Third Goal

Wednesday, January 13 Another cool night had passed, another morning had come, and it was time to check once again on my ride to Kelle. Linda told me the truck would pick up passengers at the Hydro-Congo station very soon, if it was running at all, for that was the usual routine. We volunteers had been instructed by our leaders in the capitol city, to take a couple of weeks away from our own posts and visit those of other Americans in our general area of the country. The idea was to learn from the progress of others, to compare notes, and also to give us all a break from our own local frustrations. For me, outlying visits basically meant Etoumbi, Kelle and Owando. I already knew that nothing was going on in Owando, and I had just paid my visit to Etoumbi. That only left Kelle, where it was said there might actually be some work in progress that I could investigate. Linda, knowing that transportation to Kelle from Etoumbi was erratic, difficult and unpredictable, offered me the use of her motorcycle. She only rode her Peace Corps issued machine when necessary, because she was, by her own admission, never entirely comfortable on it. I gave it some thought. The offer was appealing, because the dirt-bike could have taken me all the way to Kelle in three hours or so, whereas a truck might be on the road all day for the same trip. But I did not feel at liberty to use her bike. If anything bad happened on the way, the responsibility would have been mine and Peace Corps officials would have had a lot to say, none of it good. I just did not want to face the potential hassle. That in mind, I wished Linda well and headed on foot for the Hydro-Congo station to try once again for the truck.
Just as the first threads of sunlight broke across the mountain top, I was standing in front of the station with my pack strapped to my back and I felt great. I knew then that I COULD have walked to Kelle if necessary, for my feet seemed to have recovered. And, I also realized that something was wrong with the picture. No other prospective passengers were waiting with me, and the big truck was nowhere in sight. The lady proprietor at the gas station told me she didn’t know anything about the travel schedule for that day, but I was welcome to wait out front as long as I wished. Resting my gear on an elevated curb made of cinder block, I stood next to it for a quarter hour, alone, conspicuous and feeling out of my element. Momentarily, a Congolese woman walked up, greeted me in French, and took a seat on the curb next to my pack. I asked her if she was going to Kelle. “No, I am going to Makoua. Are you trying to catch a ride to Kelle?”
“Yes,” I replied. “I was told to catch the truck here”. “But,” she said, “the truck has already gone!”
Her words hit me like a brick. Uncertainty and frustration was a part of daily life in the Congo, but that was over the top. As I stood there, deciding what to do next, a man drove up to the gas pumps in a pickup truck. Calling out to me, motioning me over, he explained that he had heard I was trying to catch a ride to Kelle. If I would care to hop inside, he would take me to catch the truck. Immediately I climb in and we started out, moving quickly. We spun away from the station and tore down the dirt highway heading west and soon we were speeding through the curves that led out of town. Just then we passed a group of modern looking apartment buildings, which my driver explained were originally built for government use. He also said they were mostly vacant at the time, but he did not explain why that was and I did not bother to ask. We sped another half-mile before we came upon a crowd of about twenty people milling about, standing in the road behind a large vehicle. Thus a stranger had rescued me from confusion and deposited me where I needed to be, simply because he wanted to help. I shook his hand with gratitude, got out, and made ready for entry into my next adventure. The truck was a heavy lorry with a high crash cage that went from the back of the cab to the rear gate, bearing a sheet of canvas that was loosely draped over the front. The same three men with whom I had spoken the afternoon before, the same three who had been working underneath the vehicle, were all there, one tinkering with something inside the bed, another standing on the side of the road biting chunks out of a loaf of bread, and the third engaged in a vigorous conversation with two women. Nobody seemed to be in any hurry. The vehicle had surely stopped in that spot to collect passengers, but nobody was boarding. I then looked inside and understood what was going on. Baggage was being systematically jammed forward under the canvas where a few people were already staking out positions on top of the cargo. When more “stuff” was brought aboard, people simply moved about to make room, and then they claimed seats again. When the lorry was finally ready to go, carrying a few sacks of manioc and only ten people, I began thinking that my trip to Kelle might not be a bad one at all. At least we would all have breathing room and we could even find spaces to sit if we chose. Moments later the engine cranked up, and we started out. Then, incredibly, we made a U-turn that pointed us straight back toward downtown Etoumbi. Looking about, scanning the other faces, I seemed to be the only one who was confused. Underway and in a rush all of a sudden, we went straight away to the Hydro-Congo station where I had waited earlier. But that time, thirty more people were standing at the curb. They scarcely let the vehicle stop before they began climbing in through the back, bags in hand, and then they quickly jammed themselves into whatever spaces they were able to find. Soon, forty people and a mountain of cargo filled the bed, forcing most of us to stand wherever we could plant our feet and hang on to the crash cage for support. And just as soon, we started out again. That time we rolled no more than thirty yards across the street to a little mud and tin store where we stopped again, turned around, and slowly backed toward an open door. And there the engine was shut down once more. “Everybody out!” someone called. We all climbed down to the clay and got out of the way. A curious person might have wondered why some advance planning might have taken place to eliminate some of the confusion, but the fact of African dynamics was that nobody much cared about that sort of thing. Planning was not the job of the passenger, and passengers had learned to accept whatever happened as a necessary part of going somewhere. Indeed that very subject was one of the mysteries of third world Africa that most volunteers forever pondered and joked about, and which the Congolese, at least, simply accepted. We spent nearly an hour at the store, engaged in an exercise that might have been comical had it not been so frustrating. While all of us stood in the road, every piece of luggage was removed from the truck and piled onto the dirt, and then the three crewmen loaded more cargo from the store. Specifically, they brought aboard twenty large sacks of flour and seventy-two cases of bar-soap. The sacks and boxes were heaved up into the bed to the hands of a man who dragged them forward and positioned them to suit his fancy. He tested the pile three times, making sure they were firmly set, before he was finally satisfied with his work and gave it a thumbs up. Next, all of the baggage was taken aboard again. Each bag was pushed up to the man inside, who then arranged it all on top of, and in front of, the rest of the cargo. When we passengers were allowed to load again, several children and a few adults took places on top of the baggage while the rest of us stood elbow to ribcage, jam packed. When the engine cranked up again, the sun was high in the sky and I had been involved in the process more than two hours already. Nevertheless, I was happy that we finally seemed ready to begin our trip to Kelle. The canvas cage-cover had been bunched together and tied forward to shelter only the cargo, and three young people had climbed to the top of the cage where they stretched out and obviously intended to stay for the ride. The engine revved, the front tires were turned westward again, and we jerked into motion on the highway once more. Unbelievably, when we reached the other boarding site, the one at which I had begun the ride, we stopped once again to welcome three more passengers with travel bags. More shuffling had to be done for the loading, but ten minutes later we were rolling toward Kelle. The time was 8:30 a.m. And I was already wishing I had decided to walk. When no more than a mile was behind us, it became obvious that the highway was a major mess. Rains had turned it into a brutal obstacle course of deep washouts, loose mud and standing water which covered the road and exposed the shoulders as thin mounds of grass. Those of us who were standing were slammed about and tossed against each other and crushed into the metal cage until I begin to wonder how much a body could endure. Our feet were constantly stepped on, knees are knocked together, elbows were swung accidentally into jaws, hips met hips, as if a prelude to some strange and violent ritual. The cage was very high and some of the overhanging brush was so low, so that the three people on top are often forced to lie flat and hold tight to avoid being swept off. Furthermore, as every branch was struck, those of us below were barraged with falling insects, leaves, twigs, dirt and water. Dozens of different kinds of bugs were soon crawling all over the truck, and on people’s heads and shoulders and in their laps. A huge yellow and black spider was moving between a woman’s feet, while a large worm was crawling over a little girl’s hair. I brushed the back of my own neck in sympathy. Two hours into the trip we paused at the edge of a palm grove, where several men waited to hand up several huge sacks of manioc. When we had made room for those, we also had to accommodate a new passenger. Two more hours inside our human pinball machine passed before we stopped again, just before entering a thicket of forest. That time we took on a man with a rifle, who I supposed was a poacher, I suspected that, because of the clandestine manner in which he suddenly appeared at exactly the right moment and the knowing manner of our unsignaled stop. The poacher seemed to be well acquainted with the crew and several of the passengers, as if rendezvous of the type were perfectly normal for most of the people aboard. Following that, long sections of our “highway” completely disappeared beneath oblong lakes of muddy water. Relentless rain falling on low-lying clay had nowhere to go, so the water stood where it fell until evaporated by the sun. And when the rains were regular, as they usually were during that time of the year, the drying process could take months. Noticing behind us as we went and noting that the road was invisible under the yellow soup, it occurred to me that our driver must be steering between the walls of elephant grass without really knowing where the road ended and the ditches began. Whatever his technique, since he could not tell where the potholes were, we passengers continued to take a beating which included bone-jarring shocks that threatened to pry us from our grips and drop us to the floor in a tangled heap.
Seven hours later and still six miles out of Kelle, we came upon a dump truck that had somehow stalled half way up a long grade. Because it had stopped in the middle of the road and left no room to pass, everybody had to get out and try to help to push it out of the way. After a spirited deliberation between the drivers of the two vehicles, arguing as to the best method for dealing with the situation, a plan was conceived. Because the tires of the heavy truck had settled into the soft clay, two dozen of us had to push it backward to break it free and start it rolling. The driver was supposed to manipulate the rig closer to the mountain wall, but he seemed unable to do that and was only making matters worse. Dozens of people yelled at him to stop, but it was too late. I heard an unpleasant crunch as one corner of the dump body jammed snugly into the mountain wall. It would go no further backward, and human power alone could not possibly have moved it forward.
Finally, with the back of the truck punched into the clay bank and the front jutting widely into the road, the only thing left for us to try was to go around via the ditch. It would be close. The road was hardly more than a scooped out place in a mountain of clay and rock, where steep walls guarded narrow trenches of loose dirt. Our driver inspected the situation, pondered it a while, discussed it some with his crew, and came to a decision. He climbed back into the lorry and fired it up. Like a determined character in an old war movie, his face grew taut and serious. His hands gripped the wheel until his knuckles were pale. His back straightened, his jaw tightened, his eyes narrowed. He glanced one last time at his men and the hopeful passengers, and then he jammed the transmission into a forward gear. The engine revved, the clutch was released and our metal beast was in motion again, jerking, struggling, groaning under the weight. The left front tire went into the ditch, followed quickly by the rear, and the big machine was making progress. The front fender inched past the rear of the stalled truck, space narrowing sharply as it went, as the tension of the crowd rose accordingly. Engine complaining, gears grinding, tires spinning, body jerking, I thought he just might make it. We all waited with great anticipation as the drama unfolded. But then, just as the driver was evenly alongside the other rig, the lorry skinned against the mountain wall for one noisy moment before it abruptly stopped. The tires on the driver’s side had sunk into the sand and the others had lost traction because of the tilt. Then two trucks then stood side by side on the only route to Kelle, both stalled, entirely blocking the road to any motion other than human feet. Some of the passengers stood back to silently examine the situation, while others loudly complained to the driver advising what he should have done if only he had been competent to do it. Tempers flared, voices raised, arms flew in hostile animation, and I stayed back out of the way. I didn’t care a whit about the truck. My thoughts were only considering the best way to finish my trip to Kelle. I started back aboard to retrieve my pack, planning to walk the rest of the way, but the crew argued with me. “It will only take a few minutes to free the truck”, one of them insisted. Also, he pointed out, freeing my pack from the pile would be a major problem because it was buried underneath some of the cargo. Furthermore, it was a dangerous route for a person to walk alone where large animals abounded and pythons were hungry. I offered a concession. I would wait a half hour and then decide. They grinned happily. Surprisingly, it took only a few minutes to jack up the truck, secure timbers under the wheels and recover traction. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself, but the wheels were soon moving again and our ride squeezed past the other truck into freedom. Momentarily, we all climbed aboard again and we left the other driver to his own fate. Our problem at least, had been overcome. When we finally reached Kelle shortly before nightfall, we had been on the road eight grueling hours, averaging five miles per hour, and everyone was worn out. People crowded around us when se stopped in “town”, grinning and chattering like people presented with a new grandchild. One of the men among them told me how to find Larry, the local American, whose home, he assured me, was not far. “Just walk up that road”, he said while pointing, “and ask anyone along the way”. I started walking, glad to be off that truck, and confident that Larry’s house would be near. Familiarity was a fact of life for the only white man who lived in a village of 1600 people. My trip to Kelle was finally done. (For the more exciting parts of the story, visit homepage.mac.com/f.e.pitts) Frederick Edward Pitts

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