Jungle Rot of the Brain

In my last entry, we were optimistically hoping that to have our Angolan visas and be on our way. We are still waiting! And my mind is turning into mush!

This process has turned into a near disaster--there are no other cost and time effective solutions to getting through to Namibia. The guys have even looked into shipping the cars to Namibia to bypass the whole Angola nightmare altogether, but it would take 50 days to get from Pointe Noire, Congo to Walvis Bay, Namibia. 50 days!! We could probably have biked to Southern Africa faster than this all is taking (and indeed, our Argentinian friend who is bicycling around the world will most likely beat us to South Africa!).

Other than the frustration of having to wait in the same expensive city for so long, the delay in the guys' schedule means that most likely they won't be driving through Botswana, Zambia and the like. Rather, we will be racing to get Steve Shoppman to Cape Town on time to catch his May 26th flight back to the states (his sister is getting married, so this is definitely a priority!). I was hoping to get tour much of South Africa with them, but perhaps now I'll have to just stick to my original plans to do so after we part ways.

To complicate matters even more, we were recently informed that due to some oil company distribution blunder, there will be no unleaded gas in Pointe Noire for the next 15 days. What!? We had seen huge line-ups at petrol stations around town, but just figured it was some sort of tax-break day or prices were going to jump; not that there wouldn't be any fuel in town for two weeks! Two of the guys are creating emergency plans to get out of here if things don't start coming together in our favor. If we don't have some sort of good news from the Angolan consulate in the next few days, they plan to store the cars here in the Congo somewhere, fly back to the states for a good month-and-a-half to work on getting more sponsors (i.e. funds) and will return to resume the journey to Cape Town. In the event of this last-resort plan, that more and more seems like the prudent thing for the fellas to do, I will be stranded in Pointe Noire. Their suggestions were to camp out and wait for them to return so I can finish the trip with them, try to get a job here to earn some bucks in the interim time, or just abandon the trip altogether and fly back to SA at an exorbitant price...Not very good options for me!

Fishing camp outside Pointe Noire.

Mark and Charles fishing on the coast outside of Pointe Noire.

On a different note, though, there are worse places to get stuck for the time being. The Pointe Noire expat community here has been so good to us. Patrick and Sabine, the owners of Le Pyramide Bar where we were camping gave us t-shirts and wished us all the love and peace of Jah on our future journey (one of the most flattering blessings from a Rasta-man!). We reunited with the telecommunication guys with a night of whiskey and rubbery bbq chicken and have been staying with them again. Another friend named Chris took us out for a $300 meal at the best restaurant in Pointe Noire and then drinks at a swanky pool bar. The boys have also racked up some sponsorships from a commercial diving outfit as well as a Toyota dealer, just because the owners like the concept of the trip.

So while this jaunt in mid-western Africa is slowly becoming a nightmare of the paper-pushing sort, there are still good memories and experiences that I'll take from Pointe Noire. This adventure has just further confirmed my academic understanding of this part of the world--problems of corruption and bureaucratic inefficiency are complicated to fix, and most people here just learn to live despite these encumbrances. People are most definitely disappointed in the governing system, and expressive about their concerns, but continue to go about their lives the best they can. This is perhaps a bad thing* at times, but also has proved important in my understanding of the Congo.

Hopefully my next blog will have news of our departure from Pointe Noire!

*For example: A friend of ours relayed a story about a French woman who was working in a bank here in Pointe Noire. Something like $40,000US disappeared from a client's account, and for some reason she was blamed and thrown into prison. She ended up staying there for three weeks while the French Consul and others pushed for her release or the details of why she was being held (the police couldn't provide this latter detail, or refused to...) As a result, she has been in the hospital for the past three days after losing about 22lbs, coming down with malaria and other maladies. But while she was in prison, she had very few friends visitor her at all, and instead, rumors started spreading. Our friend was distraught by the situation and couldn't believe that other French expats didn't support the accused, especially considering they knew her and are well aware of how corrupt things can be here.

Supposedly there is some sort of organized network of crime in the bank both here in Pointe Noire and in Brazzaville, and the bank manager, and whomever else involved, just needed a scapegoat and blamed the poor French woman. The bank has apologized to her, but just think of everything she's been through!