Going North

I live in Congo, but I live extremely close to the Zambian border. Not by road but by air. All the places I’ve gone have been along the border. The people are extremely different to have lived in such close proximity but that is the result of colonization I guess. I have always understood that this would be the perfect first place to live in Congo for me because of its close proximity, friends, similar tribes, and most of all peace. But the thing is I live in this huge country the size of the US from the Mississippi river east, but I have barely seen any of it. There are very few roads in Congo most are impassable and beyond what the UN just helped them with, none are paved. It makes traveling difficult and expensive.

I was talking to some church leaders about how I wanted to travel. They told me they had planned a trip for September but it was falling through. They have a vehicle they can use and I’m guessing we’re sleeping in the church and will be fed by the people so the only problem was gas money. I agreed to provide the gas money and all of a sudden we are going to Northern Katanga and I don’t think any of us have ever been there before.

Apparently we will travel about 400 kilometers north to Malemba-nkulu. Supposedly they have fixed the road but I’m sure it’s horrible no matter what they tried to do. We will leave at sun rise (6AM it’s nice to be back in a country where the sun rises and sets at 6 America really confused me) and drive until we get there. The estimates for arrival times have ranged from 6PM to 11PM so we will see what happens.

North Katanga is in the same province I live in, but Katanga is the largest province in Congo and even tried to secede at the time of independence from Belgium but after 2 years gave in. According to the law Katanga is supposed to be broken up into smaller provinces in 2009 but no one seems to expect that to happen or maybe it already has but nobody knows about it (classic Congolese situation). Where I live is the traditional home to the Basanga people but North Katanga is the home to the Baluba people. The Baluba is the largest tribe in Katanga province and in fact it is out of the Baluba that the Basanga came and the Babemba in both Congo and Zambia and probably even the Batonga whom I grew up with.

According to what I have read the Baluba people were not treated well throughout Congo history. I believe the conflict has existed for quite some time even before colonization. The Belgians didn’t prefer the Baluba and treated them poorly. All of this animosity helped fuel the civil war in the 1960’s following independence. Like most wars in Congo it had nothing to do with the Baluba but because they were angry about how they had been treated they were used to provide angry soldiers with vengeance on their minds even though the people they fought with were just as at fault for hurting them as the ones they fought against.

Congo isn’t very tribal any more. Lots of Baluba live here in Likasi and they harbor no hostility. In fact I bet I know more about the conflicts than most of the young Baluba do. History doesn’t seem very important here that’s probably why it keeps repeating itself. I’ve been told that although most people where we are going speak Kiluba they also speak Swahili and tend to use it more often. This is very good news for me.

So this should be quite the adventure. Me with like 8 other Congolese men crammed into an SUV for only God knows how long on terrible roads going to a place we’ve never been. We shouldn’t have to worry about getting lost there is only one road. I’ll be eating plenty of leaves and hearing oowing and aawing and getting touched by all the children and a few curious adults who have never seen a white person before. Hopefully I’ll have some good stories for you guys. Pray we make it.