Some stories take longer to tell. Longer to share. Every time I open a newspaper now, I read about the Congo. This story begins to feel like I need to pin it to the page quickly before it is gone.
Our arrival in Bunia was not auspicious. Five people on the back of five not particularly powerful motorbikes with all of our luggage, 40km away from where we’d started. Who knew holding onto the back of a motorbike could be so tiring. Especially when you are not sure you trust the drivers. The drivers were quite keen to get this over with as quickly as possible, even if that meant driving quite fast (or what seemed fast to us) over a dirt road gone down to bedrock through the hills. A road also used by large trucks. The boda-boda drivers also had a particularly special strategy for dealing with FARDC (army) roadblocks. They would speed up just as they came to the roadblock and wave and race through quickly before anyone noticed they were carrying mzungus.
The views were beautiful – this really is a beautiful, beautiful country – but my legs had cramps and my feet went to sleep. My hands and back were aching and legs shaking when we finally got off the bikes in Bunia. In the bar/restaurant of the place we were, was a man who works for the UN in some capacity. What capacity was never established. He tried, or at least claimed to try, to be helpful when our boda-boda (motorbike) drivers decided they wanted more money. It was the first time someone tried to rip us off in the DRC and, to be honest, one of the only times. Our group was split down the middle in terms of how we should reacted. Half of us were keen to write it off as someone trying to rip us off and walk away. The rest felt that these might be useful contacts one day so we had to pay them extra. At the time, I just wanted them all to go away. We were tired and dusty and just a little bit miserable. Too tired, at least me, to appreciate that this is what happens when there is no reliable system of law and order. People wonder why things take so long to happen in not-particularly stable states. Part of the reason is that, without law and order, painfully slow negotiations are the only way to keep things functioning. We paid half of the extra they wanted and went on our way.
We went with the UN guy who knew a guy who knew a place we could stay. Hotel A Cote. A dump: no running water, stinking toilets, torn mosquito nets and tiny rooms, all for just $25 per night. Unfortunately, between NGO money distorting the local economy and the basic law of supply and demand – in a place people are scared to visit – that seemed pretty reasonable. The main hotel, we were told, was $65 a night.
Things improved after that. For all my years working in African development, I haven’t spent a lot of time in NGO-compound land. This was an aid worker world. We wandered down dusty streets, populated by local people selling fruit door-to-door – like the ladies with their brooms and feather dusters in the Joburg suburbs. Fruit sellers and branded landcruisers. On all sides high walls and security-guard-controlled metal gates carried the brands of the major NGOs. I played NGO bingo when we were in Gulu – making notes of every NGO we saw to try and come up with a total. There were even more here. Too many for the game. Some of them were different ones; more serious NGOs. Gulu is safe and settled. Bunia is more risky. OCHA and ECHO Flight and all the UN agencies share the streets with international NGO compounds.
We went in search of an NGO Richard has made contact with. Confused directions along footpaths and dirt tracks later, we found outside a different compound. The guards didn’t know the place we were looking for but they called someone from inside. His name wes Antonio. He invited us in. It feels like an important moment, visiting an NGO compound. People live here. Aid worker people. The old house. The rooms out back. The radios. Antonio works for an Italian NGO, doing water and sanitation work in a little place further north. He was there on his way home for Christmas. He was friendly and talkative and said he’d see us later at MONUSCO house. As we left, I notice they were growing herbs and chillies in their garden.
Much later, after visiting Moscou Hotel to check email (yes, they have internet in Bunia), we headed to MONUSCO house. They say that aid workers in far flung places eventually discover that they have more in common with the soldiers in those places, also far from home, than they do with their own colleagues at headquarters (except that aid workers generally trust their head offices less than the soldiers do). In Bunia, MONUSCO house is where the expat aid workers and foreign peacekeepers meet. There is a gym and tennis courts and an outside meeting area and a restaurant and pool table. We left our passports (only expats allowed here) and walked into what felt like an old-fashioned small town club in SA. A bar, tables, a christmas tree, a TV showing South African soccer (Chiefs vs Amazulu) and two or three men watching intently.
We were informed, apologetically, that the chef who does the Indian and Pakistani menus was away for the holidays, so they’d only be able to offer us the western menu. The food turned out to be excellent. The company, too. We met up with expat NGO types that one of our group had made contact with via the internet. Then we met their expat aid worker and UN friends. People came over and chatted. We drank Congolese beer (Primus) and terrible box wine. The Italians arrived and played pool with the guys in our group.
Around nine or nine-thirty, the place cleared out. Aid workers have curfews, even in Bunia. We wrapped up the evening and got a ride home with a security guy from the UN peacekeeping mission, MONUSCO. Probably unnecessary, as we would realise later, but it felt safer on that first night in Bunia.