The river that ate all rivers

The first time I saw the Congo River from above, just before landing at N’djili Airport, I was convinced it was the ocean.

For a while we had been following a wide, sinuous river, thick and heavy as it twisted and turned through the lush vegetation. I thought, “Ah! So this is the famous Congo River!” and was suitably impressed. Then we reached the mouth of the river, and for an instant I was bemused to find that we had gone as far west as the Atlantic Ocean (Kinshasa is some 400 kms from the ocean)! Moreover, I couldn’t understand how I had missed the famously impassable rapids, or indeed the port of Matadi, nor why there were so little waves.

It quickly dawned upon me (I don’t want to make myself sound like too much of a dumbbell) that the broad river we had been following all this time was nothing more than a minor tributary of the Congo, and that the vast expanse of water that spread before me as far as the eye could see was no ocean, but the legendary, awesome Congo River. I was momentarily overwhelmed with a sense of wonder and incredulity, and immediately fished for my camera, but the pictures just don’t give the river justice. This one was taken later, from a helicopter above Kisangani, where the river is narrower than near Kinshasa.

Quiz (I’m beginning to like these): For nearly four centuries after its discovery, the Congo River posed a geographical mystery:

“Besides its enormous size and unknown course, the Congo posed another puzzle. Seamen noticed that its flow, compared with that of other tropical rivers, fluctuated relatively little during the year. Rivers such as the Amazon and the Ganges had phases of extremely high water and low water, depending on whether the land they drained was experiencing the rainy or dry season. What made the Congo different?”

-- Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost

Hint: Got a map of DRC that shows where the equator is?

The Congo is quite simply gigantic. In pre-colonial days it was known as the Nzadi or Nzere – the “river that swallows all rivers”. In retrospect (and with the help of the map that hangs above my desk), I believe that the tributary which I initially mistook for the Congo was the Kasai, which Hochschild informs us carries as much water as the Volga and is half again as long as the Rhine. Little wonder I was deceived!

Other crazy facts Hochschild tells us about the Congo River:

§ It drains more than 1.3 million square miles, an area larger than India;

§ It descends from the Congo River basin, nearly a thousand feet high, to sea level in a mere 220 miles, giving these 220 miles as much hydroelectric potential as all the lakes and rivers of the United States combined, and the Congo one sixth of the world’s hydroelectric potential.

So I’ll stop moaning about having an electric rather than gas cooker then, shall I?

The Congo has meant many different things to many different people. To the villagers living on its shores and on some of its four thousand islands, it has been a source of food for centuries (with more than five hundred species of fish recorded). To the early twentieth-century European entrepreneur, the Congo and its tributaries meant a ready transportation network of more than seven thousand miles of interconnecting navigable channels. Subsequently, rivers in the Congo became synonymous with forced labour and long columns of exhausted men, be they porters, railroad workers or unfortunate rubber gatherers during the ‘rubber terror’. To me, “le fleuve” as people here call it has become a favourite Sunday destination and welcome respite from the muggy heat of Kinshasa and the temptation of work.

“Kinshasa’s secret” I called it in one of my first posts. I have yet to see as extraordinary a sunset as the one I had the privilege of witnessing on that first outing back in December. Nonetheless, sunsets on the river are invariably spectacular, and the increasingly familiar return journey at dusk, after a healthily exhausting day of waterside fun and frolics, is always especially soothing.

A typical day on the river involves waking up late, getting picked up by one of several friends (on average one hour after the agreed time), and rushing off to one of two tiny, smelly ports where the expatriates dock their boats. The ports are nestled in among a jumble of rusting old ferries used as living quarters by the unfortunate poor whose unhappy lot it is to live amidst such squalor and who use holes cut out at the far end of the ferries as toilets. Quick to get away from such unpleasant reality checks (but still, I hope, not completely oblivious to them), we then speed away upriver, avoiding the treacherously hidden sandbars and clots of hibiscus, and making our way to our own favourite spot – or more accurately, the spot for which our friends’ parents (remember Mr. Intrepid?) have a particular predilection – a sandbank quite far upriver, away from the other Sunday river picnic spots, with fine, silky sand akin to the most sought-after beaches in the Caribbean or Indian Ocean.

From there it is really a question of which order things happen in: lunch – an unexpectedly lavish spread of salads and pies, fresh cossas (large prawns) grilled with garlic, freshly baked cake and wine – cooling off in the enticing water, floating downstream, or for the more energetic ones, trying to swim upstream (near well impossible), several rounds of waterskiing, pétanque on the beach… A hardship posting they say… Still, I try to ward off any nagging feeling of guilt I might have for this elite lifestyle with the conviction that these short, welcome getaways are the only way to ward off the fatigue and frustration that invariably come with being so involved in our work, even during supposedly ‘off’ times – the kind of weariness, in fact, that some of you correctly read into my last post about tediously regular disappointment. The indomitable Congo got the better of it all!

I sincerely apologise to those who have already made it crystal clear that the study of this particular novel traumatised them deeply, but no tribute to the Congo River would be complete without a reference to…yes, the Heart of Darkness. One last quote then, to contrast with my own relaxed, fun, carefree, sunny perception of the river:

“Going up that river was like travelling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest. The air was warm, thick, heavy, sluggish. There was no joy in the brilliance of sunshine. The long stretches of the waterway ran on, deserted, into the gloom of overshadowed distances. On silvery sandbanks hippos and alligators sunned themselves side by side. The broadening waters flowed through a mob of wooded islands. You lost your way on that river as you would in a desert and butted your head all day long against shoals trying to find the channel till you thought yourself bewitched and cut off for ever from everything you had known.”

-- Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

And finally, as I was waiting for the pictures in this post to download (rather slow at times), I had a peek at Fred’s blog, only to find that his last entry of two days ago was all about a new Belgian film that’s just come out called…Congo River! Keep an eye out for it, therefore, and find out for yourself what the fuss is all about.