Hell and High Water

Kinshasa is ridiculous in a lot of ways, but at the top of the list is traffic. Road works (increasing as the elections approach), narrow, unpaved or poorly paved roads, vehicles held together by tape breaking down in the middle of the road or incapable of absorbing any shock sustained at a speed quicker than a crawl, excessive motorcades, ineffective traffic police, the lack of street lights, traffic lights and any sort of rules and spontaneously road blocks in a city of six million do nothing to help cars move to their destination. I have gotten used to driving a half hour to the grocery story on a good day and grown to be unendingly thankful that I live and work within the same walls, but what happened to me on what I can safely say was my worst night in Kinshasa was more than I had ever anticipated.

In normal countries, rain causes people to drive more slowly. Things get a little backed up. The world makes sense. In Kinshasa, rain causes absolute bedlam. I should have stayed in on that stormy Wednesday, but the rain was letting up and it was my last chance to borrow my friend's warm weather gear for the hike I planned to take over the Easter holiday. Coming from my part of town, Kintambo Circle can make your night or crush your soul. This night things were pretty clogged up. As I had expected, my normal route was closed for construction so I inched my way toward the back route that would take me winding around schools and compounds and Lebanese restaurants before spitting me back out onto the main road. But as I got closer I saw that the police closed off all cars going that way and I could see why; what lay before me looked like a dysfunctional parking lot. In what are normally four 2 lane roads converging on a roundabout were dozens of cars in countless invented lanes facing all different directions. Not moving. I was directed down a shady side street going both away from where I came from and where I wanted to go. Seeing my desperation to get through, an officer motioned for me to roll down my window. Since it is unwise to do such a thing I turned down the only available road and hoped that I could turn around eventually and go home.

But this was not to be. It had taken me an hour to move 2 kilometers and it would be another hour of not moving before the road cleared up enough to make anything close to a U turn. At that point my friend who I was supposed to meet and had driven out to find me, abandoned his car in the cluster f*ck on the other side of the circle and was jogging in my direction. I waited until he reached me and together we meandered back to find his car. I eventually got to his house about 3 hours late where our other friends were still waiting with wine, cold dinner and hats, gloves and synthetic layer after synthetic layer of tops and bottoms.

Up on the top of Nyirogongo a week later I was by far the warmest most waterproofed among my hiking group. And I should have been. I went through hell and high water to get that fleece that hung to my knees and the rain pants that went up to my armpits. Hell and high water.