3. A DISAPPEARANCE AND A PARTY

26 APRIL

Last evening I arrived back from the camp to find Rachel still in a bad way. Andrew has tracked down an elderly kindly Norwegian mission doctor who works here on and off and happens to be in the city this week; he diagnosed a tooth abscess, prescribed the appropriate antibiotic and advised drastic action post-infection. Today we heard of a reputable Zairean dentist, attached to the a mission hospital near Lake Tanganyika. Soon Andrew is due some local leave and after my departure they will drive south to consult him. I am now striving to control my AIDS paranoia and be a good non-interfering mother-outlaw. Such situations can bring one’s racism rapidly to the surface.

27 APRIL

At weekends, if we feel like a long lakeside session with frequent swims, we take a picnic to the Safari Club. The name at first made me baulk but nowadays this is a quiet, muzungu-free zone. On Sundays a few Zaireans come to picnic and/or swim but for some reason other ex-pats avoid the cove. It is on the far side of our peninsula, a glorious half-hour walk along a track riven by two-foot deep erosion channels and criss-crossed by massive, contorted pine tree roots. The garden walls are draped with purple bougainvillaea, banana groves line some sections and Lake Kivu stretches away, multi-coloured and magical, to the distant blueness of a hilly shore.

A side-track descends to a rambling colonial hotel, its restaurant popular with UNHCR fold; this means few others can afford to eat there, so inflationary is UN spending-power. Here we stock up on Primus, paying a normal price because not drinking on the premises. The bar floor is scattered with – apparently – fragments of a discarded carpet. These are the owner’s geriatric poodles: stiff, smelly, over-fed. A long steep path, partly stepped, winds through the garden – ablaze with hibiscus, porcelain roses and anthuriums, bristling with candelabra cacti. Beyond a stand of pine trees is our secluded destination, a half-acre of short green grass. Here the opposite western peninsula, its slopes too steep to be built on, is densely forested; this bay is wider but not as deep as our fjord.

The hotel’s neglected-looking motor launch is moored at a little jetty; when Bukavu drew fun-seekers they rented it to tour the peninsulas or visit the islands. Beside the jetty, in a small shack, the groundsman’s family live: his friendly wife and his happy, energetic brood of five children, aged eight to fifteen months. When we appear the eldest, a girl, shyly brings a straw mat, striped red and white – obviously a cherished possession – for Rose to roll on. This is an act of kindness and a gesture of welcome, not a tip-seeking ploy. On the scrubby hillside above the grass forage the family’s small herd of goats and kids, rounded up towards sunset by a tiny boy and tethered near the shack. Here the lake is shallow for some ten yards out from the shore and the older children spend most of their time at the edge of the water scrubbing pots or washing clothes which quickly dry when spread on the grass.

This afternoon, at the Safari Club, e began to plan The Party. (So formidable are the logistics involved that all our voices give it cap.s.) Andrew will be thirty on 2 May, an appropriate occasion for him to return all the helpful hospitality he had been receiving since January. But the festivities are scheduled for 4 May, a Saturday, leaving Sunday for recoveries. That’s one week from today.

Paul is elated at the prospect of having some serious cooking to do. ‘But what’s he going to cook in?’ I asked. ‘Your saucepan is usually busy boiling Rose’s bath-water.’ (In this area muzungu babies must have all their bath and washing water boiled – not merely heated – lest they might pick up bilharzia or some other ghastly water-borne disease.)

‘I can borrow from colleagues,’ said Andrew, which made sense. Africans customarily deal with such emergencies by lending and borrowing. He will also borrow plates, dishes, glasses, cutlery – in varying amounts from different households, all to be collected at different times.

Thirty guests have been invited but Pascal has reminded Andrew that when thirty Africans are invited forty are likely to arrive.

Rachel asked the crucial question. ‘How much food do forty people need?’

There was a brooding silence. We all gazed over the lake with furrowed brows. None of us is accustomed to throwing parties for forty people. Our imaginations were boggling in unison. ‘And what sort of food?’ continued Rachel, showing slight symptoms of hostessly rising panic. That was easier.

‘Roast chicken,’ said Andrew.

‘Grilled steaks,’ said I.

‘Kedgeree,’ said Andrew.

‘Potato salad,’ said I.

‘Tomato and avocado salad,’ said Andrew.

‘Cheese and salami on sticks,’ said I.

‘Won’t that be enough,’ said Rachel, paling beneath her tan.

‘And oceans of Primus,’ I concluded.

‘Also oceans of fizzy things,’ said Andrew. ‘Half of them are teetotal, good fundamentalist Christians.’ Suddenly he looked alarmed. Eyeing me, he hesitated – then pleaded, ‘Do please keep off the Primus till the party starts!’ Poor fellow, he had had a nightmare vision of la belle mere in too jovial a mood by 8.00p.m. when his fundamentalist friends began to arrive. A not irrational fear; normally I retire at 9.00p.m. and do not wait until 8.00 for my first Primus.

‘Back to basics,’ said Rachel grimly. ‘When do we cook all this stuff?’ There was another crucial question; No. 19’s fridge is small and feeble. It makes a lot of noise but does very little preserving.

‘I suppose on the day,’ said Andrew, ‘starting very early.’

‘You must be mad!’ said I. ‘On the day for forty people? With a two-ring cooker and a snail’s pace oven?’

‘Where are people going to sit?’ wondered Rachel. ‘We’ve only got chairs for five.’

‘I think we should go home,’ said Andrew. ‘The midges are beginning to bite.’

By unspoken mutual consent we postponed further planing for The Party to another day.

28 APRIL

This morning Rachel and Andrew decided to give Nyanya a Sunday treat by taking her to Km. 18. They knew it only by repute: a very beautiful swimming spot eighteen kilometres from the city, down a side-track off the airport road.

First there was a slight parental argument about Rose’s car-seat to which she is allergic: it prevents her from seeing the world go by. Andrew, however, refused ever again to expose his unconfined daughter to Bukavu’s traffic. Nyanya approvingly watched Daddy winning that round.

On the airport road swarmed hundreds of pedestrians (many from the camps) carrying goods to the Sunday market. A privileged minority rode on ancient noisome pick-ups, insanely over-loaded, their shouting and singing passengers squeezed between bulging sacks, ten-gallon jerry-cans of banana-beer and five-foot stalks of bananas. As these death-dealing vehicles swayed and swerved through the crowds, shrieking women and children scampered out of the way. But for the roads’ speed-lowering properties, Zaire’s traffic mortality rate would be even higher than Kenya’s.

Here our lack of speed allowed a young man to hang on to the back of the Land-rover, vigorously trying to wrench open the door – his expression angry and full of hate. This, apparently is a common occurrence. Any muzungu foolish enough to leave a vehicle back door unlocked loses whatever lies within reach. In Zaire daylight robbery is easy, the robbers confident of incurring neither blame nor punishment however many witnesses there may be.

For two miles from the turn-off a narrow path zig-zags down to the shore. High, richly scented hedges, laden with tiny pink or blue flowers, brushed the windows. A meeting with another vehicle would have entailed one driver’s backing, for a long way. Here I felt a spasm of acute frustration. What superb trekking territory, what a waste to be traversing it in a Land-rover!

We began to have doubts about Km. 18 before we arrived, when two water-skiers appeared far below and already the grating whine of their speed-boats’ engines could be heard. Then a grassy expanse came into view, shaded by scattered pine, mango and avocado trees. From a small jetty several pirogue-owners were taking people for trips up and down the shore. Scores of Zairean yuppie-types were visible, and at least a dozen ex-pats, and ghetto-blasters disseminated the psychotic wailings of American pop-singers.

At the foot of the mountain we had just descended, on a long wide ledge above the shore, a pole barrier stopped up and two shabby men sternly demanded a one-dollar entrance fee from each adult; in return, they guard all vehicles parked beyond the pole. About thirty small refugee boys, better dressed than many of their Zairean peers, were standing on an earthen bank beside the barrier, staring at us. They weren’t selling anything or begging (we guessed they didn’t dare beg in front of the two men) but one of them leant forward to shout, ‘We are unfamilied!’ He presumably meant that they had lost all their relatives, through violence, disease or otherwise, and belong to the category known officially as ‘Unaccompanied Children’. I found their little faces disturbing: neither sad nor happy, neither expectant nor resigned but curiously enigmatic – withdrawn. We cannot even begin to imagine what they must have seen and suffered.

I also felt disturbed, in a different way, as we left the Land-rover and walked around the fire-blackened ruin of quite a large restaurant, its walls lavishly bullet-market. Here was a story; but no one could (or would) remember it.

Down on the shore a few solitary men lay under trees in drunken stupors with empty whiskey bottles beside them. (It was 11.30a.m.) The yuppie types, wearing psychedelic swimming-trunks, were horsing about on the grass with beach balls, shouting at each other above the blaring of their ghetto-blasters. Other young men were leering at giggling young women prancing about in bikinis – with no intention of swimming. And brash UN ex-pats were insidiously throwing their weight about, being patronisingly friendly to the locals. The slim white speed-boats were, we noticed with interest, inscribed ‘World Food Programme’ in large blue letters. What do speed-boats do to facilitate the provision of food to the island camp?

We sought the quietest spot and shared a bottle of Primus while Rose was having a feed. None of us wanted to swim here and we soon agreed that we would prefer to spend the afternoon at the Safari Club – which we did. But why were the vibes so very bad at Km. 18? It wasn’t the vulgarity of the scene that unsettled us, that could be amusing for a few hours. There was something else, something peculiarly oppressive – almost malign – in the atmosphere. All three of us reacted to it immediately and simultaneously.

29 APRIL

Because the patio faces east I open my eyes every morning to the splendour of another Kivu dawn. These sunrise cloudscapes are infinitely varied in their tints and shapes. Standing on the edge of the patio, I watch the lake change colour as it briefly reflects the pale clear green of the sky over Rwanda or catches the pinkness of high-floating cloud shreds. Or there may be one massive immobile cloud, a golden sculpture poised above the wooded heights beyond the water. Or, after a rain-storm, the jaggedness of long low purple clouds hurrying north, or banks of silver mist drifting away to the south, towards the city.

Recently we have enjoyed several dramatic storms, usually during the afternoon or early evening – only once at night, forcing me to retreat into the living-room. These break with little warning, the blue sky suddenly becoming black while mighty thunder claps cause the earth to tremble and one’s ears to tingle. (And cause Rose to blink and look perplexed.) Then comes an abrupt drop in temperature and the roar of the rain as a tropical deluge obscures the opposite peninsula and quickly floods the patio – driven under the roof by a gale that makes the lemon and papaya trees bend and toss as though in pain. Blue sheet lightning flares in the semi-darkness, white lightning flashes starkly over the water. An hour later it’s all over – the sky clearing, the air calm, the whole world glistening and growth almost perceptible as the sun takes over again.

Yesterday the border-crossing into Cyangugu was closed to ex-pats for an indefinite period: reason unspecified. Could the reason be a new government diktat, dated 14 April, compelling all foreigners to enter Zaire through Kinshasa? Kinshasa is a thousand miles west of Bukavu as the plane flies, and a month’s boat and truck journey by surface transport, so this regulation will present me with a major problem in November. We at first took it to be an attempt by Kivu officials to extend their opportunities for dollar-collecting but we were being over-cynical, it really is of Kinshasa provenance. Some of Andrew’s friends believe it was inspired by a wish to vet potentially critical observers of the unsavoury scene in and around Eastern Zaire’s refugee camps.

30 APRIL

A grim day. I was setting off for my sunrise swim when Mpolo appeared, all agitated, and beckoned me towards Flopsy’s fortress. Following him along the lawn – he gesticulating wildly and talking volubly in Mashi – I expected the worst. And indeed Flopsy was gone. Mpolo pointed towards a hole in the wire at ground level, then towards large tufts of rabbit fur leading towards a gap in the hedge. He expected me to believe that Flopsy had dismantled the wire and run away. That is a physical impossibility. Rabbits are strong, but not strong enough to rip apart tough chicken-wire. It is also a psychological impossibility. Flopsy was very content hopping about his roomy fortress in the spreading shade of an avocado tree. He was well-fed, much talked to, the recipient of lavish affection from Rachel, Andrew, Paul, Nyanya and the neighbour’s fascinated children. (And a wife was about to be provided, though he couldn’t have known that.) Besides, the earth is soft here and a rabbit seeking to escape would dig his way out. I didn’t try to conceal my anger as Mpolo trailed me back to the house, still pretending to lament Flopsy’s loss.

Over breakfast (I had abandoned my swim: I didn’t have the heart for it) we tried to analyze the implications. Had Mpolo simply stolen Flopsy to sell him for $5? That could make sense; no askari dare admit to a thief having gained access while he was on duty – Flopsy himself must be made to seem responsible … Yet we knew it was not so, we recognized this as a sequel to the flower-destruction episode. Then Andrew, as Head of the Household, issued a diktat: Nyanya must give up sleeping on the patio. Momentarily I was disposed to argue, then I saw the point. With Mpolo, we do have an unquantifiable problem.

Usually Mpolo slopes off before he should, not waiting for Paul to take over. This morning, however, we saw him greeting Paul at the gate, leading him to the fortress, telling his story. We followed. Paul’s face was a study in scepticism. Yet he didn’t dispute the implausible escape story but turned to us, commiserating in French. Again I sensed his fear of Mpolo. Clearly the wire had been cut, then folded back – bent with human fingers – to make a hole. When Mpolo volunteered to search for Flopsy in the maize-field beyond the hedge Andrew told him to get lost.

This evening we held a sombre indaba on the patio while a golden half-moon and the frog chorus croaked and wood-smoke wafted towards us from Mpolo’s fire - his hut only thirty yards away.

I am now worried about Budgie and would be worried about Rose were she ever within reach of Mpolo – which she isn’t. Nor do I much like the idea of his being around when I’ve gone home and Andrew is off on one of his two or three day journeys into the interior. All the windows are barred but the door leading off the patio is frail, as is the garage door which gives access to the hall and bedrooms. I feel (have felt for some time) that Mpolo should be sacked. Unpunctuality could be the reason given; he often arrives an hour or more late. Rachel agreed with me, until Andrew wisely pointed out that Mpolo would depart nursing a mega-grievance; NGO wages paid in dollars are not easily come by these days. And might he not then be more of a threat? Especially as he is very matey (remarkably so for a Bukavu citizen) with the soldiers who frequent Avenue Walungu – this has been uneasily noted by Paul. Moreover – and this struck me as quite bizarre in anarchic Zaire – his contract with Andrew’s NGO (signed, sealed, witnessed) makes it extremely difficult to sack him. Our indaba ended inconclusively.

1 MAY

Planning of The Party can no longer be postponed. Given forty (or thereabouts) guests, and no experience of mass-catering, we must surely err: but it better be on the side of lavishness. During breakfast we make a list:

10kg. potatoes

1kg. onions

5kg. rice

10 bulbs of garlic

5kg. tomatoes

2 litres of mayonnaise

2kg. fish

60 bread rolls

2kg. cheese

10 avocados

1kg. salami

2kg. groundnuts

20 steaks

1kg. raisins

10 chickens

3 boxes paper napkins

20 eggs

80 bottles of Primus

160 bottles of fizzy soft drinks

One 50kg block of ice to keep the drink cold in the bath

One sack of charcoal to grill the steaks

‘Let’s try to get this sorted out,’ said Andrew. ‘The bread, salami and steaks we get on Saturday morning, the ice on Saturday afternoon. The chickens can come alive on Friday afternoon for Paul to kill on Saturday morning.’ (Rachel shuddered but said nothing.) ‘The fish we should also get on Friday afternoon and cook it that evening. The eggs we’ll get whenever we can find them. The rest we can get today, if the tomatoes and avocados aren’t too ripe.’

I was filled with admiration; now I know why Andrew’s NGO so values his organizational abilities.

‘When do we begin cooking?’ asked Rachel.

‘That,’ replied Andrew, ‘is up to you.’

‘Perhaps tomorrow we can scrub the potatoes,’ I suggested, feeling Nyanya should seem vaguely constructive.

‘And hard-boil the eggs for the kedgeree,’ added Rachel.

‘If we have found them by then,’ said Andrew.

Given the local (in)security situation, no one wants to possess physically more dollars than are immediately needed and now Andrew had to acquire some cash – actually quite a lot, to cope with that list. We all, including Paul, set off in the Land-rover and our first stop was in the centre where Andrew collects his salary from an Indian merchant whose London account has received it in dollars. To such stratagems are even the most respectable NGOs driven by Bukavu’s lack of a bank. Next stop: the open-air money-exchange area near the big market, where dozens of men sit around on chairs holding suitcases stuff with millions of NZ notes. Today the rate of exchange is NZ45,000 to the dollar. As these notes are in 1000 or 500 denominations it takes time to change $100 – counting 450 (or 900) very sticky, tattered notes likely to fall apart in your hand if not treated gently. Throughout Zaire, how many man- and woman-hours must be devoted every day to note-counting? Though I have noticed, in both markets here, how often vendors trust their customers and don’t check the bulky bundles.

Two and a half hours later we were back in No. 19, laden with potatoes, rice and etc. Then Paul organized the far-flung borrowings; for the next three evenings, after work, Andrew with be discovering bits of Bukavu hitherto unknown in quest of saucepans, plates, bowls, glasses, cutlery.

‘This evening,’ said Rachel, ‘we must come to terms with that barbecue thing. We need to find out how it works before Saturday.’

The ‘thing’ in question had long been puzzling me, accustomed as I am to South Africa’s efficient braaing system. No. 19’s concrete and tin contraption stands to one side of the patio, the fire-space at waist level, the high tin roof without a smoke exit. Nor is there any draught, or any grill, merely a bare floor on which to light the fire. Paul has never used it and doesn’t want to; he has intimated that the grilled steaks are to be our responsibility while he gets on with roasting chickens.

At dusk, when Rose was out of the way and while Andrew was collecting crockery, Rachel and I brought the full force of our intellects to bear on the contraption. As there was no paper available we collected wisps of dry grass, put thin twigs on top, ignited the wisps and gently blew on them. Very reluctantly, tiny flames began to spread. We added small pieces of charcoal and the flames went out. ‘I think,’ said Rachel, ‘one of us should keep blowing while charcoal is being added.’ She was right. But the time Andrew appeared, hidden behind a stack of cartons, small pieces of charcoal were tentatively glowing. He stood and stared – then demanded, ‘But will anything ever cook on that?’

Rather peevishly I retorted, ‘You’ve got to wait!’ – and added slightly larger pieces of charcoal.

An hour later cooking seemed possible. Rachel balanced the shelf from the oven on the crimson embers and placed on it our experimental steak, carefully seasoned.

‘But this is no good!’ protested Andrew. ‘When Paul is roasting those chickens he’ll need that shelf!’

‘What’s wrong with cold roast chicken?’ challenged Rachel. ‘Paul can roast before we grill.’

‘Or,’ I suggested, ‘we could grill before he roasts – what’s wrong with cold steaks?’

‘No!’ said Andrew. ‘The point of a barbecue is hot sizzling meat!’

The Party was endangering familial harmony – but not for long. When the experiment proved delicious (just a corner or two slightly charred) we all relaxed. Said Rachel, ‘It’ll be just a matter of timing, getting the charcoal going long before people arrive.’

On that reassuring note we retired.

2 MAY

We’ve had no time today to celebrate Andrew’s birthday; under Party pressure he is beginning to look older than his thirty years. The crockery he collected last evening obviously hasn’t been used for a very long time and wasn’t thoroughly washed before being stored away. It needed scouring. I seized on this opportunity to do my bit (I’m diffident about getting involved on the food side) and when Paul departed I took over the kitchen and spent hours soaked to the skin (that tap!) while Budgie, perched on the window-ledge above the sink, had fun trying to catch bubbles. (Washing-up liquid was an expensive emergency purchase.) The last of the plates was being dried when Andrew entered from the garage bearing a tower of saucepans. They, too, needed scouring.

Weeks ago Rachel and Andrew were talking of going to a night-club this evening; here are no baby-sitters and they never had time off together. (Improbably, there is a night-club on Avenue Walungu, in one of the small bungalows.) They didn’t then foresee how drastically pre-Party tasks would diminish their energy.

3 MAY

The smallness of the kitchen and the cooker’s limitations mean that we must do things in shifts. Before sunrise this morning No. 19 was all action: Rachel boiling potatoes (scrubbed yesterday), Nyanya peeling them as they cooled, Andrew chopping onions in the living-room while Rose explored her baby-gym’s possibilities on the floor beside him. Later, Paul cooked the rice and made the dressing for the tomato and avocado salad.

Today’s first crisis concerned steaks; the butcher’s fridge has broken down so they have prematurely become our responsibility. Hastily Rachel reorganized her fridge, exiling those items least likely to go off. Now we’re hoping for the best and I’m preparing for the worst.

The second crisis concerned eggs, lack of … I opined that you can make an excellent kedgeree without eggs but this concept offended Rachel’s perfectionism. Andrew was despatched to a nearby village where Paul reckoned it might be possible to find a few eggs, though probably not twenty. I then put in a request for a large bottle of the cheapest vinegar. ‘What for?’ inquired Rachel. ‘Don’t be so nosey,’ I replied. ‘It’s just one of Nyanya’s little whims.’

For five hours this afternoon Rachel and I sat on the patio creating bowl after bowl of potato salad, essential a simple dish but in ten kilos there are a daunting number of potatoes. And the garlic peeling was truly gruelling; Bukavu’s garlic has minute cloves with abnormally adhesive skins. Occasionally the rolling Rose thrust a foot into a bowl of potato and onion, or garlic and mayonnaise, and when next she sucked her toes (a favourite pastime) she looked slightly puzzled. In mid-afternoon the chickens arrives noisily (actually elderly hens, their laying days over) and were locked in the garage. At 5.30 Andrew arrive, fish-laden and looking triumphant: he had found eight eggs.

After a quick round of Primuses I gutted the fish and Andrew friend it while Rachel washed the raisins for the kedgeree. Somehow none of us had any appetite for supper. We retired even earlier than usual.

5 MAY

Last night I slept for the first time in the guest-room while The Party continued until 3.00a.m. I never have been a party person and by 10.00p.m. was more than ready for bed after an eighteen-hour day.

At 4.00 yesterday morning Rachel woke me looking so grief-stricken a feared a cot-death. But it was only the steaks.

‘Come and see!’ she said. ‘What are we going to do?’

Piled on their dish on top of the fridge, the steaks looked faintly green, smelled rather strongly and felt very slimy. This was Nyanya’s finest hour.

‘Not to worry,’ I said cheerfully. ‘It’s nothing scalding water and vinegar won’t sort out. My generation grew up in households with larders instead of fridges. In fact they’ll taste better for having gone slightly ripe.’

‘Well get on with it then,’ said Rachel testily, ‘and be quick whatever you’re going to do. Andrew would die if he saw them now.’

‘I can’t be quick,’ I said. ‘First the water has to boil and you know how long that takes.’ The cooker, though no longer homicidal, had not been speeded up by the electricians’ attentions.

Paul, arriving early as promised, nodded approvingly when he saw me in action; obviously he understands about halting meat-rot.

Happily Andrew slept on until 6.00. An hour later he was to be observed emptying the bookshelves in the living-room, stacking their contents in the bedroom.

Bewildered, I asked – ‘What’s all this about?’

‘Music,’ replied Andrew. He was not in a conversational mood.

‘You can’t have a party for Africans without music,’ said Rachel.

It transpired that Pascal and two of his friends had been able, after prolonged efforts, to borrow a music centre, complete with enormous speakers. Soon they would arrive to install the equipment.

While I was deboning the fish Rachel peeled the eggs and outside the kitchen window Paul began his slaughtering of the innocent. We pretended not to hear.

Paul and I did the plucking and gutting with Budgie in rapt attendance, anticipating a change of diet; normally he lives on fish and cheese.

Meanwhile life was getting complicated in the living-room where Andrew and his three friends were engaged in deadly combat with a surreal tangle of flexes and wires and plugs that didn’t fit and connections that wouldn’t connect. As Paul was about to put the first batch of ‘chickens’ in the oven everything fused.

‘Really we should have had this party in a hotel,’ said Rachel to no one in particular.

But anyway Andrew had to go into the centre at some stage, to fetch the bread and salami, and Pascal knew exactly where to find a new fuse. It was decided to fetch the ice also on this trip because who could guess how long it might take to render the music centre operational?

My next task was to move the crates of drinks from garage to bathroom.

In due course the ice arrived – a rectangular block, a miniature ice-berg weighing seventy kilos. Andrew and Pascal staggered in with it, laid it gently in the bath and left Nyanya to pack the 240 bottles around it. I didn’t quite see the logic of this – surely only the bottles in contact with the ice would remain cool?

There followed an indaba in the kitchen. The chickens, as crowded in the oven as European chickens in a battery unit, were cooking unevenly – one side almost burnt but blood trickling when a leg was pulled. Various opinions were given, much juggling and repositioning took place, more dripping was added.

Then Paul had occasion to go to the bathroom from where he returned with bad news. Our cooling technique was defective. First those blocks of ice must be shattered, then the bottles are buried under and between the chunks. But great care has to be taken not to chip off small pieces …

Stoically I removed the 240 bottles and Andrew brought a hammer from the Land-rover. It is extraordinarily difficult to achieve chunks rather than small pieces. I left him to make his travail alone.

Half an hour later I was back in the bathroom, burying 240 bottles. By the time I had finished there were only 239. I hadn’t promised Andrew not to have one Primus before 8.00p.m.

By then Paul had converted the guest-room into a larder. Conveniently, there is only a bare wooden bedstead (no mattress or bedding) on which were laid all the dishes and platters and bowls and tureens, an array that made me question our calculations for the first time. Here surely was enough to feed at least one hundred very hungry guests. And in addition there were steaks …

In the living-room, the scene was set. Rachel had worked hard, both mentally and physically, to make the most of what little furniture there is – and of course chairs had been borrowed. Also the music centre was operational, its miles of flexes and wires so ingeniously disposed that no one could trip over them.

At sunset, our thoughts turned to braaing. Rachel had already collected an ample supply of dry grass and twigs and a sack of charcoal stood by the contraption. Rather to our surprise, there were no complications. But the timing of the grilling became a small bone of contention.

‘We want people to eat when the feel like it,’ said Rachel. ‘It’s no good making a big thing of the braai so they think they have to eat them. Everything else is cold.’

‘The chickens will be warm,’ I pointed out pedantically.

‘They’re not going to ask for steak,’ argued Andrew. ‘They can only eat it when it’s there to be eaten. We should decide now on a grilling time.’

‘But we don’t know when they’ll arrive,’ protested Rachel.

‘So what?’ said Andrew. ‘Late-comers can have chicken.’

‘It’s my opinion,’ said Nyanya, ‘that we all need one good stiff drink before anyone arrives.’

There was no disagreement about this and Andrew opened his birthday bottle of Scotch.

The first guests arrived at 7.50, the last at 9.30. Men and women tended towards segregation; several of the latter were baby-laden. A few spoke only Mashi, or another of this region’s innumerable languages, and none spoke English – which left Nyanya undistracted while looking after their drinks. Everyone ate lots of nuts and salami-and-cheese nibbles. Pascal’s wife arrived with a gigantic oblong chocolate birthday cake and insisted on its being passed around quite soon. Thinking of the array on the bed, my heart sank. I had a horrid feeling no one expected a real meal – they had probably eaten already …

At 9.00 Rachel decided that all the food should be displayed and she and Paul began to grill. (Paul, rising to the occasion, had overcome his distrust of the contraption.) To my relief the steaks were rapidly devoured and the half-chickens also went down well – each had been bisected by Andrew, somewhat jaggedly with a blunt carving knife. But when I retired not much impression had been made on the kedgeree and salads.

As I unrolled my flea-bag on the guest-room floor I felt a pang; it still smells of Flopsy.

At midnight I woke to pee and heard The Party going well: much singing and dancing and loud laughter. I hoped the dancing would stimulate their appetites.

At dawn I put on the tea kettle and anxiously investigated. Yes, some appetites had been stimulated, but not enough to justify the effort put into those salads and that kedgeree. Never mind, Paul would be the beneficiary.

A pathetic call came from the bedroom – ‘Is Nyanya brewing tea?’

Rachel and Andrew looked frail, after two and a half hours sleep. (Rose doesn’t yet know about making allowances for late nights and hangovers.) They confessed to a slight misjudgement, in their eagerness to impress Andrew’s fundamentalist friends with their virtue. Sometimes they appeared to be drinking Pepsi-cola – furtively fortified in the bedroom. An empty whisky bottle explained their red eyes and sensitivity to loud noises. Neither is accustomed to drinking spirits.

‘Mixed with that horrendous stuff,’ said Rachel, ‘it doesn’t taste like whiskey, you don’t realize how much you’re taking in …’

‘But now we realize!’ groaned Andrew. He looked the worse case so I gave him my last Alka Seltzer. Gratefully he accepted the fizzing glass with a palsied hand.

We spent the day washing-up, me in a gloomy mood because tomorrow I fly away from Bukavu. Rachel and Andrew also seemed slightly gloomy, quite apart from being hungover. This touched me; apparently Nyanya has not outstayed her welcome.

6 may, nairobi airport

Driving past the brewery this morning, en route to Kavumu, we noticed its long-neglected façade being painted. A direct result, Andrew deduced, of Nyanya’s holiday in Bukavu.

MAF arrived from Nairobi an hour later, having first gone to Goma, and then the ‘Kinshasa only’ diktat delayed my departure for another two hours. I had already said goodbye to the family – a dismal business, to be got through as quickly as possible – and Pascal had seen to all my dollar-dispensing negotiations and we were sitting in the ‘departure lounge’, a row of rough wooden benches, shaded by a sheet of loose rusty tin. There was tension in the air, Kavumu airport’s normal tension. Anarchy breeds stress and strain; none of us muzungos – the rest were missionaries – could relax until airborne. Although we had completed our formalities, more dollars might be demanded at any moment for some invented reason. The octogenarian Norwegian nurse sitting in front of me (retired, but unable to settle in Europe after a lifetime in Zaire) complained that things were never like this before the refugees came, trailing clouds of UNHCR dollars.

As the twelve arriving passengers – eight Zaireans, four ex-pats – came towards us across the bare dusty ground, one muzungu was conspicuous. Middle-aged, very tall and stout, he wore baggy jeans, a sage-green bush-shirt and a red baseball cap. He carried a laptop computer and was draped with cameras, binoculars, a tape-recorder, a mobile ’phone. The tension became abnormal when he was told he must go back to Nairobi on our flight, proceed to Kinshasa and from there return to Bukavu. Was this, mysteriously, a contretemps not amenable to bribery? Or would he refuse to bribe on principle? But he didn’t look exceptionally high-principled.

Soon we had gathered that he is a German development consultant with influential contacts in Bukavu. Then why, we wondered, had those contacts not met him? As he stroke angrily to and fro, always followed by four soldiers, one could feel the Zaireans’ hostility increasing. So did mine. Any sympathy I might have felt for a muzungu diktat-victim was short-circuited by his arrogance.

As Herr X’s luggage (four ginormous zebra-skin suitcases) was being re-loaded, we debated which passenger would be forced off to make room for him. And why four suitcases? Was he planning to settle in Bukavu? That, somehow, seemed unlikely. Perhaps he was on an extended entrepreneurial exploratory tour of Central Africa? These days, with Zaire on the edge of collapse, there are many of his ilk roving around.

By now a peculiarly African miasma had risen above the scene. We watched Herr X’s luggage being again unloaded, only to be reloaded ten minutes later. On MAF flights the pilot and co-pilot double as baggage-handlers and a tall, gangling blond American was po-facedly doing as bidden by a small, uniformed fat Zairean. Meanwhile Herr X, sweating and snarling and crimson with rage, continued to stride from the police office to the customs office to the immigration office and back to the police – where the lengthiest arguments took place. All these offices are cubby-hole shacks unlikely to awe a German developer.

I longed to rejoin the family, so near though invisible, but Pascal advised me not to move lest dollar-extraction might start all over again, prompted by a muzungu’s leaving this ‘departure lounge’ which it costs so much to enter.

Forty-five minutes had passed since the plane’s arrival. I marvelled at the cheerful patience of three small missionary children, excited about their trip to Nairobi but born and bred in Bukavu and conditioned not to expect anything to happen on time.

Suddenly Herr X’s military escorts faded away, slinging their rifles over their shoulders, and he stood alone on the empty space between us and the plane, guarding his luggage – unloaded yet again and lying on the dusty field looking absurd. From his subsequent behaviour we inferred that he knew he had won. When a large UNHCR plane landed far away from the airport shacks he adjusted his telescopic lens and photographed it. A frisson of horror went through the waiting passengers, black and white; in Bukavu, muzungus have been jailed for a much less provocative use of their cameras. Four blue-capped officials emerged from this plane, stepped into a waiting vehicle – and the plane at once took off again. UNHCR staff – privileged everywhere by protocol agreements – avoid all the hassle to which lesser mortals are exposed. However, $100 bills often find their way to the top Kavumu bureaucrats, who had also driven out to meet this plane from a tiny red-brick office at the far end of the runway.

Half an hour later she arrived, one of Herr X’s influential contacts: an unmistakable Kinshasa type, young and svelte and brisk, reeking of money and power. In her presence, the police, the customs officers, the immigration officers, the loutish strolling soldiers, counted for nothing. She commanded two soldiers to carry her guest’s luggage to a shiny Landcruiser drive – I was bemused to notice – by a traffic policeman. Zaire is rich in these Alice-in-Wonderland touches.

Ten minutes later we were off and never shall I forget our flight over Rwanda. Something deep within me distrusts aeroplanes; every time I fasten my seat-belt I look Death in the face. Statistics don’t help, the sort that tell you flying is much safer than motoring. It just doesn’t feel that way. And over Rwanda we encountered extreme turbulence. As the little plane dropped horribly my seat belt hurt my hips and I wanted to vomit but couldn’t. As it turned on its side, and moments later on its other side – giving new views of Rwanda – I felt sad about never again seeing Rose. The missionary children, inured to MAF flights since babyhood and with Daddy as co-pilot, were ecstatic. Their eyes glowed, they told me that this was their most exciting ever flight, they chortled with glee as yet again we fell like a stone towards the green forested hills very close below. Then we plunged into clouds all torn and black and lightning leaped around us like devils dancing. The children squealed joyously (they were running loose in the aisle) but soon their delightful experience was over. We were out of the storm, over sparkling Lake Victoria

In Mwanza, on the Tanzanian shore, we stopped to refuel. My previous arrival in Mwanza was by bicycle, four years ago this month. A much preferable mode of transport, leaving one in control of one’s destiny. Or so one fancies. Maybe the statistics say cycling is more dangerous than flying?