Ambulance

After the celebrations we still had some time to visit a few people in the community who are benefiting from a Dutch funded project for vulnerable and abandoned children and people affected by HIV/AIDS and other chronic diseases. By the time we left Lume and went back to Beni it was early in the evening.

Halfway we couldn’t drive any further cause of an accident that happened a little earlier. One motorist had died on the scene, two others were critically injured. When we could transport them with our car to the nearest hospital, their lives might be saved. So while our car was being used as an ambulance, we waited there for its return. In the mean time the crowd of people mourning and grieving at the scene of the accident grew. They came from the village nearby where the boys were from.
By then it was pitch dark and when police arrived with guns, it was time for us to move. We got a lift with a pick up truck and were dropped at the ‘Bureau du Chef’, the office of the Chief of the area: a small building on a small area cleared in the bush near the road. There we waited for our driver to come and pick us up.

Next thing, a man came out of the dark night, threw himself on the floor next to us while crying and shrieking. He appeared to be the distressed father of one of the hospitalized boys. “I lost one boy in the war and will I loose another now?” After some time a woman came, also out of nowhere, and calmly led him away.
While sitting there under the tall trees with no other lights then the starry sky, the Congolese around me chatted away. The darkness around us was almost tangible. The only movement came from small groups of people – adults and children - hurrying passed us; shadows quickly and quietly moving through the thick night towards the village of their brothers and sisters who were struck by a disaster a few hours ago.

Finally our driver arrived and we could return to Beni. It was indeed one of those days that you are glad that you ate when someone offered you something to eat.

(Photo: Three ladies in Lume who all live with HIV and are benefitting from the Hope project)