This picture was only the beginning of a long day of mishaps during a field mission in Nord Ubangi, an equatorial region on the northern border of DRC. This day started at 6 am, as most days do when living la vida village. We were told by some colleagues that they found a truck to take us to another village called Loko. Antonio was running the construction of a new health center out there and I was documenting the progress of the build as well as any other project activities that I might come across. Loko was normally two hours away. Normally by normal truck. This truck wasn’t normal. It was one of those Big Ass Trucks (BATs) that we often got stuck behind because it had either broke a bridge or it broke. Period.

So after a few hours of waiting around for this BAT to depart, we finally set off down the road at a snail’s pace. Neither of us had ever traveled in one of these BATs before so we were kind of excited.

For the first couple of hours.

Then it got a little boring.

Really boring.

And then it broke. So there we were in the middle of nowhere waiting for these very capable Congolese men to fix the truck. And fix it they did. And to Loko, we went.

When we arrived in Loko we told them we would only be an hour or so and asked when they would be ready to head back to Gbadolite. That’s when they told us that they weren’t returning to Gbadolite. They were heading to Businga, clear across the province from Gbadolite. And then they left. And we just stood there, jaws dropped, in disbelief.

Antonio’s exact words were “Those fuckers.”

They sent us on a truck that had no intention of ever bringing us back! But when working in the field one can almost expect things like this to happen. That’s why I always carried a jar of peanut butter and crackers with me. Just in case I ever did get stuck in a village. Peanut butter is a miracle food, like a soothing balm for starvation. So I had my peanut butter. Things weren’t that bad.

Once we let the truth of the matter soak into our thick skulls we decided that we might as well get some work done, because at least we made it to Loko. We would worry about the getting back part later. So we set off. And then Antonio climbed a tree and began eating its leaves and random fruits while I stared up at him confused, wondering how long this strange behavior would last before we could get to work. I later learned that this is kind of one of his things, climbing trees and tasting stuff.  In future dealings with him and his things, I used it as an opportunity to develop my patience. I got a lot of practice with patience.

When he had sufficiently licked, sniffed and tasted everything in the tree of interest to him we made our way to the job site. Antonio did his inspections and I snapped photos of the progress made since our last visit. This kind of work was the sort that you wanted to get over as quick as possible because it was always midday under the equatorial sun and I could only last so long before my body sought shelter and pineapple. We soon found both and it was only then that we began to discuss how we would make our way back to Gbadolite.

We decided to go over to the office of the Medecin Chef de Zone, the chief doctor of Loko health zone. We flagged down some guys on motos and gave them a few thousand franc Congolais to drive us the 15 minutes to the bureau centrale. When we got there we introduced ourselves as trusty, committed colleagues of the ASSP project and promptly asked them for their motos and promised to have someone else return them the next day. They acted like they had never heard of the project, even though the project paid for their motos, and most likely any computer equipment they had and was building a new health center just down the road which probably employed all of their sons, nephews and younger brothers. But they had never heard of us.

That’s when Antonio whipped out the magic word.

DIRECTOR.

He told them that I was the “Director of Communications” for ASSP and it would look really bad on them if they didn’t let me use a moto and left me stranded in their village. The word “Director” is a magic word in Congo because this is a place where titles mean much more than any work one actually ever does, and because titles were usually gained by knowing someone, not by ever doing any work. I, of course, was not a director of anything. I was just a lowly communications/malaria specialist fresh out of grad school. But the use of this magical word had the effect we were hoping for and soon we had two motos to get us home, one for Antonio and I and one for our trusted friend and colleague Jerry, who had accompanied us that day. Jerry didn’t know how to drive so we hired a chauffeur for him and we set off to make the two-hour drive back to Gbadolite.

The roads in this region are like any other in Congo: bad. But this particular road stretching from Gbadolite to Loko wasn’t the worst we had seen. Still, bumping and swerving along on the back of a dirt bike got really uncomfortable after a short while. So when we finally hit Mobutu’s pavement, we thanked him.

We immediately regretted it.

Mobutu was a horrible dictator that tormented his country and people for over 30 years. He was from Gbadolite and so much of his attention went to improving the area surrounding his home village. Of course, these improvements ended abruptly with his reign of power in 1997. Like, literally. There are still cranes hovering over unfinished buildings. But the one cool thing he did was pave the roads in Gbadolite. So when we hit his pavement we were happy. Just as we were professing our gratitude for this dictator’s development work the gods of karma gathered as dark, ominous clouds above and began to fill our joyous mouths with pelting raindrops. These pelting raindrops grew ever harder and faster until we were officially blinded by them.

“Nevermind,” we screamed. “We don’t really like Mobutu. Mobutu sucks. Just make it stop raining!”

I tried to hold my hands over Antonio’s eyes so he could see where he was going but ended up blinding him even more.

“Do you want to pull over and wait under a tree or should we keep going?” he asked.

We were only 20 or so miles. So close. “Let’s keep going.”

We had long lost Jerry. He was being smart and waiting patiently under a tree miles back. But we kept going, squinting into the rain. Thankfully we made it safely back and were oh so happy to crack a Mocaf and laugh about the day’s adventure.

It’s funny. These days like this, they are my fondest memories of Congo. There is something very rewarding about being dropped in the middle of a village and having to trust that you will find your way back and have fun doing it. I can’t help but now think of adversity as magic in the making.

Magic 361/365, That One Day in the Village, Road to Loko, Nord Ubangi, DRC