Matadi and Stan's Health
Submitted by rootsinafrica on Sat, 24/05/2008 - 18:25.
in
We finally made the border
crossing in a record time of 1hr45min, and entered the DRC at Matadi with
trepidation. Other than slow motion officials, we had no problems at the border
with the officials. Great was our surprise to see the amazing Congo river and
low and behold……for the first time since before
PLEASE can someone teach the Angolans to do this
The most amazing thing was
that we both felt completely at ease and relaxed for the first time in a while.
We realized that we were never really at ease in
Welcome to DRC!
How is it possible he is still going and Stan not?
Somehow we learned to adopt
the attitude that we are imagining things if it could be bad, as what can be a
worse nightmare than your car breaking down in the middle of nowhere in a
country that you only heard bad things about. But as Joleen said, we live on an
Ubuntu continent and once again the angel of mercy smiled upon us. We had
turned around by now, but 22kms short of Matadi, Stan finally refused to even
move as there were neither gears nor a clutch. Needless to say, we got a bit
concerned but the angels were there and I flagged down the first car that I
saw. Mercifully the driver could understand a bit of English and he made a
call. He then, in sign language, explained that we should just wait and gave
Stew the number that he phoned. After about 1 hr we weren’t sure whether we got
it right and Stew phoned the number only to be told by “Henri” that the car is on its way.
All the broken parts
The convent
Mother Superior
We could not believe our eyes
when a carload full of guys arrived, jumped out of the car, got the tools out
and started inspecting Stan. The language is a problem but we finally agreed
that Stan needed to be towed to Matadi, the nearest town. At that stage we had
no idea what was happening, but as we had no choice, went with them. They towed
us to a place that looked like a hostel and still we had no idea where we were
and what was happening. Turned out that this place was a convent and they were prepared to put us up for US$20 per night in
a tiny little room with a single bed, which at that stage felt like a
palace. We met
a large group of fellow travelers at the Convent, on their way down to
SA from
A cleaner stan at the workshop ..well have to keep busy whilst waiting for 3 days !!!
The guys then promptly
started taking Stan apart and all we could do was to stand and watch as
communication is non existent. After at least 5 hours, in the dark, they
decided to call it a day and with a smile indicated that they will be back in
the morning. We were once again blown away by the openhearted kindness shown by
these people. They had no idea who we are, they do not even know if we have any
money, they cannot understand our language, but yet they slogged away till dark
to try and get to the problem on the car. Just blows your mind.
We were so sad to hear on
the same day about the recent horrible attacks on foreigners and refugees in
SA. How sad is that, we have only experienced kindness everywhere and then we
hear about the bad way our countrymen treat strangers.
Kingsley Wannabe!!!!! 
The new look Stew YEAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
The next morning they found
the problem once everything was taken apart and it turned out that the part
would have to be ordered from
- rootsinafrica's blog
- Login to post comments