DR. CONGO: Mbandaka, If Your Truck Breaks Down, Fixing It May Take Days Or Weeks

Mbandaka, formerly known as Coquilhatville or Coquilhatstad - named after Camille-Aime Coquilhat, is a city on the Congo River in the Democratic Republic of Congo, lying near the confluence of the Congo and Ruki Rivers.

It is the capital of Equateur province.

On 16 May 2018, a case of Ebola occurred in the city, spreading from an outbreak in the countryside.

Mbandaka lies on the east side of the Congo River below the mouth of the Tshuapa River, a tributary of the Congo.

It is south of the Ngiri Reserve on the opposite bank of the Congo, a large area of swamp forest, and is at the center of the Tumba-Ngiri-Maindombe Ramsar wetland.

Mbandaka is the capital of the Equateur province, and located only a few miles from the equator.

It is home to Mbandaka airport and is linked by riverboat to Kinshasa and Boende. The city's population is approximately 729,257 (2004).

Congo Basin is a region in Democratic Republic of the Congo and is made up by the provinces of Equateur, Oriental and Maniema.

Cities near Mbandaka

- Bumba

- Kindu

- Kisangani

- Lisala

- Mbandaka

- Zongo

Parks in Congo Basin

- Garamba National Park

- Maiko National Park

- Okapi Wildlife Reserve

- Salonga National Park

The Congo Basin region composes the majority of the world's second largest jungle after the Amazon.

Because of this, and despite its size, the region is difficult to get around by land, with pirogues and other boats and aircraft the only ways to easily get around.

Most of the region's inhabitants still live in small villages in the jungle, although many have moved to cities like Kisangani, Kindu, Bumba, & Mbandaka.

Mbandaka is largely populated by people of the Mongo ethnic group, although people from many different regions live in the city.

The main languages spoken in Mbandaka are Lingala, French, and Mongo.

Years of war and neglect have taken a heavy toll on the city infrastructure, with no electricity or running water in large sectors of the city. Most of the streets and avenues of the city are dirt roads.

Mbandaka was founded in 1883 by Henry Morton Stanley with the name of Équateurville. The city's town hall is about 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) north of the Geographic Equator Line.

Mbandaka is one of the closest of any substantial city in the world. Stanley placed a large Equator Stone near the riverbank south of the city to mark the point where he believed the Equator to cross the river.

It still remains there today. Due to its symbolic location close to the equator and the Congo River, there were early plans to locate the capital of the Congo Free State in Mbandaka.

Although plans were made, they never came off the drawing board. These plans included infrastructure for an estimated population of 100,000 people, a train station, a Catholic cathedral, a governor's residence, and a palace for future visits of Leopold II.

In 1886, at the beginning of their colonial rule, the Belgians changed the city's name to Coquilhatville.

During the colonial time in 1938, work was started on a bridge over the Congo River connecting Mbandaka with the French Congo.

Work was abandoned at the outbreak of World War II and only the foundations of the bridge pillars remain.

In the 1930s several other projects were started by the Belgian colonial administration, including several factories and a new city hall.

The city hall was completed only after the war in 1947 and was at that time, with a height of 39 meters, the tallest building in the Belgian Congo.

On top of the city hall was a statue of Leopold II. The city hall was destroyed by a fire in 1963.

In 1966, the city's name was changed, this time by the new independent government, to Mbandaka to honor a prominent local leader.

Hundreds of people mainly Hutu refugees, women, and children in the city were massacred on May 13, 1997 near the end of the First Congo War.

The headquarters of the 4th Naval Region of the Navy of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is located in Mbandaka.

On 16 May 2018, a case of Ebola occurred in the city, spreading from an outbreak in the countryside.

A large research center for Central African history, originally set up by Fathers Gustaaf Hulstaert (1900–1990) and Honore Vinck, is at the Catholic Mission station of Bamanya or Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC)), 10 kilometres east of Mbandaka.

One of the finest botanical gardens representing central Africa is at nearby Eala, about 7 km east of the town centre.

The Botanic Garden of Eala founded in 1900 contains the floral richness of Central Africa with between 4,000 and 5,000 species.

It covers approximately 370 hectares with special collections (125 ha), forest (190 ha), marsh (50 ha) and savanna Euobe (7 ha).

The garden is neglected and unfenced and there is illegal logging. The last catalogue was published in 1924.

Mbandaka is the home of the world's first project of Habitat for Humanity International.

Habitat for Humanity's founder Millard Fuller served as missionary with the Disciples of Christ Church in Mbandaka from 1973-76.

The housing project Fuller started in Mbandaka in 1973 became the original project of Habitat for Humanity when Fuller founded Habitat upon his return to the United States.

The city is located at the center of the Tumba-Ngiri-Maindombe area, designated a Wetland of International Importance by the Ramsar Convention in 2008.

Mbandaka features a tropical rainforest climate. The city does feature wetter and drier months, with the driest month, January averaging around 80 mm of precipitation per year.

However the city does not have a dry season, all months average above 60 mm of precipitation in a year.

Temperatures are relatively constant throughout the course of the year, with average temperatures ranging from 23-26 degrees Celsius during the course of the year.

The Congo/Lulalaba River is the busiest route through the region. Rapids between Kisangani & Ubundu separate the river into two navigable sections: Kinshasa-Kisangani & Ubundu-Lubumbashi where it is called the Lululaba River.

Travel along the river is one of the great African journeys for the truly adventurous. Boats, ferries, & barges ply the river regularly.

However, there is no scheduled ferry service people pay to ride on passenger boats & cargo boats/barges with the boat leaving the port when full and does not necessarily stick to a tight schedule.

Boats become less frequent the further up the river you travel.

While boats from Kinshasa arrive in Mbandaka almost daily, boats only reach Kisangani every 1-2 weeks with the journey from Kinshasa taking 2-3 weeks.

Boats are even less frequent on the upper section of the river, although you may be able to find one from Lubumbashi to Kindu a couple times a month.

A short portage railroad connects Kisangani & Ubundu, allowing river travel from Kinshasa to Kindu.

There are also a few boats a month connecting Kinshasa or Brazzaville to Bangui, CAR, from where you can easily take a ferry or pirogue across to Zongo. Just be sure to have the right visas.

Small boats which are often dugout tree trunks called pirogues are the most common transport along the rivers of the Congo Basin.

However, finding one to take you where you want may be difficult and is very slow. Although some are motorized, fuel may be hard to find.

As of 2012, the only scheduled services in the region are: Compagnie Africain d'Aviation which serves Kisangani, Mbandaka, & Kindu; FlyCongo which serves Kisangani & Mbandaka; Lignes Aeriennes Congolaises to Kindu & Kisangani; Air Kasai to Bunia.

All of these offer domestic service from other major cities in the DRC. Some airlines will cancel a flight at the last minute because there are not enough passengers to make a profit and pay for fuel, etc.

Don't expect your trip to be on schedule a journey from Kinshasa to Kisangani may only take a couple hours, but plan a whole day for delays.

The only international service to the region has been Kenya Airlines from Nairobi-Kenyatta to Kisangani, which has started & stopped a few times.

Kinshasa is served by Air France & Brussels Airlines from Europe and several African airlines, from which you can transfer to boat or a domestic flight to reach the Congo Basin.

It is also possible to arrive in Brazzaville or Bangui both also served by Air France, Brussels Airlines, & a number of African airlines and then travel by boat to the Congo Basin.

Just be sure to have the right visas. Using the decent by DRC standards, National Route 4, you can transfer by road from Kigali, Rwanda.

It is also possible to fly into Entebbe, Uganda for visits to areas near the Ugandan border, although onward travel is very dangerous.

The only decent option to reach the Congo Basin by road is National Route 4 from Bukavu on the Rwandan border in South Kivu to Kisngani.

The road is sealed for much of its length, although travel may be slow due to people/animals on the road, overloaded trucks traveling slow, & checkpoints.

Safety is improved since the end of major fighting a decade ago, but is still a little iffy. Bunia can be reached by road from Uganda.

It is possible to travel from Cameroon or Congo-Brazzaville to Bangui, CAR on moderately okay roads, but traveling by road in the CAR is very difficult due to notoriously corrupt police/soldiers manning checkpoints along the highways.

From Bangui, vehicles can be taken by ferry across the river to Zongo.

Pretty much every other option to reach the Congo Basin by road is very difficult and consists of muddy dirt tracks that are impassible during and shortly after the rainy season.

The only train line entering the Congo Basin connects Kindu with Lubumbashi in the Katanga region. The line was rehabilitated in the late 2000s, although the rolling stock is second hand from Europe & India.

Stops at a number of towns along the line—some as long as a day—make the journey from Lubumbashi to Kindu a 4-8 day ordeal. Do not expect sleeper compartments, a dining car, or even comfortable seats.

You will most likely have a seat in an aging passenger car at best or have to stand or sit atop in an empty freight car at worst. Train schedules are erratic, and at times there may be 2-3 weeks between departures.

Contact the station master at any station to inquire about the next scheduled train, but expect delays. Pay only on the day of departure & bring plenty of snacks, food, & bottled water for the ride.

Waterways are the main form of transport in the region. A great number of pirogues, some motorized, ply these rivers and can be hired or you can pay to ride with others/cargo.

However, finding a pirogue going where you want to go is difficult and the journey can take weeks.

Aside from travel on the Congo or Ubangui Rivers and tourist rides around Kisangani, travel by pirogue as well as most travel in the region is best left for only the most adventurous and hardcore travelers with adequate preparation.

Solo travelers should never venture into the jungles alone.

There are no scheduled, commercial flights within the region except for, possibly, Mbandanka-Kisangani or Kisangani-Kindu.

Be careful, as some airlines run a multi-city route and you may have to make a few connections on return.

Kinshasa-Kisangani-Kindu-Lubumbashi-Kinshasa flown on one day a week. It may be easy to travel from Kisangani to Kindu, but to return to Kindu may require traveling to Kinshasa, Lubumbashi, or Goma and connecting to a different flight, perhaps with a layover for a couple days.

The UN has a large presence in the region and operates scheduled flights throughout the Congo Basin, but if you are not associated with a UN agency or another aid agency it may be difficult to hitch a ride but worth a try.

A large number of small planes travel the region and are worth trying to hitch a ride.

Almost all of the roads away from the cities are nothing more than muddy tracks.

Travel can take weeks, especially if your ride breaks down and may not be possible during and shortly after the rainy season. Many trucks will carry paying passengers. Be very careful in selecting your ride.

Nearly all are overloaded and passengers sit atop a pile of carefully loaded cargo. Falling off or the truck overturning are very real dangers.

Try to get a ride in the cab if at all possible, maybe offer a little more money than the driver asks and point to the cabin.

The trucks traveling around the Congo Basin are old and usually the driver and a helper or two have the knowledge to fix problems and navigate mudholes and makeshift log bridges.

Do not expect stops to relieve yourself simply do your business off the side of the moving truck. If your truck breaks down, a fix may take days or even a week or more.

Same goes for getting stuck in mud. Definitely an experience left only for the most hardcore travelers.

There are three lines in the Congo Basin. The line connecting Kindu with the Katanga region will make stops at some of the towns along the line.

The portage line bypassing the Congo's rapids runs from Kisangani to Ubundu and only travels when there is cargo to carry meaning it may be a couple week between runs.

A third line runs from Bumba eastward to Isiro. This is a narrow-gauge line damaged during the war and in a very degraded state.

It seems service has restarted on a small western section from Bumba-Aketi and possibly Buta and, while there were reports of trains running in the eastern section, the track eastwards of Aketi or Buta is most likely abandoned.

Boyoma Falls. On the edge of Kisangani, these are the last cataracts on the Congo until Kinshasa/Brazzaville.

Fishermen set up conical traps for fish and can be seen tending to these traps.

Some have realized that tourists want to see them and there are reports that they will charge Dollars to see them, stopping you before reaching the river and/or photographing them.

Congo boat rides. A trip by boat along the Congo is one of the world's greatest wild adventures.

Trips by pirogue for a few hours or a few days can be arranged in most cities along the river.

Only a couple tour operators in the country offer these rides, but if you speak good enough French or Swahili, you can probably talk a pirogue owner into a short trip, make sure you understand what you're doing & where you're going.


Tourism Observer

DR CONGO: Luba People Of Katanga, Kasai, Maniema

The Luba people or Baluba are a large Bantu ethnic group from Central Africa, indigenous to the southern-central Democratic Republic of the Congo.They are widely distributed in this country, but are most concentrated in its Katanga, Kasai, and Maniema provinces.

The Luba people consist of many sub-groups with distinct Luba language dialects, of which three are main: the Luba-Kasai, Luba-Katanga, and Swahili languages.

The Luba people founded an ancient culture by about the 5th century, and later a well organized, pre-colonial Kingdom of Luba in the Upemba Depression region of Central Africa.They had developed the knowledge and means to extracts various metals from the rich mineral resources close to them, as well as the skills in wood carving, pottery, sophisticated metal objects, ivory artwork and jewelry.

Their success and wealth grew in relative isolation given their forested mountainous inland location, then attracted traders, raids and wars in second half of the 19th century.The Luba people were a victim of the slave and ivory trade, both to the Atlantic coast by Portuguese slave traders, as well as to the East African coast by Swahili-Arab slave traders particularly in the 19th-century.

Archaeological evidence suggests that the Luba people had, by the middle of 5th century AD, settled around the lakes and marshes of the Upemba Depression, in what is now the southeastern portion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The evidence suggesting an advanced Iron Age society by then comes from multiple sites, and these are among the best developed archaeological records in Central Africa. The Kamilambian, Kisalian and Kabambian series of evidence has been dated to be from 5th to 14th-century, suggesting a settled stable Luba culture over many centuries.

Of these, the Kisalian period (8th to 11th century) pottery and utensils found, were crafted with extraordinary excellence. The finds dated to pre-8th century by modern dating methods are iron objects or pottery, thereafter copper objects appear.

The archaeological studies suggest that the Luba people lived in villages, in homes made of reeds and wattle, around the shores of numerous streams and lakes found in the Upemba Depression of Central Africa.This Depression has been historically flooded from the water runoff from southern Shaba highlands for parts of the year, its water bodies filled with papyrus islands and floating vegetation, the region drying out after rains ended.

As a community, the Luba people constructed dams and dikes as high as 6 to 8 feet using mud, papyrus and other vegetation, to improve the marshy soil conditions for agriculture and stock fish during the long dry season.

The Luba people had developed metal extraction techniques, skills to make utilitarians products from them and high degree of craft specialization.The metal working techniques in use by the early Luba people included drawing out thin wires, twisting and laminating them, plaiting them into complex well designed shapes such as necklaces, bracelets and hooks for fishing, needles for sewing and such.

These products attracted interest and demand from far off ethnic groups, creating trade opportunities and traders amongst the Luba people. This trade and all economic activity in the villages of Luba people had a tribute system, where a portion of the hunt, fish or produce was given to the lineage head or the people guarding the borders.

These were natural borders, such as that created by waters of Lake Upemba, where passage across required channels and bridges. The movement into and out of the Luba people lands was thus controlled and taxed.

Around 1500, possibly earlier, the Luba people began to coalesce into a single, unified state which historians now call the Kingdom of Luba or Luba Empire.The kingdom grew and became more sophisticated over time, reaching its peak between 18th to 19th-century.

The demands, raids and violence of the 19th-century slave and ivory trade by the European colonial empires such as Belgium and the Arab-Swahili chiefs such as Tippu Tip and Msiri tore the Empire apart and ended it.

The political sophistication of the Luba Empire was the adoption of two layers of power, one of Balopwe ereditary kingship and another a council of royals or elders. These provided governance stability through mutual balancing, when there were disputes of succession from death or other causes. This idea was adopted by the neighboring Lunda people and other ethnic groups.

The development and evolution of the Luba Empire, and the life of Luba people therein, has been unclear.This is in part because the Luba people were an entirely oral tradition culture where knowledge and records were verbally preserved without a written script.

The orthography for the Luba language, called kiLuba, was invented in the 19th-century, and thus early information about the Luba Empire has been derived from documents written by others usually hostile and only aware of the communities at the Luba Empire's border, or by the Luba people only in the late 19th-century and the 20th-century after the best decades of the Empire were long over.

Luba people had developed sophisticated literary traditions around their concepts of good and evil, and integrated these concepts and their religious ideas into their legends about morality and people with power.For example, one legend relates to two kings, one called the red king Nkongolo Mwamba and other called the black king Ilunga Mbidi Kiluwe. According to the Luba people's oral history,

There are two kings, the Nkongolo Mwamba or red king, and Mbidi Kiluwe or black king. Nkongolo Mwamba is the violent, cruel and drunken despot; Mbidi Kiluwe is the gentle, just and refined one. Nkongolo is one who gets drunk, is ruthless, mocking, raping, robbing other, seen without manners.

Mbidi Kiluwe is the opposite, one obsessed with good manners, thoughtful, who speaks carefully, is compassionate, keeps his distance, one with self control. Mbidi marries the sister of Nkongolo, and they have a son named Kalala. Nkongolo gets jealous and fearful of Kalala, and schemes to murder him. The guardian spirits, knowing the scheme, protect Kalala.

The Luba people were a part of a large state in the 16th and 17th centuries, ruled by a Balopwe through delegation to regional chiefs.According to the oral tradition by inabanza Kataba, the empire expanded over time, with a major consolidation in the 18th century, partly triggered by the desire by rivals to control the salt and iron mines in the south.

The Luba Empire was shielded from Portuguese and other colonial interests by the Lunda Empire, which lay to their southeast. This shielding was noted by David Livingstone in his travel memoirs, and likely blocked the Angolan traders from regular contact with the Luba people.Around the start of the 19th-century, the oral traditions of both the Luba and Kanyok people suggest a major conflict, led by mutual raids.

This conflict helped the Luba Empire grow, as its king Ilunga Sungu entered into new territories and formed marriage alliances.By 1810 when he died, his fame and reverence among the Luba people had peaked and the site of his royal court had become Kitenta (royal sacred village) where his spirit was venerated.

After the death of Ilunga Sungu, Kumwimbe Ngombe came to power leading his warriors to expand southeast with contacts with traders from East Africa. After his victory, in accordance with Luba traditions, the conquered chiefs and rulers had to marry sisters or daughters from the Luba ruling family in order to tie them into a relationship and loyalty with the Luba Empire capital.

The ivory and slave trade had grown to the east of Luba Empire by mid 19th-century, the natural supplies of ivory exhausted while the international demand for it was increasing. The region under Luba people then had abundantly preserved herds of elephants with their tusk. Kanyembo region, states Thomas Reefe, for example had no ivory to sell.

In 1840, after Kumwimbe Ngombe died of old age, king Ilunga Kabale succeeded to rule the Luba people. He expanded the empire further, till 1870 when he died. By then, the region of Luba people and their Empire covered much of what is now southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, extending for hundreds of kilometers from their early 19th-century heartland.

The success and wealth of Luba people grew in relative isolation because they were far from the eastern and western coasts of Africa, living in difficult to reach terrain.The forests and mountains protected them, as did their neighbors who blocked traders from direct and regular contact with distant international traders, in order to monopolize the gains from trade with international operators.

This originally shielded the Luba from the ill effects of the earlier slave trade. Later, however, the Luba people became victims of the slave demand and trading, in some cases selling people from their own lands as slaves.But, by the 1850s, the traders began intruding into the Luba people lands. Despite a ban on slave trading in the Western world, the eastern and northern parts of Africa, led by Arab-Swahili slave and ivory traders entered into the eastern and northeastern regions of the Luba Empire.

These intruders came with guns, experience of running caravans, other tools of raids and wars. The weapons of the Luba people were primitive, such as bows and arrow. David Livingstone in his memoir wrote how amazed the Luba people were with the guns, thought they were tobacco pipes and the gun was the weapon that mowed down large populations of the Luba.

The notorious slave and ivory trader,Tippu Tip for example wrote, translates Thomas Reefe, Luba had no guns, their weapons were bows and arrows; guns they did not know. The guns we have with us, they asked us, Are they pestles? The conquest of the Luba people was swift.

Msiri, a Tanzanian operator supplying ivory and slaves to the Sultan of Zanzibar, raided and took over the southeastern Shaba region of Luba people.Its other side, the southwestern borders were breached by the Ovimbundu ivory and slave hunters for the Portuguese interests.

While slaves could no longer be exported to the Americas, they were used for work and caravan operations within Africa. Breaches from all sides, by better equipped armies, weakened the Luba Empire rapidly between 1860 and 1880s, and accelerated its demise. In parallel, the news of disarray and confusion from many corners of the Luba Empire, led to internal disputes on succession and strategy when the Luba king Ilunga Kabale died in 1870.

By 1868, Said bin Habib el-Afifi had raided Luba operations and with force taken 10,500 pounds of copper.By 1874, another Arab-Swahili trader Juma bin Salum wad Rakad, and a friend of Tippu Tip, had entered into an agreement with one of the Ilunga Kabale's son and established the base of his elephant hunting and ivory trade operations in the heart of the Luba people's lands.

The Arab-Swahili raids, such as those by Tippu Tip, into Luba people's lands were organized with Nyamwezi subordinates and slave armies.These raids and attacks by the outsiders also introduced smallpox into the Luba population.

In 1885 Leopold II, king of Belgium, secured European recognition of his right over the territories that became what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The first Belgian expedition into the Luba people's region arrived in 1891.The king of Belgium, impressed with the accomplishments of Tippu Tip in getting resources from central Africa, appointed him the governor of the region that included the Luba people's territory.

The Luba people were forced to work in the copper mines of the Katanga province during the Belgian rule, causing numerous mining-related deaths. They rebelled in 1895, then again from 1905 to 1917, and these insurrection was crushed militarily.

In 1960 the Belgians, faced with rising demand for independence and an end to colonial rule, granted independence to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That same year Katanga Province, which was home to a considerable number of Luba, attempted to secede under Moise Tshombe as the State of Katanga.

The Luba were divided, with one faction under Ndaye Emanuel supporting the secession, and another under Kisula Ngoye supporting the central government. When Tshombe's breakaway regime collapsed in 1965, Kisula Ngoye became the liaison between the Luba people and the central government.

The traditional religious beliefs of the Luba people included the concept of a Shakapanga or a Universal Creator, a Leza or the Supreme Being, a natural world and a supernatural world.The supernatural world was where Bankambo (ancestral spirits) and Bavidye (other spirits) lived, and what one joined the afterlife if one lived an Mwikadilo Muyampe (ethical life).The Luba religions accepts the possibility of communion between the living and the dead.

The religious life included prayers, community singing, dances, offerings, rites of passage rituals and invocations.These rituals and services had intermediaries for rites such as Nsengha or Kitobo (priests). In addition, for anxiety and ailments, a Nganga or Mfwintshi (healer) were in service who would perform Lubuko (divination).

The religious thought did not limit itself to rituals, but included ideas of a good personhood, good heart, dignity for others and self-respect. The religious code of civil life and goodness affected the Luba social life.

Christianity was introduced to the Luba people by missionaries who came with the Belgium colonial rule. Some of these missionaries, such as William Burton, performed ethnographic research, starting with an aggressive projective research and teaching the Luba people, but ultimately became sympathetic as he learnt and understood their traditional beliefs and cultural richness.

The Luba people tended to cluster in single street villages, with homes with rectangular thatched roofs on both sides of the street whose lineage is usually related.The homes were in the savanna and forests. They hunted, fished in abundant waters near them, gathered food such as fruits from the wild and had mastered agriculture. In contemporary era, they grow cassava, corn, raise livestock. Some Luba carve wood and produce artist handicrafts.

Art was well developed in the Luba culture. Pottery, articles crafted from iron (such as axes, bows and spears), wooden staff and carvings and parts clad in sheets of copper were routinely produced. A notable artform of the Luba people was the Mwadi, where the male ancestors were represent in their female incarnations of the ancestral kings.

Some of the intricate art works of the Luba people were mnemonic devices, a form of symbolic coded script to aid preserving information and recalling the history and knowledge of the Luba.

The Luba people developed one the most complex and brilliant mnemonic systems in Africa for recording royal history, king lists, migrations, initiation esoterica and family genelogies, such as the Lukasa memory board.

These artworks are now found in numerous museums of the world.


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