Last night we had tried sending a few SMS messages to our favourite mechanic at home (Hi Pascal! :wink: ). The GSM reception was an on-and-off affair and after a few hours of trying we managed to get a reply with a few suggestions we could try. That would be the first job of the day!
We had our spectators, but only 40 or 50, which is not all that much. Life in the village seemed to continue pretty much as normal. Women were grinding the manioc, kids were playing, men were talking in little groups.
Upon closer inspection we saw that the bolts on the flange were broken off, leaving all 6 holes filled with the remains of the bolts. We had hoped that we could replace some of the bolts with bolts from the front axle (a tip from Pascal). But there was no way that was going to work. We could weld the axle in place, but there was no welder in this village. That would also destroy the axle and the hub, something I did not fancy. After all, if we arrive in Kinshasa, we are still 15.000km from home!
The locals suggest we take our entire rear axle out and transport it (by bicycle) to Dibaya-lubwe. Fix it there and then transport it back and mount it again. That's how the Congolese would handle the situation. We had instant flash-backs to the truck that had been waiting for a year for its repaired engine. Rather not!
We could not fix this here. We had to go to Dibaya-Lubwe, the closest city. It's not that far, so we decided we would try to get there with front wheel drive only. We would take it slowly and carefully!
We tried sending an SMS home to let them know we broke down. But we had no reception at all. Most of the GSM towers here are generator powered and only run for a few hours a day (to hard/expensive to get supplies in.. and too few paying customers too I presume).
Our engine did not start. The batteries had not survived the ferry ordeal. We had to get a push to get the engine started. We scared the people with our insanely loud exhaust (broken off). Children followed our badly beaten truck. We were a miserable sight.
Even before we got back onto the track we got stuck. There was no obstacle. Just a bit of soft sand. We needed another push to get going again.
The road is nearly perfect. Nice and flat, a bit sandy. Yet still, we get stuck on a 10cm incline. That is ridiculous! With all the weight on our rear axle it acts as an anchor. The front wheels on the other hand are not that much loaded and battle to grip. A little bit too much throttle and they spin.
Out come the shovels again. For a 10cm hill! This is going to be a long, long day!
This went on for hour, after hour, after hour. We would get stuck at the most stupid of places. The front axle alone just could not handle the weight and bulk of our Landcruiser on these soft sandy roads. We had deflated the front tyres and inflated the rear tyres. It helped... but not much.
This was a particularely hot and humid day. We were feeling weak. Josephine hadn't slept all night. And my little hike from the last night took away a lot of what was left of my strength. I had skipped too many meals now, the adrenaline was barely enough to keep me going. To make matters worse we entered a forest again and the dreadful ruts reappeared.
This went well for only a very short time. We came to this enormous rut. It was uphill so we had to keep our momentum or our front wheels would start spinning.
Drive next to ruts, offcamber on the hill next to it?
Or drive straight into the rut, which would be very bumpy?
Normally I would have driven next to it. No big deal, it would be scary for a minute, but doable. Now with only one opertional axle I wasn't too sure. I hesitated too long. At the last moment I chose to drive next to the rut but it was too late. We slid sideways and our rear wheel fell into the rut. Our car leaned heavily. Our chassis was grounded. Both left wheels were in the air, the rear right wheel was hanging in the void of the rut. We only had one wheel on the ground now. The back of the car was balancing on the reare axle. We were on the verge of tipping over. There would be no sidewall to keep us upright here. If we go down, we will end up on our roof.
We get out and I got really angry! This is not the kind of obstacle were we would normally get stuck! I was angry at myself for not taking the safer route trough the rut. I was angry at Josephine for... I don't know why exactly. I was angry at everybody and everything! I was so frustrated!
Josephine is a hero in these situations and she managed to calm me down. We had no other choice but to keep going. This would be one hell of an operation to get the car level again.
We started digging to get some ground under the wheels and make a path to drive out of this.
By now we were dirty. We hadn't had a decent wash in weeks. The dirt was everywhere. It was noon and the sun had no remorse with us. We were sweating like pigs. All the dirt that had accumulated on our body now turned into mud from our own sweat. With every movement the dirt would grind a layer from our skin.
I stopped digging and got up. I was seeing stars in my eyes. I could feel the heat trough my hat. I looked at my muddy arms. I sank trough my legs onto my knees. I stayed like that for a few seconds. I wanted to get up. *poof* down I went on my back.
Good question. I don't think we were pushing it too hard. We did have a few things in the back of our minds though.
- We only had a two month visa that started on the day we applied for it in Lusaka, Zambia. That meant we had less then three weeks left on that visa. That is a long time, but considering the progress we had made thus far, it did not give us all that much play. DRC is not the kind of country were you want to run into visa issues.
- We carried food for 30 days. This was our 22nd day so we were starting to run low on food. Most of the tasty stuff we had eaten by now. There was food around here. Foufou (manioc based dough balls) and if we payed to slaughter an animal, we would have meat too. But eating that food would increase the risk to get more stomach problems.
- As you could have seen in the report, we regularly stayed in the same place for a day (even after the first day already) just for the reason you mention. But a day with 100 people around with no privacy at all does not allow for much relaxation. Staying out in the bush we did not do for security reasons. The 'gangs' would get us, no matter what. But the opportunist would be controlled by the social control in a village.
- The more breaks you take, the longer 'the misery' takes. I prefer the short pain.
- At this very moment in the report we made a succesion of mistakes. We did not take a break before starting to dig. We got into this mess because of a driving error. It just happened...
I had hit a limit. This is exactly the kind of situation where I am at my best. Where I am able to keep my cool. Where I am able to remain optimistic. I have been able to keep my cool for over 3 weeks now. But I lost it here.
I had a heatstroke too.
This is where Josephine shines. This time she kept her cool. She put me in the shade and prepared me a dehyrdration drink (we have those instant solutions in our first aid kit). She found our very last piece of chocolate for me. She said the right words to me. Peptalk. Thanks to her I quickly came back to reality.
I wasn't very optimistic though. If somebody popped up here and offered to buy our car I wouldn't have hesitated. If we had the possibility to take a helicopter and fly out of here, I would have taken the opportunity. Both cases were very unlikely to happen!
While I recovered under a tree Josephine organised our recovery. She asked help from somebody that passed by. He wanted money ofcourse, we agreed to pay him.. but only afterwards. These guys are strong! It took him an hour of digging at an insane rate to make a more-or-less level path so we could drive the Landcruiser out of this situation. Driving us out of this one was one of the more hair-raising situations, we were playing with the laws of physics. The god of gravity had mercy and we made it out. This 4x4 work with a front wheel drive car is not easy!
We paid our helper, we paid him much more then we should have. He was angry and demanded more. We drove off.
We discussed our situation. Physically I was a wreck. Josephine was not feeling too fit either. We knew the 'road' was not that far from here, but we would not make it the way we were going now. We agreed we shouldn't get ourselves in a situation like the one we just had.
Take it easy. If we need help, we must organize it. We accepted the fact that this was going to cost us money. So be it.
The track went downhill from here. As soon as we hit the valley we could not get up a stupid little hill. The front wheels were spinning wildly.
Right!
We talked to the guys who were looking at our ridiculous attempts of climbing this ridiculous koppie. They gave us a friendly impression. We explained our situation, our broken diff, etc... We stressed the fact that we were not working for some corporation or NGO. We did not have the budgets these corporations have. We mentioned that we were willing to pay for help, but not much. It's not because we are mundeles that we would pay them insance amounts of money.
Our reasoning was that if they started a discussion at this point in time already, that they would cause us a lot of trouble later on. But they agreed. They wanted to help us and work at a 'normal' rate. We 'hired' three guys. Vita, Mufuta and 'papa' Bazil. They were overly optimistic and said we would reach Kapia that same evening!
Kapia is the village where this track joins the 'Belgian' road.
The main job of our 'crew' was to flatten the road as much as possible. And give us a push if we couldn't get over things. They would level the road, 50 meters at a time and then we would drive as far as we could, etc.. etc..
This was actually working rather well! My depression from earlier that day was already forgotten!
Imagine you are walking on the street, minding your own business. And some chap comes up and explains he has a problem. He asks you for help. You agree and travel with him to his destination. You have no idea who this guy is. You have no idea when you will go home again. You did not inform your family that you would probably not come home that night.
That is how we recruited Mufuta, Basil and Vita.
They were an energetic bunch and did their work with a lot of enthousiasm. Cheering and singing when we had gotten trough another 'obstacle'. They were proud of their task too, and explained it to all the people we passed. We often had a few extra helping hands.
L'office des routes from Congo actually owes us a lot of money as we were reconstructing the roads!
After a few hours, the enthousiasm wore off from our crew. They too started to realize that this was very though and slow going. The road hadn't improved either. Especially Basil, who was already a bit older, was getting tired. By the time we reached a looong hill we were barely moving again.
The group of people that was following us grew larger and larger. But they were not helping with the digging. They occasionally helped with the pushing. This was partly because of Mufuta, Basil and Vita had told them they alone were allowed to help. This to secure their fee. At least, that is what we guessed... they talked Lingala to eachother. We had also told them upfront that we would pay for 3 guys, not an entire village! We are not quite sure how, but after a while other people started helping. Did our 'crew' tell them they would share their fee? Or did they just help because they wanted to?
I don't know... but we could really need the help. We were running in the last hours of daylight again.
We had removed our spare wheels. This allowed more people to push.
The later it got, the more people arrived. And the louder everybody got. Our 'crew' had by now grown to 20 something strong guys. they only had 3 shovels, but they worked in teams. And as soon a piece of road was 'ready' they all gathered behind our Landcruiser and pushed. They sang working songs to give the pace. People were clapping in their hands. Every 5 meter we progressed was a reason to celebrate. People cheered and dansed.
I cannot help myself from moving rythmically behind my keyboard whilst typing this when I think about the ambiance. You could see people going completely wild of excitement everytime we kicked up mud with our spinning tyres while slowly creeping forward. I could feel the trusts at the back of the car from the pushing people. This hill was steep and the ruts were bad. Most people helping us now were from the next village. They had a vision, they wanted to get us in their village for the night!
It was sometimes though, but they kept their - and our - spirits up.
When we reached the top of the hill everybody was going nuts. So were we! We couldn't believe we had actually gotten up here with a broken rear axle. That was some seriosuly difficult terrain!
It was a now few hundred meters downhill and people climbed on our roofrack and hung on our doors for the ride. We were too enthousiastic to say anything about it now.
We could stay next to Papa Likas's house. He was the guy who took the lead in the last climb. A somewhat older guy, and clearly one of the 'richer' people in the village. He might have lacked the degrees and the education, but we could tell he was a clever and wise man. We were offered two chairs (funny how this form of politeness exists everywhere in congo). They were very funny affairs, huge thrones made out of heavy wood. We felt like the king and the queen.
We were offered food - foufou and some fish - but we politely refused. It looked ok, but we did not want to risk getting ill now. We were too weak already (Josephine still had serious stomach problems). As usual we could see the people were actually happy that we did not eat, they didn't have too much.
Our supply of water was low again. The 20 liters that had cost me so much energy yesterday was almost gone. Very, very carefully we inquired if they had a water supply. There was indeed a source, but "c'est très loin" - "it is very far". When he says it is far, I believe him! They bring us a small supply of rainwater to freshen us up. We will have to ration our remaing water.
It struck me how difficult it is to get water here. People would have to walk hours and hours to reach a source. While at the same time the forest is so humid and sticky.
I checked the GPS. We had moved no more then 5km today. I had reached my limit today. Although I felt ok now, I could feel that I did not have any more reserves. Josephine was the hero of the day, without a doubt. But she was suffering from her stomach problems.
The village had become quiet again. Darkness had hidden the little huts in the forest. People could be seen, gathered around little fires. We saw a larger group of people gathered around hut. A strange kind of singing could be heard.. a very sad and mysterious sound. Papa Likas explained that a child was very ill and did not have long to live. People were praying. When asked what illness the child had, Papa Likas replied "On ne sait pas" - "We don't know". There are no doctors here. Another child from the same family died last month.
We had a great evening with dancing and singing and all looked good and fine. And then Congo slaps us in the face again with its hard reality.
Progress after day 23 on the road. Day 28 since we entered DRC. I did not bother trying to add our progress on the map. The scale of the map does not allow for such small markings :roll:
