The long wait - Part 3

Kinsangani - “I arrived at this boat more than a month ago,” the travelling preacher Ley told me. With his experience in mind, I should have known that boats in Congo don’t run on any schedule.

Maybe it was premature to board the MB Sowidaja on Saturday morning with heavy luggage. But I believed Bajo, the manager of the Sowidaja. He told we would sail ‘first thing on Monday.’
It is Tuesday night now and I should stop asking people when we will finally leave. The truth is: nobody knows. Even Bajo, the ever-relaxed manager, seems unaware. “The loading of wood is finished now,” he tells us. “But now the time-consuming authorities will come in.”
Like animals
The Congolese have a talent for taking life easy. Female passengers set out for shopping on shore, men receive haircuts on deck. Cooking on charcoal stoves is going on all around. Adou, a trader in his thirties, is drinking cheap liquor all day.

His friend, who is called Saddam, enjoys himself with the solo-travelling women. He seems to have overplayed his hand by switching sides; now his former concubine is jealous. Tonight saw another twist of events when it appeared that the place where Saddam, his woman and my friend Gaston, normally sleep is now stuffed with extra freight. Gaston can be ultimately relaxed, but this is too much for him to take. “How can we live like this? We are people, not animals!” 

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