14th November
‘Avez-vous un fusil?’ Asked one of the customs officers.
‘He’s asking if we have a gun,’ I translated.
Before we left London Ross came back from the city alone one day with a package.
‘I want to show you something,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Come upstairs.’
Intrigued I looked around to see if any parental ears were pricked, and followed him up. He unfastened the wrappings of a parcel with great care. A gun tumbled into his hand and I gasped.
‘What did you get that for?’
‘Keep your voice down! It’s only for an absolute emergency. I’ve been worrying about trouble in the Congo and wondering how we’d defend ourselves if we got into real trouble, so I decided to buy this. We’ll keep it well hidden and only use it as a last resort.’
I looked at the resting weapon. As a replica of a German Luger it looked ferocious. The mechanics sounded less scary since it worked off a compressed air cartridge, the same as that used in soda fountains. Around forty aluminium pellets could be fired without reloading.
‘So it’s an air-gun,’
‘Yes.’
I was relieved but unsure about this turn of events, and took little interest in how it worked. To me guns spelt trouble and I wanted no part of it, but understood why he had bought it. We hadn’t discussed it since, and it lay mischievously at the bottom of the glove compartment. I put it out of my thoughts.
‘Tell him we have an air-gun for shooting snakes,’
‘Nous avons un pistolet d’aire pour tuer les serpents,’ I guessed the translation.
The customs officer looked puzzled and asked to see it. Ross went back to the car and some minutes later came back with the air-gun held carefully dormant in his hand. They backed off with their hands up in the air. Alarmed by their reaction we assured them we meant no harm. Ross offered to demonstrate how it worked and when they realised that it only fired aluminium pellets they laughed in an over-exaggerated fashion, we suspect to hide their embarrassment. I wondered what my translation had said.
The head of state Bokassa looked down with a smug smile at this exchange from his framed picture on the wall. He’d gained power in a coup d’état a few years earlier.
‘This will be an era of equality,’ he announced on the radio to the surprised nation.
Seven years after our passing through the country he had himself crowned as Emperor, styling himself on Napoleon complete with gold epaulets, gold-embroidered jacket and fancy hat. The coronation cost more than the annual budget of the country and included a throne made of solid gold. Allegations of cannibalism were never proved.
‘I thought that things were going to get nasty back there,’ said Ross as we drove into our eighth country. ‘They had guns of their own, only theirs were rifles and not air pistols. We would have been pretty helpless if they’d decided to turn against us.’
We pondered this as we rolled along until at ten o’clock we reached Bossembélé. The petrol situation took over as our latest anxiety. I wrote in the log book:-
‘Petrol here is 9/- to 9/6d a gallon which for 88 octane fuel is hell of expensive.’
This was priced according to the prevailing exchange rate, but we had no local currency so couldn’t buy petrol regardless of what they were charging. We might just have made it to Bangui without filling up, but decided against the risk. The AA book had two hotels marked where we hoped to change a traveller’s cheque, but they had long gone and after numerous enquiries we tracked down the police station to seek advice. This proved to be the right decision and the charming constable grasped our situation immediately, giving us a coupon for twenty litres of petrol in exchange for a traveller’s cheque.
Having local currency was always a problem when we arrived in another country. It had happened for the first time in Spain on a Sunday. Up on the Meseta of the central plateau we arrived at a smooth new three-lane highway freshly demarcated with bright white lines. We’d settled into enjoying the empty straight road when a barrier and toll booth blocked our way ahead. The toll-keeper put down his copy of El Païs as we drew up alongside him. We’d not yet bought Spanish currency.
‘Diez pesetas por favor,’ he requested.
‘No tenemos pesetas,’ I started to explain since I was nearest. We couldn’t pay the ten pesetas and I was trying to think what the Spanish for travellers’ cheques could be. Between us we tried to offer sterling, tangling ourselves up in the unfamiliar language and causing more confusion. This was no good to the isolated toll-keeper, and after much explaining and sign language he told us to ‘peess off.’ He uttered the order with fluency, apparently the only English words he knew, with an angry wave of his arm but also a raising of the barrier. Giggling we passed through gratis on to a motorway to let the miles fly past.
On the road to Bangui we ground to a halt in sand again, reminding us of the Sahara and marginally preferring it to mud. We were taking it in turns to dig ourselves out with our new shovel bought in Biafra when a large truck arrived from the opposite direction. The driver couldn’t pass on the narrow track so he reluctantly had to stop, and a Ugandan hitch-hiker who was travelling with him came to talk to us. He had just come through the Congo and related horrifying tales of the local people, corrupt officials, and impossible roads which forced even large trucks to be stranded.
‘It would be better for you to cross into the Congo at Bangassou,’ he advised. ‘You should avoid a lot of trouble that way.’
‘But is there a bridge there?’ asked Ross, knowing that none was marked on the map and that the river in question was the main tributary of the Congo River.
‘No, but there is a ferry which can take you across the river,’ he assured us.
The Ugandan was so sure of himself we decided to trust his advice. His stories of corruption and dreadful roads were exactly what we feared in the Congo and his suggested route would minimise the time and distance we’d have to spend there. Ever guileless and with an absence of any better information, we altered our plans to head for Bangassou before crossing the huge river and thus delayed our entry into the dreaded Congo. The road would still take us through Bangui, our original destination, and we could reassess the situation when we arrived there. We drove on another twenty miles before stopping for the night, bringing the day’s total to over three hundred.
15th November
Based on calculations using a distance-measuring wheel over roads on the map Ross had estimated back in London we had to travel 4,000 miles to Chingola. His father suggested we add fifty per cent on to this amount, making the total 6,000, and with this in mind we planned to take five weeks for our journey. We had long passed the seven thousand mark and still had a third of our journey to go. London was exactly five weeks behind us. The realisation made us press on. Our original budget for five weeks would have to keep stretching. Petrol would be a fixed cost, so our only way to minimise the rest would be to hurry on and save on living costs.
The broad avenues of Bangui led us down to the wide River Ubangi which marked the border. Its waters would wind their way through dense forest for several hundred miles and flow into the great Congo River. This had been our planned crossing over to Zongo in the Congo until we’d changed our plan and we stood looking across the wide stretch of lazy muddy water. The barge that served as a ferry sat solidly against the quay. A faded notice stood alongside with a timetable. We’d just missed a crossing and the next ferry wouldn’t be sailing for a few days, further endorsing our decision to continue to Bangassou.
The French colonial capital beckoned us to linger for a better look. Instead we followed a smell redolent of France to a local bakery for warm baguettes, changed some money and headed out of town. A hedge of hibiscus lined the central reservation of the wide highway, and a woman with a basket was collecting its scarlet flowers. We imagined it was for tea or medicine.
Lush colonial gardens restrained by high walls hinted at abundance. A fifty-foot tree dripped with dangling green avocadoes, banana fronds thrust untidily upwards, dusty mango trees branched out over the pavement casting welcome shade for passers-by, and between towering trees leggy Poinsettias were coming into flower in time for their festive Christmas splash. Glimpses of an old crumbly building evoked a past life of masters and servants, of pink champagne and canapés, but also of diseases, disasters and rebellion.
A police checkpoint stopped us and polite officers asked us the usual questions of where we were going, where we had been and why, and then let us pass with their good wishes. Could this smart efficiency be happening in darkest Africa? Would we have a different tale to tell after we crossed the Ubangi River?
We’d been dreading the Congo and if we were honest shouldn’t have been going there.
‘I will let you have the loan if Mr McCarry gives this journey his blessing,’ smiled Mr Johnson the bank manager, back in Edinburgh. He was talking about my father, his predecessor
We sat in the Leith office with a mid-September sun shining through the window. Ross had presented our scheme admirably and we were full of hope. Mr Johnson had taken over the Bernard Street branch from my father when he retired and we were appealing to him for a loan of £350 to cover our living and travelling costs for the journey. We had estimated this to be enough to cover modest living accommodation and one hot meal a day for five weeks, our estimated time for the trip. The company N.C.C.M. offered nothing towards our costs. Normally they paid in advance for the ship’s passage and motoring expenses up from South Africa, or direct flights to Zambia. But they would not risk any funds up front for our unprecedented scheme. No encouragement came from that quarter. We didn’t qualify for the ‘induction’ or hotel accommodation in London either and had little idea of the life waiting for us when we arrived.
Back in Colinton Road at my parents’ house I suspected that Mr Johnson had just cleverly thwarted our plans. I lifted the heavy black telephone receiver with an equally heavy heart about to appeal to my father who was visiting London with my mother. He had already coughed up a loan for the new car out of the lump sum he received on retirement. It wasn’t only a question of capital. Was this going to be stretching his generosity of spirit? My request would put the burden of sanctioning our enterprise onto his shoulders.
I tried to sound confident and sensible, and then passed the phone to Ross to have his say. We must have presented our case well or caught him at a weak moment because rather taken by surprise he reluctantly but unmistakably agreed to our scheme. He made one condition. We must not travel through the Congo. We had secured our bank loan!
A stretch of tarmac road led us out eastwards on the RN2 out of the city for over 100 miles, a luxurious surprise after the rutted roads in the rest of the country. It allowed us to reach Grimari by the end of the day having plenty of miles under our belt and another satisfying mileage for the day.
16th November
Encouraged by the good progress we’d made up to Grimari our hopes were high for crossing into the Congo from Bangassou later in the day, but we were too optimistic. In the late morning our roof rack finally broke, which wasn’t really surprising considering the load it had been supporting since Lagos. It happened just beside a village so we soon had an audience of ten. We removed the offending roof-rack and left it in a ditch. Before long someone had made their claim, scurrying away with it carried aloft before Ross could change his mind. The remaining wheel and ladders now had to go into the car and after a lot of thought Ross decided to cut the ladders shorter so that they would fit inside with the windows closed. I helped to find the hacksaw in the boot which involved unpacking half of its contents and creating a turmoil which kept me busy rearranging for the next twenty minutes. Sweating away under the watchful gaze of the villagers Ross managed to reduce the length of the sturdily-built ladders while still leaving them useful for an emergency. We tried from every angle to squeeze them into the car but they solidly refused to fit, so he had to cut off another tiny section which took just as long. The young men were amused by all this activity and one took the saw off Ross to lend him a hand, grinning broadly. Finally we arranged everything for a reasonable fit, including the three spare wheels, but our personal space had been reduced to a minimum with my knees pressed against the dashboard, and Ross with barely enough room to manage the car controls. It also meant we both had to use the driver’s door, and the prospect of driving thousands of more miles didn’t look appealing. It did however get rid of the disconcerting noises from the roof every time we hit a bump. The show over, our audience gave us a cheery wave and dispersed back into the bush.
In the early afternoon we had to stop again for our tenth puncture since leaving Lagos. This meant changing not just the punctured tyre, but two in order to keep the wheels balanced, as well as the tiresome need for both of us using the same door as we climbed awkwardly in and out.
‘We’re not going to get across the river today after all this,’ said Ross.
I agreed and produced a flannel with some soap and water for a wash after handling the dirty wheels. As we sat on the green verge of the red national road rubbing the oily stains from our fingers, we watched an old man approaching. He carried a large knife, a spear for fishing, and a branch of bananas. Using sign language we persuaded him to sell us some of his fruit. They were still green but would quickly ripen in the warmth of the car.
Dusk was approaching when we arrived in Bangassou. Anxious about the ferry we headed straight for the river. Slightly narrower than the stretch we’d seen in Bangui, it flowed faster. A swathe of solid green bush covered the Congolese side in dark mystery.
Blank faces answered our enquiries. If there had ever been a ferry it had long ceased to operate. Perhaps taking advice from unknown hitch-hikers had not been a good idea and we would have to backtrack. We asked several more locals about a river crossing and our fragile hopes took an upturn as each one assured us there was still a means of getting across.
‘Yes, you can get across the river with your car. There is a raft,’ said one.
‘Maybe three, maybe four years ago the men of Bangassou, they made a raft to carry a car. But it was smaller than this one that you yourselves are driving,’ said another.
Each time we phrased it differently just in case of misunderstanding, and after half a dozen positive answers decided they must be right. As the daylight seeped away and the hated mosquitoes began to whine we stood and looked at the fast-flowing barrier where crocodiles and hippos lurked. They call the river Mbomou here before it merges with the Uele River to form the Ubangi River that we’d seen in Bangui. Although this was not as wide as the lazy stretch we’d seen before, it would need a sturdy carrier to transport us across its swirling depths.
Using the last hour of the day to make a start with arrangements we set off, and tried to out-pace the mosquitoes as we strode from place to place.
‘You know we have to find a way to cross this river, don’t you?’ said Ross
‘Well we could always go back if it looks too dangerous,’ I replied.
‘But we can’t.’ He looked at me helplessly. ‘We don’t have enough petrol, and there hasn’t been anywhere to buy it. It’s really remote here. We’re in the back of beyond!’
‘What about that little petrol pump we passed in town?’ I asked.
‘That was diesel, it seems to be all they have on offer out of the main towns.’
Ubiquitous trucks ran on diesel, and anyone wealthy enough to have a car made sure their vehicle did too.
There wasn’t much demand for rafts since most transport used the ferry at Bangui. It would cost ten pounds, a price which came down to about six pounds but still we weren’t very happy although unclear of what was actually involved. Being British we decided to consult the police to find out if these prices were correct, ever trusting of the constabulary. But the policeman wasn’t helpful at all and asked for all our papers. He couldn’t understand our passport and visa arrangements. The remains of the day faded as we offered lengthy and patient explanations to convince him all was in order. Satisfied at last he slipped our papers into the drawer of his wooden desk.
‘I will keep them here until tomorrow.’ He announced.
We couldn’t understand why, and suspected he was simply wielding his power. It meant we couldn’t change a cheque at the hotel to pay for the boat crossing. His obstreperous attitude got us riled, although I tried not to show it, but it was tricky trying to keep the lid on Ross’s frustration. Finally we persuaded him to hand back our passports, promising to return them when we’d changed the money. His was the worst face of officialdom. Bored by a lack of action, a little alcohol made the day pass more pleasantly. It fogged his brain and made him belligerent, which was not at all pleasant for us. Exhausted and demoralised by all the argument, we treated ourselves to a meal and a glass of beer at the hotel.
We found ourselves the only diners although others were expected judging by the tables laid out with bread baskets. French custom is to eat late, and they had set the standard in the country’s restaurants. Communication with the waiter left us unclear of what was on offer and conscious of our tight budget we opted for the bargain set menu which had not been written down. Thinking about food had our juices flowing and ravenous we started on the bread. The waiter appeared with a salad as a first course, and then an omelette, which he cut in half. Fearing this was the main course, we helped ourselves to bread on the next table. Ross had just popped a sugar cube in his mouth when a puzzled waiter returned to ask if we’d like more bread. We accepted and soon regretted our request when the main course of steak and chips appeared, and then a choice of crème brûlée or cheese board. It turned out to be another taxing evening for our previously under-used digestive systems, reminiscent of Zinder.
The ‘patron’ of the hotel offered to exchange some Congolese money as well as the local currency. There was no petrol to be bought in this backwater before we made the crossing so it would be essential to fill up the tank as soon as possible across the river. We’d learned this lesson when we first entered the country from Cameroon, and we jumped at the chance to get Congolese currency in advance. We returned the passports to the unpleasant policeman as promised and drove out of town for a quiet spot to spend our last night in the country.
17th November
Our passports reclaimed, we set off for the garage to arrange puncture repairs. We’d been led to believe the owner might also help with the promised river crossing, but we spoke to five people before reaching the man in question. He promised to solve our problem, saying the punctures would be repaired free-of-charge, and suggesting local prisoners could assemble a raft for crossing the river. Reassured, we left the tyres with him, went to the market for fresh food and posted letters home.
A small boy called Emanuel who claimed to be twelve but looked the size of an eight-year old, became our shadow. He longed to run errands for us and was never far from our sides until we left town.
We reclaimed our mended tyres and ready to leave, went to see what was happening about the raft… nothing. It had all been a misunderstanding and another failure of communication. The garage owner agreed to hire some workmen to do the work but we would have to pay them.
We went to the customs, a mud hut with resident official sitting at a small table and wielding a rubber stamp, left the carnet there ready for our departure from the country, and went down to the river to see how things were progressing. We would have to pay for the use of the local’s dug-out canoes and also the workmen, who didn’t look like prisoners, for constructing a raft and getting us across the water. This work would cost us the equivalent of ten pounds, the original sum quoted and one we could little afford. We realised after much discussion it was the only way and a better alternative than returning to Bangui, particularly with no fuel being available. Still groping our way through the fog of misunderstandings we then found it rested on us to obtain the planks for the car to stand on, and rope to tie everything together. Emmanuel led us to the Catholic mission which had not been our first thought when looking for rope and planks.
We emerged from the cool peaceful building accompanied by a brownrobed Brother Paul who understood how things worked here. He greeted Emanuel, our shadow, and with long rosary beads clinking with every stride he led us to a locked storehouse. Its well-ordered interior revealed all manner of useful objects and he selected a large coil of rope. The planks had to be at least eighteen feet long and wide enough to support the car. Emmanuel was dispatched to the river for carriers from our new workforce. Four men appeared and were instructed by Brother Paul in their own language to return the wood at the end of the day. Ross and I carted the rope with Emanuel holding the tail-end, and our little procession made its way back to the river.
The call had gone out to the neighbouring village chiefs for the biggest pirogues or dugout canoes to be brought, of which the four longest and deepest were selected. The mission’s planks would be laid at right angles over them and secured with rope to form a craft similar to a catamaran with two canoes on either side. Another two planks made a short bridge between dry land and the raft.
‘Where will it land?’ I asked, surveying an apparently impenetrable line of bush across the river.
The foreman pointed to the bank directly opposite us. I looked again more closely, and saw a narrow break in the greenery with a barely discernible clearing from the bank into the unknown.
The men busied themselves with ropes, canoes, and planks and we watched with apprehension, wondering about the wisdom of trusting our lives and our golden car to such a precarious craft. We thought again about returning to Bangui, and remembered the lack of petrol. Even the mission vehicles ran on diesel. Every time we looked at it the river looked wider and faster-flowing, so when the time came for the car to embark on the precarious raft our hearts raced with something akin to terror.
‘If it capsizes Ross will have to swim to the nearer bank,’ I thought to myself. A faint hope should disaster strike, given the speed of the current and the resident wildlife.
‘The raft is ready now so you must pay us the money,’ said the foreman with African directness.
‘You can have a deposit now and I’ll pay you the rest when you get us, and the car safely over to the other side.’ Replied Ross firmly. I translated.
Some muttering ensued, but after a few minutes he nodded, took the cash offered and got down to business.
‘Allez y!’ he ordered, waving Ross on to the planks.
‘That won’t work,’ protested Ross, ‘the raft will just float away if I try to drive on without it being held.’
The boss man scratched his head.
‘The men will have to get into the water on the other side to hold it still until the car is in place,’ Ross explained gesturing to demonstrate what he meant.
An extensive discussion followed in the local tongue, and then they did as Ross asked. Mindless of lurking crocodiles, eight of them stood up to their chests in the murky water pushing the raft towards the bank while another eight held the dugouts to the shore.
I became the guardian of all our money, travellers’ cheques and passports for safekeeping, and our heaviest luggage had already been stashed in a separate dug-out canoe where I would be travelling. I was considered the better risk.
Ross coaxed the wheels cautiously on to planks nine inches wide to board the bobbing raft and it plunged instantly and alarmingly under the weight. Sixteen men strained to their limits trying to hold the lashed canoes close to the bank. Struggling to regain his sang-froid Ross inched the back wheels onboard amidst shouts and waving hands about how far he should take it. Too far would topple both car and driver straight into the river, and not far enough would upset the balance. Sweat streamed down faces still trying to hold the raft to the bank. Ross pulled hard on the hand-brake. No rope had been left to secure the wheels in place.
The young men took up their positions with two in the front and two in the back of each dug-out. Another man to orchestrate the chanting and rowing amounted to seventeen in all. Ross sat in the car with his arms folded, a 1970 version of a nineteenth century explorer.
Two men jumped into the water to push the raft from the bank, and the chanting started.
‘Aye oomh. Aye oomh,’ they sang plunging their paddles into the swift current.
Sweat glinted on their straining torsos. My heart lurched and I felt as if I’d strayed onto a film set.
Two boats let in water and soon one man gave up paddling to bale them out. The car slid a fraction with each rhythmic pull of the paddles and Ross opened his door frightened by the wheel movement, gesturing to the conducting foreman in dismay. Already the wheels strayed a few millimetres over the edge of the planks.
‘Aye oomh. Aye oomh.’
The foreman did not flinch and on they laboured upriver, keeping close to the shore where the current was weakest up the hurrying river, chanting their refrain with deep rich voices.
‘Aye oomh. Aye oomh.’
They looked unaware of a possible slide into the murky water, and it seemed they were taking the car and my husband away from me, the distance became so great between us. Then they started to turn into the full strength of the current to make a wide arc downriver towards the opposite bank.
I set off in the single dug-out with two boatmen but without the need for chanting or to travel so far upstream. Our documents had been stored in a bag around my neck and I clutched them while I studied the murky riverbanks for signs of crocodiles.
‘People always see them too late,’ Brother Paul had remarked unhelpfully earlier.
I’d read somewhere that it was a slow and painful way to die, starting with a death-roll before being dragged semi-conscious into their lair to slowly rot. Ross looked at me across the liquid divide and I forced a smile, hardly believing what we were doing and not sure of my emotions. He grinned back putting on a brave face and showing me he couldn’t believe it either.
‘Aye oomh. Aye oomh.’
The lack of film for our camera was a tragedy.
Our smaller craft arrived first and the paddlers helped me to offload the luggage. I stood on Congo soil and watched the raft approach with the chanting getting louder at every stroke.
‘Aye oomh. Aye oomh.’
They had safely reached the weaker currents on the Congolese side of the river and could let the raft glide through thick reeds and down to the bank beside us. The temperature rose as the hot oarsmen pulled the raft close in a sweaty haze.
‘There will be no problem with landing at the other side,’ the foreman had assured us before they set off.
But he had not allowed for the water level being low at the start of the rains and thick mud stretched between the water and the bank. It was too thick to take the boats and not solid enough to drive over. The men who had transported my dugout stood up to their knees in water wanting their work to be over and waiting expectantly for the car to roll off the raft across glutinous mud. ‘Don’t pay the ferry man until you get to the other side’ had been a good motto to follow.
‘We have to make a ramp across that mud or it’ll be disastrous!’ Ross pleaded, refusing to move the car off the raft.
So the planks from the previous ramp were duly laid over the divide as a bridge for the car to drive over.
‘It’s still not good enough,’ he insisted, ‘We’ll need to collect wood or stones to provide a firmer base. What is there?’
But there were no more planks or other hard material.
‘We’ll just have to go for it then, everyone cross your fingers!’
The men standing in the water pushed the raft as far as they could into the shore while others pulled from the muddy bank. The main concern was the front wheels being plugged in mud while the rear wheels were still on the raft. So with the engine running and everyone in place holding the raft, Ross pushed down his right foot on the accelerator and made a run for dry land. Half way across the planks slowly disappeared into the mud with a crack. We all looked on helplessly as the car slid uncontrollably sideways. Men pushed to stop its downward motion but within seconds the wheels also sank out of sight into the brown muck. The slurping river looked as if it would be claiming our golden dream after all. I hardly dared watch.
Sunk too deep, the car doors would not open. To get out Ross had to climb through the window and the mud sucked at everyone’s feet. The oarsmen tried to lift it out and the body of the car rose up but the wheels and axle stuck firm refusing to budge. Ross produced our shovel. They started digging, digging and digging, and finally ramming the wooden planks downwards in an effort to slide them at an angle under the wheels.
Sinewy arms and shoulders got stuck in, and tried once more to lift the car back into place, chanting ‘drrrr-ya,drrr-ya’ with an upward lift on the ‘ya’. Pushing and heaving they tried again and again, and just as it slipped into place the malevolent slime claimed another wheel.
‘Drrrr-ya,drrr-ya.’
This sequence kept repeating itself but each time a few more inches were claimed. The mud ladders were indispensable.
‘Drrrr-ya,drrr-ya.’
Including Ross there were twenty strong men labouring for an hour to secure the car on to solid ground and we certainly got our money’s worth.
In the process of freeing the car, one of the planks split without warning and stabbed two men in their legs with deep dirty cuts. Torn red flesh gleamed out through four inch openings in mud-encrusted skin, one in the calf and the other on the outer thigh. Stifling my abhorrence I rushed to retrieve our first-aid box. Their stoicism shamed me into denying any squeamishness and I did my best to patch them up. They revelled in the attention from this pale European girl and soon a queue had formed, each man displaying his wounds. Our stores of antiseptic and Elastoplast quickly depleted as I felt obliged to treat even the tiniest cuts which I’m certain under normal circumstances would have been ignored. I sat on an anthill to administer sticking plaster and sympathy until each one of them wore his badge of honour.
We paid our dues, and in true African fashion they all decided what they would like us to give them: – cigarettes; sweets; money; shirts; hats; blankets, medicine. We parted with a few sweets, aspirin, and cigarettes, shook many hands and everyone smiling and the job accomplished we left them to row back home. We had just shared one of the most unforgettable experiences of our lives with these men, and were heavyhearted to think we would never see them again. We owed them our survival.