Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Young men gathered to push-start the Land Cruiser, Jean-Pierre at the wheel, Michael and I
crammed thigh-to-thigh next to him. A man in a red T-shirt hurried over and told Sally that we
couldn't leave until we'd seen the local DGM official, that today was Sunday, so he wasn't working,
and we'd have to spend the night. There was strict control on all aspects of travel in the country;
before leaving Kinshasa, we had to get permits not only to take photos but to stay in Équateur.
All of the Congolese paused to watch, eyes static, curious but not too hopeful. I got the sense
that the entire town was bent on keeping us there, but I also understood that we would probably
leave.
Sally told the man that she'd already worked out an agreement to have the official driven by
motorcycle to Kokolopori on Monday, but he shook his head. He said that the official must check
our papers and passports to make sure that we even had permission to go to the reserve. She pointed
out that BCI and Vie Sauvage had created the reserve, so why wouldn't it be legal?
Willy, Marie-Claire, the women who helped in the kitchen, and all of the lingerers watched,
standing where they were about to wave good-bye. The men remained at the rear of the Land Cruis-
er, hands on the metal, ready to push-start it. In its cargo area, with heaped bags and jerry cans
of gas, two young men—along to help with engine problems and repair flats—stared out the side
windows without glass, and other villagers, unknown to us, crammed in like stowaways, until now
keeping their heads low, looked out.
“Couldn't the official just come now?” I asked Michael.
“That'd be against the rules. The people here love their rules,” he said and paused. “And they
also love breaking them when it suits them.”
In a place this impoverished, I realized, everything was currency, even laws and formalities.
Sally stared at the man a moment longer, as if evaluating how serious all this was. But as I was
soon to learn, when the rules were ignored, no one was quite sure what to do.
“Oh come on,” she said, speaking English now, and shouted to us, “Let's go!”
The men pushed the Land Cruiser. Jean-Pierre popped the clutch, and the tires grabbed at the
earth as the engine sputtered and fired. Children scrabbled up the termite hill to get a vantage on our
departure, then decided they'd rather be with the children running behind us. Two more young men
jumped on our back bumper, clutching the edges of the glassless back window, and our convoy was
off, racing along the rutted dirt road as people leaped aside and screamed “
Mundele!
” and pointed.
The path we were traveling was listed as a national highway, R401, one of the few bright yellow
lines on the map of Équateur. There were four working vehicles in this entire area of seven thou-
sand square miles, with a population of at least 250,000 in tiny, scattered villages, and the road was
used primarily for walkers and the occasional bicycle or motorcycle. During the rainy season, it was
impassible, too soft and slick, treacherous on the inclines.
As he drove, Jean-Pierre told me that his father was Belgian, that for some reason his siblings
had been born almost white whereas he was black, though other Congolese saw him as white. He
averaged about eighteen miles per hour, slowing for rain-gouged trenches and sandy hollows. So-
metimes we rode in ruts where the ground was soft, crossed by gullies so deep that he almost
stopped, letting one tire drop in at a time, the Land Cruiser shaking and rattling. Or we skirted drop-
offs where the road narrowed, two tires over the edge, the vehicle wildly tilted as the earth scraped
the undercarriage. On a few occasions, the hollows were on both sides, and the edges of all four
tires hung as he steered, leaning forward, the rest of us staring down the wet inclines into the shad-
ow of the forest.
