Kasumbalesa: The Congolese Border Post

Yesterday began early and cold. The drillers were up cooking breakfast by 5:30, the cusp of day and night, and the coldest time of either. I was sleeping in the tent I had been given by Ilkka, a Finnish traveler I met in Lusaka. It’s a tiny one-person tent, and it looks funny next to the large family-style tents the drillers sleep in. When they started the generator 15 minutes later I could no longer tempt myself with thoughts of falling back asleep.

After breakfast and ablutions, it was off to the rigs on the morning rounds. We started at the diamond rig, bringing the day shift to their posts in the bed of the Land Cruiser. There I learned more about the workings of the machine, which, though still impressive, had a less exalted aspect by day. I took notes on what I saw and what Bart told me about the machine before moving on to the reverse-circulation (RC) rig, about 13 miles in the other direction. We got there on what was possibly the worst road I’d ever seen, and it took the better part of an hour to make the trip. On the way we saw that the grader had got stuck in the road’s muddy margin. It was tilted toward the marsh beyond at a precarious angle, and it looked as if a vigorous push might tip into the drink.

The RC rig was a much older contraption than the diamond rig, which was new, and it looked like it had been cobbled together from bits and pieces of other machinery. The big differences are that it uses pneumatic pressure to turn the drill, and that the sample, rather than being removed as an intact core, is broken up and blown up to the surface and into a bag. This type of rig is less expensive to operate, and is used in places where there is less certainty as to what might be found. Its reliance on pneumatics also makes it more dangerous than the diamond rig. The rig foreman was a Zimbabwean named Monay*. He is a friendly guy with a funny way of talking. As we were leaving, I noticed that he was looking ill. A bit rheumy-eyed, with some crusting leakage from his nose.

Our next errand took us to Kasumbalesa, the Congolese border post. Bart had to go there to pick up something called an air core bit from a customs agent who expedites things on behalf of his drilling outfit. There was nothing too exciting about the errand or the place itself, but Bart knows of my interest in the Congo and asked if I wanted to come along. Which I naturally did. The ride there was relatively awful. It was over mostly over the same road that I had come on with Kelvin, but this time I was sandwiched between Bart and a policeman, who needed to sit shotgun in the event of an ambush. And Bart, having been a rally car driver at one time, was driving fast. If I had any thoughts in my brain that were waiting to hatch, I think the that ride sprang them.

What’s that? How likely is an ambush? The chances are probably not very high if you have an armed escort, so fear not, friends.

Once we had turned out onto the main road, I asked how long before the border, and Bart said about five clicks. The truck queue began well over a mile before the actual border. At perhaps a hundred feet a truck, that’s something like 500 trucks. All of them were hauling serious cargoes. Many were carrying containers shipped into ports in Namibia, South Africa, or Tanzania, but most had machinery or commodities lashed to their trailer beds, I suppose for ease of inspection. Having hauled loads through Africa in the past himself, Bart guessed that the line’s recent arrivals would easily have spent three days at the border by the time they passed their inspections and were waved through. The Congolese are not keen on promoting cross-border commerce unless you bribe them, you see.

What he said when we got to the gate really resonated with me. Being this close to the Congo, he said, made him feel like something awful could happen at any moment. And you know what? It felt true. Even though we were still technically in Zambia, the atmosphere was subtly different. There were fewer smiles, and some of the smiles had turned into leers. Looks of friendly curiosity seemed to have been replaced by appraising glances, strolling by strutting. What is it about that place?
After we’d parked, the policeman and I stood on the other side of the road while Arthur went to look for his man. In the 30 minutes or so we were standing there, the Zambian guards let three trucks through. Which made Arthur’s 3-day estimate accurate—but only if the post operates around the clock, which it does not. Kasumbalesa appeared to be complete chaos: Everybody was running laterally along the border—exhorting, hawking, yelling, strutting—and no one was crossing. The policeman and I got into a discussion as we waited. I asked him if he had ever shot anyone with his gun. He laughed: Ah! Many times! Then I asked if the people he shot had died. Mostly yes, he said. He made sure of that. In his previous posting he had been part of an armed robbery containment unit. He and his team had lain in wait at intersections likely to be hit by carjackers, and their job was to trump attacks. I asked him if he felt bad about killing robbers (people), and he said that you get used to it. He felt bad the first time, and had even had nightmares about it, but you get used to it. And your fellow police officers fill you with courage.