Book 3
Chapter 1
Morning.
Matadi.
Democratic Republic of the fucking Congo.
I front up to those big, imposing gates.
Angolan Consulate.
Last chance. It has to work.
I’m a ball of nerves.
I know that every action that I make from here on could be the difference between success and disaster.
Here we go.
Smile.
Grinning like a happy maniac I introduce myself to all the guards with the guns - handshakes and smiles all round. I stick around to have a chat with them in some rough French. Once I’m convinced that we’re all buddies, I follow their directions into the building.
Into the room and there’s a bloke standing behind a counter. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before... Standing, at a counter...
Anyway, he’s busy, so I make myself comfortable along with the other’s in the room and start sizing things up.
On the other side of the counter there are two blokes; a kid in uniform doing all the talking, and an old chubby fellow in plain clothes who’s just hanging around. They’re talking in Portuguese, so that’s no good. I watch carefully. From what I can cog, I reckon it’s the old boy who is the one to watch...
I stew in my seat, watching a clock on the wall tick for every second of nearly half an hour till I’m called up.
Smile.
Shake hands, try some Portuguese: “Mew nomee ee Luke”
The kid in the uniform is called something like “Doobrey” and the chubby checker is “Costa”.
So far so good. I try to go further: “Desculpo, senoras, no faalo Portu-ges, faalo Onglaise ooo francaise?”
Looks like we'll be talking in French, but I reckon that might get a little weird; them speaking their second language and me speaking a language I have a habit of butchering.
Well, it’s better than my Portuguese...
I ask them for a transit visa and hand over my passport.
The first question is like a broken record: “Why didn’t you get this in your home country?”
My heart breaks. I'm already scrambling. They can't knock me back that easy. They can't.
At least they’re asking me, not telling me – A question, and not a statement.
I tell them that I’ve been travelling in Africa for years – which is a bit of an exaggeration... I let it hang there, as though that's explanation enough.
They ask for my motivation letter. I give it to them.
No, not motivation, vaccination. The young fella does his best charade of shooting up heroin.
I'm lost in translation already...
I’ve freshly forged my “yellow card” - which is a vaccination certificate - so that it’s got yellow fever written in it. I'm glad for it; they can't trip me up there; it looks legit. (Just to note, I have been vaccinated for yellow fever, I just don't have the stamp; I'm not insane.)
They read my letter of motivation, I think that they’re pretty happy that I’ve gone to the effort to translate it into to Portuguese...
Brownie points right there.
They want a photocopy of every single page of my passport, even the blank ones, and photocopies of every page of my yellow card, even the blank ones, and photocopies of any and all of my motorbike’s papers, and two passport photos.
Progress!
They ask when I want to leave.
I don’t know what the right answer is... I want to answer anything that doesn’t get the reply “imposseeeebleh”.
I say "next Thursday?" with a question mark...
Wrong answer.
Too conservative.
They say not to bother with any of it today. I should come back after the weekend on Monday morning.
Yes sir, that's fine, sir.
I don’t ask how long it will take, or how much it will cost, this meeting has gone well, I back away quietly.
So, I’ve got a weekend to kill.
What to do?
Cyber.
Soul destroying.
Things have not been going well... My extended time "off the grid" without warning, has whipped my family into a frenzy.
When I say my family, I mean mum.
I go through the messages...
Imaginations of the violence being done to her son in the Congo after radio silence has gotten the better of her.
She finally snapped a few days back and had a meltdown.
I feel sorry for dad. He’s the one who has to tidy it all up.
I’m torn between sympathising with mum, and wondering at what point the umbilical cord is going to get cut...
I know already that her creepy answer would be “never”, but for me right now, lateish twenties would be fine.
Anyway. Like most sons who can do no wrong, I can do no wrong.
One message clears everything up.
I still reckon she’s going to kill me with her own hands if I keep this shit up.
After putting out that fire there's nothing left to do, and the connection here is so slow that it's like pulling teeth.
Time. To. Wander.
I head off downhill towards the river Congo.
It’s a bit of a walk, about an hours worth, but I’ve got nothing better to do than to walk through generic, mad Africa.
A warm, hot, smokey hour later and I hit the river and an impressive suspension bridge.
Looks pretty new, pretty solid. It’s completely out of keeping with the theme of the village.
The river Congo is moving along underneath it with a gentleness that hides the monstrous amount of water that it’s shifting. Throw in some gentle rolling, uninhabited, green mountains in the backdrop and it’s all quite neatly picturesque.
The guys with the guns won't let me cross.
I soak it in for a while and start the long walk back.
Swoon.
The world spins ever so slightly and sickeningly.
I can’t think straight. Can’t stand straight.
It’s so heavy that I have to stop... I bend lower to the ground to decrease the height of the fall a little bit.
Unpleasantly drunk, wasted, yet sober.
I’m in trouble.
Something’s very not right.
I strain against it. Grimacing.
It comes off a bit. I have to walk...
I can't think straight, but I can walk.
I’m ok. It’s ok. Keep walking.
For the whole hour back to hotel I can’t focus.
Not really.
I don’t feel like me.
I can’t stop fucking swooning. I feel like I’ve been spun in circles over and over and my head can’t catch up when my body stops turning.
Woozy.
I've been dying to lie flat. I even thought of doing it right there on the street...
I get back to the hotel.
Crash.
What the fuck is happening to me?
The room stops spinning.
What now? I've got nothing to do...
I read a book to kill some time and take my mind off it for a bit.
War and Peace. It’s been a grind. My e-reader say's I'm only 54% through...
For a book like this, reading to halfway has to be the equivalent of reading a shitload of normal books; every time I sit down to read it for what feels like an age I only lop off another 1%.
Fuck this.
I’d rather watch paint dry.
Or head to the “cyber”...
Yep. Done. I'm off.
This is just as bad...
Swoon. Another episode.
I grab the screen of my laptop tightly to hold on to something that’s not moving as the whole room does cartwheels around my head.
I nearly fall off my chair; my balance is rooted.
Choked up. Spinning out.
I freak - the fuck - out.
I’ve righted myself. I know I'm up straight, but it doesn't feel like that. My head's lolling around. I can't think!
Hospital??
Should I go to hospital??
I can't deal with that...
Big, panicked, breaths through my nose.
Was I holding my breath?
My head's all fizzy, like my hair is electric on my scalp.
Am I hyperventilating now?
It’s time to go...
I throw some dirty money at the lady who runs the joint and rush back to the hotel room.
Onto the bed.
Lie flat.
Still.
And that’s where I stayed.
More or less for the rest of the day.
And then all of the next day.
I feel ok when I’m lying down, and I’m normal when I’m sleeping, I think...
Every time I go to go get up I feel that faint wooziness coming on.
The only time I take the chance to get up is to eat; because I have to.
And even when I’m lying down, my breathing won’t take care of itself. At least that’s the impression that I get. It *should *be something that just happens without conscious attention - of course - but I keep getting the feeling that when I'm not paying attention to it I'm not breathing enough.
Or I'm breathing too much...
So, I do it myself. I literally do my own breathing.
It’s exhausting.
Inevitably, I get it wrong. When that happens I feel faint. I’m never sure if I've been underdoing it or overdoing it, and I don’t know whether to breathe slower or faster to fix it.
I have to cop it all day - there's no alternative.
Even lying flat out on the bed, watching the ceiling, I still feel nothing like normal.
Manually controlling my breath? What’s wrong with me?
I should be fine; I’m not exerting myself, I’m getting plenty of rest, I’m eating plenty of food, drinking plenty of water.
I don’t feel crook.
Physically I'm fine. I couldn’t say a single thing that’s wrong.
So what’s going on then? Why can’t I even stand without losing my bearings and feeling like falling?
What’s going on?
I feel only a sliver like myself.
What happens if it gets worse? Worse than this... What happens if it gets so bad that I can’t help myself anymore? What if I wake up in the middle of the night and I can’t move? Can’t get help? What if the room spins, spins worse, worse than I can handle... what if it doesn’t stop? What if I fall over and can’t get up again?
No one knows where I am... No one knows that something’s wrong with me.
I’m completely isolated out here.
I feel every ounce of the solitude. It's crushing. All day, every second I'm aware of it.
I just wish someone was here with me. Anyone. It would change everything.
Instead, I have to make the conscious, constant effort to hold back the screaming panic that’s right there, all the time. The tether is as thin as a thread.
I’m at breaking point. I can feel it.
All the time.
And I can’t take it...
It’s not bursts, it’s a continuum. Small forevers.
Forevers that don't break; that don't let up.
I can't do forever...
Sticking my head in the sand isn’t going to fix it. What are the alternatives?
Do I go to the hospital now?
Fuck I hate that idea... Not here - not in this place...
But what else is there? What else can I do?
I can't go home. Out of pure pigheadedness. Bloodymindedness. I won't leave now. Not unless it gets worse...
There's really nothing else. Either go to a hospital, go home, or keep going.
Here are my ranked thoughts on what it actually might be:
"Very, very bad": I have cancer in my brain. Angry cancer. And this is "End Game".
"Very bad": I have something that I've picked up - Malaria or Typhoid or something of that ilk - or I have a parasite that’s eating my brain. Something exotic and African. Something you get from showering in river water. When it chews I swoon.
"Bad": I've fucked my brain on weed - which I smoked one time and had a similar "I'm not me/spinning room/out of control" reaction to. With the fucked brain, I'll be having these episodes at random for the rest of my life - but they are harmless.
"Not so bad": these episodes are a bad vertigo or something that's transient and not specific to me or my situation. Just shit luck.
"Also not so bad": this is my body’s way of reacting to the stresses I’ve been having.
So yeah, that’s the rap sheet of bandits.
That’s what I reckon. But what do I know? Frag all. I only have guesses.
I think that’s what’s chewing at me; I don’t know what it is. It kills me not to know if this is going to get better by itself or if it’s going to get worse the longer I avoid doing something about it.
That uncertainty...
Well, there’s always suicide.
I’m not thinking of it. Well, that’s not true. I am thinking of it. But thinking of something isn’t the same as considering something.
That’s different.
I’m not considering suicide.
That’s absurd.
But the thought of it, and knowing it’s there, well, it’s weirdly comforting. Something’s telling me though - morally or ethically or whatever - that suicide's not right. That it's a bad option.
I shouldn’t be thinking of it like a comfort.
But I do; it feels like a parachute, like a handbrake. I think... It’s like no matter how bad it gets, there’s never no getting out of it.
I’m not trapped here.
At the very end, there’s always that option, it’s always there.
It's an option I’d never consider, never entertain - but an option, nonetheless.
Monday.
Consulate.
It's the first time I've left my room in days, except occasionally to eat.
Meals have been skipped.
I've been sleeping long hours. Sleeping is the only time when things seem to be taking care of themselves - like normal. That can’t be a bad thing, so I’ve been spending most of my time trying to sleep.
I've tried to read books, but I can’t stay focused long enough to make any progress; I catch myself reading the same sentence or paragraph over and over and over again because I can’t pay attention. None of it’s going into my head. All I see are words, and my brain can't make meaning. It might as well be in Swedish.
When I try to force it for too long I start to feel lightheaded again, and start to feel things slipping out of control.
So I sleep. It’s my only respite. When I can’t do that, I stare blankly at the ceiling.
I've emerged from the weekend squinting and with a limb-numbing lethargy.
I look like shit. Sickly.
The morning has been an out of body experience.
I've been busy getting all my shit in a pile, armed and ready for the Consulate, photocopying everything.
When I find myself talking with the guard at the front gate I’m not sure how I’ve gotten here...
Time to switch on.
This is important.
I know it. But I can't snap the woozy fog...
Should I try again tomorrow? I might feel better then...
And do what? Spend another day in that bed?
No. Get on with it. This has to be done.
I head in.
My mate behind the counter, Doubre, doesn’t seem happy to see me. There’s no chubby Costa either.
Despite being the last thing I feel like doing, I plaster a smile on my face. I try to make small talk.
He takes my pile of papers off me and starts with the passport.
He’s flipping through it and then says something.
Something bad.
He’s pointing me out something. He’s not impressed... He’s saying words to the effect that it’s no good because my passport needs three blank pages for stamps and I only have two blank pages left.
Panic.
I hate hate hate this. Loath it. Tiny little bullshit that can get you tripped up. If he wanted to he could help me. I know it. Instead, he’s being a piece of shit. He knows how important this is for me. He knows this is my last shot. He must; I could throw a rock to the Angolan border. But he’s going to reject me for being one page short of the requirement, just because he can.
This would be so easy for him to let slide.
I hate him.
I scramble. And default to an old tactic: pretending I don't understand the French.
I'm hoping he can’t be bothered explaining it to me again and again and again in his second language and eventually just thinks “fuck it” and gets on with it.
It doesn't work; he’s remarkably patient...
I tell him I’ve got another passport - an Australian one - back at the hotel that’s good. Lots of pages. Nothing but empty pages. He tells me to go and get it and he wants all the photocopies for that one as well.
I’m not dead in the water yet...
I’m not too sure how they’re going to deal with my dual citizenship, and I've been keeping that hidden in an attempt to avoid misunderstandings; like them thinking that I'm some sort of James Bond spy. But I've gotta give it a go.
What else can I do?
Second crack.
I've got the copies.
You wouldn't know that I'm shaking, but I am.
This time it's just Costa the chubby behind the counter.
I hand everything over.
He seems confused.
He shuffles through the papers again and again. He can’t figure it out, and then asks me in French something along the lines of “why are you applying for two people?”
Shit.
It’s sort of a fair question; my passport photos couldn’t be more un-alike. One is an eighteen year old boy; the other is a twenty six year old man. Even I can hardly connect the two. What chance does a total stranger have?
I try to explain to Costa that they’re both me, and explain what Doubre was saying. He just shakes his head and gives me back all of my Australian papers and copies.
The British ones are fine.
Halle-fucking-lujah.
Costa: my saviour.
I fill in all the necessary forms. Funnily enough, it’s the first visa in a frighteningly long time that I haven’t had to lie on. Not once no fabricated hotel bookings or letter of invitations or two references. None of it.
B-e-a-utiful.
They’re running out of things to trip me up on.
Costa tells me it’s going to cost $101.
U.S. dollars...
One hundred and one dollars, for a transit visa that lasts ten days.
It's the worst value visa on the planet.
Do I care? Nope.
I’m cashed up and ready to do this deal now, but Costa says that’s no good. I can’t pay here. Instead, I’ve got to go and make a “bank deposit”.
Pain in the arse.
I can see why they do it – not handling the money themselves leaves a lot less wriggleroom for corruption and cooking the books.
Whatever. I’m just glad to be making progress.
The bank's a goddamn trek. Half a village away.
I’m not doing well.
All I want to do is lie down for a bit to clear this dizzy light-headedness.
How do I, in French, say "Hello, I'd like to make a bank deposit to the Angolan Consulate for $101 to pay for a transit visa, please"?
This isn't going to be easy...
I try to open the front door, but I can't.
It’s not locked... There’s just someone blocking the door on the other side.
I poke my head in, and it’s packed.
Packed, packed.
There’s hardly enough room inside for me to muscle in through the front door. It's standing room only and everyone is shoulder to shoulder.
It's not a small room either, this is a big bank; it’s just that busy.
What a fucking mess.
So much for worrying about my French. That’s the least of my problems.
What now?
I muscle through the crush to get to the tellers and plead my case. They send me to the other side of the bank.
And again.
And again...
It takes a long, long time before I finally hook a fish and I get taken into the back.
We head through a lot of random corridors, with random people, getting told to wait and then being picked up again at random intervals.
Something feels very shady about this. Like I'm getting through the layers of security into some sort of unlicensed dog fighting or something...
There are locals carrying around armfuls of the local currency, walking through the corridors like worker bees carrying nectar.
I get marched down a set of stairs and through a dimly lit basement. It's filled with a small army of money counters, crunching through piles of currency.
Yep. Shady as fuck...
What’s going on here? I get the feeling I’m seeing something that’s definitely not for my eyes. What do they think that I want to do?
Did I mess up my French?
I'm escorted through the piles of cash and up another flight of steps and told to wait outside a door with a small group of people.
A cantankerous middle aged woman in one of those see-through green visor caps that wouldn’t look out of place at a smoky poker table pokes her angry head around the blacked-out door from time to time to pull someone else into the room...
When it’s finally my turn I head in and see what I’ve gotten myself into...
Turns out I’d got it right, which is more astounding than if I’d gotten it wrong; this is where you come to make a bank deposit...
It's painless. I pay in cash.
That done, and with a little bank slip in hand, I head back - without an escort this time - through the money counters and maze of corridors and the crush of the mob, out the front and into the light of day.
African banks are fucking crazy.
I make a beeline back to the Consulate. At the desk it’s Doubre this time, and some new player - a middle aged woman.
I introduce myself, her name's Maria, said with a Portuguese flair.
They go and get my file and come back. Maria flicks through my British passport and says that there aren’t enough blank pages left.
Fuck.
Doubre wants to know where my other passport is.
Fuck!
Maria wants to know what other passport?
The bastards are ganging up on me...
I panic.
Shit.
I explain that Costa said that it was all good. Can we see Costa?? Please?
They oblige.
Please, please, please, please...
We find Costa somewhere in the building behind a desk.
He saves my bacon, again. It's fine.
I leave the bank slip with them and I’m told to come back in two days.
That's not exactly confidence inspiring; I’ve been in that situation before...
But, I’m still in the game.
Two days.
Two days with the uncertainty hanging over my head.
All of my uncertainty.
It sits on me.
What’s the longest amount of time I've spent with zero outside stimulus? Just me in my head, on a bed?
It’s maddening.
Nothing’s changed. Nothing's improved.
There’s still not a single waking moment when I feel anything close to “normal”, and there’s the constant threat that any second, imminently, everything could go balls up in a way that's irreversible.
Unrecoverable.
Forty eight hours of it...
It’s simmered my nerves to the point where I’m going to snap.
I’m scared of what that might mean.
I’m not taking care of myself.
This isn’t good for me, and I know it, but I can’t make myself do things, because what if that makes it worse. Whatever “it” is.
How the fuck am I going to ride??
I wish there was someone here with me.
D-Day.
I’ve still got an invisible tremor in my bones that I can’t stop.
Walking up to the gates, I’m so tense and nervous I can’t stand it.
They’re going to reject me on a technicality. I know it.
Fuck, I can’t deal with this anymore.
It’s too much.
I head through the gate and head in.
It’s Doubre the arsehole, again. No knight-in-shining-armour Costa the Chubby.
Smile.
Doubre, the shithead, says that they don’t have my visa.
Come back in the afternoon.
My tension ratchets a notch.
I don’t know if I can take it.
I keep pumping myself up to leave the hotel room and face the prospect of getting rejected and they keep leaving me in the dark.
Fuck. What if they say they’re going to send the application to Luanda again, like they did back in the other Congo...
I don’t think I could take that.
I think that’ll be my breaking point.
Another half a day lying in the head spin of the dingy hotel room.
I head off to the place that I’ve been heading to eat every single meal during my time here.
It’s a little tin shack just up the road from the hotel.
Staying close to that hotel bed where the world stops spinning has been the priority, but I’ve also lucked out for my week here because the food is some of the best I’ve had in the whole trip.
There's something chewy called quanga, which is like eating a tasty rubber dildo, along with three other piles of indistinguishable goop and some beans. Okra’s in there somewhere, not that I've ever known what "Okra" is... The other goop tastes like fish, though I’m not sure that it’s supposed to... It tastes pretty damn good.
Addictively good, in fact.
A middle aged bloke comes into the shack with one of those nasty little double sided razor blades. I’ve never known what they’re used for... It’s just a flat, thin piece of flimsy metal the size of a matchbox with each edge of the metal honed to a shiver-inducing sharpness.
Scalpel sharp.
No one seems surprised when the chef comes out of the kitchen, sits down on the razor man’s stool, and gets a good, dry, face shave. Totally routine.
Razor man’s paying very careful attention to what he’s doing, just like a barber might give someone a straight shave, I guess, chipping away with careful little flicks. But it still looks rough as guts, not to mention bloody dangerous.
For me, it’s like having a TV dinner; meal and entertainment at the same time. I forget the consulate and the visa. I sit, rapt, while absently shovelling food in my mouth; ready to see if something goes horribly, horribly wrong.
I wonder how many people he’s shaved with that blade in the neighbourhood? I bet it’s a number close to “everyone”.
Did I mention that the chef is a woman?
Yep.
And she’s getting her face shaved.
It’s actually happening.
Casually as you like. No one’s batting an eyelid.
If we’re being honest, it’s a pretty important service. Hair gets pretty out of hand here if not kept in check. I guess faces are no different.
And, when I say face, I don’t mean the old five-o’clock-shadow either.
I mean face.
All of it.
Forehead. Nose. Cheeks. All come in for close attention.
The shaver guy literally chips away with the razor blade over the entire surface of her face, leaving only the eyebrows, eyelashes and eyelids behind.
With a razor blade, for Christ sakes. Talk about razor burn... that’s gotta hurt like hell!
Razorman’s played knifey spoony before, he’s an operator, and he’s done the job with impressive speed and efficiency.
He eyeballs me and my pre-pubescent, many-month-old, scraggly effort at a beard and holds the razor up and raises his eyebrows.
Nah thanks mate, I’ll pass this time...
I head back to reality, back to the consulate, and the tension ratchets one more time.
I’ve been in and out enough now for the security to just give me a knowing nod to let me through.
I head to the counter inside and it’s still Doubre the douchebag. He sees me and before I can say a word he walks off.
Is he avoiding me?
Long minutes pass.
What the fuck is going on?
He comes back and hands me my bashed up passport.
I look at him and then back to the passport and back to him.
“Ce ici??” I point. Is it here??
“Wee”.
I rifle through the passport, and there, on the last page, is a new, full page sticker.
“Angola Visa” is written across the top.
I’ve never been happier.
This is better than all Christmases, all birthday’s, all anything’s all put together.
Pure, euphoria.
It’s over.
It’s finally over.
I check the details, and I’ve never been happier for a shittier visa.
Single entry, five days.
Five!
They've fucked me on the duration.
At one hundred and one bucks, it’s hands down the worst value visa I’ve ever had.
But I could hug Doubre, the piece of shit.
I try to maintain my professionalism till I’m at least out of the gates and around the corner.
But I can’t.
I fist pump and shadow-box my way through the consulate courtyard. I jump and click my heels as I walk through the gates and down the street.
Today’s it.
Goodbye to “Africa Africa”.
Finally. Paved roads. Proper infrastructure. Modern living.
Bring that on.
I’ll miss Africa Africa, in a Stockholm Syndromey kind of way... But I can’t wait to just relax and, I don’t know, eat a tub of yoghurt.
Whatever.
It was about the time that I got the passport and Angola visa in my hot hands that I’ve started to feel a lot like myself again.
It’s weird, and it makes me think that it might somehow be related.
I’m not totally there yet... I still feel a little weird and, well, off. But, for 90% of the time my head is clear, I can think like I normally do, and I have my coordination back. I feel “orientated”. Planted.
Here.
My head’s back on my shoulders.
But the whole week of woozy spinning has left me feeling a bit fragile and vulnerable.
Honestly, it's scared me shitless.
I don’t know what’s going to happen next, and the speed at which an episode comes on has left me pretty spooked.
But, I've got to get on with it.
I've got one last hurdle for this trip: Getting through the border.
From there, it’s five big days of riding to traverse massive Angola – which won’t be a cakewalk, but at least the whole country has tarmac, which will help. Bigtime. After that I'm on to Namibia and lovely, modern South Africa; both of which do visas on entry.
Then I’m home and hosed.
It’s close. It feels close. So close that I can, maybe, measure the "time to home" in weeks. Maybe even days.
Bring that on.
The Shrike gets loaded up and I take one last look at the hotel that I’ve wallowed in for the last week with something approaching disgusted nostalgia. It’s been good to me, but Jesus it’s sucked.
I head off.
It’s a darkly overcast day and the whole town feels gloomy and damp.
The border is spitting distance from Matadi.
In ten minutes I’m onto the "border road", which - unsurprisingly - is untarred and a bit of a mess.
It's not long to the border proper.
It’s got a little mini village sprouted up around it, but all of it still feels like an extension of Matadi.
The strategy for this side of the border, and really for all exit borders anywhere, is to avoid Customs at all costs; I don't have a Laissez-Passer (LP) for the bike, which is definitely something that border Customs would crack the shits over.
I park up right up at the boom gate.
It’s another one of these posts where it’s not particularly obvious what’s what.
I get handballed about for a bit and I’m at risk of looking like that guy who’s got no fucking idea what he’s doing – ripe to being taken advantage of...
Through more arse than class I get picked up by a middle aged old bloke in a very serious looking military uniform.
I get the feeling he’s the boss around here...
His hands look like a packet of twisties; totally, uselessly crippled. Gnarled like old tree roots. They look to me like they’re good for nothing but picking your nose, but, sure enough, he manages to shove a pen between the digits and somehow starts writing down my details in a massive fat ledger book.
It’s excruciating to watch.
I feel like taking over for him, but I’m not sure that he’d go for that - he seems to be the proud type, what with that fancy uniform he's got and all...
I spend the very, very long watch wondering how his fingers ended up like that, and if it had anything to do with the DRC’s colourful past.
Who knows? I’m not about to ask.
He finishes off the thirteenth labour of Hercules and tells me to go see Customs.
Shit. Can’t do that... My French suddenly melts into shit, and, by magic, I don't "understand" anything he's telling me; I hope he just thinks I'm an imbecile and gives me the stamp.
We go in circles again and again and again. He’s as tenacious and as patient with me as he was with his handwriting...
No stamps till I see Customs. He won't budge.
It's a first; no one at Immigration has ever sent me to Customs before... Not for leaving a country anyway...
Had to happen when I don't have the papers, didn’t it?
Here we go...
I head around to the Customs building I'd been ducking and weaving to avoid since I got here.
I've no idea how I’m going to tackle this...
I stump up to the bloke at the front and go through the usual introductions of apologising for my terrible French with a big smile and handshakes all round.
He’s another one from the population of people who’ve never smiled once in their life. Not once.
I explain that he needs to go and tell the Immigration guy that it’s ok to stamp me out of the country.
“Papy-airs.” Papers. Great.
All I can give him are the bike's flimsy rego papers. They’re a bit of a fragile mess these days, not unlike me, so I add “dousa-mon, dousa-mon” which is how I imagine the word is spelt for “be gentle with that”.
He looks all over the rego with a face of confused annoyance.
He tells me that they’re no good. He wants to know where my carnet is...
Fucking great. Here we go...
I tell him that that’s all I have, with no other explanation, because I don’t really have one... I figure that all I’m going to do is hang myself if I keep talking, so I pretend to be very interested by something else going on in the fairly busy room.
It’s not going to be enough...
He continues to scrutinise my papers and then accidentally tears them in half.
God damn it! They so very nearly made it all the way, my battered and bashed papers... Cleaved forever.
I'm furious.
I revert to some English that the boss wouldn’t know the meaning of and let fly. He gets the gist...
I think that he thinks that he’s just fucked a document that is a little more important than it actually is...
He freaks out, says it’s all ok, hands it all to his stand-by lackey and points us out the door and back to Immigration with instructions to give me the ok.
Lucky break, I guess...
The passport disappears with the lackey somewhere deep into the Immigration building and they won’t let me follow it to keep an eye on things; which I’m not a big fan of.
I wait around outside for a long time. I'm the squeaky wheel, making a lot of noise to anyone who will listen to me...
My mate the boss comes out front with the passport in his fucked up fingers. Stamped.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is in the fuckin can.
Half way done...