Arne's Observations

Arne Doornebal is a Dutch freelance journalist working out of Kampala, Uganda. For Club Africa he shares his experiences living and working as a journalist in Africa

Travelling thousands of miles to make ends meet

The economy of towing

As the DR Congo is preparing for the second post-war elections, I recall my 7-week trip to Africa’s second largest country. In April and May I observed there what I now call the ‘economy of towing.’

The journey started in Kampala, Uganda, where you can buy a bus ticket all the way to Kisangani. It is a 1400 kilometre ride, costing seventy dollars with Nile Coach. The company is led by courageous entrepreneurs, who were also among the first to open up a service to South Sudan. The trip takes five days: a 30-hour stretch, then a 2-day break and then another 25 hours on the bus.

The Congo River-highway

A long journey? Not really, compared to what was next. My travel partner left me in Kisangani, where I found a cargo ship preparing to undertake the 1730 km of sailing across the country to the capital. The Congo River is their highway and, except flying, the only transport link from East to West. When I boarded, the SOWIDAJA boat had been in the port for a good three months, waiting for cargo, passengers and clearance from dozens of government officials.

New friendships

I embarked, with all my luggage, only to wait in Kisangani’s port for another six days and nights. Then we finally set off at a speed of ten kilometres per hour. The long hours of hanging around in the port and then with 170 people crammed on board led to friendships. After some initial distrust, my Congolese travel companions started to tell me their stories. Like Gaston, a 33 year-old coming from the border town of Butembo, a town full of cheap imports from Uganda and China.

Gaston invested his money to buy merchandise, which he then loaded in a passenger bus and travelled the one thousand kilometres to Kisangani. He slept under a plastic sheet, hoping it wouldn’t rain too much. “We live like animals here,” he told me during the many hours we spent floating on the River.

After four hundred kilometres (four days) he disembarked, with dozens of other traders, in the town of Bumba. There Gaston unpacked his new Senko motorbike. He took the boxes full of kitchen ware, clothes and toys and packed it all together on the Senko. On a nearly impassable path he then set off for another 500 kilometres trough thick forest land to his home town in Gemena, northern DRC.

No jobs; No choice

Gaston is not the only one travelling huge distances. In Bumba, fish traders came on board, who had travelled a thousand kilometres to Kinshasa in order to sell fish there. As soon as they reach home, they start a new journey. Rufin was one of them. “We do this because there are not other jobs,” he told me. For many months the electrician tried to find work, but in vain. Towing goods or fish over one or two thousand kilometre is one of the few means of employment in Congo.

As Congo votes my thoughts are with Gaston and Rufin, who truly suffer to make ends meet. I often recall my 29 days aboard the ship, full of great conversations but also full of hardships. Things don’t change quickly in Congo. But if they do, I hope they will change for the best.