He’s call Celestin, which has an angelic ring. But his mien is anything but angelic. He’s small, with a slight stoop, and his face is expressionless, repressed maybe by the level of his responsibility. He rarely smiles, his brow is knitted, and his eyes, as they say in thrillers, are hooded.
He’s our driver, but his duties extend beyond mere driving. He carries the cash to pay our hotel bills, he helps organise meetings and has a vast network.
As we shuffle uneasily waiting for someone to notice that we have arrived for a meeting with the Mayor, he goes directly to the head of protocol who greets him with a joke and a smile. When we are together in a restaurant it is he who sees that we get the service we deserve. In the evening he asks to be excused to check his emails, and then drives into town to print our latest list of meetings. Before we move off, he won’t even start the engine until everyone has attached their seat belts, and his conscientiousness in completing the log book is exemplary. I feel he worries far more about us than we do.
Possibly one of the reasons for his serious expression is his bad luck in the realm of breeding. He used to work for Gecamines, the state mining company which offered cradle to grave social services. Free schools, free hospitals, free housing – everything free. Knowing he was onto a good wicket, he set about raising a tribe which would look after him in his old age.
The seventh baby had just arrived and he and his wife (who was still relatively young) were wondering whether two or three more would be about right when disaster struck. Gecamines had collapsed and the 95% of the workers were laid off, him included. Penury loomed.
He was lucky, and got a job with a US company that treats its people well. But if you add up all the costs of rearing seven children its hard to see how he can survive on a driver’s salary, even a US-style one. But he doesn’t complain, indeed maintains that everything is fine. He’s clearly taken the decision that whining is a waste of time, and a stiff upper lip, soldiering on, etc are more to be admired than sniffling self -pity.
We’ve been away for nearly two weeks, and are facing the journey back to Lubumbashi from Kolwezi which is normally about six hours, of which only the last two hours are on tar. It was after three hours that we came across an unbelievable scene. Three trucks had broken down, side by side, two going the same way as us, and the other in the opposite direction. To make matters worse, they had done so at the point where the road was nothing but a muddy ditch. There was room for us to get past between two of them, but the mud there was very deep, and it looked extremely unlikely that we would get through. On the left hand side of the road there was a grassy patch which looked promising, but it too was blocked by a fourth truck that has got stuck.
The view from our little vehicle was daunting. A sea of mud separated us from the trucks. We could see no way out unless and until one of them was moved. One of the huge trucks on the other side of the jam was indeed trying to tow one of them out, but it was laden with ore and was clearly too heavy to move even a few inches.
Suddenly, one of the cars from the other side came charging through at considerable speed, driving on the grassy bank on the right side of the road. It was a Land Cruiser. Everyone nodded sagely. Of course, Land Cruisers can do it. Taking a clue from this, a Land Cruiser belonging to a worthy medical charity tried from our end. The problem was that to get onto the grassy bank one had to drive up quite a steep slope: four times it tried, and four times it failed. Its wheel raced as they tried futilely to grip the bank. A pick-up truck on our side then took a high speed run at it from much further back, where it wasn’t so steep, and made it. There was a muted round of cheers from the drivers, muted because they were too scared to try the same thing. Then medical charity vehicle decided to try again, copying the route used by the pick-up, but it got stuck in the early stages. We watched in horror as its wheels spun helplessly and it sank further and further into the mud.
Our all-knowing driver bided his time. As it happened, he had bought a spade the day before. He asked one of the hundreds of spectators to dig into the bank at the side of the road to make it less steep. Half an hour later the digger, whom we had been directing from our side of the muddy pond, sloshed back to us announcing he had done as much as he could and had got a blister for his pains. We gave him a plaster from the car’s first-aid kit and then a protracted debate started. Two were in favour of, and two against trying. What if we got totally stuck like the medical Land Cruiser?
Celestin was decided. We would go. Revving up like a plane about to take off, he released the brake and we were off. In a flash we had made it, then drove at high speed through the thick grass parallel to the road until we were past the jam. We stopped to celebrate, shouting with relief and joy and giving thumbs up to the many admiring spectators. The blistered man caught up with us to ask for his well-earned reward, which we gave him with pleasure.
And Celestin was smiling. Even the next day he was smiling, almost celestially.
No comments:
Post a Comment