The Weekend, Again

This is the valley in which our campsite was located.
This is our campsite.
This is me, not hardly believing I was really there.

This past weekend I went outside the confines of Kinshasa, on the ground, for the first time. 5 NGO workers, all attractive and intelligent women (once again I am not making this up), and I went to a small riverside resort about 150 kilometers from here.

The drive there took about 3 hours and except for the remarkably good condition of the road, for the Congo; and a big truck broken down, or just broken, by the side of the road at 1 kilometer intervals for the last half of the trip; only one thing of note happened to us. We got stopped by the police/army.

The car I was in was stopped by the side of the road and we were standing around trying to get that last cell call in before getting out of range when a small truck drove by with about 20 people hanging off of it, one of whom was a cop. They go by and he does a double take, jumps off the truck and runs over to us. In seconds he was joined by 2 rifle toting soldiers who appeared from who knows where (people often appear out of nowhere in this country). Then came the usual:

"You were taking photos"
"No we weren't, we were using our cell phones"
"Why are you talking to him? I have superior rank!"
"He speaks French and you don't." (neither do I, all this was relayed to me later.)

Then the cop grabs the door and opens it and just as quick the girl driving grabbed it back and slammed it closed. Good going! Then some more back and forth, all at of it at max volume and much gesturing on their part. Finally our driver says:

"If you guys don't start acting in a civil manner and talking quietly and calmly I'm probably going to get hysterical and drive off and leave you standing here!"

That stopped 'em. The subject immediately changed from how bad we were to how much we would pay them. They started off by asking for $100, settled for 3 bottles of beer and off we drove. The girl driving said later that in the middle of all this she realized the cop was as afraid of her as she was of him.

So then we drove to the resort, a small one well run by the Congolese National Park system, I think. Very pretty place, down in a valley next to a fast flowing stream, with 2 campsites. The stream was spanned by a Indiana Jones type bridge made of vines and 2 steel cables. The things to do were swim and float in the river, cookout, stroll around looking at the scenery and play on the bridge. All of which we did.

About 0230 that night, I made the most of my status as the lone male in this group of females by having a bad dream and shouting out "AAAAHHHH" for a few seconds and then falling right back to sleep. In the morning one of the girls said:

"It was really weird. I heard this guy scream out in the middle of the night. It was loud. They probably heard it in the village up the hill!"

"Uhhhh....that was me."

"After hearing that, I couldn't sleep for the rest of the night."

Carl, the great protector, always on guard and ready for action.

The next day we got up, repeated the previous days activities and had the same wonderful time. Then we drove back to Kinshasa and didn't get stopped by anybody.

The whole weekend I didn't say much. Everyone probably thinks I'm a dullard but I couldn't get any words out because I just kept grinning and thinking to myself "It's really me and I'm really here!"