Australia is his first choice. We were told the bathroom and shower we are to share with the workers is “grungy”, but it’s one of the cleaner ones we’ve seen. Early to bed.

Camping at the US Embassy Marine quarters in Brazzaville, pure luxury.

                                                              Brazzaville, R.P. Congo, Thursday, 10 March 1983

(DAN) The receptionist at the Zaire embassy had told us to show up at 0800 to pick up our Laissez-Passers. We were about 15 minutes late, but his door was closed. We were told to come back at 0900. We wanted to check out the ferry situation to cross to Kinshasha, so we headed over to Le Beach. We got the bad news they only sell round-trip tickets, so if we don’t do some finagling, we will pay as much to cross these 3 km as we did to cross 30-odd km of the Sts. of Gibraltar. Grrr. We did find by changing CFA to Zaires here we can get 20 Z to 1 $ vs. 5 Z to 1 $ on the official rate. I think we’ve learned our lesson there.

Back to the Zaire embassy --  our man was back, but the ambassador had left without signing our papers. Come back before noon. This time we struck out in the direction of the huge cathedral we’d seen as we came into town. It is perhaps one of our favorite modern edifices to date. It is built completely of brick, concrete, and rock. The inside is a series of arches which super­impose on each other in a way that reminds us of the Mezquita Cathedral, Córdoba. The roof above the altar is held up by huge arches in uneven numbers. The floor and the raised area for the altar are stone; the altar is held up by two boulders and the altar itself is a huge slab of wood, maybe 30 ft by 10 ft by 1 ft thick. The huge windows were designed so they are never shut, but well protected, always affording cross-ventilation. It was a very cool place.

Just across the square from the cathedral is the Maison de Commune, all yellow with red trim, with huge pictures of Marx and Engels on the front walls. There is another sign which says Immortal Glory to the Comrade Nguaobi. There have been red signs with slogans in yellow letters, but this is the culmination. Most of the signs deal with the big, first, 5-year plan they instituted last year. eg.: “Economies without central planning can never reach economic liberation.” “The five-year plan is a law, and the law must be obeyed.” Then there are others with general slogans such as “Work creates man” and “A bas les corruptibles et les corrupteurs.”

There is a new development in school uniforms here. The girls wear pants just as the men do; however, many of them are cut in recent French style which kind of softens the revolutionary idea.

We went back to the Zaire embassy but our papers were still not signed. Finally at 1210 our man brought them and gave them to us without a word. I don’t know if he had been expecting a bribe or not because he did not acknowledge our thanks.

Of course immigration was closed, but we did not believe the little sign which said the siesta was from 1130 to 1530, so we stuck around and checked back after every hot half hour. We walked perhaps 8 blocks in several directions but could not find one place that had anything to drink. We both had headaches and I think we were getting pretty dehydrated. True to their word they opened at 1530, but when we checked in, they claimed they only do Zaire exit visas in the mornings. Right in front of our eyes they gave two exit visas to France but refused after a while to even talk with us.  We were both close to tears about now but all they would say is “leave them on the counter outside and come back tomorrow”.  Well, we weren’t about to leave our passports on an obscure counter overnight, and since I had originally been told to come early in the morning, we decided to try again tomorrow.

We set out again in the hot streets, and finally got so desperate we went into a French supermarket and bought a hot drink. Then they refused to give back the deposit on the bottle. By this time we were both seething. Fortunately, our next stop was the philatelic office, and the woman there was so patient and helpful.  Consequently, we were able to find just what we were looking for; so we set out refreshed.

Back at the marine house we got into a conversation with Albert, a sergeant who is the second in command here. He wants to go to San Salvador or Beirut next, “places where they actually do shooting.” He is a good bit older than the other marines and has been to Hawaii, Japan, Nam, and Thailand. He is from Arkansas, but has worked on the pipeline in Alaska.

Nick, from Baltimore, seems a good bit softer. I talked with him while we played b-ball. I think I insulted him when I asked him if one had to meet any qualifications to become an embassy marine. He said, “Not every Joe can do it, you’ve got to have the right attitude.” One applies, and if he is accepted, goes to a hard school, and even then they send some home before their duty is up.

Albert says this is an extreme hardship post because “you can’t get any food” (commissary, I guess), the laundry conditions (“boys” instead of machines), and the living conditions (“castles” in England instead of a big 3-story white house with a 4-acre lawn and grass-thatched gazebo). He warned us because of the extremely hot day (we hear you, man) it would rain in the night. It did, but we got a good 10 hr sleep and the tent has improved its weather tightness.

Brazzaville, Congo, Friday, 11 March 1982

(HELENA) We wanted to get over to the immigration office a primera hora, so we rushed to lock up our packs and tent and walked over. We were there by 7:50 and the man at the “reception counter” told us to leave our passports and laissez passers in the basket and come back and pick them up at 10:30. Fine. We put them on top of a stack of passports and went to the kioskos close by to have the café au lait I’m always wanting. This place really knows how to do it right; they put the Nescafé and condensed milk in a deep bowl and bring you the teakettle to serve yourself. It looks as though these kioskos are set up just for people like us who have to do a lot of waiting at different offices. We stayed there and, after Dan had asked the owner’s permission, got out our materials for a good writing session. We went back at 10:30 to get our pass­ports, but lo and behold, all of the other passports had been processed, but ours were sitting very prettily in the basket. When consulted, the two men in the inner office (one of whom had told Dan day-before-yesterday the process would occupy only a morning) rather rudely informed us everyone gets treated the same and the process takes 24 hours. They had told us yesterday to leave our papers overnight. They refused, we insisted, they refused, etc., until we finally had to leave the papers there. The worst thing was they wouldn’t listen to Dan’s reasoning and explanations. We did not endear ourselves to them.

We went by the USA embassy on the way back to the tent and the vice consul said he would go with us tomorrow if they gave us more trouble. He said Dan was the third person to make a complaint about that same official in one month. Dan spent the afternoon and evening actually hoping we’d have trouble and have to go with the vice consul.

We’d read about some sort of art museum (in “Geoff,” naturally), so Dan asked the chauffeurs and guard where it was. We went to the Poto Poto section of town and found a small but very interesting art school where several people had their paintings displayed. We felt tempted to buy, but in spite of our being unique backpackers, carrying paintings around would be going a bit far. One style in particular was very different because the figures were whitish (ethereal?) with monkey-looking faces. We priced one of those: CFA 45,000 - $132. The young man showing us around was one of the artists, so it made it even harder to walk away empty-handed.

We wanted to get back before dark because we did not want to be stopped by the militia and have no identification on us. We did have our special passports on us, but didn’t think it would go over too well when they saw they were for use in South Africa only.

                                               Brazzaville - Kinshasa, Zaire, Saturday 12 March,1981

(DAN) On the roundabout outside the art school there was a huge painting of three revolutionary figures. We asked a young man if he could name them, but he said the other two were Patrice Lumumba and Engels. We doubt that last one and opine it is Sandino. Across the street was a painting of Marien Ngouabi whom we have finally figured out. In all the stores and police stations they have pictures of two men, one a pasty-faced man in battle fatigues, the other a slick looking man in a business suit. We did not know who “The Man” was. Pasty face, it turns out, is Marien Ngouabi, the president who started the sole political party - National Workers Party. He was murdered in 1977.  The slick man is the person who emerged afterwards and is making an effort to immortalize Ngouabi. His name is Denis Sasson-Nguesso. I have mentioned all of the red signs with yellow letters; many of them say “Immortal Glory to Comrade Ngouabi.” Another memorable one: “He who does not work does not deserve a salary.”

This reminds me -- in the huge Portuguese store in N’Kayi, there was a sign which said, “Comrades, please leave your bags here at the door.” A statement about human nature under any political system.

I also wanted to explain my going to the US embassy, of all places, to ask for a camping place. It occurred to me there are not a lot of US tourists bothering them here. Also, if the ambassador happens to have 40 acres of forest and is tickled to death to have young people camp there, why should we stand on our heads in a cheap hotel room without a bathroom, counting cock­roaches! As it was, the marines only had 4 acres of lawn, but we were well protected from all the three-year-old-youth-movementeers roaming the streets.

Back to earth, we took our time getting ready to leave as we did not want to get to immigration too early to give our friends an excuse to hold us over till Monday. They had said 24 hours. I think the guardians and duty chauffeurs were kind of sorry to see us go. They had spent considerable time enjoying our movements as they relaxed in the gazebo. Out of nowhere, a truck with about 9 passengers pulled up outside and over the wall they watched us pack up. Finally, we had speculated about the house across the street as to whether it was inhabited or not. We could not imagine anybody living in a house along with the literally thousands of bats that fly out every night at dusk. However, two people parked themselves on the balcony, not 5 feet from the bats, and also watched us pack.

We left our bags fully ready and sauntered over to the immigration office. We even had a leisurely coke so we would not arrive before 1000 hrs. However, when we walked in, the receptionist, who had witnessed all of our “troubles”, got us our ready passports and wished us a good trip. We think he was embarrassed by what he had heard going on, but as the others were his superiors, could do nothing. As they say in detective stories, “It was a good thing we got that laissez passer...”

We went back to the marine house via the black-marketeers and changed all our money into Zaires. The official rate is $ 1 - 5 Z, but by changing our CFA on this side we got 1 $ — 22 Z. We walked the few blocks to get our packs, and then headed back to the “beach” to take the ferry.

Well, that ferry crossing is really a racket. They will not sell a one-way ticket, so we were forced to buy a round-trip ticket each. Then, though they had prices listed in both CFA and Z, they would only accept CFA, as in real terms it cost 6 times as much in that currency. One seething ndele (white man) had to go back out on the street and change Z back into CFA at a great loss and buy two round-trip tickets. It cost us nearly as much to cross these 5 or so km as it did the 40 Km of the Straits of Gibraltar!

View of Kinshasa across the Congo river from Brazzaville.