Short Arm of the Law
Lucas and I drive from Ishango Hotel to the university, to meet our group for breakfast. We pass along the shore of Lake Kivu. There is no water in town this morning so the lake’s beach is packed with people carrying yellow jerry cans, waiting patiently to get their water so they can return home to cook and wash. The roads are lined with children and adults, all carrying jerry cans, some filled, some empty, on their heads.
We meet our group at the university. The restaurant is made of plywood, painted white, with open holes for windows covered in lace panels. The ceiling is low and women out back cook over jikos (coal stoves) in the open air. We breakfast in a back room, set apart from everyone by a thick fabric “door.” Breakfast is large slices of bread, butter and tea. Afterward, we take a tour of the campus and meet a law professor, Janine, who’s originally from Cameroon. She takes an interest in me for some reason and it’s soon apparent she’s something of a feminist. I like her immediately.
We then visit the university Rector (equivalent to a U.S. university president. The rector is a happy, charming man who cannot speak English though he understands us very well. He’s so kind, his manner suggests he’s someone’s secretary rather than the head of the university), the chairman of the board (who is 4 foot tall, looks like a black German officer and speaks only French) and the head of academics who likes to practice his English with us. Kalindi joins us in this last meeting, which means we’ve now met with the top four men of this university. They treat our students like royal guests, taking time to chat with us when they have a graduation to prepare! The rector is printing a copy of the ceremony’s agenda when the electricity goes out. The generator will kick in within ten minutes, but we can’t wait. The agenda is in French anyway. Everything at the university is in French, all class lectures and all their marketing materials. Luckily, we have Bavon as our interpreter.
There’s a little time before lunch at 1pm. Most people want to drive to town, to look around, maybe shop. Ogutu is marrying soon and wants to buy his “wife” a diamond ring. (In Kenya, people call their partners “wife” and “husband” even before they’re ever married. Ogutu has been with his “wife” for 12 years and they have an 11-year-old daughter.) I’d like to take photos of the lava flow, the way it divides downtown, so that we must drive up the edge of the lava, about eight feet, to reach the higher elevation.
Bavon navigates by telling me exactly what to do. “Stop!” “Pull up!” “Go here, go here!” as he points into the windshield, over and over again. Even after I’ve signaled, even after I’ve said, “Okay,” and “I’m stopping,” he’s still directing me. Sometimes it gets on my nerves and I must remind him that I know how to drive. So we’re headed to town with Bavon giving me very detailed instructions, especially when we approach the traffic police. In Kigali, Rwanda, the police men on the side of the road would pull us over, walk to my window saying, “Bonjour,” then they’d wave us on. Sometimes they even called out, "Safe journey!" as we pulled away. Bavon marveled at how they simply looked in the window and waved us on. He attributed this to my white skin and it made him laugh with delight. Today, as we approach the congolese policemen and women in their bright yellow shirts, Bavon reminds me to slow down in case they flag us to the side of the road. Which they do.
I pull over and wait while they speak French. The officer is short and has the cruel face of a criminal. He’s intense. They talk and talk. Finally, Bavon tells me to show my license. The guy says our insurance sticker on the front window is not valid in the Congo, it’s only valid in countries belong to the African Association of Something or Other. As Bavon and the short man talk sternly to each other, I hear the guys in the back discussing what they’d like to eat for lunch.
30 minutes later, Bavon and the guy are still talking sternly. The officer frequently shoos away peddlers and small children who walk zombie-like toward the van to stare at me. “Bonjour, Mzungu,” they all shout. Seems the officer is saying my driver’s license is not international. He wants to see “internationale” written on it somewhere. Finally, the guy walks to Bavon’s side and climbs in. “Go,” Bavon says and I go, having no clue where we’re going. It’s a lot of work for Bavon to have a conversation with the cruel officer and to interpret for the rest of us. So we sit quietly. A matatu passes us so closely the officer leaps forward and throws up his arms, as though we’re going to crash. But he doesn’t get on to me. We drive for 10 minutes then stop. Bavon and the officer and Lucas go inside. We wait for 30 more minutes. Everyone is hot. We’re tired. We just want to see the shops downtown and to eat lunch.
The road is crowded with walkers and vehicles. A small truck passes with a butchered cow in the back. The bed is full of hind quarters and ribs with the skin intact. The cow’s hide was a gorgeous, solid black. On top of everything, held in place by a man riding in back, is the cow’s head. Soldiers ride by. UN soliders and Congo soldiers. Guys pass us on two-wheeled, handmade wooden bikes. They carry strapped-on vegetables, gas cylinders, bags of potatoes, sugar cane, other riders, long metal poles and fire wood. Women carry these same items on their heads, with babies tied to their backs. The women dress in colorful, bold graphics, the fabrics flowing to their ankles and wrapped and knotted into elaborate headdresses.
Finally, our guys emerge from the building holding a scrap of paper on which the police chief has written a pass, officially stamped with his name and title. This pass tells any officer who stops us to let us go, that it’s okay for us to be in town through Saturday. Bavon says he paid a “fine” of $20 USD. But don’t we have to go buy the insurance they were talking about? Not really. Now that we have this piece of paper, we can pass through all police checkpoints. But what about the insurance, in case we have an accident? Not necessary now that we have this piece of paper. It’s not clicking with me, but I leave the logistics to Bavon, who is from the Congo. These police folk in bright yellow shirts earn a salary equivalent to $5 USD per month. Not much at all, which is why they supplement their income by looking for the tiniest offense for which to extract a bribe. And the government is the orchestrator of this flawed system.
As I pull onto the busy road, everyone wants to go back to the school, to park the van. Since our matatu is different from the Congo matatus, we’re a sure mark for the Congolese police. We pick up speed and travel for half a mile when the police flag us over. They want to see my license. Bavon shows them our piece of paper. The guy waves us on. Another ½ mile, another policeofficer waving us over. We show the piece of paper and are released. We get to the border office where Bavon picks up some necessary paperwork for the vehicle then we head back to the university. A police woman pulls us over. She looks at my license, at our “pass.” She confers with a fellow officer. She confers with a fellow officer for ten minutes. Then we go. We’re all laughing at the ridiculousness of it all.
“Imagine how much money they’d be making in tourist dollars if they allowed us to freakin’ shop in their town,” I say. “Instead, they’re intent on stopping us and finding some small thing to detain us with so they can press for a bribe!”
Another half mile, another stop. These guys are friendly and wave us on immediately. We approach a roundabout where we had been stopped on the other side. The fierce police woman stops us and wants Bavon to step out of the vehicle. She looks at our pass and questions its validity. She wants a little something for herself. We paid the big boss $20, what about the little guys, she’s asking Bavon. I take a photo of the volcano in the distance, the volcano that erupted in 2002, with a lava field in the foreground. The volcano barely shows through the mist and haze of the low-lying clouds. I photograph new houses and buildings being erected on the lava flow. I photograph Bavon and the officers in the side mirror. Fortunately, the police chief who wrote our pass pulls up and the female officer asks if he wrote the pass and he confirms, allowing us to go.
We’re thrilled to be back at the university after being stopped six times in two hours!! We’re also ready to get the hell out of the Congo. Allen Bechky, in “Adventuring in East Africa” wrote about the Congo, which was called Zaire back then. Bechky says, “Zaire is the kind of place where things can and will go wrong, or at least not proceed in the fast and logical way you may expect. If you can’t bring patience and a sense of humor, Zaire is not the country for you.” No truer words have ever been written.
I’m rooming with Gertrude in the student hostel. Others are at a nearby guest house. We have no way to communicate as a group, so Gertrude and I decide to stay put in case they come for us. There is no water, and then there is water, but only cold, not hot. So I sponge bathe and dress. Then there is no water. I take my book of plays written by Oscar Wilde into the living room to read. Night is near. The electricity goes out. Gertrude calls out from her bedroom, but remains in the dark behind her locked door. I open the drapes wide, to allow in dying light. But it’s futile. Way too dark to read. So I sit on the sofa facing the windows, wondering how long we’ll sit in the dark.
Footsteps crunch the courtyard gravel. Then a female voice commands a man, who appears boy-like in the shadows of our verandah. “Hello, Cindi,” calls Janine. She lives just next door! I let them in and they bring along heavy bags. She pulls out a kerosene lamp and candles and matches. They pour fuel into the lamp, soak the wick, then light it. The helpful man, who has a slight limp from a mal-formed foot, places candles and matches in the bath and the bedrooms. They’ve even brought soap and toilet paper!!! So thoughtful of Janine. He leaves to take these essentials to Lucas and Julius’ room while Janine and I sit in the lamplight and talk. She’s here for three years, teaching law, but finds Goma a small town with few amusements. We have children the same ages. She wears jeans and sandals, looks very Western. Janine’s English is quite good but with a thick French accent.
Janine wants me to meet her students, so we step over to her house and she calls across the way, where female French accents call back. Two lovely young women, Rose and Leona, come over. Their English is very good, too, though they also deny it. They busy themselves making tea. We sit in the dim light and tell our stories. They are like Janine’s daughters. Today they finished their exams and feel free. They want to cook. While they pull out the food and heat the oil, I get my camera and a bag of sweets from my room. The electricity returns. The water returns. I wash dishes, to clear the sink for cooking.
A driver arrives, to take me and Gertrude to dinner. But I decline, saying I’m tired and will stay home. They leave without me.
Rose peels green bananas for frying, Leona thaws the fish. More students stop by to say hello then leave. Janine brings her TV from the bedroom and puts it on channel five, the French station. She interprets the news for me while the girls cook and chat in the kitchen. Cecilia joins us for dinner, straight from her job at the African Central Bank, wearing her bank uniform with their log repeated throughout the fabric’s pattern. She takes a call while dipping her fried banana into mayonnaise. She leaves the table with the phone to her ear. “Boyfriend?” I ask and they all howl. Janine and Leona insist I eat more and more. It’s very delicious. And once the meal is over, as I reach to collect dirty plates, they push me back in the chair and say Mamas just sit while the daughters clean.
Gertrude returns from dinner so I leave Janine and the girls as they’re about to watch a movie made in Uganda. They give me the customary three kisses and I give them a genuine American hug. They’re precious, these girls. Pure Congolese gold.
We meet our group at the university. The restaurant is made of plywood, painted white, with open holes for windows covered in lace panels. The ceiling is low and women out back cook over jikos (coal stoves) in the open air. We breakfast in a back room, set apart from everyone by a thick fabric “door.” Breakfast is large slices of bread, butter and tea. Afterward, we take a tour of the campus and meet a law professor, Janine, who’s originally from Cameroon. She takes an interest in me for some reason and it’s soon apparent she’s something of a feminist. I like her immediately.
We then visit the university Rector (equivalent to a U.S. university president. The rector is a happy, charming man who cannot speak English though he understands us very well. He’s so kind, his manner suggests he’s someone’s secretary rather than the head of the university), the chairman of the board (who is 4 foot tall, looks like a black German officer and speaks only French) and the head of academics who likes to practice his English with us. Kalindi joins us in this last meeting, which means we’ve now met with the top four men of this university. They treat our students like royal guests, taking time to chat with us when they have a graduation to prepare! The rector is printing a copy of the ceremony’s agenda when the electricity goes out. The generator will kick in within ten minutes, but we can’t wait. The agenda is in French anyway. Everything at the university is in French, all class lectures and all their marketing materials. Luckily, we have Bavon as our interpreter.
There’s a little time before lunch at 1pm. Most people want to drive to town, to look around, maybe shop. Ogutu is marrying soon and wants to buy his “wife” a diamond ring. (In Kenya, people call their partners “wife” and “husband” even before they’re ever married. Ogutu has been with his “wife” for 12 years and they have an 11-year-old daughter.) I’d like to take photos of the lava flow, the way it divides downtown, so that we must drive up the edge of the lava, about eight feet, to reach the higher elevation.
Bavon navigates by telling me exactly what to do. “Stop!” “Pull up!” “Go here, go here!” as he points into the windshield, over and over again. Even after I’ve signaled, even after I’ve said, “Okay,” and “I’m stopping,” he’s still directing me. Sometimes it gets on my nerves and I must remind him that I know how to drive. So we’re headed to town with Bavon giving me very detailed instructions, especially when we approach the traffic police. In Kigali, Rwanda, the police men on the side of the road would pull us over, walk to my window saying, “Bonjour,” then they’d wave us on. Sometimes they even called out, "Safe journey!" as we pulled away. Bavon marveled at how they simply looked in the window and waved us on. He attributed this to my white skin and it made him laugh with delight. Today, as we approach the congolese policemen and women in their bright yellow shirts, Bavon reminds me to slow down in case they flag us to the side of the road. Which they do.
I pull over and wait while they speak French. The officer is short and has the cruel face of a criminal. He’s intense. They talk and talk. Finally, Bavon tells me to show my license. The guy says our insurance sticker on the front window is not valid in the Congo, it’s only valid in countries belong to the African Association of Something or Other. As Bavon and the short man talk sternly to each other, I hear the guys in the back discussing what they’d like to eat for lunch.
30 minutes later, Bavon and the guy are still talking sternly. The officer frequently shoos away peddlers and small children who walk zombie-like toward the van to stare at me. “Bonjour, Mzungu,” they all shout. Seems the officer is saying my driver’s license is not international. He wants to see “internationale” written on it somewhere. Finally, the guy walks to Bavon’s side and climbs in. “Go,” Bavon says and I go, having no clue where we’re going. It’s a lot of work for Bavon to have a conversation with the cruel officer and to interpret for the rest of us. So we sit quietly. A matatu passes us so closely the officer leaps forward and throws up his arms, as though we’re going to crash. But he doesn’t get on to me. We drive for 10 minutes then stop. Bavon and the officer and Lucas go inside. We wait for 30 more minutes. Everyone is hot. We’re tired. We just want to see the shops downtown and to eat lunch.
The road is crowded with walkers and vehicles. A small truck passes with a butchered cow in the back. The bed is full of hind quarters and ribs with the skin intact. The cow’s hide was a gorgeous, solid black. On top of everything, held in place by a man riding in back, is the cow’s head. Soldiers ride by. UN soliders and Congo soldiers. Guys pass us on two-wheeled, handmade wooden bikes. They carry strapped-on vegetables, gas cylinders, bags of potatoes, sugar cane, other riders, long metal poles and fire wood. Women carry these same items on their heads, with babies tied to their backs. The women dress in colorful, bold graphics, the fabrics flowing to their ankles and wrapped and knotted into elaborate headdresses.
Finally, our guys emerge from the building holding a scrap of paper on which the police chief has written a pass, officially stamped with his name and title. This pass tells any officer who stops us to let us go, that it’s okay for us to be in town through Saturday. Bavon says he paid a “fine” of $20 USD. But don’t we have to go buy the insurance they were talking about? Not really. Now that we have this piece of paper, we can pass through all police checkpoints. But what about the insurance, in case we have an accident? Not necessary now that we have this piece of paper. It’s not clicking with me, but I leave the logistics to Bavon, who is from the Congo. These police folk in bright yellow shirts earn a salary equivalent to $5 USD per month. Not much at all, which is why they supplement their income by looking for the tiniest offense for which to extract a bribe. And the government is the orchestrator of this flawed system.
As I pull onto the busy road, everyone wants to go back to the school, to park the van. Since our matatu is different from the Congo matatus, we’re a sure mark for the Congolese police. We pick up speed and travel for half a mile when the police flag us over. They want to see my license. Bavon shows them our piece of paper. The guy waves us on. Another ½ mile, another policeofficer waving us over. We show the piece of paper and are released. We get to the border office where Bavon picks up some necessary paperwork for the vehicle then we head back to the university. A police woman pulls us over. She looks at my license, at our “pass.” She confers with a fellow officer. She confers with a fellow officer for ten minutes. Then we go. We’re all laughing at the ridiculousness of it all.
“Imagine how much money they’d be making in tourist dollars if they allowed us to freakin’ shop in their town,” I say. “Instead, they’re intent on stopping us and finding some small thing to detain us with so they can press for a bribe!”
Another half mile, another stop. These guys are friendly and wave us on immediately. We approach a roundabout where we had been stopped on the other side. The fierce police woman stops us and wants Bavon to step out of the vehicle. She looks at our pass and questions its validity. She wants a little something for herself. We paid the big boss $20, what about the little guys, she’s asking Bavon. I take a photo of the volcano in the distance, the volcano that erupted in 2002, with a lava field in the foreground. The volcano barely shows through the mist and haze of the low-lying clouds. I photograph new houses and buildings being erected on the lava flow. I photograph Bavon and the officers in the side mirror. Fortunately, the police chief who wrote our pass pulls up and the female officer asks if he wrote the pass and he confirms, allowing us to go.
We’re thrilled to be back at the university after being stopped six times in two hours!! We’re also ready to get the hell out of the Congo. Allen Bechky, in “Adventuring in East Africa” wrote about the Congo, which was called Zaire back then. Bechky says, “Zaire is the kind of place where things can and will go wrong, or at least not proceed in the fast and logical way you may expect. If you can’t bring patience and a sense of humor, Zaire is not the country for you.” No truer words have ever been written.
I’m rooming with Gertrude in the student hostel. Others are at a nearby guest house. We have no way to communicate as a group, so Gertrude and I decide to stay put in case they come for us. There is no water, and then there is water, but only cold, not hot. So I sponge bathe and dress. Then there is no water. I take my book of plays written by Oscar Wilde into the living room to read. Night is near. The electricity goes out. Gertrude calls out from her bedroom, but remains in the dark behind her locked door. I open the drapes wide, to allow in dying light. But it’s futile. Way too dark to read. So I sit on the sofa facing the windows, wondering how long we’ll sit in the dark.
Footsteps crunch the courtyard gravel. Then a female voice commands a man, who appears boy-like in the shadows of our verandah. “Hello, Cindi,” calls Janine. She lives just next door! I let them in and they bring along heavy bags. She pulls out a kerosene lamp and candles and matches. They pour fuel into the lamp, soak the wick, then light it. The helpful man, who has a slight limp from a mal-formed foot, places candles and matches in the bath and the bedrooms. They’ve even brought soap and toilet paper!!! So thoughtful of Janine. He leaves to take these essentials to Lucas and Julius’ room while Janine and I sit in the lamplight and talk. She’s here for three years, teaching law, but finds Goma a small town with few amusements. We have children the same ages. She wears jeans and sandals, looks very Western. Janine’s English is quite good but with a thick French accent.
Janine wants me to meet her students, so we step over to her house and she calls across the way, where female French accents call back. Two lovely young women, Rose and Leona, come over. Their English is very good, too, though they also deny it. They busy themselves making tea. We sit in the dim light and tell our stories. They are like Janine’s daughters. Today they finished their exams and feel free. They want to cook. While they pull out the food and heat the oil, I get my camera and a bag of sweets from my room. The electricity returns. The water returns. I wash dishes, to clear the sink for cooking.
A driver arrives, to take me and Gertrude to dinner. But I decline, saying I’m tired and will stay home. They leave without me.
Rose peels green bananas for frying, Leona thaws the fish. More students stop by to say hello then leave. Janine brings her TV from the bedroom and puts it on channel five, the French station. She interprets the news for me while the girls cook and chat in the kitchen. Cecilia joins us for dinner, straight from her job at the African Central Bank, wearing her bank uniform with their log repeated throughout the fabric’s pattern. She takes a call while dipping her fried banana into mayonnaise. She leaves the table with the phone to her ear. “Boyfriend?” I ask and they all howl. Janine and Leona insist I eat more and more. It’s very delicious. And once the meal is over, as I reach to collect dirty plates, they push me back in the chair and say Mamas just sit while the daughters clean.
Gertrude returns from dinner so I leave Janine and the girls as they’re about to watch a movie made in Uganda. They give me the customary three kisses and I give them a genuine American hug. They’re precious, these girls. Pure Congolese gold.
posted by Cindi at 9:56 AM
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