The Congo River

Yesterday a group of us spent about 6 hours playing on the Congo River. We rented a boat and drove out to one of the long sandbar islands in the middle and had a feast and swam and played with Honey the dog and got sunburned and exhausted and it was wonderful.

The drive on the way to the river was the worst of Kinshasa I've seen yet. It was a small paved road with open sewage drains on either side and there were just PILES of trash everywhere. There were naked babies running around with no shoes and people washing in stagnant black pools. It smelled horrible and the poverty shook me. I realized Kinshasa is so huge and I've only seen a few neighborhoods, all of which would be classified as high or middle class.

After a few miles of the worst living situations I've ever seen we took a sharp left and ended up at the Yacht Club. I kid you not. Landscaped parking lot, men to wait on us, a lovely patio with drinks, and lots of expats milling around waiting for their boats to be ready. I descended the rickety steps to the dock and saw boat after gorgeous boat, beautiful and pristine, looking like they'd never been used. It felt so surreal and strange at this point, so unbalanced and weird. I was so happy when I realized our boat was clunky with peeling paint and what looked like bullet holes in the front window. The seats were falling apart and it was hideous. By then Honey had jumped into the muddy sewage and was covered in thick brown slime, and was chasing cats and slamming into people. The expats in their pristine white linen shirts stared at us. I felt a little better.

Our boat:


On the way to the sandbars there were some amazing sights--ramshackle houses on stilts and half-sunken boats with people living on them, and men fishing. The boat was flying fast upstream and so most of my photos are blurry and I was scared of being thrown out of the bumpy boat or losing my camera, so I didn't do them justice with the photos I took. There's talk of shooting a piece there--hopefully before I leave.

It was a perfect day, completely. Enough food and wine and beer and gin and tonics to keep us happy, good company, and the weather was not too steamy. We had a lot of food and gave our two drivers heaping plates with chicken and avocados. The water was shallow quite far out and was HOT in some places from being warmed by the sun. It was quite murky from all the soft sand, and I'm SO happy I didn't watch the 4-part BBC documentary on the River before I swam in it. I didn't want to know what fabulous creatures live in there until after I got out of the water. I was definitely warned by my travel doctor not to swim here but it was so wonderful. It's a difficult compromise to make between living one's life intelligently and living one's life without so much fear--I'm tired of being afraid of people and guns and Congolese cops and food and tap water and rivers. Time to live a little.

Honey pursues the frisbee:






Staring back at our tent with the massive sky behind it was one of the first moment where I felt "I am in Africa", whatever that means. Maybe it resembled a scene from all those movies I watched over and over and over as a kid--Born Free and that one about the cheetah. It felt so incredible to be outside of the dirty crazy loud city.


We left by boat just as the sun was setting over Kinshasa. We drank warm white wine and Honey, tired and soaking wet, sprawled across my lap. Today I'm still sunburned and dehydrated and exhausted and feel so quiet and happy.