Mai-Ndombe is a graveyard for vehicles. The road leading to Kikwit is littered with chassis, engine blocks, gearboxes, axles, drive shafts, pistons, connecting rods, seat brackets and entire wrecks cannibalised for spare parts by desperate Mutshungas. When a vehicle reaches the top, puffed-out passengers break into a chorus of ovations, sighs of relief and exclamations of “Thank God”. And everyone needs to take a rest—not least the exhausted and overheated truck engine. Why? Because the real challenge lies ahead: 100km of sand surrounding the town of Kenge. It’s about 5pm when all the passengers climb aboard to perch again on the truck’s load. There are about 60 of us, dressed to face the evening chill of the dry season. It’s not long before we confront the first sandbank. The Mutshungas get back to work, this time with five-metre long tree trunks, each about ten centimetres in diameter, which they place in front of the rear tyres to prevent the truck from sinking into the sand. Night falls. At about 2am the crew notices a strange noise coming from the transmission. They decide to keep going—to a village about 20km off the N1. It is dawn when we get there and almost all the passengers are dotted about among the bails and parcels, sleeping. A major discussion gets under way between the crew and the truck’s driver because he had not warned them of the possibility of a fault in the transmission. The defective part, a prop shaft, has been completely mangled by the vehicle’s efforts hitherto. There is much uncertainty as to whether such a part will be available in Kimi, a trucker’s village that never sleeps because it lives on the misfortunes of the previous 100 kilometres. In this place, triumphant drivers let themselves go like dogs off the leash. All trades are practised—from the oldest profession in the world to the sale of fuel by so-called kadhafis. There are tyre workshops and stands selling reconditioned parts. Others sell brand new spares (though pristine packaging is no guarantee of the youthfulness of the part). Kimi is known as the 25th commune of Kinshasa. No one speaks Kikongo here any more. Influenced by their Kinois visitors, by the resident prostitutes, traders and truck drivers who have become stuck here, the locals of Kimi have all switched to Lingala. The village bars run on generators and never close. One young traveller in our party suddenly gets the idea of trying to make a phone call to the truck owner to ask him to send the replacement part. Without a thought about the fact that he is outside network range, he pulls his phone out of his bag, switches it on and, hey presto, sees the network icon fill up with tiny bars. He dials the number but since he is, at the same time, wandering towards a secluded patch to relieve himself, he loses the signal. Forgetting the call of nature he backtracks and, for a second time, picks up a network signal. Half a pace in one direction or another and he will lose it—there isn’t a single relay antenna within 50km of here. News of the miracle spreads fast. Within minutes, the village chief has taken possession of the spot so as to open a business there. Pay-as-you-go cards are put on sale, phone batteries are spread out in one corner, the man who owns the generator sets up a battery charging service (for a fee) and others are immediately inspired to start charger-rental counters. Our driver calls his boss to explain the problem. At the end of the call, a man goes up to him. He has the part. They haggle and a price is agreed. Within seconds of the money changing hands,
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the seller of the part is accosted by another man claiming to have acted as an intermediary. He wants commission. But the relief felt by us passengers is so great that none of us notice whether the percentage is handed over. We just want to get going for Kikwit.
Neighbours engage in aerial wars Emmanuel Makila When GSM arrived in the DRC, the frenzy by cellphone operators to get a foothold in the new market meant windfalls for many families. Money was to be gained by anyone lucky enough to own land or a building with potential as a phone signal relay position or a billboard site. Service providers each wanted to achieve the widest and strongest cellphone coverage and some families found themselves in a highly lucrative position. Antenna sites were sold for no less than US$ 1,000 and in some neighbourhoods landowners could earn a monthly rent of up to US$ 200. This lead to rivalry between neighbours, not least in Lemba, where one household used Machiavellian tactics to beat the Shake family to a contract. The senior member of the family, Pierre Shake, in his sixties, had asked for time to consult his relatives, who included doctors and electronics experts, so as to avoid taking a unilateral decision. He wanted to be methodical so he wouldn’t have to shoulder the blame should the aerial lead to any trouble down the line. His finances were shaky but Daddy Shake took his time. Whenever the technical director of the cellphone operator became impatient, he was instructed that patience was his only weapon. Frustrated by his father’s procrastination, one of the sons in the Shake family began to complain to his friends, “Father is going too far in his rotten logic. If it were down to me, the deal would already be done. I don’t know whether he realises the extent of the hardships we’re facing as a household. I’d rather die from deadly ultraviolet rays, x-rays, gamma rays or non-ionised radiation, than from hunger,” he moaned. The impetuous Jean-Paul Shake had already worked out what he would do with the money. He intended to buy himself a new wardrobe so as to win back the girlfriend who had dumped him for his lack of means. He recalled the deals for clothes he had made with friends who later dropped him because of his insolvency—a great unfairness given that he, once upon a time, had been the one who had lent gear to everyone. But then that was back in the days when his father was an aircraft mechanic aboard an airline that flew twice a week between Kinshasa, Lagos, Joburg, Paris, Brussels and other places. These days, the Shakes were living in unprecedented hard times. Having acquired a considerable lineage from his harem of women, Daddy Shake was now reeling from the impact of multiple school fees. The eldest of the children were only allowed to eat at home on Wednesdays and Sundays. On other days, it was each one for him- or herself. The teenage girls had slid into the worst libertine habits. The children he had managed to send to Europe for their studies had fallen into frivolous ways, drugs and prison. Daddy Shake regretted having sent them overseas. Jean-Paul Shake’s complaints reached the ever-attentive ears of the Mokuba family, next door. Bruised by a years-old conflict with the Shakes that had