Author’s Note: This story requires a bit of an introduction. As it takes place along the Congo River, no details are trivial. I also need time to ease you, gentle-reader, into the setting and to prepare you for the character of Bob Schelly. If I am able to write him accurately, it is likely that he will come off as made up, a literary foil, like Socrates or Jesus — merely a metaphor for the side of me capable of stealing bananas from a little girl. Nope.
After almost two weeks in the lower Congo looking for mussels and fish, we were ready for a change of scenery. The sandstone substrate and soft, black water conspired to keep we malacologists bored. The ichthyologists in our group complained of low diversity as well, but at least they had something to do. Our expeditionary corps decided to seek our fortunes elsewhere, and one of our local, Congolese contacts arranged a pirogue to take us from Brazzaville upstream — as far above Malebo Pool as we could get.
The departure day was a sunny Sunday in August. Leaving behind the garbage-paved port of Brazzaville, with its majestic baobabs rising pathetically out of the field of refuse, we motored through the Pool to a point some 15-20 km above it on the right bank of the Congo. It was there that we stopped. Not by choice. Rather, that was where the motor, completely flooded, decided to die. We set up camp on the sandy bank at the mouth of an unknown stream.
We quickly determined that this was not the place to look for mollusks. On top of that, my persistent gastrointestinal annoyance was at a low point in the cycle, so I went to bed without finishing my beer or eating more than a few crackers. After a night that required a couple urgent races to use the facilities (which consisted of a black field of ash and burned vegetation just through the tall reeds adjacent to our camp), I woke up refreshed and hungry.
Our group had come upstream with little in the way of supplies — we had eaten most of our meager rations the day before, and we had no coffee. Taking the rhino by the horns, I set off with Bob Schelly, one of the bevy of fish folks on the trip, to a nearby village on a quest for Nescafe and whatever else that we could score.
The village — I don’t know the name of it — was set back among the trees, a few hundred meters from the Congo. The houses and other buildings were made most frequently of wood, although a few had more or less corrugated tin. The main thoroughfares through town, the foot-paths, were wide between the dwellings, sometimes leaving enough space for a small yard. The day was just getting underway in the village: children played along the paths, women stooped over their cooking, men gathered in doorways, and everyone stopped to look at the two white men in their midst.
The first shop that Bob and I came to, at the edge of the village was open for business. The establishment was basically a small shack with a large window to serve as a counter. The keeper displayed all the normal fare of a Congolese country store: canned sardines, Omo for laundry, 50 mL plastic bags of Boss Whisky, but no coffee in sight. Without the luxury of having something to point at, we needed to string some French together. I let Bob take care of that.
“Ka-fay, seal voo play.” Bob’s French vocabulary is enormous compared to mine, but his accent is that of a small-town, American junior high school student who learned all their French from a substitute teacher.
From behind the counter, the shopkeeper produced a small, molding paper bag of coffee grounds. Unfortunately, our troop hadn’t ascended the Congo with a percolator.
“No, Nes-ka-fay.”
Obviously disappointed that he hadn’t finally found a taker for his sack of moldy coffee grounds, the man in the shack directed us to another nearby shop. That place wasn’t open when we got there, but the owner quickly accommodated us, hoisting the large wood panel that covered his window. “Oui,” they had Nescafe. We paid and backtracked our course to the river and our camp.
My companion had been single minded in his pursuit of Nescafe, but that is Bob: Do whatever has to be done to finish the task. I once saw Bob let swamp leeches suck on his feet until they could be collected. Another time, he ripped off his shirt and jumped over the side of a boat because someone asked how deep the water was. He ate dead bees once (that stung the roof of his mouth) because he wanted the honey. If we hadn’t found Nescafe in that village, I have no doubt that we would have walked to the next village or swam across the Congo to see what the DRC had to offer.
Without a purpose, Bob reverted to his default position: he was hungry. Bob has the appetite of Marlon Brando with the metabolism of Iggy Pop. We had to find breakfast or at least some palm wine. He was able to secure some yummy fried bread and some small baggies of “ground nuts.” That’s when we saw the little girl with the bananas.
Bob and I were just at the edge of the village on the way out when we met a little girl, maybe 8 or 10 years old, on her way toward the village center carrying a load of those miniature bananas — lovely, ripe-yellow bananas. The girl bore them in small piles upon the underside of a large pot lid.
“Sey kom-bee-en,” we asked. How much?
She responded with what my man Row-bear took to mean 200 CFA, something less than 50 cents. That was a crazy-low price for such a bunch of bananas, so he haggled. Not to bring the price down but for confirmation. All the while, this sweet little girl gave us a look that perhaps conveyed her apprehension of our race’s colonial aspirations but also showed that she thought we might be retarded.
Eventually, it was clarified that the going rate for little yellow bananas was 200 CFA per pile, and since this little girl had two piles and a half, Bob offered 500 CFA for the lot. Since she seemed skeptical, I took a 1000 CFA note from my wallet.
“She’s cute,” I said in perfect English, “Let’s give her this.” I am a firm believer that the non-ugly people of the world should be treated especially well. But, she refused. The little girl with the bananas insisted that the price was 500 CFA. Whatever. Here’s your dollar. Give us our bananas.
Leaving the village behind us to bring our bounty of caffeine, fruit and donuts to our fellow travelers, both Bob and I carrying more loose, little, yellow bananas than we could manage, I replayed our recent exchange and the turn of events that had suddenly filled our arms with breakfast. What if those bananas weren’t really for sale? What if instead she was merely telling us how much she had just paid for them? What if we were wrong in concluding that she wasn’t a shrewd bargainer, and instead she was in fact scared to death of two giant, white morons?
“Bob, I think we might have just stole those bananas.”
We stopped walking, and Bob cocked his head, staring vacantly toward the river reliving the previous few minutes in his head. After a brief moment, I saw it register that he couldn’t falsify that hypothesis.
“What should we do?”
I shrugged. We continued to camp. The bananas were delicious.
Me carrying Bob so that the harsh, burned grass wouldn't hurt is bare feet.
