Expedition to the Heart of Darkness

The faded pinkish daylight was slowly disappearing. The sky of Eastern Africa was being covered with its mysterious darkness. The luminous stars were peeping out from behind the grayish clouds after their daylong rest. These universal phenomena caused more enigmas in the vast area of Africa. These shining bright stars were hardly capable of lightening and unfolding the indistinct scenes of the continent. I felt that night has just started.
This was a day of the month of October 2010. I, for the first time, stepped on the soil of Africa. My life-long dream became true. What my mind had cherished for many years at last got the reality. A new expedition of my life started. A new episode of my life was ready to be staged.

My first step in this continent was in Uganda, the pearl of Africa. Here I am not a visitor, rather a peace-keeper of the United Nations. But we all human beings are somehow tourist or explorer. We might be controlled and observed through our movements but our heart and mind are always free to think and imagine. So my inner eyes were visualizing the places and people; I myself was trying to read their minds and to feel the pulse of the surroundings.

We were being ready to cross Uganda by road for entering D R Congo, the Heart of Darkness as Joseph Conrad had said. We were told that it would be a long journey, but later this long journey became extended and wearisome enough to be remembered in the rest of my life. At the end of evening or during the genesis of the another blackest night we got on a bus, mentally preparing to face tons of obstacles and hoping to reach our exact destination safely. But life is not as simple as we wish and desire to be, most of the time it’s just opposite.

a muddy road in Eastern Province of DR Congo, 

 this picture has been taken later from a helicopter during my mission period in the region

 



 


With limited resources our eventful expedition commenced from Entebbe, Uganda. Destination was Bunia, a small city of Oriental province, DR Congo. We knew nothing about the road’s conditions; we were not even properly and elaborately briefed about the safety and security of the area. Only we got some names of place where we had to take a pause to feed ourselves. We are given two buses, one for us, and the other for carrying our pieces of luggage. After three hours journey, we reached Ugandan border, a very calm and quite area unlike the other border stations. After a long plane journey, we all were fatigued and very soon almost all of us fell to sleep. At the frontier, the guards and custom officer were sleeping unusually, we stopped, got down. They awoke after hearing our noises. Our driver was a local man, so he met the authority and showed all the papers and documents; however he easily managed the authorization for crossing the Ugandan border, we did not face any trouble to enter the DR Congo as they were well informed and used to see the peace-keepers every year who come here to serve the people of DR Congo under the umbrella of MONUSCO.  I would like to add here that we were the first group who were entering DR Congo by the road; the troops used to reach DR Congo by air in the previous years from Entebbe airport, Uganda. So our journey by road was experimental in terms of security, less expense, increasing the mobility of the casque blue etc. Though after the rotation of 3/4 groups, it was cancelled and the troops started to travel DR Congo from Uganda by air. The authority understood that it is not feasible to use the roads of the country after some noteworthy incidents. 

a village in Walendu Bindi Collectivity, DR Congo

Though we were warmly welcomed in DRC, but the other situations were not in favor of us. We could easily notice that the roads are far worse in DRC than the Ugandan’s roads. The labeled and pitch roads of Uganda made us sleepy but the roads of Congo’s are horrible, it was keeping  all of us awake. The nightmare about Africa just began after the entrance in DR Congo.  

It’s almost the middle of the night, as per Gregorian calendar a new day was going to be started. We started from Entebbe, after our arrival in DR Congo we had a plan to take a stopover for the breakfast at Mahagi. We reached Mahagi in the early of morning; at night the whole travel was vague and covered with full of concealment. We cast our eyes to the outside scenarios; we saw nothing but tremendous obscurity. Electricity, one of important and necessary invention of modern science, is completely absent in this part of the country. However the morning started and the mountains, forest and vast green nature slowly attracted and overwhelmed our sights. For the first time I saw the real natural beauty of the country, though the muddy and zigzag hilly roads made us afraid. We understood that what a dangerous bus journey we had started in a place which was completely unfamiliar and full of danger.  

Panic started to seize us gradually. Most of the areas are very calm and quite, only few houses were being seen beside the road. Every four/five kilometers distance, we discovered some small villages which belonged to few small round huts close to each other. The people from road sides gave a bizarre look with full of astonishment. Some of them made sounds with their local languages; I tried to understand, but failed. The word frequently articulated by the locals was ‘muzungu’. The meaning later I discovered was ‘The white people or the European’ in Swahili.  Some places we stopped, wise to say, we were forced to be halted because of road condition. Some of the roads were so bad that we were not audacious enough to be seated inside the bus. The driver also suggested us to cross this type of particular roads on foot. At that time I got a chance to talk to the passers-by. The educated people were able to speak in French, very rarely we got English spoken people, but the pronunciation was really different and interesting in comparison with the standard French. I had heard about the African accent through some online radio programs and friends who already completed the mission in Africa, whatsoever it was a real surprise to me.

    some scattered houses in a valley of  mountainous area of Bogoro Groupment  

After twelve hours plane journey we got 3 hours break for the preparation of our next trip, to cross Uganda border and Mahagai by bus, it took more 8 hours, we all were already whacked, though we knew that the destination is still quite far. The roads are worse than our assumption and imagination. It was a rainy season which caused the roads more slippery and muddy. We heard that robbery and the attack by militias are very common in the remote places.  Few of armed secessionist and rebel groups were active here and made the place unrest and unsafe. We started to feel helpless. What a mission we are going to execute! Will we be able to reach the destination safely? Or we ourselves will be in eternal peace before establishing peace in others' life?

After 7 hours long tedious journey from Mahagi, we reached a place called Fataki, a village market with many shops. The place was lively and vibrant, lot of villagers gathered here to buy and sell their necessary things and products. We for the first time experienced to get in touch with a big folk. We all were observing them from a fair distance with a strange look, so was being done by them as well. It was really striking for many of us to be in a place where the people are different in color, size, hair styles, language, culture and customs. We also guessed that the people are still far from the modern civilization, still they lead an easy and outdated life, most of them are farmers, pastoralist, taxi men and very few are doing small business. We took a cessation to buy some mobile sim-cards, and to refresh ourselves for a while as we were quite exhausted because of the tiresome bus journey.

a zigzag  hilly road in Oriental Province, DR Congo. 
All the pictures were taken from helicopter

In the whole journey we faced two minor mishaps, and an accident that could really have been devastating. One of the warrant officers from Bangladesh Air Force got a severe injury to his left leg; he was immediately evacuated by helicopter and was treated for months. When we were passing the road after getting down from the bus, he was behind the bus that slipped and ran over his leg, he was fortunate that he could save his body.

We all felt helpless to guess the situation, we even did not know how long it would take to reach our final destination, and we didn’t have sufficient food except few packets of MRE (meal ready to eat). We understood that this mission would not be a very easy one and later it has been proved. We had to overcome hundreds of challenges.

When we restarted our journey from Fataki, it was almost evening. Another new African unfathomable night was knocking at the door. With our drowsy eyes we were looking each other to spread the confidence that of course we would overcome the jeopardizes. I started to murmur a masterpiece of Robert Frost to boost my confidence.

“Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village, though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound's the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.”

(Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening)

The night was being darker, the dangers were being closer but the target place was not being enough nearer. We didn’t know where we were exactly going except the name of the place, only one man the driver knew the roads, and we did not know him very well. Our lives, safety all were on his hands. We became astounded to see the roads in dark. We used to call the God after any sudden hard brake or big quake.

At last, when the night was about to turn into a day our driver informed us that we were very close to the endpoint, the small Bunia city where our HQ of the battalion is located. Almost after 30 hours long terrible bus journey, I saw smile on my colleagues’ faces. We at last reached our place alive. It was really a great achievement. However, we were happy as, at last,  we could accomplish  a great expedition with full of ventures. 

15 August 2013

Bunia, DR Congo