Monthly Archives: October 2010

It is difficult to describe the feeling you experience when crossing the Congo river from the city of Brazzaville to Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s ragged megalopolis and capital city. There is a sense of expectation and excitement and, one must admit, trepidation. It is like knowing you are entering an experience where you don’t know what is going to happen and what you will see or do. The river is so massive and deep and fast flowing here even though it is miles wide, as though it is draining a continent, which it is, and the water is a muddy red and full of clumps of green water hyacinth the size of coffins and small cars which are coming downstream. And then you reach the opposite shore and see all the river boats and barges tied up at the port, having come from far upriver. There are huge log booms rafted together with little straw huts on top of them and people living there with their cooking fires and one wonders of their journey downriver to the city. I imagine the boats and the river bank as largely unchanged since Joseph Conrad’s time, when he was a river boat captain here in 1889 and wrote Heart of Darkness. Continue reading →