It is a fact that parts of the African continent were carrying forward unresolved conflicts with the black man, indistinguishably from any other race, at times as wild, ferocious, and unpredictable as any creature roaming free and untamed. The Congo was such a country in turmoil. Within a few days of achieving its independence less than a decade earlier, it was awash with gangs of rebellious and mutinous soldiers, and within months had managed to incapacitate its first legally elected prime minister by making him dead. And so it was that lawlessness came to prevail, and bloody conflict became a way of life that continues to this very day.

Elizabethville was the place of that heinous murder and a city where the perquisites of colonial rule had been enjoyed by the Belgian colonizers to the full, and the more savory aspects of the dark continent, as Africa was called during the times of Queen Victoria, were also enjoyed.

And so it was that we set out one Friday evening hoping that we would cover most of the sixty six miles to Lubumbashi, as Elizabethville is called today, before dark, but knowing well from a previous visit to a village just inside the border the fickleness of the border officials and the limitless possibilities at their disposal to whimsically and totally without redress prevent the crossing of any territorial boundaries. In any event, passing through the border was far from being a done deal, as anyone would immediately discern from the first sight of the whole chaotic scene, fraught as such scenes were with nervousness, heightened passions, short tempers, and a general mood of fearful anxiety.

Lacking the appurtenances of an orderly queue and a desk with a border official sitting behind it with a collection of rubber stamps at his disposal, any border post might pose a problem in the logistics of getting through its anarchic and disorderly procedures, and the border crossing into the Congo was far from being an exception. The first problem lay in identifying who exactly was who. Some kind of a hat, badge, stripe, or hint of a uniform may have helped. With the absence of these indications, it was a matter of waiting until those in power revealed themselves through the exercise of their bureaucratic preponderance. Once you had honed in on the appropriate gentleman and procured his undivided attention, the next problem lay in eliciting his goodwill, a hit-and-miss endeavor that none of us were prepared to alleviate by the offering of a small inducement.

By the time we had overcome all these obstacles and were on our way, it was already almost dark. The road ahead was rocky and bumpy, but thankfully not ridged like many of the unmade roads in that part of Africa. The red laterite road to Solwezi was one such ridged road. The road into the Congo, by comparison, provided a joy ride, and a leisurely pace was sufficient to outrun the dust raised due to the favorable dry conditions for travel. 

It was a foolhardy adventure, but what can be expected with three homespun, naïve Englishmen abroad? We only knew that the name Elizabethville evoked a sense of danger and beguilement, a potent combination enough to endow any place with an irresistible allure. People went there to indulge their fantasies and have a good time. We knew nothing of the brutal history of the country, its colonization, or its civil war. Still, we were well aware that people got killed there just as people do in any large city in the world. It was, in a sense, the heart of Africa, and its jungles teemed with biodiversity and every natural danger, adding to the man-made risks. When people mentioned the Congo, they spoke in the cautionary and confidential tones of an initiate, and you knew, even if you could not comprehend the words, that they were not talking about a Sunday school picnic. It was not a place of mediocre or maudlin aspirations. It was, in fact, a jungle, both literally and metaphorically, as anyone might conclude from its geography and dynamic history.

The reply to my inquiry from the British Consul in Elizabethville contained no clear recommendation against visiting. But the envelope had been postmarked in Zambia, a detail that led me to believe that no assurances could be given.

As one slow mile followed another, it became a matter of more than curiosity whether we would meet another vehicle on the road, and similarly, what had happened to the other vehicles at the border, which we had assumed must have been traveling north as we were. Ostensibly, we were alone on the road with the way ahead, in most places barely wide enough for two vehicles, illumined only by the headlights. From space, it is said that Africa at night appears unlit, and from our limited perspective, we corroborated this. We were traveling through a virtual tunnel of tall Savanna grass, which at times was broken by a few trees and at others opened out, revealing a blackness in the unknown distances, unpunctuated by any twinkling light of a single habitation.

Ever since there have been highways and byways, there have been men eager to hinder the progress of innocent persons going about their daily affairs, from highwaymen, toll collectors, and border officials to the Highway Patrol and Congolese soldiers. Our man was one such military representative at that stage of intoxication when euphoria and garrulous affability combine to produce an alarming lack of composure and self-control, made no less intimidating by a rifle slung with casual momentary forgetfulness over his left shoulder. The profound hope on such occasions is that rhetoric, toothy grins, and highly animated discourse will not turn to curt imperatives spoken with the gravitas of a mass murderer.

Our man stepping from the dark into the beam of the headlights, one could bet, before getting a closer look, took no pride in the luster of the buttons on his tunic or the shine of his boots. Still, that lack of any sign of boot camp training and discipline would in no way undermine our unquestionable resolve to reciprocate his demands with joyful enthusiasm and death-defying fidelity. In fact, there was no question of our being anything but credulous and effusively affable. We were not about to question his allegiances or authority, particularly because there was nowhere to be seen around any scrap of military ordnance that might have lent him an aura of legitimacy and might have caused us to expect that he would behave with the civility and decorum expected from a responsible representative of a military organization just doing his duty.

What our man actually said, we shall fortunately never know. However, we were more than eager to catch the drift of his communication as he leaned inelegantly through the window and filled the vehicle with the disconcerting alcoholic fragrance of his breath. We were simply thankful when he eventually pulled back, and we pulled slowly away, lavish and unreserved in expressing our indebtedness. We were grateful that we still had our passports and our lives.

Slowly, sparse twinkling lights of firefly wattage were replaced by more and more until we found ourselves almost imperceptibly in the partial dim illuminations of a city not appearing dead exactly but notably defunct, and thence in our hotel rooms. The latter were serviced with anything available that could be appended a price. I do not know about my two friends, but I chose to take advantage of temptation to test the hotel’s willingness to please its customers. As the details do not fall within the purview of my purpose in writing this memoir, their shameful and ludicrous particulars I need not relate; thankfully.

The next day, we wandered among the bullet-ridden and damaged buildings and the piles of rubble that lay around as evidence of the protracted, destructive struggle that was going on in the country. The liveliest spot we found was an alfresco vegetable market. It had more vendors than customers —a strange state of affairs under the circumstances. One of the vendors loudly warned that bwana’s wallet, placed thoughtlessly in his back pocket, was at risk. Bwana, without hesitation, moved it to his front pocket.

The quiet that prevailed in the city was generally undisturbed by vehicle noise. Still, far from being a ghost town, we found the atmosphere resounded with a liveliness that indicated the spirit of the people had not been broken by habitual conflict, but instead honed by it to appreciate with delicate relish any small freedom from its ruinous and ongoing menace.

That night, it was with slightly more than delicate relish that a group of musicians bashed out unmistakably African rhythms with electric guitars and, above all, the percussion associated with Africa’s dark and sensuous appeal—the drum. Binga banga binga bongo, I don’t want to leave the Congo, oh no, no, no. The darkness of the room, the thick smoke, the hypnotic amplified music, the dancing, and the intensity of the social interactions gave our exclusive white presence in the club a provisional aspect which survived only one beer before we were out of the door, soon to end also our provisional presence in the country. Binga banga binga bongo, I don’t want to leave the Congo, oh no, no, no. On our first visit to the Congo, which lasted only a few hours, we concluded with this jocular refrain. This time, there was a finality about our departure that signified that appetites to experience any more of Africa’s dark mystique had been, if not satiated, at least deflected to the safer, more familiar atmosphere of Chingola’s Arts theatre bar. Cheers, three queens.