Day 4
Small eyes... dirty t-shirt.
We got up with the first light at 5. We have a custom that we pay the equivalent of the price of a campsite if we can stay with somebody, so we paid our dues to the priest and we were off. The entire village waved us out and the kids tried to keep up with us for as long as they could.
Staying in villages is great for security. People are friendly. But boy-oh-boy forgot about privacy!
I slept ok, no surprise as I was exhausted. Josephine did not sleep very well. The adrenaline. The leaking tent didn't help either. We stopped a few kilometers down the road to make some breakfast.
I wasn't hungry. The adrenaline. For a moment Josephine thought about stopping and returning to Lubum. The last few days were really hard and we were still a veeeery long way from Kinshasa. As agreed before we would not try to convince eachother to push on. She contemplated the situation for half an hour with a warm tea. She is no quiter, she wanted to continue! She is my Josephine! 8-) :cheers:
We were sucked into Congo. Deeper and deeper.
Small eyes... dirty t-shirt.
We got up with the first light at 5. We have a custom that we pay the equivalent of the price of a campsite if we can stay with somebody, so we paid our dues to the priest and we were off. The entire village waved us out and the kids tried to keep up with us for as long as they could.
Staying in villages is great for security. People are friendly. But boy-oh-boy forgot about privacy!
I slept ok, no surprise as I was exhausted. Josephine did not sleep very well. The adrenaline. The leaking tent didn't help either. We stopped a few kilometers down the road to make some breakfast.
I wasn't hungry. The adrenaline. For a moment Josephine thought about stopping and returning to Lubum. The last few days were really hard and we were still a veeeery long way from Kinshasa. As agreed before we would not try to convince eachother to push on. She contemplated the situation for half an hour with a warm tea. She is no quiter, she wanted to continue! She is my Josephine! 8-) :cheers:
We were sucked into Congo. Deeper and deeper.
We were still aiming for Luena. The road was ok but had lots of water in so called "flaques d'eau" - "Puddles". Often the road would be completely immersed. It could be less then 1 cm deep, but it might as well be 1 meter deep.
We (I
)had learned my lesson from yesterday so we really stopped before every obstacle. Josephine did the recce. And then we continued... carefully. It took a lot of time, but getting stuck takes a lot more time.
We came across another vehicle. Every vehicle we saw in the last few days was stuck it seems.
They were on their way to Kananga. Same directions as us. They had bought the vehicle in Lubumbashi but did not have the money to transport to Kananga, so they decided to drive. They were pretty deseperate by now as their "new" car getting damaged by the road and it took them much longer then anticipated. We would pass eachother a few times. We never knew if they made it to their destination.
There is no trough traffic at all on this traject. All transport in the area is done by train. There is an old colonial trainline between Lubumbashi and Kananga. All transport is done via this train or by air.
All in all it was a plesant day. Sun was shining (that's good because it dries out the roads), no major problems with police, and above all: it was the first day since we entered congo that we did not get ourselves stuck! What a feature! 8-)
We left at 5 this morning and arrived in Luena at 14:30. 50 km's covered.
We had received the contact details from Frère Louis via our connections in Lubumbashi. We had already called him, but unfortunately he was not home. He was at the main mission post in Kamina for some meetings. He was kind enough to inform his own mission that we were coming and to let us stay there.
And so we had a leisurely afternoon at his mission. We must say that at first we were a bit dissapointed. Thus far the missions were havens of peace and quiet. Were things were functional (sometimes) and clean (sometimes). Not so at the home of Frère Louis. He lived like the Congolese lived... in a rundown building without any comfort. He had a bathroom that hadn't seen a brush in ages,.. . It struck us as a bit odd, but later we would understand that Frère Louis is one of these rare people that does not care about himself, but only about the others. We would meet Frère Louis later on this trip and everything would become clear then.
He was well organized though. He was the only one in town with transportation
He uses this truck to get supplies from Lubumbashi to all of the project he is running in the area. The big wheels, the portle axles and the huge winch make it a capable bundybasher. It is expensive to run (fuel) so it does not see much action. He had two of these.. but one was broken.
While we were there several people came to visit. Among them was a friendly older lady. She had beautiful (homemade) clothes. She was responsible for the orphanage that was run by Frère Louis.
Her name was Henriette Raman Kitwa Jujinga. What a lovely name it is.
She told us a bit of what she did. I can no longer remember how many orphans they had, but it was enormous! She also said that there were many many more orphans that they could not help.
She invited us to visit the orphanage and suggested that maybe we could help.
We declined :cry: Our moral was low already, we were exhausted and above all we knew that they would ask us for all sorts of things we could not give to them. The only thing we would have left behind would be dissapointment.
I am looking at her phone number now in Josephines notes. I wonder how she is doing..
Her name was Henriette Raman Kitwa Jujinga. What a lovely name it is.
She told us a bit of what she did. I can no longer remember how many orphans they had, but it was enormous! She also said that there were many many more orphans that they could not help.
She invited us to visit the orphanage and suggested that maybe we could help.
We declined :cry: Our moral was low already, we were exhausted and above all we knew that they would ask us for all sorts of things we could not give to them. The only thing we would have left behind would be dissapointment.
I am looking at her phone number now in Josephines notes. I wonder how she is doing..
Progress after 4 days since we left Lubumbashi. Of which we drove 3
